nightmare

As any astute follower of this journal would notice, I haven't quite followed through on my recent resolution to resume dream documentation, however I do like to come back to this journal time to time to document particularly notable dreams (eg the previous post). The following is actually a dream I had a few nights ago and have been toying with the idea of writing down; it was a very haunting, powerful experience that I keep thinking about again and again.

The overarching premise of the dream was that I was dead somehow and in heaven. I want to say that the earliest part of the sequence was me living ordinarily in an area that seemed to be a common room with a bunch of offshoot dwelling rooms adjacent to a hallway that led directly to a hospital where I worked (I'll get into more detail in describing both later on), but I also suspect these may be memories within the dream (I'll clarify this later as well). Anyways, the earliest clear part of this dream took place as I somehow came to be outside the gates of heaven. I was apparently well aware of a conspiracy to keep people out of heaven, and that the primary methodology of this conspiracy was a complex maze system outside heaven's gate with a long line of people that were queued to enter heaven, and it was so constructed so as to keep people trapped, slowly moving nowhere in circles. I was at first able to see a narrative overview of this maze; people in single file line, slowly shuffling forward, many branches and loops ensuring that the people (who seemed completely ignorant of their situation and complacently moved along) were trapped. There were "employees" who seemed to be party to the conspiracy directing the flow of the lines so as to maintain things. As it were, I was just near what I knew to be the actual, true entrance to heaven, which was blocked off and guarded by a line of "employees". As I stood there trying to determine how I was going to get back in, I by chance noticed a bellboy carrying a platter of dirty dishes (I seemed to understand they delivered food to people in line). I watched as he entered an adjacent hallway marked employees only. It was unguarded, so I looked down the hallway; it was tall and wide and reminiscent of the grand hallways at a hotel convention center. The hallway went a long ways back before ending in a group of employee rooms (I assumed one of them must be a kitchen), but I also noticed a hallway branched off to the right some distance down. I looked to my right now towards the entrance to heaven and noticed another hallway opened on the other side of the line of sentries, so I decided I'd try to sneak through that way. I happened to have my messenger bag with me, so I decided I'd pretend to be a writer. I began to walk quickly down the hallway, repeating the phrase, "I'm a writer" constantly in my head as though I thought it would somehow prevent me from being caught. As I turned the corner to the right, I found that the hallway continued for some time before coming to another hallway parallel to the first. I turned another right and headed towards the exit. As I continued down this hallway I came upon a black man in a suit who waved at me in a friendly way and offered to shake my hand. As I shook his hand I only said, "I'm a writer" and then kept walking; as I passed him I could see the look of confusion on his face. I seemed to understand that he wasn't a guard, but that his job was to simply stand there and greet people. I exited the hallway into the hospital area (note this was not the area I'd seen from the other side of heaven's gate previously), which was comprised of square rooms, all hallways, some of which resembled normal hospital hallways and some of which resembled patient rooms with through paths. I knew my way back from here by memory; from the hallway square at the exit of the hallway I turned right into a room square, then left through three more squares and then right to the exit of the hospital area into my living area I'd mentioned previously. As I arrived, I slowly walked further into the room, examining my surroundings. Like the hospital area, the room was familiar to me as though I'd been living there for some time. There was a dining table in the middle of the room along one wall that was cluttered with papers and there was a television suspended on a thick pillar adjacent to the table. It occurred to me later that the layout of the main common room very vaguely resembled the living room at my grandma Isabel's old house in Halstad, and to that theme everything seemed dusty and slightly old as though the furniture, paint on the wall, decorations, and even the television were from the 80's. There were a number of people intently going about there business in the room also. As I examined my surroundings I became increasingly distressed with my disposition. I then lashed out verbally, asking if this was all I had left now in heaven, that I'd spend eternity trapped in this dusty room with some other people from the 1990's (a woman nearby in earshot glanced at me and rolled her eyes as she continued doing something), complaining that there wasn't even much of a proper internet yet. I continued, suddenly realizing that I was due to take the MPJE tomorrow but now couldn't because I was dead, meaning that I'd never been successfully licensed as a pharmacist and thus the last several years of my life spent training to that end was wasted. This angry diatribe was cut short by the realization that I'd left Laura behind and could not be sure when she would arrive or if she'd arrive at all (at least we'd already returned to her hometown, I hoped she'd find happiness again, etc.). In this strong emotional mix of anger and sadness I realized that my situation could not be real, but I could only think of ending the dream quickly instead of allowing it to continue post reality check and instantly managed to wake myself up.

When I fell asleep again I had a short continuation of this dream where I went to a buffet for food (I was aware I was still in heaven). The restaurant had many people but wasn't too crowded. It reminded me of the restaurant at Bill's gambling hall.

