Night Vision

In Media Res, as usual. I am with a group of people, exploring a large underground area. We’re on a sort of high-up walkway that has passages leading to other areas. I’m leading the way, but at some point, I notice that the others aren’t actually following me - rather, they’ve taken one of the side passages, a hanging metal stairway leading up somewhere. I double back and follow.

I find them stopped in front of the entryway of what appears to be a church - a windowless version of one, anyway. There is a rather video game-ish obstacle, a retractable spike floor, blocking the way in. They seem adamant that it’s too dangerous to pass, but I’m not so sure. Those spikes look pretty puny - I kind of suspect I could just walk on top of them without any harm done - and there’s probably a way you’re supposed to go to avoid them, anyway. I find it pretty easily, by going around on the left. The others seem content to wait for me to return, so I head further in.

There are three rows of wooden pews, and as I head towards the aisle on the left, a man stops me to give me an admission stamp. I hold out my left hand, and he stamps the back of it - five small blue dots, in a pattern that looks a bit like braille. I head forward, looking and listening to my surroundings. It is fairly full, and seems to have a wilder vibe than I would associate with a church. There may have been music playing, but I can’t remember many details. I take the other aisle back around. Maybe because of the better angle, I can see that among the people there are several couples having sex, either on the pews or just on the floor. Yeah, I don’t think I’ll be spending too long in here. I’m glad I ended up going because of the stamp - I’m sure this will also get me admission into other places further on as well, although given what I’ve seen here, there may also be places where I won’t necessarily want to admit to having been here to get it….

21.5.25


I am walking down a hallway when it occurs to me that I’m aware that I’m dreaming, and if I want to have a lucid dream, I need to take a moment and actually consider the implications of the situation. Having done so, I continue, interested in exploring my environment.

My memories of this are unusually unclear for a lucid dream, quite possibly because there was a period of NREM sleep and another nonlucid dream before I woke up from it. But it appeared that I was in a university of some sort, and the early part of the dream mostly consisted of walking around and talking to two people. I remember that the second introduced herself as Caroline Friend (which I might be tempted to consider the most unimaginative name for a dream character ever if I didn’t know there was an entry way back in my archive featuring two characters called Bob and Not-Bob…).

Still lucid, but interested in playing along, I have been tasked with going to Burger King King Walmart, where I will be starting a new job. (That is not a typo, and I thought it was pretty weird in the dream, too.) The university leads directly into a mall, and the place I’m looking for is apparently here somewhere. It looks like a pretty nice mall - really, unrealistically nice for one. I think to myself that it’s the second dream I’ve had of being in a mall recently, which is kind of interesting since I don’t remember having had any others, but perhaps my dream self could.

The store doesn’t seem to be on the floor I’m on, and so I have to find a way downstairs. Maybe there’s one hidden somewhere in the back of the arcade, which I’ve discovered on the far end. The first couple machines I pass seem to be out of order, but further in, it’s clear that the first impression was misleading, and it’s a pretty lively place. Various enticing electronic noises and snatches of music fill the air. I’m not going to let myself be distracted from what I’m looking for - but maybe I’ll be back here later….

Turns out there were indeed stairs back there. It takes a bit of walking before I finally find the store that looks like the right one - no sign, but I wouldn’t expect to find more than one big everything store here, and this looks like it. There’s what looks like a customer service counter right in front, and I approach one of the people behind it and say I’m here to start a new job. She immediately responds by getting out from behind the counter to take me somewhere. The dream is getting a bit unstable by this point - I’ve been wary of it fading even before that point, since it’s been going on for what feels like a long time - but I manage to pull it back. However, there aren’t any memories after that point, except that I remember it didn’t last for much longer.

—

I am in an arcade - guess I made it back after all - only where I am now looks more like a computer lab. There are long tables with various old computers lining both sides - and I sit down in front of an unoccupied one and turn it on. Apparently, only some of these have games on them - all of them have only one program each, a different one that’s no longer accessible on more modern machines. There’s a paper by the monitor that apparently says what’s on this one, but I don’t even look at it.

