This one has stuck with me for a few days so I better get it out of my head.
There was a whole first half of the dream, filled with drama and craziness revolving around previous family and unknown variables. I vaguely remember having to drive somebody back and out of a house with a pistol. I remember a solid ally during all of it became a friend. The first half was probably from when I first fell asleep until Lily woke me up in the middle of the night. Everything that follows happened between falling back asleep and getting up for work.
When the second half started, I was standing outside of an office building, next to a parking lot. The ally from the first half came out and approached me. She asked if I wanted to get away from the craziness “up here” (which didn’t make sense to me at the time) and go with her on a “research project.” I agreed. I recall thinking, there’s nothing more I can do with the drama from earlier, and I have almost no hours at work so if I get fired I won’t care.
I got in the passenger side of her little car, nearby in the parking lot, and we drove off. She was explaining we would have to take a short plane trip to a platform, and from the platform, we would leave to the project. I had no problem with it because I was just along for the ride. I hadn’t been on a plane in a few years so I was excited for that part alone.
We talked a lot and compared notes about the drama and projected where we thought it all might end up months down the road. As we were talking I started wondering how big a platform in the ocean would have to be for a plane to land on it. We pulled into a small airport off the coast and eventually boarded a very small personal jet.
Inside the jet, there were only a half-dozen seats and almost entirely open area to wander around. It was roughly the size of a short school bus internally. We sat down across from each other near the front and finished the conversation involving my mother probably killing herself before too much longer and the plane was already in the air. I looked out of the window and saw nothing but ocean.
On a side note, regarding family in this dream: We all lived in northern California in this dream and I recall it being a strange grouping of my mother, sister, some guy she was with I have no memory of (and we were all 8 years older or so) – Ashlee, Jami, Jami’s son, her sister, and a couple other people I have no idea who they were.
As the plane started to descend I looked out to see what looked like a rather octagon shaped landform coming up ahead. I don’t remember the woman’s name I made friends with through the whole ordeal. She was probably in her mid-30s, as I was in my late 40s in this dream. She had mid shoulder length brown hair, an oval face, and a rather unremarkable stature and figure about her. However, her personality was calm, measured, understanding and firm when needed. I was down to about 200lbs in weight and had a totally shaved head.
The ocean was getting closer beneath us as she started to take a very serious, business-like tone. I looked out the window again and the landform I saw was a massive platform with oil rigs jutting out of the perimeter, a few dozen buildings strewn about the center and a landing strip down one side, towards which we were approaching. I pulled out my phone (which looked a lot like the new edgeless phones but had no indent at the top, but still had a camera behind the screen somehow. was as big as the phablets are these days.) I looked at something and she commented we won’t be taking our phones. I sent a text to a friend (I have no idea who they were, in the current day) – and handed it to her. She took our phones and our things and put them in a side compartment towards the back of the plane.
We landed and exited the plane near a utility shed appearing structure. A door on the side rolled up and a small grey convertible pulled out in front of us. The driver looked like a mechanic in overalls and didn’t make eye contact. He nodded and walked back into the utility shed. She got in the driver’s seat and I ran around and got in the passenger. She started telling me to stay with her and that we were going to enter a section of the “platform” that was off limits to the oil workers. I remember thinking, how did I not know any huge structures on the ocean as this one existed.
We drove down the side of the runway and turned onto a narrow two-lane road which connected to a small street grid system. I remember looking around at the small buildings feeling like I was in some miniature town that shouldn’t exist. We approached a large walled off section. I remember wondering if it was real cobblestone or what. The walls looked like 15-foot tall cobblestone, with some large heavy wooden gates from time to time every couple blocks.
We turned into a small driveway in front of one of the gates and parked for a moment before the gate DESCENDED into the ground, instead of opening inward or outward, like it appeared to be designed to do. We drove over the top of it and it rose up behind us. I was too busy trying to figure out the logistics of what I was seeing, structurally, and how much support there must be going between all these structures and the ocean floor – and was wondering if there could possibly be some sort of floatation system with just anchors holding it all in place? It is the ocean and all.
All of that was going through my head and I don’t really remember between the gate and the interior of a large building she drove into. It was like a warehouse on the half we were in with three floors of offices on the other. The offices had windows looking into the warehouse but there was nothing of interest I could see. Crates, and no cobwebs. It was kind of surreal.
