Texture Dream

http://www.vexen.co.uk/d/one.html

By Vexen Crabtree 2000

I am maintaining a hotel during a long quiet holiday period when it is otherwise out of use. But something is wrong with the running water.

The loud banging sounds emanating from the water pipes around the building must be caused by loose fittings on the pipes in the basement; they bang on wall from the movements of the water inside them.

But I dread going down there to secure them properly. The basement is a labyrinth that extends beyond the actual footprint of the building.

It's my job, and there's no avoiding it. So, I descend the stairs and explore. The corridor is thirty meters wide, thirty meters high and extends for a long time ahead. You could fly a helicopter down it.

The walls on the left and right are covered in pipes, at vertical intervals of 30-40cm. None of them are fixed to the wall, but they seem perfectly stable despite extending as far as I can see, without support.

Still walking, I see some animals. They are like cats, but very tall, vertically stretched cats. Long legs, long necks; Siamese in aesthetics. One cat looks at me. Its teeth are external to its mouth - narrow and tall like dirty spears, and in multiple rows. I consider running away, but do not.

I formulate a plan; if the cats are dangerous I will climb up the pipes as they form an ideal ladder.

Further down, there are dozens of cats, all motionless, and watching me. I feel out of place. They're behind me too. I climb the pipes as far as they go, taking me to roof height. I sidestep, to continue going down the corridor.

Taking a breather, I survey the opposite wall. I'm shocked and frightened to see cats sat confidently on the top pipe. This means they can climb up to the top pipe on this side of the tunnel too.

I move quickly and realize I am just about to reach the end of the tunnel.

The tunnel ends not with a turn to the left or right, but in a vertical turn 90 degrees downwards. The pipes follow the curves of the walls, all of them dropping into a huge hole big enough to drop a cathedral into. There's no visible bottom, fading into an invisible blackness.

The cats are approaching menacingly behind me, salivating over their incisors: This is where I normally like to wake up.

I have jumped into the hole, my heart beats with some panic, but I realize it is going to be ok. I am confident the fall won't harm me. There is silence all around.

I land in water and scull, keeping afloat.

The entire area is a dark, ambient, red colour. I cannot see the ceiling. I am in the centre of a room which is so large I cannot describe it.

The water is deep red, hard to see into, and quickly becomes opaque at about waist level. If I died my body would float downwards for many hours before resting on the floor of the room.

There are no proper walls to form this room. Instead are huge red drapes; they could conceal a cathedral behind them. They seem a foot thick, they are made from a soft red material.

I move through the water towards one of the curtains. I can duck under it to leave the room.

It takes a long time to get there and before I know it I have passed through. The other side of the curtain is another room, the same as the one I had just left.

This time I cross the room much quicker. There is a fast black skinny ghostly shadow in the water. There is more than one. They zip around me with no definable features, very fast, and deep in the water.

I cross the room in a slight panic to escape the lightning fast shadows in the water, and enter a third room just as immensely big as the others. I cross this room even faster, and quickly reach the half way mark.

You're not going to believe how this dream ends.

I look back, and realize there is a platform hovering in the centre of the room, a meter above the level of the water with no discernible method of suspension. I am approaching it, it looks like a plain concrete platform, the size of a double bed, it has a pair of large double doors, black and gothic, perched on top of it. On the edge of the platform facing me is a frame with a big pastel-red square button in it, the sign above it reads "Exit". It is a replica of the exit-level button from the original computer game, Doom. As I approach the button the dream ends and I wake up.

Mindless Dream Interpretation Books

#dreams

There are many books available, more or less in dictionary format, that attempt to tell you what individual elements of dreams might signify. They're useless, although by drawing upon common human experiences, they sometimes sound about right but only if you share the general culture of the author, where you might decide that certain things have agreed-upon meanings. It's still best to count them as speculative waffle, especially in any universal or absolute sense.

For more, see:

Here's what some my books say about some elements from this dream:

A Bottomless Pit:

The bottomless chasm is traditionally a symbol of despair, or chaos, but it need not have these connotations [...]. If you manage to cross, or move around, an abyss that can be a positive sign that you have the abilities to overcome obstacles. If you fall into the abyss, take it as a warning to be on your guard against obstacles which could prevent you from fulfilling some important aim.

"Teach Yourself Dream Interpretation" by Leila Bright (1999)1

To dream of an abyss, crevice or cavern, signifies that you will soon enjoy happiness.

Cagliostro

I think in this case I overcame the chasm.

A Hotel:

This can symbolize irresponsibility and can be a warning that you should be more responsible, perhaps in your relationships, or that you should try to drop some of your responsibilities and have some fun.

"Teach Yourself Dream Interpretation" by Leila Bright (1999)1

I don't think this interpretation fits the dream... I think I'm more likely to have simply been recalling the hotel from the screen version of Stephen King's "The Shining", the emotion of the abandoned hotel is a close match to the way it felt in the dream.