More Dreams

Man, I have just been on a roll with the vivid dreams lately. Since the last time that I posted about a vivid dream that haunts me, I’ve had not one, but two more dreams about nuclear apocalypses. In both we had just an hour or so to find shelter. In the first dream, I grabbed my whole computer. In the second dream, I just tore out the hard drives and threw them into a microwave to protect them.

In the first dream, the bomb struck very close, but I didn’t actually witness the bomb or anything, I just woke up. In the second dream though, I was actually outside, and saw a missile moving at incredible speeds shooting towards the industrial zone just north of Denver.

What has been extra weird about these dreams is not how vivid they are, but how regular, even now that I am much less stressed about the world in general at the moment. The third weird thing is that I usually smoke a bunch of marijuana before bed to prevent myself from dreaming, but even that hasn’t been enough to stave off these incredibly intense dreams.

In both dreams, the blast happens in the evening, good for me, since that’s the only time that I am reliably awake, ha, it would be terrible for something like that to happen in your sleep, with no chance to escape. I think that a good chunk of it might be my built-up creativity from not writing much lately. However, it could also be that I am now just too cynical, and have a latent fear of nuclear destruction from my negative view on the direction that global politics is headed in. It could also be that my natural ability to lucid dream is just more powerful than what I’m smoking, and so I will be stuck with more of these, and will need to do some exercises to regain control properly, though it’ll be tough, the amount of fear that I feel in the nuclear dreams makes me feel frantic and unfocused. When I was young, and the threats I faced were smaller, like a vampire, or some zombies, while I was sometimes frantic, it was much easier for me to gather myself, and shift enough details to turn it from fear to fun (such as one time limiting the entry ways to one for zombies, and giving myself infinite shotgun ammo in a gun that never needed to be reloaded).

On the bright side, I finally am in a place where I actually feel comfortable enough to write again, and I even managed to knock out a big section of the climactic battle of the third book that I’m working on.

“The Stairs” – A Short Thing

A fire escape, four stories high, from out of nowhere. It appeared in an abandoned cotton field in south Texas, its corners planted into the ground, pushed into the soil from the weight of the steel rods from which it was comprised. I saw it, and knew that I must investigate this curiosity. Four flights of stairs, towering above, the shadows a grid pattern across my face as I approached. Though it had just appeared, the steel was old, with patches of rust, flecks of chipped steel, and rails with dings and dents in them. I approached with caution, the dried cotton buds crunching beneath my sandals. I reached out to the railing expecting it to be scorching in the hot Texas sun, but it was cold, almost like ice, but it felt wonderful contrasting against my warm skin. I clutched the rail, and pulled my body on to the first step. 

 

I remembered being four, climbing the ladder on a slide. One of the tall metal ones that you typically found in playgrounds in the 90’s, the kind that on a hot summer day become impossible to use because they become scorching hot, and can burn you. It was my first time climbing up a slide this high. I was excited because I had seen other children sliding down, and it seemed like they flew across the playground, landing in the sand that filled the playground, laughing, and rolling through the sand, kicking it up as they tumbled through. I got to the top and looked down, just in time to see the person in front of me flying what seemed like miles from the bottom of the slide. It was a popular slide, and there were kids behind me, already urging me to hurry up, despite my pause only being momentary. I finished climbing up, and sat at the top of the slide, afraid of getting hurt, afraid of what might happen when I hit the bottom. The height, the distance, it could hurt, what if I go too fast? The children were yelling at me to go. I closed my eyes to gather my courage, and felt a push on my lower back as I started to move.

 

My hand slid up the rail, the rough, cool feeling surprisingly relaxing as I took each step. With every step, the structure reverberated, as the sound of leather clapping against the metal rang out. I reached the first landing, and looked out onto the field. I could see the field that stretched so far, it felt like it went on forever. Then I continued upward.

