DarkestDarkness

28th July 2021

Several bits around the same theme of survival.

Fragment:

I'm watching a video, or TV broadcast. It's about a survival show on a large island. They're saying "in our previous show only a few survivors could manage to scratch a living but now up to seven million tribals will be competing!", something like that. There's this image super-imposed over a panning view of a tropical island. The super-imposed image is an idle animation of some white tribals posing together, forming a sort of pyramidal composition as is often seen in group photos. I think to myself that the older existing tribes won't take kindly to such a number of newcomers.

I also think to myself that I'd rather be there myself, playing, rather than just watching TV.

(transition or recall gap, chronology got messed up in recording the dream)

I'm on a sandy and sunny beach, it's near noon judging by the sun. I later become aware that to my left there is a jungle or forest area and further left and close-by is a ruined town or city. I came out of some kind of drop pod and I see someone else who just has too. I'm not sure whether or not I should trust someone else at this point.

Then some raptors about our own size appear and they start harassing each of us. I hit them with something and try to grasp them by the neck and try to twist and break them. I possibly kill one or two and help the other person out, a woman. Then when we're in close proximity, one of the raptors is trying to steal something from me, and it succeeds. I try to catch the raptor and it behaves like a cheeky dog and I may be slightly annoyed. The woman recommends I let go and don't bother chasing the animal. I eventually let go and the raptor stops being cheeky and just ruins off into the ruined city.

(recall gap)

Still with the same woman? She needs to send an e-mail to someone and I know there aren't many places where she can do that, here. We go into a building that I was in before at some point in the dream. Inside, it's dark. Lots of dark brown colour, like rust. There are many mechanical mechanisms and there are a few desktop computers set up in a cramped corridor.

There are many things here that I know to have been set up by H in the dream. I sit at some chair or something in front of a computer. I'm trying to change the plugs around back so that she can use this old Windows 95 machine, because I still don't fully trust her and figure that this way she won't be able to release any viruses intentionally, or accidentally. For some reason I'm struggling with the plugs. The video connection coming out of the W95 machine is almost like a USB but the shape is slightly different and won't fit into the even weirder input shape on the other computer, or screen.

I eventually give up and just let her use the normal computer, feeling that I can trust her just enough anyway.

(recall gap)

Something about another building or another part of this same building. There's some small weird water gremlin bug thing... In actuality it looks a bit like a grey coloured shrimp but in the dream I think of it as crayfish. I am nervous around it because it moves erratically and I don't like its look and the look of its "whiskers".

---

Notes:

- The next day, I was using some Firewire stuff with H to set up a microphone for me to use. At the time, that made me think of the USB-like plugs in the dream, because Firewire is not too different in the physical look of the ends and its intended purpose is similar anyway.

- My nervousness around the grey creature was related both to shallow standing water in that area and also to the residual feelings of fright or jump-scare I still get from, for example, some arachnids.
-- I do not particularly like shrimp, neither in look or smell, though I can't say I recall their taste. I always thought they looked a bit too "bug"-like to eat, despite their popularity in my native region.

- I had to look up crayfish because I couldn't actually remember what they looked like; the dream creature really didn't resemble them.

15th July 2021

Fragment:

(recall going from later to earliest bit)

I'm walking with a group of people, one of them is JC from school. He's older, but otherwise looks how he used to, mostly. We're escorting a mech, a train of sorts which is depositing rails in front of itself as it goes? I've just been paid for half of my service on our current mission. I was given two glittering golden rocks (the "gold" doesn't quite look like actual gold but in the dream I don't become aware of this). One of them is not covered in this glittering gold.

The one that is completely covered in glittery gold, I hold in my right hand and crush as we walk. I see on the top right of my vision an interface element that displays that I was credited with 40 million credits. JC tells me the company actually recommends against doing this, especially without having finished the mission yet. I tell him "I don't care, my inventory is too full" and I think about how the group doesn't seem keen on waiting for me to sort this out, as evidenced by the fact that we're on the move.