I followed her into the offices and through a couple hallways. She looked at me and smiled. It was the first time I remember seeing her smile that genuinely in the entire dream. I gave her a quizzical look. She said “you’re going to find this interesting,” before leading me through a strong door she unlocked by putting her wrist up to a metal plate.
On the other side of the door was an unremarkable light grey painted room. There were a couple couches on either side from where we entered. Across the room was an elevator door. She walked over and put her wrist up to a plate next to the up arrow. I heard a light hum and the doors opened. We walked in and as the doors closed she started smiling again.
The elevator started descending rapidly. If you’ve ever been in a skyscraper with a really fast elevator, it felt exactly like that. I started getting entirely too nervous, considering the security we went through to get to the elevator. As if there was going to be any crushing water or drowning coming up.
The elevator opened and there was but a small room that was open on one side to a cave with a metal beam in the middle. It stretched down and curved out of sight into the cave. After a few moments what looked like a miniature windowless subway car sped into view from the cave. A door slid open and she gestured for me to follow. At this point, I had no idea what to expect and had too many questions to know if or what to ask.
We got in the little metal subway car, and it had maybe twenty seats in it. Two on each side of the little aisle and perhaps eight or twelve seats deep. We sat near the front and she started talking about how where we’re going is “stuck in the past” and how I should be careful what I mention. I nodded and imagined we were going to be around people like when I would visit places like Arkansas. Sure, they have modern stuff but it might as well be 1950 for what everybody knows and does for fun.
The door on the side opened again and I remember panicking like, shit is it broken? I got up and followed her and we stepped out onto a platform. Ahead and behind the little metal car, the track disappeared into the darkness. The little platform was attached to what reminded me of old industrial structures that had the steel grid walkways above work areas, and winding around the outside of buildings to access different areas. Opposite from the rail car across the platform was what looked like the wall of a building and a single door. no windows. it was very dark and I couldn’t make out anything but darkness through the grid below.
“Scared of heights?” she asked at the moment I was starting to freak out about how far down it was below me. I said yes, and we made our way through the door. Opposite the door, it did indeed feel like we went back in time. But it was a musty, strange setting. It felt like what I imagine it would have felt like in the sewers where the people had made a home in Demolition Man. It wasn’t horrible but it wasn’t clean or modern.
We started walking around what could be described as alleys. It wasn’t as wide as a street, but it wasn’t as narrow as a tiny space between buildings. On either side were concrete walls and the ground was concrete. Well, could have just been stone. There were no seams really. Not in this area.
It felt like a half hour walking around these areas, with various people wearing not rags, but not really typical clothes, either, scurrying around talking amongst themselves. There was water dripping, pooling, and flowing in small amounts all over the place. It really gave it a general alley feel, per what you expect from older movies about whatever. Sorry, getting tired and didn’t realize I remembered this much detail until I started typing.
We ended up going into some of the buildings? whatever, off the sides through doors, of the alleys. Not sure if it was alleys or just tunnels or what. But we ended up in a large circular area. The top was the widest with quite a wide walkway. On the outside of the walkway were rooms and stores, some dwellings. At the top, you could see all the way across to the other side. The center was a few stories lower, and I don’t remember ever seeing the bottom of it. The few levels between there and the top, there were various … It kind of seemed like huts? well, there were walls, and leather or tarp or whatever, based on the building, at differing angles. It obstructed the view seeing further down as they were staggered around. But in them were different unique dwellings or places to buy specific foods or crafts. Some had people sitting inside on small chairs talking and joking around. It didn’t make all that much sense to me.
She told me about the history of the people, and how they all ended up settling here. From what I understand, the culture has lived underground undisturbed for thousands of years. There was a strange luminescence at the top of the circular area that seemed like the ceiling was some sort of transparent stone or crystal that glowed with I have no idea what or how but it almost lent a night sky through a smoked and heavily cracked glass to it.
As we walked around I started noticing some of the dwellings on the side of the top ring were rather large and elegant compared to everything else. One of these I was told belonged to the person who I took to be a leader? creator? ruler? over everything. I can’t remember the face of the person at all but they were a good eight inches taller than I, and very slender. They had dark hair and very fair skin. Actually, everybody had dark hair of varying lengths, male and female, and very light skin. I guess it makes sense, as everybody was underground.
I feel like days passed while we were down there. I remember campfires (indoors, never really noticed smoke, I have no idea.) – I remember sleeping in sleeping bags. And I remember picking up on commotion and unease in those around me in some areas.
