Photos you already have

You already have pictures that belong to the night. A hallway in waking life that looks like the one you walked. The color of a sky you cannot name. A kitchen the dream borrowed and rearranged. You do not have to describe every pixel. You can put the picture on the table and let Nalani look with you.

These are not decorations. They are part of the visit. She can see what you attach. A sentence plus a photo is a normal turn. A photo with no text is a normal turn.

The Gallery Button

The gallery button lives on the composer, next to Chat and Imagine. Tap it and pick from the pictures on your phone or at the desk. You can hold up to six at a time. They show as small stills above the box so you can see what you are about to send. Tap the x on a still to pull it off before it goes into the night.

Six is the most in one send. If you have more that belong to the same visit, send the first six, then the rest on the next turn. There is no prize for using all six. One picture that is the room is often enough. You are not building an album. You are setting objects on the table.

Paste Into The Box

You can paste a photo straight into the box. Copy it from wherever you already keep it and put it in the composer the way you would paste a sentence. It lands above the text with the others. The gallery button and paste are the same door. Use whichever is closer to your hands at 2am.

Paste is useful when the picture is already on the screen. You saw the color again. You found the porch. Copy. Click the box. Paste. If stills are already waiting from the gallery, the pasted one joins them, up to six.

Photos Only

Photos only. Video does not come in. If you paste a mix, the photos stay and the video is skipped, with a quiet note under the composer so you know why. Nothing dramatic. The box just will not take the moving part.

If what you wanted her to see was a few seconds of weather, pick one frame. A still of the rain on the glass is enough. She does not need the motion to sit with the climate.

They Stay In The Thread

Once you send, the pictures live in the thread. They persist through refresh. They persist through coming back tomorrow. They persist when you open the journal from Tracking or from Paradigm or from search. You will not have to attach them again to keep them. The night holds what you gave it.

A recurring house is easier to talk about when last month's porch is still sitting in last month's journal. You can open that night and point. The photos you brought stay with the journal you put them in.

Pictures That Belong To The Night

Use pictures that belong to the night or to the feeling of it. Not a folder of everything. Not proof. The ones that make the air come back when you look at them.

• A hallway, a stair, a doorway that looks like the one — even if waking life built it for a different reason.
• The color of the sky, the wet street, the bulb, the weather on the glass.
• A room the dream borrowed. Your kitchen. A porch. Water where there should not be water.
• A face you do not want to describe yet. She will look. She will not need you to name every pixel.

You can mix a photo with a sentence. You can send the picture first and talk after. Chat or Imagine, either way she has the picture.

She Looks With You

Nalani can see what you attach. She will not need a lecture about what the photo means. She will stay with what is in the frame until you are ready for the next thing. If the picture is only a feeling — a color, a blur, a room with no one in it — that is a complete offering. "I only have this" is a complete first line.

She is not scoring the shot. A dark picture from the hour you sat up is often truer than a clean one. Grain is fine. Pictures that belong to the night — that is the whole practice.