(just before this)

I'm with JC wrapped in a sort of throw, it's grey and white. (I think like one I have at home in waking life) There's a very serious Covid context, though I'm not worried about it. R, also from school around the same time as JC, is not too far from us, she's some sort of inventory or cataloguing person? She's wearing a labcoat, which when I first see her makes me do a RC by counting the fingers on my right hand, though my RC fails to pass, for one thing because the count was correct and for another because I didn't question it further because of the social situation.

Me and JC are a distance away just sitting here basically. R tells us that we have to wait for this shipment of cloth or something. I think I check the order details myself, either on an interface element or some nearby physical interface. Unfortunately, we still reach the conclusion that this is the best option. I was considering trying to change the order to something else that would still be suitable but delivered quicker. Any other option is noted to have an even longer lead time on production.

R chit chats, saying she's surprised that "you two idiots are still around", as if she expected to never see us again in life. I tell her in jest "dad always says there are always idiots around; I guess that happens to be here" or something to this effect. She's amused in some way but still thinks the same of us, I don't find myself thinking about it much further one way or another. Me and JC sort of become melded with each other as we're sat here, waiting in the bundled throw. R is very strict about viral control, but I don't recall in what way. She partly looks like an Asian woman in her thirties more so than herself really (probably a dream attempt at making her appear a more chronologically correct age).

Then there's a drone of some kind. It's scanning the local area and I ask R about it, "is it a geological survey drone?" but she doesn't reply, not ignoring me, but as if I never said anything. I get up and follow the drone around for a bit, the view swaps from first to third person and back again a few times. I follow it to a site not too far, a beach of some kind and it goes into a receptacle that changes shape mechanically, as it receives the drone. Then, from the sea a train sort of surfaces from the water, it all looks very Japanese "Mecha" style. (This is where the first bit of recall started)

(there was more recall from earlier parts but they faded and other details were lost, it was a long dream)

---

Notes:

- This is the most recent time I've actually done a reality check whilst dreaming, which goes beyond just thinking about it, but because of the social context at hand I became distracted far too easily from really questioning reality. Even so, with the previous DJ entry, that's two times recently compared to not very often, if at all, in the last months.
-- I am realising now that this may be an issue with my artificial dream sign, by its nature it's more likely to include a distracting social context. I should think further on this. In addition to that, I think it's ironic on some level I decided to do a hand RC when it isn't necessarily my preferred way of checking anymore. If I could go back into this dream and change my approach, I would instead have stopped and thought about what I was doing and where I was; after all, how could I be meeting people I knew years ago but haven't seen since, for no reason at all? Not just one of them, but two of them at the same time, along with other suspicious dream qualities.

- The dream had a bit of a feel of MHW and Dark Souls there at the end.

- There was something "desaturated" about all of the dream's location. Like there was a faintly yellow mist and there was no sky to speak of exactly, just this mist. No memory of shadows really, defined or undefined.

Some in-line notes in brackets.

27th June 2021

Scraps:

Unrecorded. Something about being underwater and there's a giant ghostly crab and an equal sized ghostly shark or something. There are underwater buildings, regular city buildings, but inside they are mostly empty? After this dream, I remember thinking about how "being in water, is to fly" or something of the sort making a comparison of the two states. (I have no special interest in dream flight that doesn't use some kind of device or body part to accomplish it, though I do like swimming quite a lot.)

(This dream had a general nature of conflict or dispute and seemed to take place in an original location)

---

28th June 2021

(recall not written down on waking but later on this day)

Fragment:

At home. A courier is putting something through the letterbox. I approach and he's actually putting his hand through the letterbox now and trying to pull the triangular package back towards him through the opening. (The package was bigger than the opening but it looked stiff, not bendable)

The letterbox is lower down than it should be and the door seems to be see-through actually. As I come to open the door, first opening the foyer door I think, I find that the front door is simply not there anymore. I or the courier grab the package and I ask if he has to take it back because of it being batteries or something. ^{(possibly intrusion from looking at batteries online, the night before?)} He gives me some explanation accordingly but then decides to leave it with me after all.

