A dream that still haunts me
I used to have terrifying dreams regularly. I was afraid to go to sleep because I felt I’d be haunted by a new tragedy in my sleep. I’d have very lucid dreams but became aware I couldn’t wake myself up and felt paralyzed and trapped in the dream world while being unable to move my real body. Thankfully, over the past couple years, this has become very rare.
There was a dream I had about 8 years ago that still haunts me. I was reminded of it recently both when reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke and with the release of Backrooms. I haven’t actually watched Backrooms, but the vibes felt similar.
When I had this dream I wrote it down. I want to post it here in the original text I wrote for my own safekeeping.
—-----
I had a dream that the world was very uninhabited and barren. I’m not sure if it was post-apocalyptic or if I just lived somewhere extremely remote and desolate. But I hated the conditions I lived in and so I tried to escape. When trying to do so, I did something that got me trapped in what was either a dark secret world underground or another dimension. Either way, I suddenly found myself trapped in a cell which was actually identical to a room in an apartment my mom and I lived in during high school.
I had a group of 3 friends in the real (dream) world who I don’t know in real (awake) life. They knew I was trapped and ventured to save me. They repeated whatever actions I did that got me to where I am - I think it was just walking through a certain door or wall in my real-world childhood apartment basement. This door/portal brought you to the other world but the passageway disappears when you walk through it so you’re trapped.
Meanwhile I’m being beaten and physically tortured daily. My jailers (and I guess all other beings) in this world are all horrifying humanlike abominations with mutations all over their body. It’s horrifying to look at.
My friends are very quickly captured and brought to a different cell that wasn’t physically near me. My jailers know that they’re my friends and decided to stop physically torturing me but instead show me videos of my friends being tortured because they knew that it would mentally torment me to be the reason my friends are being tortured while also being spared from physical torture my self. And this did completely destroy me mentally.
But my life improved in the cell and I was able to move to more parts of the area (which is all still just the apartment I lived in in high school) so I could do my own laundry. But they still showed me the videos daily. Eventually I found a way to secretly contact my friends and confirm they were alive. I assured them I was using my time to find a way to rescue us all.
Meanwhile there was a child of these demons who would come visit my cell when I was tortured or shown a video. The child was like 90% human and with a cute human face. I felt this suggested the mutations on these beings come later in life but they’re also maybe just human at their core.
Eventually the child came to be interested in me and would enter my cell alone. I loved this child like he was my own and would hug him and hold him close which he loved and at one point I put my hands on his cheeks and told him I love him dearly and I feel so blessed to have been able to meet him. I didn’t want him to know how tormented I was by his family.
Eventually my jailers grew suspicious of me. I was no longer able to contact my friends through the usual method and began to suspect they had died and the videos they showed me were old. I pushed forward my plan to escape and rescue them to be the next day. The main jailer grew even more suspicious of me and said in a few days he will kill either me or my friends. At this point my heart was racing in real life and I woke up but even now I feel miserable and guilty for waking up without saving my friends. Feels like I’ve been spared while they’re left behind to suffer. And I want to see the child again. The end.
—
Note: Perhaps this dream would more appropriately be called a nightmare. But since it introduced me to individuals who felt so real and for whom my dream-self clearly loved dearly, I feel compelled to designate it a dream.