I open my eyes and take a breath, it’s dark. I’m lying on what feels like a very firm, jelly-like bed.
{Here again? That means somewhere out there, my apnoea-afflicted body is out of gas…}
I take a deeper breath. A strange metallic smell, warm and musty, meets my senses. I sit up groggily.
{Everyone dreams. Most we don’t remember. Chased, flying, great sex…}
There is a shred of light, some pale wisps of green and blue floating within the transparent jelly slab I find myself on.
{But normal dreams just happen, whereas these oxygen-starved excursions can take up days, weeks, months, lifetimes. They come around again and again, like TV repeats.}
I’m aware that this is me, but it’s not entirely me. I’m blended with someone else, occupying someone else’s body, an ancestor, a descendant, who knows, but it’s a very strange feeling, like I’ve just been born or started again.
{I wonder how I’m doing out there, how many seconds it has been since I took my last breath, has my heart beat started hammering yet?}
I instinctively know that this place, dark as it is, is mine, no one else’s. A private space, a womb of the mind and body. A beginning place. Safe.
I try to stand. The floor is cold and hard beneath my bare feet, lit only by the faint glow from the jelly slab.
{Here we go again, the really confusing part... }
A memory {whose?} slams home like an almighty fist to the midriff: We lost, we lost so badly, so terribly. What cost to those left behind, how long since the battle...?
Images rush in, sounds, smells, laughter, green, grey, chaos, war.
{None of this mine; it’s weird what a lack of air can do to the brain…}
I sit back down upon the slab and close my eyes, welcoming the total darkness, breathing steadily. I open my eyes again and smile in the gloom. The wispy filaments begin to move more quickly and multiply, spreading out beneath my feet and into the surrounding structures. Soon the dull purple green light is shining from low buildings in all directions.
I know that this place was once full of people like me, and the silence starts to bear heavily.
{Not your usual ego-centric, back-patting dream, this one...}
The dull light shows a small town of crystalline buildings formed in a shallow bowl beneath an immense domed ceiling. I press my hands into the slab and it hardens as I stand. I hold my hands out before me and they too are translucent with more of the wisp-like filaments floating around within me, yellow and red this time. I head off between the buildings.
{The first time this happened, I hated it…}
After a few minutes, I come to a large building on the outskirts and open the door. Inside is an ornate archway leading into a hallway that stretches for aeons. At the end is a sunken pool filled with a milky turquoise liquid. I look around the room, random otherworldly faces flitting across my mind. A bone-aching sadness seizes me. I lean forward and gaze upon the pool’s surface.
It clears, and I can see my strange reflection.
{Yes, myself or part of myself noticing myself… confusing.}
I lean forward and dive into the pool. Strange sensations fill my senses; I feel like I’m dissolving. I notice a slight pull on my mind and then I’m rising quickly through the roof, the crystalline ceiling above, faster, faster, following that slight tug…
I’m in space, no physical body at all now, free.
{Did I mention, about heights? I really hate heights.}
I start to move at an unimaginable speed, soon arriving at a blue green orb hanging in space.
{Looks familiar...}
Down I/we go. After sinking through the clouds and passing through the roof of an unknown building, we stand over an unbreathing person asleep on a bed.
{It’s… me.}
There is a moment of rearrangement and I’m no longer the passive onlooker. I feel my own, independent personality seeping back in. I use the senses of our shared form, feeling for a distant pulse within the stars.
{I wonder if I’ll come back this time…}
We streak through the heavens, everything becoming a blur.
Suddenly, it’s over. We’ve arrived somewhere… somewhen?
It’s dark but not quite as black as the chamber I first awoke in. There is a tiny glimmer of grey light. I/we’re once again in solid form, I can feel again. I realise that I can’t move. Am I buried? The panic starts to rise. Time rolls on and on.
{This seems far too close to home…}
Eventually I hear a faint scrabbling sound above me. I strain but can only pick out muffled sounds until, “Over here, I’ve found something!”
The grey light begins to grow, turning first to amber and then on to a bright yellow midday glare. Hands, tools, noise, light, dust, confusion. I can sense them all but seem to have no motor control, and the people around me appear tiny… They push and shove me. Unable to speak, I’m aware of some arguing, and then we’re moving.
Gazing at the mauve sky, I wonder what’s going to happen. But the creatures don’t seem hostile and the heat of the sun is invigorating. I do the only thing I can: wait.
We start to move, very bumpily, and the sun sinks slowly towards the horizon.
The chatter increases as we pass beneath a large stone gatehouse.
{Finally, it’s getting interesting.}
Finally, we’re getting somewher...
{Oh no, no… wait…}
There’s a whooshing and a feeling of being ripped apart and the world suddenly fades.
I sit up in bed drenched in sweat, my heart hammering in my ears, desperately sucking in huge lungfulls of air.
