Blue_Opossum

Night of November 2, 1971. Tuesday. (”Resets” into next day; November 3rd.)



This is the first, most vivid version of this dream as far as I know. This was one of my childhood dreams that I really liked and looked back on more than others. It is a typical “everything turns out to be different than what was originally thought” haunted house transformation. Although this type may relate to it getting closer to sunrise (in reality) towards a dream’s ending (thus transforming eerie features with the promise of approaching dawn) creating resolvableness where semidarkness dominated the setting previously, it may also relate to the very heavy influence “Castle of Blood” had on me in my early years. There is a certain feeling that cannot be described, yet not like other dreams where in-dream features typically transform.

In my dream, my best friend Toby T and I (in an implied but not directly experienced back story) are challenged to spend the night in a supposedly haunted house in a similar manner as directly inspired by the Barbara Steele movie “Castle of Blood” (1964; also known as “Danza Macabra” and “Castle of Terror” as first seen, but the movie has several other titles). (Not only that, this dream even occurred on the same date as the movie, November 2nd, “The Day of the Dead” or rather “Night of the Dead” as referenced by the movie.)

Over time, my dream mostly involves “sleeping” in this setting (though I am still aware throughout; just moving in and out of different levels of awareness). There is supposedly the presence of a (possibly vampire) coffin near the foot of my bed as well as a vampire bat hanging on the curtain. The silhouette of the bat can be seen at different times throughout the night from the moonlight filtering through the curtain. Toby ends up leaving before dawn (believing the immediate setting to be potentially threatening), thus losing the bet. I seem to be aware of the semi-dark in-dream environment for a very long time (for a dream, especially) and there is a sense of comfort and timelessness at one point as if I already know the outcome.

Eventually, I come to learn (as it gets closer to sunrise) that the concern about a coffin is unsubstantial, as it turns out to be a large (possibly empty) toy chest that someone left behind. The “bat” turns out to be a large harmless moth that remains on the curtain all night and is clearly seen as a moth at daybreak when the sun filters through the curtain. This seems to have been inspired by a real-life event but I cannot place the memory (perhaps a time when I was half-asleep when younger and actually thinking that a large moth was a bat - this would have likely been in the trailer in Fort Ogden).

Finally, it turns out to not be a house at all, but a smaller trailer that reminds me of the one Toby lived in (or again, the one my family stayed in in Fort Ogden) - though I did not learn of this until later when I visited him - so a layer of minor precognition exists even in this dream, as it did have some of the same layout, including his bed and furniture arrangement in his rather small room (though dreams have a tendency to create all sorts of unlikely composites otherwise).

There is a later version of this dream where the trailer itself turned out to be a “ghost” in one sense and did not exist after daybreak, which gives it a different feeling (and whereas the main version is not a “real” ghost story at all, the lesser version is).

This was a very enjoyable DDR dream that seemed to last the entire night. The “vampire bat” is resolved to a moth. The “vampire’s coffin” is resolved to a toy chest. It is typical of how, as the sunrise approaches, the dream’s features morph into something “safer” or more logical.