The women who had Allied with me ended up spending more time away from me doing other things and I spent more time with a very very thin person named Amelia. We bonded over the love of music. She played me a lot of music she had collected and it all reminded me of Ambient soundscapes like Coil would make. But a lot of beautiful sound layers I couldn’t begin to explain.
A couple people I had been introduced to that I noticed were suddenly in a panic, I just never saw again. I think about this time it had been a good week down there. I woke up and Amelia was in a panic and asked me to come with her. I went with her and she said the person I had allied with was in trouble and she wanted me to help her find her. So I went with Amelia and the place we went searching through felt like a sprawling warehouse that was only about 10 feet tall but had a lot of open areas and segmented rooms that were very mazelike. All the rooms and areas had different functions relating to laundering and dry cleaning. I remember we entered from the 2nd level from the top on the outside, and it went outward from there.
Every room was lit at a late dusk level where you could clearly see everything but it was dark. I never understood the ambient lighting and after a couple days didn’t even notice it anymore. With the campfires and light bulbs around, It seemed to render it moot anyway. The light bulbs, strangely enough, looked like the clear incandescent bulbs but what they were screwed into always seemed to just be something attached to string hanging, or maybe lamps? or just into the walls? again, none of it made sense but it wasn’t as interesting as the stories and music I was being exposed to.
Anyhow, back to the search. We did end up lucking into the ally’s clothes hung up on a string going from I guess a cleaning area to a place to be processed. Amelia freaked out and took my hand and drug me quickly into a somehow closet feeling room that looked like the rest, but … I don’t know. Closet/storage.
She explained that people disappear all the time, but they just appear again later as nothing happened. Only, when it is an outsider like my ally and myself, they’re never seen again. Just the people they’ve lived and worked with loved, known their entire lives. Something will happen, a fight, or a disaster or fire or something like that – but they would appear again later as if the prior was a dream.
I started feeling a lot of dread creep up as she lead me to a much wider and longer room. In the center of this room, was a large 45-degree angle downward in a rectangle. In the middle was what looked like a large cast-iron kiln. It was eight or ten feet wide and twenty or so feet long. It was about five feet deep and had a mechanical top that would fold open or closed. She mumbled something about it being forbidden and lead me away quickly.
I don’t remember much between that and waking up in a little cot in one of the many hut-like structures on the 3rd level down. I woke up to, oh yeah, I guess I did see the middle area – I woke up to what sounded like a lot of fighting. Amelia came and grabbed me and took me to a different hut where they all had what looked like pipe rifles from fallout. or makeshift guns from pick your post-apocalyptic adventure.
It wasn’t like a normal gun, it didn’t have a trigger I recognized and I wasn’t shown how to use it. I overheard a lot of shushed conversation about where they were going and the plan they were going to put in motion to end the “torture and bloodshed” forever. I followed a couple guys with Amelia, running through tents out to the edge of the center area. It reminded me of play areas in old malls. There was a low center area that was mostly straight from one side to the other, and narrow. It had a lot of raised areas a couple feet high, all looked padded and or carpeted. Some sections had a wall that went up with a fence around the highest parts of the ??play area?? haha. But it was definitely not a play area. People were fist fighting and behind one of the higher fenced edge was the leader?mayor?whatever. He was yelling and pointing at people below. Every time he pointed, a couple darkly uniformed people would run off from behind him and go attack or stab or zap????? lots of shit was going on. .. they would attack or kill or drag away the people that he had pointed at.
I rushed into and across the ??play area??? hahaha… and went into a narrow path on the other side up and out, a combination of a foot or two tall steps/ledges, and 45-degree ramps, up to the other side. I could imagine it would definitely be a play area for kids to fuck around in while whatever was going on all around them in the rest of the area.
I found myself standing next to one of the guys who was arming himself earlier as I watched Amelia get run through with some sort of spear. I remember freaking out and darting off on my own. All I wanted to do was get out of there. My ally seemed to be dead as she was never seen again and she had told me outsiders never came back. And at that time, running through the darkest shadows I could find, outward – it occurred to me that the tone of amelia’s voice when she told me outsiders were never seen again like the people who lived here, it sounded like she was preparing to give me bad news about my ally.
