Friday night/Saturday morning I had one of my many dreams which leaves me haunted by the aura of the dream for days. Most of the details became hopelessly garbled upon waking up, as dreams so often do. But here's the gist of what was left:
I was on this street which was mostly like a street I drive through in Concord but with elements of Laconia, Carbondale, and complete fiction thrown in. It's a residential street, lined with rather nondescript, 2-story, wooden frame houses, all of which seem to be white.
Somehow I meet this guy who I would swear I know in real life but just cannot remember who he is. (As usual.) For some reason I agree to go back to his house to see it and meet his roommates. It's one of those houses with an exterior that looks like someone has added a number of boring box-like additions to a rather boring original box, and has taken no special care in designing any of the additions or in building them. But it looks large and old, and sometimes the insides of large old houses are full of charming old wooden fixtures and lots of character, right?
Not this one. Every wall is covered with cheap wood paneling. Every piece of furniture looks like it was salvaged from an outdoor dump. Anyone who ever went to a party in half the rental houses/apartments in Carbondale has an idea what this looks like. We spend a long time standing in the main room downstairs, and all I can see of the rest of the house is another large room downstairs and a giant square cut into the ceiling between the two rooms. This gives a view of the second floor which looks pretty much like the first. But there are no stairs. No ladder. No way to get up or down. The Guy's roommates consist of a woman and a man who are in and out of the rooms (to and from who knows where) and don't say much but I'm getting bad vibes and they're giving me looks that I don't trust. There are at least a couple of other girls upstairs, but I'm not sure how I know this.
While The Guy is talking to me, I realize I'm not going to be allowed to leave. I've been lured here so they can put me on the second floor with the other girls up there. I'm getting a little scared and a little panicky, but I'm playing it very cool. For one thing, the walls of the other downstairs room and what I can see of the upstairs are lined with large windows. No shades or curtains that I noticed, but all the better to let in lots of light. The place feels oppressive in some ways, but it's also very light and very open. I find this somehow reassuring. Still, I'm not sure why they want to keep people on the second floor, and this is obviously a very large part of why I'm scared. There doesn't seem to be any indication that captives are being abused or tortured or having horrifying things done to them. But, this is both reassuring and MORE frightening, because if not those things then WHAT??
The Guy has shown me into a small library off the main room, and we are alone. He's still talking to me about who knows what, and I'm trying to talk him out of keeping me here. I realize that something is wrong with him. He doesn't make eye contact. He's not engaged. He's aware of me but doesn't care. He's distant, remote. I've realized this because, even after figuring out that he wants to keep me captive in this house, I've been attracted to him the whole time and I'm getting frustrated because I can't make him respond to me. (In the dream, I'm single and live alone in an apartment in a house not far from this street. Very strong Grad School Days vibe on that aspect.) I've actually been trying to sort of seduce him both because I simply want him to like me and because I'm hoping if I can get him to like me he'll stop being "bad" and let me go.
But he's not interested in me for me. My attempts aren't getting anywhere, and so my mind is becoming increasingly frantic in it's attempts to come up with escape plans. Then, somehow, another guy enters the dream who is trying to help me and I end up escaping.
Do I immediately run to the police or to my home? No. Not at all. First I wander around the neighborhood, walking on various different kinds of pebbles. Because, you know, in residential neighborhoods there are often multiple large open areas, each just covered with individual types of pebbles. Then it's getting dark and I realize I should go home where I'll be safe. But instead of just going, I start walking up and down the street. Then I hear a car coming and hide, and when the car goes by it's The Guy, and suddenly I'm absolutely terrified he'll catch me again. He stops to talk to someone else who was out walking down a side street, and I start making my way toward my street, crouching behind cars in driveways and running to hide behind trash cans and bushes. Up and down and around various side streets, circling back closer to where The Guy is instead of straight home! And I'm screaming at myself in my head to just GO HOME AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. But I'm not doing it.
Which is when I wake up feeling numerous intense emotions that won't subside for over an hour. There's still some of the panic and fear. There's still frustration at myself for not being sensible. But there's also this sort of dirty feeling of having been embedded in such a sordid place. Sordid is the perfect word for it, but even the perfect word isn't enough to convey the feeling that continued to haunt my whole body. The miasma of the immorality, depravity, impoverishment on so many levels that permeated that house. And I wasn't even sure why The Guy lived there. Why he was doing what he was doing. Because I really, REALLY didn't want him to be what he was. I woke up feeling guilty for wanting him, but I also woke up still wanting him the way I had in the dream. And that just made everything even more sordid.
That dream atmosphere stayed with me to some degree the rest of the weekend. Then I had another "weird atmosphere" dream last night. I don't remember anything about it, although I know it wasn't the same at all. But, it also left me feeling somewhat unsettled when I woke up. I snapped out of that more easily and thought it was all pretty much gone. Until I drove up that street in Concord this morning, and my stomach got really tight and my nerves went on alert. It was a very strange feeling, and I wanted to stop and look at each house more carefully while also wanting to drive through as fast as possible and get out of there.
For a dream to have that kind of power after two days is rather awesome. I'm fascinated by the visceral power these kinds of dreams have over me. If I had a choice between extremely strong disturbing dreams that might be considered "bad dreams" and uneventful, utterly forgettable dreams, I'm picking the disturbing ones whose auras can still be felt years later. It's sort of like some alternative high. Such dreams can feel like a portal to another universe, and I'm definitely holding onto that. Because while they can make me feel slightly disconnected from this world for brief flashes of time, they also make me feel more alive. As if I can lead all these multiple lives without having to sacrifice any of them. And that's rather exciting, I think.