As I mentioned at the start of this entry I mentioned how haunting this dream has been the last few days. The reason for that is that afterwards I've been left with the haunting thought that I may have peered into the real heaven (a chilling thought given the "conspiracy", how drab the environment was, and my emotional observations towards the end). I don't genuinely believe this now (the fact that heaven is historically described as more paradise in nature, consideration that this may represent hell rather than heaven, and my ultimate awareness that this was a dream all heavily discount this notion), however I believe it does represent a phenomenon I referred to previously as "dream bleeding", where elements of the dream have remained strong in my consciousness long after the dream has ended.

A weird sequence, likely inspired with a chance meeting last night with an old FFXI friend as well as an unrequited mystery from those days as well as several related events earlier in the day.

There was an early sequence where I seem to recall a Starfox-style shmup that I can't place within the context of the rest of the dream.

It seems that I lived in some unfamiliar downtown location, and that members of my old TiamatsFangs FFXI linkshell were getting together in real life to do some sort of video game-esque covert operation. We were to try to get into some kind of factory, the entrance to which was on the roof of a tall building, to demolish...something. We went in, and made our way to the end, but my partners started dying as we got ready to blow up the place. There was some kind of weird monster/alien thing killing people. As I fled out I turned and saw it grotesquely kill two people. I managed to escape back onto the roof-entrance, the only survivor. Except it flashed back to before the operation began. Since I knew what would happen I began trying to prepare an escape route, cleaning up excess ammo, weapons, and items on the floor to make picking up things for use easier, however I became frustrated that my partners were sitting around goofing off instead of preparing for the mission so I gave up and left. On my way home I realized I could use the opportunity of the TiamatsFangs' gathering to track down Jillia. I had already called and talked to her at some point during the preparation for the operation, so on my way home I called her number again but she didn't answer. When I got home to a room that looked like some sort of home office I sat down and started to think about how I could proceed. I started looking through the contacts on my phone and noticed I had a second number for Jillia, so I called it. An older woman answered the phone; I asked her if Jillia was there to which she replied yes. I asked the woman for the location of this phone number to which she replied that it was a place called "The Dungeon". I thanked her and hung up to consult the internet for the Dungeon's location; I remember that the first time I searched for it I forgot to specify the city I was in (when I corrected it, I corrected it with Fargo, ND or 58102, so evidently this dream was supposed to take place in Fargo). I quickly found it online, it was some sort of arcade. I went there; inside I met the older woman I had spoken to earlier behind a counter just inside the entrance. Also there were several teenagers there, I thought it odd that several of the boys were shirtless--and also that none of them were playing any arcade games, in fact there were no arcade games at all. The area was mostly empty except for some furniture and beanbag chairs. I asked the woman if Jillia was there again and she offered to take me to her. As we slowly made our way back I continued to observe the bizarre behavior of the children here. The woman explained that Jillia was a poor girl, having been abused and I recall ending that explanation mentally by adding "by these people" to the end. As we reached the entrance to the basement, I observed a short, ugly-looking girl and a boy getting ready to have sex, and they were eventually joined by a second boy. I went down into the basement alone. At the bottom was a large room, the room was pitch black except where it was sparsely lit by a small television in the middle on the other side of the room. There was some kind of clothing rack blocking the direct path to the television, instead leading a path around the outside of the room. In the far back corner there was a green couch that was very brightly lit. I called out for Jillia and she answered, though I couldn't see her at all. I replied, "Now there's a voice I recognize!" She sounded somewhat paranoid however. She instructed me to go to the couch in the back corner. Standing in the light it was even harder to see into the darkness, but I sensed that she had moved from near the TV to around between me and the door. She instructed me to remove my pants and shirt so I removed my black coat, shirt, and pants and set them on the couch. She then instructed me to go over and play the game. I went over, in just my underwear, and sat down by the TV. There was an old school Sega console there with what looked to be some sort of hacked old school Sonic game. I picked up the controller and hadn't even started playing when I heard the door to the basement slam shut. Alarmed that Jillia may have ran off, I quickly got up and returned to the couch to put my clothes back on and try to follow her. As I was putting my clothes back on the lights came on in the rest of the room. The floor was concrete and the walls were painted a bland white, it looked for sure like somewhere people may be held captive and I recall thinking, "Aw shit, I'm trapped down here." I immediately suspected the bizarre people on the floor above of foul play. When I checked the door, however, it was unlocked so I went upstairs to leave. The teens that were there before were outside in the rain, apparently having fun and taking pictures of each other. I quietly left, trying not to draw attention to myself. About a block away I turned and looked back, trying to think of how I could find her now. The dream ends there.

Side note: with some more effort into reality checking around phones as previously planned, I might have been able to catch this one.