The computer is taking forever to boot up. A blond guy wearing dark blue walks up and presses two buttons on the keyboard. I figure he knows more about these than I do and is doing something necessary to get it going, but nothing happens. The screen is still dark. Turns out it really just is that slow. We talk briefly, and that’s all I can remember.

22.5.25

Together, Y and I emerge from what seems to be a metro station. We are in the Netherlands – apparently, because this is the only place where I am going to be able to have a fully fledged music career. I know this somehow. She seems to be the one taking the lead, though.

I’m going to enroll in a university here, and it seems as if the staircase leads directly into one of the buildings. I examine my surroundings – white tiled walls with mosaic patterns as the staircase ends, leading into a hallway. This building is where art classes are held. The two of us walk into a large studio classroom that’s filling up with students as if the class is about to begin. She takes a seat, and I take one next to her. After a few minutes, the professor begins speaking – English seems to be the language of instruction here – and students go to a series of large wooden bins along one wall, pulling out various kinds of bones. They take the bones back to the tables and begin to sketch them. I go over, grab what looks like it might be a vertebra, and also begin to draw.

Later, a lot of time seems to have passed – maybe a year. I’m checking an electronic billboard in a campus building.

13.4.25


The dream started as a sort of school/workplace dream, I think, but shifted at some point to a setting like an abandoned barn. I’m here with a man who seems familiar, as if maybe he’s based on people I actually know, and we’re talking. A black cat with a red collar that I recognize as L is also here: he comes over to sit next to me, and I pet him.

Planes are passing by overhead. I can see them through a hole in the roof – too close, it seems to me, and very loud. I don’t like it. I don’t like the look of the sky, either. It’s too dark for this time of day. A storm is brewing.

The wind picks up, and keeps picking up. I can feel the building beginning to be pulled up into the air. So it is here, about to upend my life the way it has so many others. I’m not afraid. I knew it would only be a matter of time. I just have to stay calm and focused.

I am up in the air now, which is full of debris spun by the winds in the strange light of the storm. As I’m blown by the winds, I let the world spin, as if I’m the point of stability, and it’s only everything else that’s moving around relative to me.

Unsurprisingly, this level of focus is pulling me into latent lucidity. I am flying now, making a beeline for the source of all this trouble. I don’t know how exactly to describe it – it must be a bit like it would be for a dog or something following a scent trail, but more abstract than that – some kind of recognizable trace left behind in the mindscape, becoming stronger as I approach.

I land in a neighborhood – not an especially nice one. Small, prefabricated houses jumbled too close together, a few completely inadequate attempts at greenery. Barely a step above a trailer park, really. It is now late out. I walk to the house the trail leads to, stepping straight through the door. I’ve never been here before, but I can see it all in my mind. The trace leads into a sort of narrow office past the kitchen – a closed-off, unpleasant, musty, crawly kind of mental signature that the whole place figuratively reeks of. It’s strongest around the computer, which has a big, boxy kind of monitor of a sort that probably went extinct years ago.

But in the kitchen, I run into A and C, an older couple I’ve known for a number of years. This is their house. Suddenly, it’s as if the scenario not only is different, but has been different the entire time. I have come here to warn them about what is going to happen. And so the question of what exactly would have happened to that computer will forever remain a mystery....

17.4.25

Another dream on the verge of being lucid without quite being there. In the earliest part I can remember clearly, I’m on a computer: I’m looking up some band I’m interested in, trying to find more of their music. But the dream shifts to another scenario. It still isn’t lucid, but it’s pretty clear I’m not actually invested in it as real. I’m initially in an outdoor farm-like area with flamingos some distance away, observing interactions between characters. I only identify with one when she’s asked a question, changing to her viewpoint and responding as her. There’s a sense of making things up as I go along. I need to go somewhere now, and so I call to the nearby leopard, which I call Arthur, telling him to come with me. (I use the German pronunciation. I am about 90% sure I decided to name it after Schopenhauer.) It doesn’t want to get up, but I pull it to its feet, which it tolerates, and we walk away.

