Visions in the Dark

I am some a future version of our world where severe economic recessions and war have devastated most countries and much of the human civilization has reverted to Mideieval era technology and feudalism. There are pockets of technological advanced socities still in existence, but they have isolated themselves from the rest of the world with cities surrounded by walls and drones to kill people trying to break in. Many countries have become lawless and chaotic because religious zealots and warlords and their tribes fight for land and resources, including most of North America, and at the beginning of the dream I am fleeing my home and I end up on a ship headed to India.

I though India would be just as chaotic and poor yet fortunately there is religious tolerace and peace, and unlike most other countries, there is often running water and electricity availble in some cities. I end up living with a friend who fled North America years ago and she shares a cramped apartment with several other families above a rare bookstore which went out of business the day before I arrived. The first floor then becomes a communty meeting hall for the small village and the local Imam (who is also the head man of the town) gathers people every night to talk about relevent issues and to bring his television in so everyone can see the little bit of international news that is broadcast every now and then.

One night the broadcast is interupted and highjacked by a powerful and rouge warlord in Iran who claims to have a Doomsday Machine, which will obliterate all other countries in the world except his and he is going to set it off on the next full moon, a few days from now. To prove the effectiveness of his machine, he turns it on the Australasia continent and literally wipes it off the map. The remains of the continent are smoldering boulders and much of it falls into the sea or is completely unlivable because it is desicated wasteland. The crazy warlord gives no ultimatim and so later news reports tell of how many places become even more chaotic, mass suicides occur, or alternatively some places that were so violent and dangerous before suddenly become peaceful as people resign themselves to their fate.

Some how I meet a man who has just come into our village who claims to have worked on the Doomsday Machine and fled Iran when he learned what its true purpose was. He has made copies of the three electonic keys needed to gain access to the machine and shut it down, but unfortunately lost one in Pakistan while he was fleeing. He gives me the other two keys and a map of the place where he lost the other key and sends me on my way. I easily cross the border into Pakistan because there are so many people heading towards Iran, trying to get in, that no one really notices me.

The small village where the lost key supposedly is lays in the ruins of what once looked like a very industrialized and technologically advanced city. I search many abandoned and decrepid old office buildings and come across a gathering of people sitting in what used to be a cafeteria or something. The floor is tiles and the roof is high, and there are rusted counters and sinks all along the walls. There are no tables and chairs any more and everyone is sitting in a circle around a few men and one woman. The men are talking about making peace with yourselves before you die and the woman sits silently admist them and yet seems to emit waves of warmth and compassion that penetrate the heart of everyone in attendence. She is filled with great love for us all, but also with a great sadness and a feeling of helplessness. She is ancient and beyond any human entity in the world and I think that she is a Goddess of some kind. She is weaving black hairbands and wristbands with scraps of yarn and passing them out to everyone in attendance.

I recieve one and instantly the location of the lost electronic key appears in my mind, as if the information is being chanelled directly to me from the goddess -like woman. I head up to a higher level and find it hidden in a desk in what looks like used to be some rich CEO's office. When I go back downstairs to the cafeteria, everyone is gone and the place is dimly lit and covered in dust, like no one had been there for hundreds of years. I still have my hairband though so I know the experience was real.

I follow the throngs of refugees headed for the Iranian border, but it is extremely dangerous as criminals and other unsavory characters prey on the desperate people. Many people are robbed of the few belongings they have, and many more or killed or tortured for fun. No one is safe from being kidnapped or raped and almost all who make it to the Iranian border are immediately turned away and have to go back and face the human monsters waiting for them outside of the border crossing. Those who make it into Iran do so because they bribe the guards with everything they have. I have nothing to offer so I have no idea how I am going to get in. One of the border guards asks me for my hairband and as I pull it out of my hair I see that it has turned to gold. I am let into the country and finding the Doomsday Machine isn't hard because it is being advertised on fliers and billboards in every street corner and I head to the capital (in my dream it was called Karachi, which is not the capital city of Iran but a port town in Pakistan).

The dream becomes fuzzy and I cannot remember much more. I do end up shutting down the machine, but there is no big confrontation with the warlord or anything heroic like that and I thought this dream ended kind of anti-climatically.

I can't remember much of the beginning of the dream but it included a mixture of characters from Final Fantasy 7 and people I used to know in grade and high school, as well as many random dream characters. The setting takes place on a beach by an ocean and there is a huge temple by the waterfront. The building is open concept because it consists of gigantic stone pillars holding up a triangular roof and most of the floor is just made up of the sand from the beach. At one end of the temple there is a raised circular section which sits in front of a large altar upon which a scupted stone statue of a Goddess stands. The Goddess is attired in a toga and there are rollerblades on her feat. Her arms are outstreached and pours water from her hands onto the circular platform below when she wants to bless someone.

The main dream character is Rosso the Crimson and she comes to the beach with the other FF7 characters. People are rollerblading in the circular altar below the Goddess statue and Rosso really wants to join in but she doesn't have any rollerblades of her own on top of not knowing how to skate. She talks to a few people and finds someone willing to lend her some blades (the person Rosso borrows from looks like my dream character Kalima) and tries to skate at the circular altar. Because she doesn't know how Rosso stumbles about and falls many times and the other people rollerblading get angry and throw her out of the circle, saying that the Goddess will bless only those who know how to skate and to try an enter the circular altar not knowing how is blasphemy.

Rosso is saddened but determined to learn and she goes off to a parking lot outside of the beach to practice. Night falls and the beach and temple empty, but Rosso stays up all night learning how to keep her balance and eventually how to spin on her toes. When the morning comes and the beach and temple again fill with people, Rosso returns to the circular altar and shows off what she has learned. Most people ignore her until Rosso starts spinning around and around on her toe wheel and the Goddess statue starts pouring water from her outstretched hands onto Rosso below.