Woke up a little while ago from another possibly-recurring dream. I say "possibly" because while I was dreaming, things looked familiar, but on awakening I couldn't remember any similar dream I had before.
Where I start remembering is in a castle at the top of a hill; I'm on the roof with the nobleman or whatever lives in the castle, the wind is blowing hard, and I start flying by flapping my arms (must be low-G in this dreamworld, as in a lot of my other dreamworlds). There's a river running past the castle, and I'm able to stay aloft just long enough to land gently in it. Then I go under the surface to avoid being observed, and near a bend in the river enter a culvert. This culvert has some blockages engineered to discourage people like me from navigating it, but I've been this route before and know all the tricks. I can't remember if I could breathe underwater, or if after a while there was air space at the top of the culvert; I do remember I was quite unconcerned at being trapped underwater in a closed space for a long time.
Eventually I reached a point from where I could start climbing to the surface; some kind of handholds were in the high vertical wall, or just the low gravity of the place made it possible to climb without handholds. When I was several stories up, I could grab onto the edges of the cubbyholes of a sheet-metal shelving unit with machine parts in it. I threw some of the parts down into the water in order to give my hands better purchase, though it probably wasn't necessary in that gravity... then looked around in the adjacent doorway for some signs of life. Eventually the noise I was making by rattling the shelving unit and throwing things off it attracted the attention of some clerk in the office across the hall. He came out, looked at me startled, and I said "help me!" at which point he grabbed my leg (though I wanted him to grab both arm and leg) and pulled me into the hallway. Somehow then I got a look at "myself", as in an out-of-body experience, and saw a gray-haired white guy with a crewcut, 60ish, listening with a crafty smile as the clerk tells him how lonely he is here and could use some help. At this point I wake up.
Now in what kind of world would you have normal offices and hallways, and through one portal off the hallway there's a 50-foot drop into a storm sewer? With a parts cabinet to the right of the portal (I'm using the word in the sense of "opening without a door") with no place for someone to stand (it must be attached to the concrete wall with screws and anchors)? Also during my underwater adventure it went through my mind that this was some kind of illegal contest that was held every year.
The idea of flying into a body of water is not restricted to my dreams; often, back when I was flying in planes a lot, I'd entertain myself by thinking that if the plane were sure to crash, I could jump out where I could see a body of water, spread-eagle, and try to reach it, thinking my survival chances would be a little better landing in water than on land (I've since learned that people routinely die jumping off bridges into rivers; the water doesn't give that much softer a landing).
last updated 2013-01-10 20:47:25. served from tektonic.jcomeau.com