 

I remembered stepping up the ladder to the high dive in my swimming class. I was seven at the time, and it was the final test to be allowed to swim in the deep part of the pool. There was the normal diving board, which was scary to me as it was, but I had jumped from there with little issue. The high dive for our pool, thinking back wasn’t incredibly high. It was next to the normal board, and was about three or four feet higher. I got to the top, practically crying I was so scared. I didn’t have the choice not to go now. All of the students in the class were lined up. Someone at the bottom of the ladder, someone at the end of the board. They jumped easily, and made a decent splash. I moved towards the end, carefully, timidly, afraid of the fall. I was so frightened I thought I was going to pee myself. Now it was definitely too late to turn back, there was someone behind me on the board. I looked around, trying to find some other way out that didn’t involve penetrating the deep waters of the pool. I was being yelled at for being afraid, holding other people back from finishing. I stepped all the way to the edge, and let my toes curl over the edge, to try to grip what I can, to get some sort of hold. I closed my eyes, about to jump, and felt a push as I fell forward, unseeing.

 

I made it up to the second landing, paused once again to look out, this time on the other side of the structure. I looked down and saw my shadow, stretched with that of the tower. I looked so tall like this. Like I was ten feet tall. Of course, the tower looked like it was over a hundred feet tall, as it stretched, like a plaid pillar of darkness across the field, a sundial almost, telling a time, but one nobody could understand. I shook my head, and continued up the stairs.

 

I remembered when I was fourteen. There was a tree in my front yard. It was a tall oak. I knew the trunk so well. I had tried so many times to climb it, but its lowest branches were too high. I knew a number of possible footholds, if I could just get my hands around the lowest branch. I was going to climb that tree. I jumped, and managed to get my hands around the branch, the bark digging into my skin. I swung my legs up to the footholds I had scouted out. They were a series of indentations in the tree, separated in a way that I could walk my torso up the trunk. I swung one of my legs over the branch I was holding on to, and inched my way around, slowly turning my body upright. I was finally in the tree. I moved around a bit on the branches, carefully, so as not to fall. I had pretty good balance, which I was proud of, so I did take a few risks, such as actually standing up, and walking on the thicker branches. the branches leading further up into the tree were thick and stable, so I explored the tree, moving higher and  higher up. Then my mother called for me to come inside for dinner. I yelled back that I was coming, and started to shimmy down the branches. Then I got to the branch I climbed up on. I sat down on it, looking down at the far drop. It was seven or eight feet, and I started to panic. Below me were twisted and gnarled roots that came out of the ground. What if I hit them? What if my foot got caught in one as I hit the ground and rolled? I could twist or break my ankle, even if I just don’t land properly. My mother, being impatient, came back out, and saw me sitting in the tree started to freak out, demanding that I get out of there immediately. I knew I had to eventually, my mother started to walk towards me. I closed my eyes, to gather courage, and felt a pull on my leg as my body slid off the branch, pulled from under me.

 

I was at the top of the stairs. I looked out from the top all around me, and could see the edge of the field, on one side, there was forest, on the other, road, and between those two edges, more fields. The shadow of the stairs stretched even further, now seeming like a monolith, the grid pattern of the steel no longer distinguishable in the shadows, making it a solid mass of darkness. There was a cool breeze, and despite the time, and the hot sun, the rail was still cold to the touch. The top landing was small, with a gap in the railing where one would expect a window to be, or some sort of mechanical lift. I looked down, across the shadow, seeing my own shadow, like a flagpole on top of the tower, stretched thin from the waning sunlight. I looked behind me at the stairs I had climbed, stretching far down into what seemed to be infinity, a metal spiral marking my journey. The landing here was a solid sheet of steel. I took my sandals off, and placed my feet on the cool metal. I looked down into the field, and saw the dried up cotton plants, and the weeds and wondered what they thought about the staircase that had suddenly invaded their territory. I stepped to the very edge, and let my toes hang over, gripping the smooth steel surface. I closed my eyes. There were no questions, no worries, only curiosity and resolve. 

 

I moved my foot, and stepped into darkness.

My Latest Nightmare

Well, it hasn’t been very long since my last post talking about a nightmare that I had, but here’s another. It’s pretty clear that I’ve been extremely stressed lately. I think that this one stands better on its own than the previous one, so without any more delay, I’ll jump right into it.

It was just before the holidays in my dream, and I was out working, doing my typical delivery driving. I returned home to find that I was stolen from. In this case, I lost my laptop, along with clothes, a backpack, and some personal affects which had already been stolen in real life. I was dismayed by this, and panicked, but my dad told me that the thief had already been apprehended. At first, this was sort of a relief, but my panic doubled when my dream self realized that I could be called in for questioning, and would have difficulty explaining some of the things on the computer (this was likely due to the huge amount of black market drug price data I was collecting before it was lost to hard drive failure several years ago). Me, being the highly rational person that I am, suddenly decided that the best idea would be to go to the police station, and steal back the laptop before the police had a chance to go through the files.