{Maybe next time.}
{Here again? That means somewhere out there, my apnoea-afflicted body is out of gas…}
I take a deeper breath. A strange metallic smell, warm and musty, meets my senses. I sit up groggily.
{Everyone dreams. Most we don’t remember. Chased, flying, great sex…}
There is a shred of light, some pale wisps of green and blue floating within the transparent jelly slab I find myself on.
{But normal dreams just happen, whereas these oxygen-starved excursions can take up days, weeks, months, lifetimes. They come around again and again, like TV repeats.}
I’m aware that this is me, but it’s not entirely me. I’m blended with someone else, occupying someone else’s body, an ancestor, a descendant, who knows, but it’s a very strange feeling, like I’ve just been born or started again.
{I wonder how I’m doing out there, how many seconds it has been since I took my last breath, has my heart beat started hammering yet?}
I instinctively know that this place, dark as it is, is mine, no one else’s. A private space, a womb of the mind and body. A beginning place. Safe.
I try to stand. The floor is cold and hard beneath my bare feet, lit only by the faint glow from the jelly slab.
{Here we go again, the really confusing part... }
A memory {whose?} slams home like an almighty fist to the midriff: We lost, we lost so badly, so terribly. What cost to those left behind, how long since the battle...?
Images rush in, sounds, smells, laughter, green, grey, chaos, war.
{None of this mine; it’s weird what a lack of air can do to the brain…}
I sit back down upon the slab and close my eyes, welcoming the total darkness, breathing steadily. I open my eyes again and smile in the gloom. The wispy filaments begin to move more quickly and multiply, spreading out beneath my feet and into the surrounding structures. Soon the dull purple green light is shining from low buildings in all directions.
I know that this place was once full of people like me, and the silence starts to bear heavily.
{Not your usual ego-centric, back-patting dream, this one...}
The dull light shows a small town of crystalline buildings formed in a shallow bowl beneath an immense domed ceiling. I press my hands into the slab and it hardens as I stand. I hold my hands out before me and they too are translucent with more of the wisp-like filaments floating around within me, yellow and red this time. I head off between the buildings.
{The first time this happened, I hated it…}
After a few minutes, I come to a large building on the outskirts and open the door. Inside is an ornate archway leading into a hallway that stretches for aeons. At the end is a sunken pool filled with a milky turquoise liquid. I look around the room, random otherworldly faces flitting across my mind. A bone-aching sadness seizes me. I lean forward and gaze upon the pool’s surface.
It clears, and I can see my strange reflection.
{Yes, myself or part of myself noticing myself… confusing.}
I lean forward and dive into the pool. Strange sensations fill my senses; I feel like I’m dissolving. I notice a slight pull on my mind and then I’m rising quickly through the roof, the crystalline ceiling above, faster, faster, following that slight tug…
I’m in space, no physical body at all now, free.
{Did I mention, about heights? I really hate heights.}
I start to move at an unimaginable speed, soon arriving at a blue green orb hanging in space.
{Looks familiar...}
Down I/we go. After sinking through the clouds and passing through the roof of an unknown building, we stand over an unbreathing person asleep on a bed.
{It’s… me.}
There is a moment of rearrangement and I’m no longer the passive onlooker. I feel my own, independent personality seeping back in. I use the senses of our shared form, feeling for a distant pulse within the stars.
{I wonder if I’ll come back this time…}
We streak through the heavens, everything becoming a blur.
Suddenly, it’s over. We’ve arrived somewhere… somewhen?
It’s dark but not quite as black as the chamber I first awoke in. There is a tiny glimmer of grey light. I/we’re once again in solid form, I can feel again. I realise that I can’t move. Am I buried? The panic starts to rise. Time rolls on and on.
{This seems far too close to home…}
Eventually I hear a faint scrabbling sound above me. I strain but can only pick out muffled sounds until, “Over here, I’ve found something!”
The grey light begins to grow, turning first to amber and then on to a bright yellow midday glare. Hands, tools, noise, light, dust, confusion. I can sense them all but seem to have no motor control, and the people around me appear tiny… They push and shove me. Unable to speak, I’m aware of some arguing, and then we’re moving.
Gazing at the mauve sky, I wonder what’s going to happen. But the creatures don’t seem hostile and the heat of the sun is invigorating. I do the only thing I can: wait.
We start to move, very bumpily, and the sun sinks slowly towards the horizon.
The chatter increases as we pass beneath a large stone gatehouse.
{Finally, it’s getting interesting.}
Finally, we’re getting somewher...
{Oh no, no… wait…}
There’s a whooshing and a feeling of being ripped apart and the world suddenly fades.
I sit up in bed drenched in sweat, my heart hammering in my ears, desperately sucking in huge lungfulls of air.
{Maybe next time.}