April 21, 2025

I had a somewhat disturbing dream, but I think the meaning is clear. I
was in a research station in the arctic. Like at the north pole. But
for some reason, this research station was my grandma's house. It was
a mix of her house and a modern high-tech research facility. It had
the layout and rooms and decor of grandma's place, but there were
control panels and giant screens around, and every entrance had these
giant bulkhead doors to seal out the cold. It was also very crowded and
bustling at the start of the dream, both with researchers in lab coats,
and also with all my extended family members. We were there on serious
business, the world was under attack. We all watched on a giant screen
with a live feed from outer space as a nuclear weapon made impact first
in Brazil, wiping out Rio, then in Chicago. But my role here was one
nobody else knew about, I had a way to rewind time to fix it. I had a
special phone-like device that could connect to a network of satellites
and activate a top-secret apocalypse protocol that rewinds time by 30
minutes. I turned on the device and did so, and it worked. I did this
several times, but it was of no use, there was no way to stop the
attack from the north pole with an extra 30 minutes. Finally, I decided
to wait a little longer before rewinding to see what would happen. This
time, a few minutes after the first two nukes, some kind of powerful
energy weapon of a much greater scale was unleashed. It was like a
death star ray making contact in Central America. I felt a lurch of
despair and tried to rewind again, but this time it no longer worked.
The weapon had taken down the satellite network. I also just knew that,
unlike with the nuclear weapons, there would be no survivors from this
one. The entire American continent was dead, and presumably the rest of
the world shortly. I had been in the basement by myself to work the
device in private, but at this point my youngest brother comes
downstairs and tells me "Oh, you're still here. We're getting ready for
the end." I follow him upstairs, and my dad is there, but everybody
else has disappeared. It's just me, Dad, and little brother, and we are
the last people alive in the world. They are preparing to activate the
self-destruct on the station to blow it up and kill the three of us.
They are really taking it in stride, and I feel like I'm the only one
who even thinks anything is wrong. Just as they are doing it, I can't 
take it and I run back to the basement and seal the door, blocking off
the fiery blasts. My grandma's house is on a hill, so there is a back
exit out of a little storage room in the basement. I walk through the
storage room in the dark, past all the boxes and old items, the family
Christmas tree, my late grandfather's rock collection, my mother's
childhood dolls. The room is a lot longer than it should be, and when I
finally reach the back door, it is not an arctic bulkhead door, but the
regular old worn wooden door. I open it, and I am no longer in the
arctic but am looking out at my grandma's back yard exactly as it used
to be. It is dark, but after standing on the back porch for a few
minutes, the sun begins to rise. I walk around to the front outside,
and walk in the front door. There was no semblance of a research
station anymore, just grandma's house. No one was home.

I am reminded of an image I saw online a few days ago that said "you
can go back to the past, but no one is there anymore". A lot of things
I have been going through recently are represented in this dream. My
youngest brother (who is also the youngest cousin on both sides of the
family) is graduating high school in two months, and I have no nieces
or nephews. It feels like the end of the world I grew up in, and
so many family traditions that we grew up with are no longer being
practiced because there is nobody to practice them. Now my own
grandmother is getting old. That house from my dream is still sort of
the same, but a bit less alive than it used to be when I was a kid.
More and more rooms and areas are abandoned as my grandmother can't
get around to every corner of the house as easily as when she was
younger. The kiddie playground equipment and swing set are gone from
the yard, and all the toys are boxed up. When the family gathers at
the holidays, there are no kids anymore, and everyone has their own
job, so there are always a few people missing no matter when we
schedule it. One day Christmas won't be at my grandma's house anymore,
it will be at my mom's house. And my cousins won't be there, because
they will be at their parents' houses. I guess I just won't see them
anymore. My mom and dad almost never see their cousins. Maybe it isn't
as bleak as it seems. The first child in my generation was born when my
mom was 28, and her youngest sibling was 20. The equivalent is about
three years away for my generation. That means my parents and aunts and
uncles went through the same thing, several years of awkward and
melancholy transition from one generation to the next, all before the
world that I knew growing up even came into existence. That world is
reaching its end, and I hope the next world comes into existence soon.