Next, I remember entering a building. It’s somewhat reminiscent of a building on a campsite, just a long rectangle, possibly something like an uninsulated metal frame, and has no interior divisions. It’s mostly empty and white, and there’s an even stronger sense of almost-lucidity here. It’s as if whatever plot there may have been has definitely gone off the rails by now, and I’m driving things, though not in a fully conscious way.

I go over to the bed in the nearest corner – other than the one by the door I entered from – and sit down on it. What follows is maybe best described as a strange kind of visual thinking – a little like reading a picture book, where I cease to really be present in the room and am absorbed in the stories that are playing out in mental space. It’s hard to describe since it isn’t exactly like anything that happens while awake – but it’s almost like there’s another presence there telling the stories.

They seem to be some kind of philosophical parable, and also a sort of story-behind-stories, representing something that was once commonly manifested in literature from an earlier time. The first one was so utterly bizarre that I can’t remember a thing about it now – but in the dream, I understand it perfectly since the meaning in all its facets and interrelations is just a part of it as it is presented. I can see it all mapped out, like a complex constellation. But some of the points are placed in the wrong locations for it to reflect reality. It’s something I was already aware of, but it’s a little sad to see it laid out like this so clearly.

There’s enough of a gap for the room to enter my awareness again before the second story begins. This one is apparently communicating the same thing as the first one did, but in a different way. I can remember the beginning of this one – how the wolves were all howling at the moon, but the moon had fallen asleep and couldn’t hear them…

5.30.21

I am on a computer, looking through files. I’m trying to find papers from an earlier part of the dream where I’d stayed after a math class drawing, and the teacher had brought over a stack of graded assignments he’d apparently been working on while I sat there. I’d just glanced at them and seen that’d I’d done really well on them before taking off, but now I want a closer look, and this was apparently where they were.

I scroll through small pictures, some of which began to move. One has expanded to fill the whole screen. It shows a house on fire, people running out. It scrolls past a small stage on which two double basses stand, one the traditional sort, another more metallic – electric by the look of it, but still a roughly double bass size and shape. It sits in a sort of flower-shaped metal pad. It catches my attention, and I’m struck by the level of detail.

I am now – not sure in what order – both present in the dream and lucid. I’m in a park-like area, a clearing with groves of trees and some woods not far off. Another stage is nearby, this one a roofed circular platform on which sits another of those big electric basses. I consider giving it a try – that could be fun. But it occurs to me that I’ve never produced frightening scenarios in lucid dreams before, and I should try it at least once.

Surrounded by demons is the first thing that occurs to me for some reason. That’ll do. I will them into being. As I focus on the intention, everything around me grows dark, swirling and immaterial. I’m floating, moving vaguely backwards. But nothing else seems to be happening. Oh, well. Maybe I’ll give that bass a try after all.

I let go of the intention. The original scene immediately returns, and I walk back towards the area I started out in. But not far from it, by a ridge in front of a forested area, I spot a strange figure. Its head looks like a skull, bovine in shape, with horns that curl around to the front and knot around each other, and it’s wearing a black and white herringbone tweed blazer with a thin purple scarf and a long grey-black skirt. It looks like I managed something, at least, although I can’t say it’s especially scary.

As I approach, it waves its hand, causing a small sphere of darkness to shoot towards me. This startles me a bit, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. I keep walking towards it, ignoring its attacks. As I pass the pavilion, I notice the instrument sitting there looks different now. There are also now a number of cats up under the roof, lying in big cat piles that seem to extend upward into tunnels. They seem to just be waking up. The grey and orange tabbies stay where they are, but a few black cats stretch and jump down onto the stage.