Fragment:

There was more before this but no recall. Arriving at a sea-side area, possibly by car. I'm with someone, H? There's a sandy beach where I expected loads of people would be and when I see it's mostly empty, the other person tells me "see, I told you so" or something. The beach is between a six or so story tall fortification on the left, typical sea-side fort look to it, at least for the style I'm used to. On the right, the road slopes up at slow incline and there's some other building on the side of the beach.

I end up going into that building? No recall of the inside anymore. Something about two muscular women (like Klingons but not?) and I don't get along with them for some reason. I leave this building by a door on the beach level, like a back or access door. The beach isn't quite there anymore, like there's more water now. It's sunny through the entire dream segment.

(Shadow positioning suggests that the sea is West, the fort South, the second building North and the road I came from (but never looked toward) is East)

5th September 2020

Dream:

One of several long ones. At a version of the clinic I'm registered with. I see a receptionist in a narrow hall and ask about whether they are still doing appointments. She said that appointments have to be booked nine days in advance, at least.

Then I proceed to the waiting room anyway. It's different from how it should be and a whole lot bigger. The room is packed, reminds me of an airport. It's well lit with natural light.

I try to find somewhere to wait and become aware that I'm wearing a dust cover mask. it feels like it keeps slipping down and uncovering my nose, which bothers me. Only a few other people are wearing masks of any kind at all. The vast majority is not, I don't feel that this is right but I feel there's nothing to be done about it and carry on. Eventually I find a little corner around a pillar. I think of sitting down at a chair but I remember thinking I don't want to be as close as everyone else is to each other. So I just lean back against the pillar.

At some point I realise I'm wearing one of my black t-shirts and the trousers I have typically been wearing lately. My mask slips off again, and I adjust it again. This time I try to make the upper strap stay in place better. I simple consider this recurring thing to be the fault of my choice of wearing a second version I found of the mask at home. (This would have been a good RC moment)

I see people come and go, in and out of appointments and the hall. I have thoughts about whether I'll be able to hear my name called from here.

Then as I'm waiting, around the corner I spot two black guys are having an argument with each other, they are at opposite ends of the area. Something about a game, but not? One of them is more calm than the other but is also upset. He's chunkier and nerdier in some sense. He has a cap, dark navy colour. His skin is about as dark as the cap, reminds me of Franklin from GTA5 but darker. The angrier guy is taller and is much closer to where I am, he is well built and again partly reminds me of Lamar, but no cap?

I forget their words to each other. I become curious if the angrier guy is going to get physical or not in his anger, he does a little, gesticulating violently but seemingly out of frustration, then letting go of the subject and simply walking away. Then when he's left a large number of people follow behind him.

For some reason, I eventually leave too. I'm outside, it's an unknown street. I remember a sandstone bridge over the road, it's daytime. Eventually a very full bus goes past, after I'd already crossed the road.

There's a white girl, with curly hair (what colour?). She's on the other side of the road, I feel I know her somehow in the dream. I forget exactly what happens next but then I'm going around on the back of a bike or something. Streets remind me of native country.

Eventually I/we arrive somewhere. It's a house along a row of impressive houses with a typical local look with sandstone features. There's an open courtyard. Reminds me of Hei's place. Then I'm on foot and it seems to be on a hill/cliff, overlooking a semi-populated area. That girl from before is now sitting on a bench here, naked? She gets up and walks toward a ledge wall and I walk up close. Then, looking down from over the low-ish wall, I see a baby cat trying to climb a tree from lower down to get to us.

Fragment:

At a beach place, overcast day. There's a big bridge over this bit, really high up. Some rocks at the base of one of the support pillars. It's like a highway overpass? There's writing in Arabic and maybe Hebrew, but also a third language which glyphs I don't recognise or recall.

---

Notes:

- I remember the dispute between the two guys was interesting to watch. Looking back at it now, it seems like it was some kind of metaphor for internal debate and the fact that many of the other vague dream characters left with the angry guy kind of reinforces this idea for me.
- The mask slipping off on its own is something that I found was happening with some face coverings I tried to wear because of the virus situation. It doesn't happen at all with dust cover masks but this seemed to have slipped by me in the dream.
- The second fragment may have been because we recently re-watched Prince of Egypt, a film I didn't remember very well at all anymore.