April 15, 2025

This is going to be a long one, so get some popcorn. In fact, this
dream almost felt like a movie to me. I had this dream in December of
2021 and I immediately woke up and spent several hours writing it down.
I've never had such a long dream with a continuous plotline before. I
should make this into a novel. Here goes:

CHAPTER 1: The Library
It started in a library. It was clearly based on the pickler memorial
library, because it had a smaller brick building inside it that had
been built around to expand it. But in this library, you could not
enter the inner area. The usable library was just a ring around it.
There was one door on the inner building, it was large and ancient
looking and ornate but always locked. We assumed it was some sort of
maintenance or storage area, or something boring. I was bored in this
library one day and I decided to look around for interesting books. I
found a large, old looking book, which was decorated in a similar style
to the big door. I took out the book and opened it, only to see that it
was hollowed out and contained a giant metal key. I immediately thought
that it must be the key to the door. I brought the key to the door and
it worked, and I went in. Inside it was dark, but not completely pitch
black. I was in a hallway about 4 feet wide and 8 feet tall. It was
completely plain, just an empty hallway, but it made some kind of maze.
I wandered around the maze of hallways for a little bit, and eventually
came across a different door. I went through the door, but it
immediately clicked locked behind me! I was in a room that looked like
a fake nature area, like in a zoo, with a few rocks and cliffs. But on
the other side of the room, the floor dropped away, and there was a gap
of about 30 feet long between where the floor ended and the back wall
of the room. I could see two open doorways with staircases in them on
the back wall, which were the only way out of the room, since the door
through which I entered was locked. But of course, they were on the
other side of a giant gap. However, there were two paths to get across,
one leading to each exit. Leading to the exit on the left there were
giant circular platforms rising from beneath, which you had to jump 
between to get to the staircase. Leading to the exit on the right,
there was a thin beam you had to walk across, made of glass. I walked
up to the edge of the gap and looked down and saw that it was above a
pool of water, which was sizzling and crackling with electricity. At
this point it is still very dark in this room, as it was in the maze of
hallways. But suddenly, the room fills with light, and I can see more
clearly. On the other side of the gap, in an observation room in the
wall above the two exit staircases I can see a person watching me. This
person smacks a giant button, and suddenly a huge grate door on the 
wall behind me starts to open, and I can see there is a giant beast
behind it. It is like a ginormous wolf. I realize I have to take one of
the paths across the gap right now before the wolf chases me, and
thinking fast, I run across the glass beam, thinking that the wolf
cannot follow me as it is too heavy for it. I get to the other side and
turn around on the staircase to watch, as I predicted the wolf steps
one foot on the beam and pulls it back as it immediately shatters into
the water beneath. Then the beast goes to the other path and jumps to 
the first circle. It is good at jumping and can clearly make it across.
I go up my staircase and come out into the same type of hallway maze I
was in at first. To my horror, I see that right next to where I came
out, the other staircase comes out at the same place, so the beast will 
be there shortly after me. I just start running as fast as I can
through the maze, no idea where I am, hearing the sound of a beast
somewhere behind me. Suddenly I slam into someone else. He is also
running from another beast. We keep running side by side and just as 
the beasts are gaining on us, we find the door and slam it closed
behind us. We are back out into the library. It is now mostly empty, as
it has gotten late, and the library is closed, except there is a small
group of about ten people, all of whom say they also escaped from a 
beast in the inner building. We can hear the beast banging on the door
inside. One of the people tells me that it was a military organization
who was training the beasts to be smart and hunt people, and the puzzle
rooms are intended to test the beasts, not the people. We were all like
let's get out of here! But suddenly, the banging on the door by the 
beast stops. Suddenly the door flies open. It is the same guy I saw
watching me and releasing the beast from his cage, and he is wearing a
gas mask. He throws a gas cannister that starts to fill the whole
library and make people pass out, but I immediately hold my breath. I
notice that the gas is heavy and lying low down, but the library has a
very tall ceiling, so I climb up on top of a bookshelf so I can
breathe. The gas is thick, and people don't really look up, so no one
sees me jumping across the top of bookshelves to the front door of the
building, where I run out and escape. I was the only one who made it.

