The Vividness of Dreams

by Matthew Warlick | Dec 19, 2006 | Blog, Dreams

Three nights ago I had a VERY strange dream. I wasn’t asleep, well not for long at least. I literally closed my eyes, had this “dream”, then woke up, with only a few seconds going by. I called it the Stinkfist dream. It was similar to Tool’s video where the little guy rips off the covering on the pipes and there is like a solid mass moving inside it. Only this was a wall, and it had people in it.

I was suddenly standing next to a perfectly good wall, when all of the sudden it cracked open and sort of sucked me in. It was like a tidal wave. Only inside a wall. Only it was circular. Like a big tube of people being washed away. Only there was no water, just people. Screaming, scared, insane, indifferent; all twisting and turning and being pushed through this conduit towards something.

I immediately woke up, I mean who wouldn’t. And realized I hadn’t even really been asleep, it was more like a flash when I closed my eyes, as I was still wide awake and the minutes on the clock hadn’t even changed.

I forgot about it until the next night, and as I was drifting off it hit me, and for some reason all I could think about was “damn, all those people were just as scared and confused as I was.” Which, while sounding very cliché’ and all that, had a profound impact on me as I was drifting off to sleep.

I thought about it again last night, went to write it down, and saw my notes from last week. I had forgotten about the previous dream of being trapped in a pyramid. Odd I know. I was digging out one of the chambers that shoots up from the tomb at an angle, aimed at a star so the dead king’s soul can more easily travel to the next world. Seems my equipment quit running and I got trapped, face down at a 45 degree angle, with no way to get out. I finally got so frightened I scared myself awake.

That just happened to be another one of those “not asleep but dreaming” dreams, where I closed my eyes for a few seconds and had an intense dream that lasted several minutes.

And I’m not even really sure what the point of this particular post is, other than to help me not forget. Which is to say, remember.