The Dream

Once in a while something happens that stands out. Sure, there are lots of events in life that keep us distracted, and lots of things popping up that make us worry or nervous. Things that heighten our feelings of impending doom, things that consume our consciousness involuntarily.

I am not a superstitious person. I do not believe in folklore or things that come in the night to take us away. Forces unseen are for fatalists, for those unable to contend with the chaos and randomness of a life perceived.

This week, two nights ago I had a dream. It is rare for me to be compelled to tell others about my dreams, and as I climb in age I seem to remember less and less about what I dream, and when. Sometimes I will share the odd memorable one with my wife, and usually my anecdotes end in collective laughter or a puzzled, but intrigued reaction. This dream was different. It had it’s own narrative and unfolded in a manner that made it purer and much more acrid than any other dream I have ever had.

I remember once, over twenty years ago stirring from a dream with a similar impact. I awoke partially, and rose with a phrase expelling repeatedly from my semi-conscious breath. I chanted the phrase: “spalay contolas”

For the longest time I sought out what this might mean, searching dictionaries and databases, to find nothing. I concluded that it was simple poppycock, a common brain misfire. But the phrase is still with me. It is scorched onto my brain like a cattle brand.

This new dream does not have me searching for it’s hidden meaning. But it does have me somewhat paralyzed when I try to articulate how it makes me feel, and why it may have occurred. So I have decided to share it with you the best I can.

The Dream
I drift in an out of what is reality and fantasy. My wife and I are living in a near future. Our life is similar to what it is now, but we spend the most of our time recreationally. There is no need for work and society has somewhat transformed into a form of utopia. We are at peace with each other and our lives together are harmonic and symbiotic. We both have a common compelling fascination, and we spend our time together in the dream nurturing this fascination. In this near future there is a new form of recreation. It involves spending time in a hyperrealistic reality that induces euphoria, an extreme pleasure-sensory state of fantasy. This sensory mind-state is not of a sexual nature, it is beyond that and more comparative to what it might be like to experience enlightenment and emotional completeness.

To experience this reality one must allow themselves to be connected into a network of physical and electrical bonds, not unlike a form of life support. We willingly allow ourselves to be “put under” to experience this recreation. It is uncomfortable and emotionally oppressive to succumb to the procedures of connection and there is a price that is negotiated prior to the sessions we participate in.

Each session leaves us yearning for more. Another longer, deeper, more intense experience is needed every time. Each time we participate in such a session we return with a feeling of being closer to infinity, enlightenment or the god-image we see at the centre of ourselves; the universe. The price we pay for these sessions is our life-force. Our essence or soul is tapped from us reducing our age expectancy and energy level. The procedure feeds off our life-spark or mana.

We are relentless. We collectively become more and more consumed with the sessions until our life becomes a delirium, with images of us beside each other coming out of sessions and going right back in. I see Daniela in between my states of euphoric delight, we connect eyes and subconsciously agree to trade off more time to go back in. The cycle continues like a loop of video repeating itself over and over. Time passes and we are aware of it slipping by, but we continue with the sessions. We see no other destination. We feel falsely connected through our addiction, and become disillusioned by our collective rationale.

Then there is a change in time. We are informed that we have come to the end of our resources, and that there is no way to continue the sessions, as our life-forces are dangerously depleted. Our continuous exposure to the sessions has transformed us and I see that Daniela has some metallic traits and looks almost cybernetic. Her likeness is there and I see her, but the lines between the physical world and mental one have begun to blur. We are like lab experiments and are fastened permanently to the machines. We are not afraid. We feel close and comforted by our unity. There is a displaced overarching fear, an unstoppable force that has enveloped us and it is dissolving our reality rapidly. We ignore it.

There is only one outcome. It is disguised as a choice. We can completely succumb to the machine and be consumed by it. We are promised that it will put us into the permanent state of euphoria we have been chasing over the course of our time spent trading life-force for recreation. We both agree, and we begin to witness each other being consumed by the machine.

Slowly I watch as Daniela is dissolved into a mass of liquid metal and biomass. Her body is effortlessly melted into the framework of the machine. I recall what is left of her as I too transform at the same time. We have locked eyes and I see her head and the last part of her left shoulder before my vision fades and I begin to feel completely flush all over.

There is no vision now. Just feeling. My body has liquified. I feel whole and as myself, but in a liquid state. It is the strangest sensation and I imagine myself as a large mass of thick pink meat-paste flowing through the contours of the machine. Then I feel myself connecting and mixing with Daniela. We slowly become one large mass and the feeling is a hyper-closeness. We share a common consciousness but still have our own separate essences. We have been interwoven together.

The dream continues and Daniela and I are flowed through a series of machines. Our liquid is refined and processed and as time passes we feel less and less solid and more fluid. We are afraid. We are helpless and we feel like we are in a way being consumed. The darkness of the situation is only softened by the fact that we are intertwined at a level we never thought possible.

Our fluid mass begins to move faster and we merge with what seems to be many many other human essences. The sensation is overwhelming and I feel alone but yet connected closer to others that ever before, more than I ever conceived possible. I can feel us changing and formulating into some new unfounded life force.

We are a large mass now. A large vacuole of viscous pink meat-like liquid with many many life essences all separate but connected. All individual but completely intimate.

The dream is starting to fade, and as it does I see that we are being pumped into a large metal human shaped figure. It looks like a steel hollow robot filled with maze-like pathways that we flow into and fill. As the dream ends I feel afraid. I sense that we all have been consumed and will be utilized as mere fuel for this steel monolithic human archetype.

As I slowly wake I see the monolith walking away. Daniela and I are located in the left calf of the machine. I fade from the dream and the feeling of awakening warrants our consumption and death within it.

In Conclusion
I have little to say. In some ways I want to go on and on about what it all means, and how important it is. Where did this come from? Is it merely the bi-product of overeating the night before? A case of indigestion fuels the brain to transform my collective consciousness into a narrative like so? More poppycock? I really have no idea. But what I do know is that I won’t forget it for a while. The emotional resonance that it created is hard to shake. The sensory experiences of the dream were unfounded  and made me feel ways I have never felt before. I didn’t know that was still possible.