CHAPTER 2: The Facility
There is a time skip, not sure how long. I am in a cabin up north,
perhaps in Canada or Alaska. After the library incident, the shadowy
organization behind that had evacuated, and I found a group of other
people who had encountered them and worked together to track them up
north. That wasn't part of the dream, it's just lore which I knew. We
didn't know exactly where these people were hiding, but we knew they
were in the area and had this little outpost to look for them. So, I go
out exploring, wading through 10-inch-deep snow. And I come across a
building! It is in a valley below me, such that the roof of the
building is around the height of where I am currently standing. The
building itself is very large and cube-shaped, and on the roof, there
is a machine that contains a purple orb of energy which is crackling
wildly. There is also a helicopter pad on the roof. There are guards
everywhere, down on the ground below as well as on the roof around 
the energy orb machine. I return to the cabin to tell my companions
that I found them. Without any sort of plan, we're like okay I guess
let's go attack them. We return to the spot I was at and formulate a
plan. There is a little shed on the roof, so we circle around to that
spot and lay a giant plank from the edge of the valley to the roof of
the building and simple climb across to behind the shed, where we have
cover and can't be seen. Then we have a spy movie moment, making our
way across the roof rolling between crates and stuff and inexplicably
not being spotted. But then we are spotted. My companions, who are more
military trained than I, get into a gunfight with the guards on the
roof. In the chaos I see a trapdoor on the roof, so I dive into it
to the top floor of the building. Somehow, I am not followed. I find
a hall with a bunch of prison cells, containing all the people who were
in the library with me and had gotten recaptured. I asked them if they 
know the way out and they were like... there is no way out. I said I
had seen a helicopter on the roof, so that must be the only way to get
out. We all go back through the trapdoor onto the roof, only to see
that all of my companions had been slain. We panic and just started
running across the roof, while the guards shoot at us. But a stray
bullet hits the purple energy orb machine, and it starts going crazy.
It starts randomly releasing purple lightning bolts. Whenever they
strike something, it crumbles into dust. One of them strikes one of the 
guards, and he immediately ages super quickly and gets really old in
seconds, then turns to dust. I realize it is some kind of time
machine. Then the machine makes a clunking noise, and sort of explodes,
creating a giant spherical forcefield that surrounds the entire
building, including us. I can see time moving super quickly outside the
forcefield, seasons are passing in seconds, and there is a strobe
effect from the day cycle moving so quickly. But the forcefield is
shrinking. We see one of the guards fall outside the forcefield, and
when part of his body is outside it gets really old, and he dies. Now
we start panicking that we need to stay inside the field, but it is
shrinking towards the machine. There are only three guards left, but
they aren't fighting us at all anymore but trying to fix the machine.
A few of the people I found in the building take advantage of this to
grab their guns and throw them outside of the field, then start
fighting them. We outnumber them, and toss them all outside of the
field and they crumble away. It's just us left. But the field is still
shrinking, and the machine is making a noise that is getting louder
and louder. We think we're about to die but also the machine sounds
like it's going to explode. Most of the characters in my dreams don't
really have names, but this one guy is important to remember. I'll call
him Tyler, but he did not have a name in the dream. Tyler grabs a brick
on the roof and runs up to the machine and hits it, hoping to destroy
it to save us. Then everything happens really quick: as soon as he hits
it, he is deflected of the machine and thrown away at an insane speed,
obviously flying out of the force field so we presume he is dead.
Almost the same instant, the whole thing explodes in a purple flash.

CHAPTER 3: The Wild
We wake up, seemingly in a very different place than before. It looks
like a post-apocalypse world, it is very green and lush, with wildlife
taking over the ruins of civilization. Just minutes after waking up, we
see an actual army with artillery and tanks and whatnot in the distance
coming towards us. We start running in the other direction, but end up
getting cornered on a giant bridge across a river that has collapsed in
the middle so we cannot get across. One of the tanks shoots at us and
it hits the ground in front of us, making an explosion that catapults
us all off the bridge, and most of the group falls into the sea below.
But I am blown almost all the way to the other side of the bridge, and
my shirt catches on a metal bar poking out from it, and I'm hanging
there. But the smoke clears and I see the army on the other side of the
bridge pointing guns at me, so I immediately tear my shirt and fall
into the sea as well. The instant I land in the water, I am eaten by
a giant shark. Literally completely inside its mouth. But for some 
reason it opens its mouth, and I swim out. I break the surface, and
it is now raining. I look underwater and see another shark trying to
get me, I swim as fast as I can to this big piece of metal debris and
position it between me and the shark, and when it lunges at me it bites
on to the piece of metal and can't get it out of its mouth. I know I 
only have seconds, so I start swimming away, then suddenly I see a
circle where it just isn't raining. I swim into the circle and go 
underwater to look for the shark and I see that there are dozens of
sharks circling around, but they seemingly cannot enter the rain-less
circle. Then suddenly a bunch of guys wearing these yellow suits come
up on these hoverboard things that are gliding across the surface of
the water. One of them grabs me and pulls me on, and I see other ones
rescuing the other people in my group from the shark-infested waters.
We are taken on the gliders across to the other side of the body of
water, where we would've gone if the bridge had not been destroyed.
As we are approaching the shore, the rain clears, and I see the most
ginormous, colossal white wall I have ever seen in the distance. Just
as I am looking on in awe, the man on the glider with me holds a mask
to my face and it knocks me out.

