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Do Your Dreams Have Consistent Geography?
5 years ago
General
"Does aₘᵢₙ=2c²/Θ ? I don't know, but wouldn't it be fascinating if it were?"
A good portion of my dreams take place in what's recognizably a city I've spent forty years, more or less, wandering through... but not /quite/ any version of the city I've ever known. For example, whenever I dream about a particular road that crosses a railway, in my dreams that road always goes over it with a bridge, instead of being at the same level; another road that goes up a straight hill, in my dreams the road goes straight up it instead of reality's bend to be at a shallower angle.
Sometime last year, I dreamed that the city's main bus terminal had some non-existent stairs and elevators leading down to a subway station, and spent most of the dream exploring the place. A later dream, I went down there and took a long-distance subway ride to Toronto (which is an hour's drive away). Last night, the existence of the subway system was taken so much for granted that I just assumed its existence while I was deciding where to go.
(Last night's dream also involved some sort of political/civil unrest. There wasn't any sort of natural disaster or war or similar emergency, but there were lots of nervous people milling around, the occasional demagogue shouting to an attentive audience, and the thought of calling emergency services in case of looting or mob violence simply never occurred as a possibility. So I decided to get away from the dangerous-feeling areas by seeking shelter at the subway terminal. Also, texting my family involved a MLP-themed app. Also, for some reason, I was in a wheelchair; something was wrong with my left ankle, which ached.)
There are other such consistent changes to reality, and it's not just the larger features. Whenever I dream about a certain one of my childhood homes, in my bedroom closet is a hatch just big enough for me to wiggle through, to a deeper secondary closet that somehow fits inside the walls. Another childhood home has a much-expanded basement.
Not counting fantasy stories where dreams exist in their own dimension, I don't remember ever reading about anyone else's dreams not just being funhouse reflections of reality, but the distortions lasting for more than one dream.
How about you? Does the landscape you visit when you're asleep stay the same from night to night?
Sometime last year, I dreamed that the city's main bus terminal had some non-existent stairs and elevators leading down to a subway station, and spent most of the dream exploring the place. A later dream, I went down there and took a long-distance subway ride to Toronto (which is an hour's drive away). Last night, the existence of the subway system was taken so much for granted that I just assumed its existence while I was deciding where to go.
(Last night's dream also involved some sort of political/civil unrest. There wasn't any sort of natural disaster or war or similar emergency, but there were lots of nervous people milling around, the occasional demagogue shouting to an attentive audience, and the thought of calling emergency services in case of looting or mob violence simply never occurred as a possibility. So I decided to get away from the dangerous-feeling areas by seeking shelter at the subway terminal. Also, texting my family involved a MLP-themed app. Also, for some reason, I was in a wheelchair; something was wrong with my left ankle, which ached.)
There are other such consistent changes to reality, and it's not just the larger features. Whenever I dream about a certain one of my childhood homes, in my bedroom closet is a hatch just big enough for me to wiggle through, to a deeper secondary closet that somehow fits inside the walls. Another childhood home has a much-expanded basement.
Not counting fantasy stories where dreams exist in their own dimension, I don't remember ever reading about anyone else's dreams not just being funhouse reflections of reality, but the distortions lasting for more than one dream.
How about you? Does the landscape you visit when you're asleep stay the same from night to night?
Which is extremely rare, most of the time I don't even know if I was dreaming at all..
Never have a consistent landscape, it's randomly selected every time... A lot of the time it's completely made up as well as decidedly rather surreal and non-euclidean..
Other times, it'll accurately incorporate pieces of places I know, my bedroom.. house.... places I used to work.... But stitched together in a way that makes absolutely no sense..
For example I wake up in my current bedroom, I leave the room and I'm in the hallway of my grandma's house over 20 years ago.. I turn a corner and I'm in the screen printing room I used to work in..
And the things that happen in these places rarely make sense for where they are... Fairly certain my old college classroom never had a pet Velociraptor..
Other people report that, for some reason, dreams of your teeth falling out are experienced by many. Now try that while you are poking and prodding your teeth by reaching them from behind while looking through your cheek. Not that the flesh is immaterial at all - more like the dreaming mind just forgets it exists.
Then there are the ones from top-down perspective. Yes, I dream with computer game interfaces sometimes.
I also dream about a future repeatedly where cars and trucks no longer exist, but you can walk on the old expressways. Parking garages still exist but they are filled with merchants, like in a flea-market. This future feels a little bit like steam-punk because steam engines still exist. A newspaper office uses steam power to run a printing press. There is no television or internet or electricity.
Since I've moved to another city, I have dreams in both, and other places, like a town half way between the two cities, that are always the same and familiar but different from the real world.
I also occasionally have dreams in purely fantasy worlds, which are different from those fantasy worlds in canon but consistent between my dreams. I've had a few interesting dreams featuring the characters of One Piece but the settings are different. Big Mom has a floating city similar to Thriller Bark for example, instead of her nation of foodstuffs sculpted islands.
It's pretty interesting. Some dreams can be a lot of fun, others are just 'there'.
I even see maps in my dreams!