So somehow I knew where the station was, and went during a holiday late at night. The station itself, instead of being a police station, was actually more like a set of office suites in a shopping center.

For some reason, the building was totally empty. I was clad in multiple jackets, with heavy hoods. Thinking this would both keep me warm against the icy weather, but would also protect me from having my identity discovered. I found the office where the affects were being temporarily kept, which happened to be the officer’s personal office. I grabbed the laptop, and got out of there. I decided to head home, where my father was waiting. In the room beyond where he was waiting, there was the office of the cop, this time, occupied by the officer who had found my things. The looks on both individuals faces spoke volumes of precisely how much trouble my bizarre actions would get me in, and the fear struck me so hard that I woke up immediately.

This one was shorter to describe than the previous nightmare, but it was no less terrifying. It was a strange manifestation of my fears. I think in general, it was a reflection of my general fears of my past being dragged up, as well as a projection of some of the things I fear about my imminent court appearance (later the day this is published), though, that court appearance is about my lapsed insurance from November, though I am certainly anxious about how that will turn out, the results of that are much less to be feared than the catastrophe of my nightmare of breaking into a police station and stealing evidence. Hopefully my court appearance will go well, and I’ll get some relief from the stress I’ve been experiencing lately, allowing me to sleep better.

 

The Culmination of my Fears

So last night I had an unusual event happen to me, at least, it’s unusual for something like it to have occurred recently, that being that I actually remember a lot of my dream from last night. The night before, I vaguely remember the emotional intensity of my dream, but this time, I remember it pretty clearly. If I had to guess, it would be that since I actually have a semi-stable place to sleep at night now, that my stress levels have gone down enough to sleep a little longer and can now start to really remember my dreams once again. This is both a blessing and a curse, as my dreams can be wonderful experiences of bliss in the best cases (typically during lucid dreaming), or horrific nightmares which cause me terror and anxiety. This particular dream definitely fell in the latter, and I think represents a lot of my fears that have built up as of late. First though, the dream itself.

Several weeks ago, I ordered parts to have my computer fixed (this was before I found out that my roommate and I were going to get evicted, long story short, bad luck), and had gotten an Amazon Prime trial subscription to get the parts sooner. As I had the subscription, I took advantage of the opportunity to binge watch “The Man in the High Castle”, as I had seen the first season shortly after it came out, and was quite excited to catch up on the series. This may seem unimportant, but is crucial for understanding the context for this dream.

In my dream, I found myself in a world similar to that of the show, though with a few minor differences, the first being that the allies still won WWII, and that rather than in the past, it was a short time in the future. In this dream, the fascist elements of modern America had taken over the country, and were implementing some of the more extreme types of policies that I had seen talked about on places like /pol/. I found myself in a situation where I was forced to work for the Nazis to protect my family. This is because at first glance, I appear to be very, very white, but a glance at my hair, and nose, and my heritage begins to come into question. I have been asked (in real life, yes), by actual neo-Nazis about my heritage, asking if I have black relatives or ancestors, or if my family is Jewish. To be honest, I don’t actually know, early parts of my family tree, and the most recent generations are seemingly white, but there are questions about “purity” if you go back to my slave-holding ancestors during colonial and pre-Civil War generations.

This was reflected in my dream, where the Nazi regime was essentially holding my family hostage, threatening to not only test my family if I didn’t cooperate with them, but also essentially guaranteed that they would at least find Jewish heritage, and informed me that to prevent the white genocide being perpetrated on the Aryan race, that there would be consequences if they did discover that, of course meaning they would be killed. It was clear in the context of the dream that I was being used for my liberal values to spy for the regime. John Smith, played by Rufus Sewell, was the officer that I reported to in this context.