CHAPTER 4: The City
Once again, I wake up, this time I'm alone in a room. It's a pretty
small bedroom, kinda like a college dormitory. There is a window, and I
look at and see that I am on the first floor of a building in what
looks like a pretty normal town, however looming in the distance is
that ginormous wall, so I realize we must be on the other side of the
wall. I deduce that the people who rescued/kidnapped us are the enemies
of the military that was chasing us, perhaps the wall is for
protection. I begin to wonder where exactly I am, and where everyone
else is. My door is unlocked, so I leave the room. It is indeed some
sort of a dormitory, the hall has a bunch of rooms presumably the same
as the one I woke up in. I looked around a bit but the building was
confusing and I didn't want to get lost, so I went back to my room. I
heard voices in the room next to mine, so I opened it, and it was my
group! They had all woken up and were discussing things in this room.
Now remember no one really has names, but one of the people who is with
me in this room is important to the story, so we'll call him Christian.
Shortly after I go in, a man comes to the door and talks to us. He says
that the giant wall was built 200 years ago, and many residents despise
the wall because it keeps them trapped in the city. No one is allowed
to go beyond the wall into the world from which we had just come, this
community has been secluded from the outside for two hundred years. He
says that the wall was constructed by two legendary engineers, Tyler
and Christian. We all look at each other in shock, as Christian is
sitting right there, and Tyler was presumably killed by the time
machine earlier, but we don't say anything. The man then further
explains that he has been in the city since it was built and is 235
years old, as those within the borders of the wall do not age at all.
At this point Christian speaks up and says "so that guy you said built
this wall... that's my name. How can this be?" the man furrows his brow
and thinks for a second, and then just tells Christian that he should
keep that to himself for now. The man leaves, and shortly after another
man, who is very old, comes to the door and asks me to go with him. He
starts showing me around the city. He tells me that we were knocked out
when they saved us from the sharks because no one is allowed to know
the way in or out of the walls. We walk past what seems like a school,
but it is really creepy. It's full of children, and they are chanting
something. The walls are lined with televisions with static playing.
I ask the old man, who I figure is some sort of leader here, how the
children thing works if no one gets older here. He told me that it is
not my business to know at this time. As we are walking on, I look back
at the classroom and see one of the children throw a pencil at one of
the staticky televisions, and the static makes the shape of a hand and
catches the pencil and throws it back at him. The old man takes me to
a building that is obviously very important and central, and we go
inside to meet another man who is even older and more decrepit. To
my surprise, I recognize this man as Tyler. The man showing me around
tells me that this is one of the original engineers, and I pretend I
don't recognize him. Tyler is very clearly senile or perhaps genuinely
mad. He has a caretaker with him, and doesn't seem to know what is
happening.

And then I woke up. Isn't that something? I've never had such a long
dream before. I feel like I need to finish the story. What happened
in the world? How did Christian go back in time to found the walled
city? Why did they make the walled city? What was going on with the
children? Who were the organization behind the beasts and the time
machine, and what was their goal?

April 8, 2025

There is something strange and special about dreams. Of course, dreams
always feel weird. But every once in a long while, I have a dream that
is different. In these dreams, every emotion is more real and pure, and
sometimes it seems to unlock new emotions I had never experienced. 
These dreams particularly stand out because so often dreams, despite
being bizarre, are strangely bland and emotionless. The most insane
situations will come up and I'll go through them nonchalantly, as if
it's totally normal. When I experience this sort of special dream,
it feels like a vision or prophecy or even a deep memory/past life
regression.

One time, about two years ago, I had such a dream while being awake.
It was fully a daydream/vision. I do not know where it came from, or
why it felt so real and important. It was very brief, just a glimpse
of a situation. I was sitting up in the air on a wide log rafter in a
giant barn, tying a rope around it. Perhaps this barn was under
construction, there were a few people on the ground beneath me
dragging around more logs. My father was one of the people, but it
wasn't my actual dad, it was a character in the dream who I knew to be
my father. We were obviously somewhere far north. That was the entire
dream, just this quick glimpse of me in this situation. The weird thing
is, it really felt like a memory. This happened in the middle of the
day, sitting in my room, trying to do homework. I was zoning out, eyes
kinda glazing over, thinking about absolutely nothing, when suddenly
this image came to my mind for a few seconds. I instantly snapped up,
completely shocked by this, and it totally threw me off for days to
come. To this day, I still think about this all the time. Why did it
feel so... important? It's like that image of me in the barn means
something. It sorta makes my chest hurt to think about it. Shortly
after this I asked my grandmother about our family history, and I found
out that my patrilineal line was dairy farmers in Canada since the
1700s, and migrated down to Michigan in the early 1900s. Did I have an
ancestral memory of building a barn in Ontario 150+ years ago?