I found myself in a large crowd. I can't describe where we were--at times we were in a small room, other times a wide city street, other times on top of a hill in a field that stretched on forever. I've dreamed of that hill before, several times. The geography of my dreams stays constant. It's fairly bizarre to me that I always take the same route--the same imaginary route--to get to conjured representations that are nothing like their real life counterparts. What's REALLY bizarre is that I seem to learn as I go, the routes becoming less foreign and easier to traverse, as if my dreaming self is a living, learning, growing person instead of just scattered thoughts and projections, the nocturnal ramblings of a brain gone bored.
Whenever large events happen in the sky, it tends to be at the hill. Sometimes the events are astronomical in fashion, planets swirling heavily near the atmosphere. Sometimes huge lights of various colors flash in patterns reminiscent of the ships in Close Encounters, but I always know that they're not alien in nature. I NEVER dream of aliens. More recently, the events have involved huge physical constructs, again resembling some sort of alien ship, but never of alien origin. More often than not they are cataclysmic weapons sent by some other country, floating slowly, almost hanging in the air, daring gravity to ignore them until they grind to a halt in a nearby riverbed, fueling a tsunami that is crushing towards me as I turn to run and for once I'm not locked in place but there is no way I can move fast enough to outrun that wave, even now it's pushing me down and filling my nose and lungs with brine--
Man, I'm way off subject. I was talking about the hill, about dream geography, wasn't I?
I'll describe the route south. It begins in the woods. Not primal "when we all lived in the forest and nobody lived anywhere else" woods, but the kind you'd be comfortable playing hide and seek in. You walk calmly through, not stopping to smell the pine or honeysuckle but admiring them as you walk, and at some point, a shift occurs and you're not walking anymore, you're driving. The road is varied, parts flat, parts hilly, but as you crest the last hill you are able to see the city.
It is bounded by a river. The highway crosses over it and brings you to the elevator. If you keep driving, you come to an area of the city that is made of broken cars and collapsed buildings all mushed together. Your transport somehow survives every sudden drop, ever jarring landing that scrapes more metal from the frame of your car.
Once you pass through that you're halfway to Grandma's house, but let's leave that path for a moment and go back to the city, and the elevator.
To the left of the elevator is a door that leads to a bar. They will ALWAYS take your coat as you enter. The bar is dark and quiet, the perfect place to get a drink. You will never see anyone familiar there.
Take the elevator down. It opens onto a crossroads. In front of you is a step down to take you onto the street. To your left and right, brick walls that run the length of the entire street, running to the limits of your vision. The cross street is of no importance: your focus is entirely on the street in front of you. It rises with a grade that is both steep and gentle. There are several buildings lining the street as it ascends, none of them fantastic, just ordinary buildings, some stone, some wood.
There is always a Fair happening. Always an atmosphere of excitement, though there are no adornments or decorations hanging from the lampposts, which are always lit because it is always night, though it was daytime on the other side of the elevator. The Fair does not have to announce itself. It's just something you feel inside.
You reach the top of the hill, and you consider visiting the zoo that's just a few feet away, but you don't have a ticket. Instead, you turn to your left, and enter the plain two story stucco building.
There is nothing happening downstairs, but you can hear music coming from up top. You follow your ears up the stairs which hook a hard left in the middle. You arrive in a room, and there against the back wall is the source of the music--a piano. There is no one playing it, and the music has stopped, is forgotten, and was never there.
Your clothes have changed. No reason.
There is a door on your right. You take it, and there you are, back at the bottom of the same gentlesteep hill, but now the faceless buildings have been replaced with homes. Sometimes you will see old friends there. Sometimes you will see relatives. Very rarely you will see yourself, turning to enter the plain two story stucco building at the top of the hill.
That's where things finally change. Every other land mark, every detail or glaring lack thereof, is static and does not change. I've dreamed it dozens of times, and every time going south starts this very same way, and I go through the very same places.
The route going north is just plain fucking weird.
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Hold on--I really WAS way off subject. I was going to tell you about the dream I had of walking through a crowd. Oh well. Next time.