I found my way to the entrance to what I took to be a lot of rooms chained around used for laundry of some sort. It was the only place I could remember there was an almost infinite number of randomly placed bunches of clothing and hanging bags and all sorts of shit I could duck and hide behind if anybody came through. I remember a distinct lack of shadows in the area too, even though the ambient light I would assume should cast some.
I definitely wasn’t looking for it but I found the room with the kiln looking thing in the middle. This time, though, the top was open and a group of twelve to fifteen people were slowly walking from the far side of it to a doorway across the room. I froze in place, because they were all naked, and walking at the same pace fairly close together. They all walked through the door on the far side and I felt a deep urge to investigate this forbidden … whatever it was.
There was a walkway across the 45-degree angle going down to the base of it, on the far side where the people came from. I walked across it and looked into the kiln looking thing.
It was full of what looked like jet black colored slushee. only it had no temperature at all. I instinctively thrust my hand into it, and it was definitely thick and wet, but it left nothing on my hand when I pulled it back out and slushed down to a flat motionless surface almost immediately. I heard a noise behind me near where they all passed out of this area through the door and jumped. Into the black shit.
I swiveled around to look back towards the door as I lost my footing, well, it didn’t feel like my feet ever actually touched anything. I glanced back towards the door they walked through and saw nothing anywhere. I fell entirely into the black substance but felt my hand land on a top edge of the kiln, or whatever the hell it was.
As if the substance made me weightless I pulled myself up and flung myself over the edge of it, laying on my stomach hanging over one edge with my legs mostly still in it behind me. While I was in it my entire body tingled like the feeling when you put your tongue against a fully charged 9 volt battery. It felt like that, everywhere, plus a warm energy I can only liken to that first moment most of your body feels comfortably hot sunlight at once, after being cold and indoors for what seems like an eternity. Mix with all of that, a light burn… that felt like a thousandth of the pain of rubbing alcohol hitting an open cut. but everywhere. All of that combined was what it was like for every bit of my skin that touched that black substance.
i pulled myself over the edge of the kiln thing, and fell down onto the bottom of the floor on the outside of it. I looked myself over, panicking and not knowing what had just happened to me. my skin was glossy smooth and I had no hair on me anywhere, anymore. My clothes were gone and it wasn’t htat my skin was raw. but it was just glossy smooth and I didn’t understand what was going on at all. I heard a noise again in the direction of that door so I scurried up the 45 degree angled floor away from the kiln or whatever the mother fuck it was, back out the door I entered through and found a large rolling cart to jump in and hide under cloth or rags or whatever, blankets? inside it.
I woke up and had no idea how long I was asleep and distinctly remember becoming aware I also had no eyebrows or eyelashes. I moved aside the rags on top of me and looked out over the edge of the cart and realized it was in a fully different position and different room than it was before I blacked out.
I climbed out, fully naked, hairless and gloss photo smooth, and tried to find clothes or anything I could put on to use as clothes. It took a while because most everybody down there, male and female alike, are very skinny. Thankfully though some were my size, which to them is fat, but to my 30s is almost skinny.
I tried to very casually walk around until I figured out how to get somewhere closer to the large central area. I wanted to at least know if anything was still going on.
“There you are, what are you doing?” I heard Amelia say. I turned around and she was entering the room I was in from the far side, pushing what looked like a rack with a lot of blankets hanging down from the center of it.
“What the fuck?” I mumbled.
“That’s what I would say too, what happened to your skin?” she asked seeming intensely worried. She abandoned the cart she was pushing and rushed to my side. “I can do this later, let me get you to some music and some rest.” She took my arm and lead me through the maze of rooms that I seemed to have gone further into, rather than actually getting closer to the circular area.
As we winded through the huts and tents and whatever, into hers, I noticed everything looked rather normal. People I had seen before but wasn’t sure if I saw live or die in that event were walking around like everything was the same as any time prior.
“What day is this?” I asked, knowing it was Tuesday when all of that happened.
“Friday, didn’t you know?” she asked looking even more worried. “Why do you look coated in thin glass? What happened to you?” she asked, slowly taking all the clothes off me and laying me on the really soft mattress that she had slept on herself.
“I think I need sleep,” I said. I clearly remember seeing her innards come out of her back stuck to part of a spear, and the life leaving her face as her body collapsed. I remember hearing more ambient and less noise filled waves of music as I fell back asleep.
then my alarm went off and I had to get up for work.
I keep thinking about all of this in various chunks and I hope this gets it out of my head.