SCPantera's Dream Journal

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.

By chance I happened to have a pretty decent length lucid dream, so I'd like to be sure to document it.

The earliest part in the sequence I can remember was some sort of fake Harry Potter movie (during the dream I seemed to think it was the third in the series, but couldn't remember the name), only it starred the cranky-professor-guy-with-the-eye-whose-name-I-don't-remember (that guy from the Goblet of Fire). Anyways, it seems he was going away and people were giving him various going away presents but he was being extra cranky about them. I recall the second to last one vividly; one person (seemed to be a young adult) held up this large, ornate deep green crystal cross with silver metallic edges, stating that he was offering the professor a chance to examine it and that it was a magical artifact that had belonged to his family for many years (it seemed to imply he was some sort of royalty). However the professor cut the student off from his speech angrily, exclaiming that he knew several good men who died in the name of that worthless, magic-less artifact. After that people started to disperse, and an older professor picked up another going away present that looked like a chest and looked as though he was about to leave but then decided to offer it up (saying that after what had just happened he thought the professor wouldn't be interested but thought he might try offering it anyways). They open it, and the chest is empty except for a small recess near the top left that contained a brass metallic pentagram. The older guy asked him if he knew what it was, and the professor replied dramatically that he did indeed know. The camera seemed to look into the box and zoom in ominously on the pentagram; as it got closer you could see that there was a different place on the other side. As it zoomed through the camera shifted to my vision as I saw a group of people walk by and I followed them into what I seemed to think was a hospital. We were talking about some project I was going to work on (it seemed like a job interview?). Inside, we entered some board room through a set of doors and then went to another set of doors along the same wall to let two other people in (I was already with two other people). One of them was Dr. Werremeyer, whom I was happy to see after so long. At some point it transitioned to me at my car at what seemed to be the gas station on University Drive in Fargo that we used to always get gas at. I seemed to think for a moment that my brother was joining me. We got into the car and were waiting there for a while. We amused ourselves with the two extremely short old ladies in the car next to us. At some point he asked me what we were waiting for, I replied that I wasn't sure, that I'd started with 5 professors and now had 0 and that if this was a dream it was kind of a shitty one, which prompted a reality check. It didn't pass (I remember thinking it was going to and being initially surprised that it didn't). I managed to keep focus but immediately getting to work. As I was doing this I was looking across a street corner and there was a lot of Hispanic people walking across the corner towards me. I decided since I didn't like this dream that I'd clean it up a little bit, so I mentally ordered the wind to blow everything away. It became quite a bit windier (as I could notice in the trees in the background), but it wasn't enough to blow the people away. I tried ordering it again and was able to blow a few people off their feet. I incidentally noticed I had a bottle of lime slushy stuff that I was drinking from. I also recall thinking this dream was going on a while (my temporal perception seemed awry here in retrospect) and I should come write about it. Since my current efforts weren't working I tried to get out of my car but somehow got my head stuck in the door and in trying to get myself out I accidentally woke up.

Observation: as I'd previously noted, during a failed reality test my breathing becomes noticeable as the kind of nasal breathing my waking body would experience. This time I discovered that maintaining this nasal breathing sound helped hold lucid focus. I seemed to think this lucid dream was longer, but I can't seem to remember much going on. Anyways, good stuff.