9/3/10
It is possible that I’ve actually had this dream on more than one occasion…A recurring dream. My uncertainty lies in the fact that this realization was made by my dream-self during the dream’s course. Was this merely a delusion? Or archived memories being re-drawn, reborn?
I was meditating up in a tree-house, although not some slipshod, weekend hobby tree-house with one room and amateur carpentry. This was a home, in a tree, and made almost completely out of smoothed and polished wood. The word “autochthonous” comes to mind, since the structure blended almost seamlessly in with its surrounding sylvan environment. And my house had a lot of open space; the outer walls were practically all window (no panes of glass though…just open air, for a more complete synthesis with the surrounding nature).
Boom! The crack of a shot echoed in the woods, and I felt immediately threatened. Someone had fired at me! A rifle, to be exact; I knew it was a sniper rifle, and that there was a sniper somewhere in the trees, targeting me. Boom! again. He was trying to kill me. I look out into the forest, over the canopy, seemingly miles afar into the treetops, in hopes of spotting my assassin. I see rustling, but nothing more. I cannot make out any human form. But I immediately get low to the ground and crawl towards my spiral staircase in the center of the room, to get down to ground level and a safer location.
It’s around this time that I have the thought, the spark of lucidity, that I’ve been in this exact dream before. That my dream-self can actually have its own consciousness is amazing.
Some adults are congregating on the floor below, men and women alike, and I recognize them as my acquaintances. They also are aware of the sniper, and report having been fired at as well. He’s going after all of us! BOOM! This time, the shot is closer, and although we are below the canopy now, I definitely see movement in the treetops, coming from the same direction as last time. Flash of blue wiggling and vanishing quicker than I can recognize it. Our assassin is advancing through the trees, approaching our dwelling for a better shot. I see the flash of some limbs flailing from a branch as our assailant leaps through the air to his next mark. The four (maybe five) of us crouch down and hustle behind a steel bookcase or large safe, whatever, for protection.
At this point we discuss the necessity of defending ourselves, and that’s when I discover a black Glock in my right hand. As soon as I notice my weapon, however, four (or five) bullets WHIZ by my head in super slow motion, ripping and curling through the window space and through the room, around my head; they leave slow visual trails of bronze and nickel snaking like comet tails, thick winding coils wrapping around me, and past the trails I see a man in a blue shirt peeking out from behind a patch of branches…he’s only a few meters from me! A phantom, more than a man, acrobat with a deadly weapon, on a mission to end me. Instinctively I raise my right hand to eye level, close my left eye, aim my handgun, and fire three rounds into his chest. He falls from his perch.
***
Familiarity with the movie “Inception” is recommended, to fully recognize the action that takes place.
An individual builds his memory palace like a warehouse building, floor-by-floor. In the basement are his deepest, darkest, most sinister memories and ideas, monsters of the subconscious and irreconcilable regrets. As he enters the elevator shaft, enclosed by only an iron fence, and travels skyward, the memories become lighter, happier, more peaceful. At the tallest floor accessible by buttons reside the most magnificent memories, those of pure splendor and love, sunshine, the memories most frequently looked back upon with exuberant longing and adoration. This individual’s top floor is a beach, with his wife and children playing by the surf.
I am an intruder into this man’s mind. I have gained entry into his memory hotel, and am riding the elevator upwards. I know of a trick that hotel patrons use to access the exclusive penthouse suites, those located at the VERY top of the building, but which cannot be reached by the pressing of any one button. Instead, I know to hit the topmost buttons in all the columns simultaneously (granted, there must be more than one column…in this case there was). The elevator continues half a floor past the beach scene, and stops. I pry open the fence doors and climb to the next floor, which is concrete, barren, dark, and extends forever in every direction, like an infinite parking garage, absent of time. The only light comes from the beach below, and a perfectly square hole in the ceiling above the elevator car. I climb onto the car and hoist myself through the opening, up to the roof, the roof of this man’s mind.
Stepping out into the ascetic city streets, from the manhole whence I emerged, I recognize this place as the man’s subconscious. It resembles a post-apocalyptic New York City, where the sky is a churning stormy grey. My footsteps echo down the street, which is void of everything except the most plain, austere cement sidewalk. All cars, signs, coloring, has vanished. There aren’t even storefronts or entrances anywhere - the faces of the buildings are flat and windowless, stone blocks which may or may not be hollow. The face of the city begs for ornamentation and animation. Just then, the silent street produces three well-dressed agents, advancing quickly in my direction.
I suppose I am also an agent, but more likely a thief. My mission is to perform extraction or espionage upon this memory palace, the mind, and only now, once I have seen the raw, inner crust of the subconscious and its loneliness am I forced to face defensive combat against the mind itself. The three guards approach, question, and ultimately attack me. I manage to kill one of the guards in our battle. As the ringleader has my throat under his boot, however, his other henchman turns on him, rescuing my life in the process.
See, I had had the foresight to send a double-agent ahead of me to infiltrate the security of this mind: to establish himself with the reconnaissance team, and shadow the number-one until it was time for me to be hostilely confronted...at which point he would use the element of surprise and betray his own team and rejoin me. The plan worked; my accomplice takes me by the arm and pulls me up from the ground where I lay.