As I turn back towards the figure, I see that it is now a cat as well – a small black one. I pick it up. It doesn’t look happy with being held, but it makes no attempt to escape.

At that point, I wake up.

9.1.20

I am in a small classroom in a university, but it’s not lecture I’m attending here: it’s a theatrical performance.

There are about a dozen of us in the audience, as well as three dogs, two of them large ones, which is almost enough to make the room crowded. Both the main actors are here already too, in the front of the room. It seems they’re performing “Faust”- or something Faust-ish, at any rate. Both the main characters are being played by women, the title role by Hélène Grimaud, although it’s not clear whether it’s actually the pianist or just a well-known actress who happens to have that name.

There’s also a woman in the back who seems to be involved in some official capacity. She’s the one responsible for checking tickets—at least theoretically. I’m hoping that remains theoretical since I don’t actually have a ticket. The prevailing system here seems to work like train tickets, where the ticket is good for a certain range of dates. While I do have one on hand, it’s good for three weeks in November, and it’s still October now.

She begins by giving a short speech, which she records using a small camera. Predictably, the smaller dog, which is hers, sticks its face directly in it at one point. Things come to a halt for a bit as the audience makes a fuss over all the dogs and encourages her to get them on film. But eventually, the performance itself gets underway.

For a while, it’s just the two leads talking, but very clever dialogue. At one point, the Mephistopheles(-ish) character begins asking for members of the audience to volunteer. And, as people begin to get more comfortable, they begin to participate more. Soon—what with the intimate space and the lack of separation between us and the performers— it’s as if we’re a part of the performance rather than just observing it.

I look out the (partially frosted glass?) wall at a man walking by—he probably thinks this is a rather odd lesson, given that it’s probably not obvious at first glance that it’s a performance. But actually, he seems to be part of the performance as well. He enters the room, placing some notes and a glass with some white wine in it on a lectern, and beings to talk about philosophy.

One of the audience members comments on the wineglass. The newcomer enters into a hilarious dialogue with them, still in a philosophical vein, all in a complete deadpan. I recall him claiming that he wasn’t the same person he was a couple of drinks ago. Another half-dozen people seem to have joined the audience at some point, which is more than enough to make the room crowded. At some point, I wake up.

After writing everything down, I fall asleep again and find myself in a continuation of the dream. I seem to have watched the rest of the performance, as well as the lecture taking place in the room afterwards—apparently a Marxist interpretation of diabetes, which I’ve stayed to listen to out of a combination of morbid curiosity and a lack of anywhere better to be. But I have a class I need to get to soon, and I want to get some coffee first, so I gather my stuff together and cut out early.

Once outside, it occurs to me that I don’t actually know where this class is going to be held. I find my notebook in my messenger bag and look through it, but it only looks like I’ve got last semester’s schedule written here—not this one’s. But I do recall receiving an email from somebody mentioning the class’s location, so I can check on that—but it will have to be on my laptop, since I can’t access that particular account on my phone.

My room isn’t far from here—it’s in a large building just down the street. I enter and make my way up to my room. It’s a tiny room, and unlike anywhere I’ve actually lived, but it all seems familiar and somehow pleasant. I put what seems to be my cast-iron shrine teapot on a hotplate on the top of a small, precarious-looking shelf to one side of my desk to boil water for coffee and sit down to find the email.

According to the email, the class is taking place at St. John’s Observatory—so not on campus, then, since I would have seen it if it were. I pull up a map website to find out where it is. To my own amusement, I initially mistype "Kassel"—the place I have apparently decided I am—as "Kessel" (kettle, that is).

Based on the pictures my search has turned up, the place I’m going to is a greenhouse as well as an observatory: it’s a small building with mostly glass walls, through which greenery can be seen. I’m not sure where it is relative to me just yet, though, and it’s now 17:00, when the class was supposed to begin. Maybe that won’t matter so much on the first day? But then it occurs to me: I’m in Germany. Akademisches Viertel. That means I still have time to get there.