My mission was to discover the location of the liberal haven that many had fled to when fascism had taken over in full force, so that the regime could eliminate the safe-haven for liberals, minorities, and free-thinkers. I remember the emotional turmoil that I felt, walking into the Nazi headquarters building. My family was waiting out in the car for me in front of the building. I knew that if I gave up the location of this city, that tens of thousands would die, as the Nazis were planning to scorch the earth, nuking the city. On my way to Smith’s office, I came across Joe Blake from the series, a fellow spy. My knowledge from the series led me to believe that Joe would have sympathized with my plight, and that my cooperation was coerced. The two of us went to an empty interrogation room within the building, where I confided in him that I was struggling with the decision, and trying to see if I could find some way out of giving up the information that I had acquired. I even (quite foolishly) told him that I had no love of Nazis, and that I thought that it was awful what the country had become, saying “I’ve said and done what I’ve had to to survive.”

It turned out that this last line to him was a bad idea. I could see that I had not only given him leverage, but reason to be reported, and that my slightly protected status was at risk of being stripped, and with my family right outside, under Nazi watch. I tried to take back what I said, that of course I would never truly betray them, as I cared about my family too much (this was not exactly true, as I had actually hoped to give them bad information, and then attempt to escape the country before my lie was discovered). I found that I had a gun, which was strange, as I, in general hate guns, but it gave me an opportunity. I could attempt to kill Joe here, as I discovered that his loyalties were no longer in question, and he was going to turn me in. I knew what would happen next. Torture until I gave up the information, for both me as well as my family, and then once the information was given up, there would be no more reason to keep us alive, killing me, my family, and the haven that I wanted to protect. The interrogation rooms were soundproof and I had one opportunity to maybe, just maybe get myself out of this situation.

I fired at Joe, and missed. I couldn’t have felt worse. Joe fled the room, and chasing him out into the hallway, I realized that it was now too late. In moments the building was locked down, and I was being dragged to my reporting officer’s office, stripped of my weapon, and forced to watch from an upper window, my parents and my sister dragged from the car, and beaten on the sidewalk. It was strange, as they had done nothing “wrong”, in fact, in the dream, they had believed themselves to be pure, and had integrated into the new society with no difficulty or qualms. Joe stood next to John, who was still granted his title from the beginning of the show, obergruppenführer, as in this regime, the titles from Nazi Germany were appropriated by the Americans, representing how fully and blatantly they were adopting the ideology. John spoke to me, “Did you really think that you could fool us with proxies? That we didn’t know about your seditious acts? All you had to do was give one location, and perhaps we could have found a place for you within the New Reich, but you decided to be difficult.”

Terror filled me, and I tried to get myself together, now half-crying, “It’s too much death, I can’t kill that many people and live with myself.”

This time Joe spoke, “I did it, and look at me now, you were even luckier, being a Jew and given this opportunity. You could have had a comfortable life for you and your family, in peace, if you had just cooperated.”

I tried to struggle, but the officers who were holding my arms had grips like steel, and I could only sink to my knees, still half-sobbing, “You’re going to destroy the world with your hate!”

“We’re going to save it,” John told me, “it’s unfortunate your family won’t get to see it though.” Another wave of terror, they weren’t going to kill me, they were going to kill my family, and keep me alive to spy for them. I would have no escape from them, with them doing who knew what to make sure I stayed loyal. John gave a command through a radio attached to his belt, and the guards who were beating my family pulled out their guns and fired. Through the window, I could feel the silence down on the street. I attempted to grab for a gun, to kill myself, because I knew that they would get the information that they wanted, and at minimum would not let me die until I did, but I could not reach any of the weapon holsters. Then, I woke up.

It was truly one of the most emotionally intense dreams that I have ever had. The fear was so tangible that I woke up in a cold sweat. Even reflecting on this nightmare to write it has re-conjured some of the fear I felt during it.

I think this dream was a pretty good amalgamation of nearly every fear I have at the moment. Nazis, nuclear war, selling out my principles to protect my family, fear of being spied on by the government, fear of needing a gun, even climate change (that was the implication of the destroy the world comment), dreams are funny that way, you can say one thing, but you can simultaneously know the depth of context to it that isn’t so apparent in that context. I’m disappointed in my dream self for in that context having already sold out my principles to some extent, though I guess it’s good that I have limits. I was surprised by my connection to my family in the dream. My connection to my family has been, especially in recent years, strained, and somewhat distant. It seems strange that I would have sold out anyone to protect them, or their conservative values that they hold on to so dearly.

In the end, it was a nightmare, and the most vivid I’ve had in months. There was a reason I’d smoke before bed. I expect these dreams will start occurring more often. This certainly made up for months without a real nightmare though. I miss the old days, when my worst nightmares were about vampires.