[Dream Report] Climbing the Ocean Cave to a Palace of Stone and Water
By: Alex Beyman
Tags: Dreams, Sleep, Diary, Stories, Dreaming

This one was sort of disjointed. There were times I was in one place, but then was in another with no clear recollection of how I got there, including skipping back and forward in time. I will skip most of that stuff as it’s confusing and adds nothing.

I recall walking through enormous caverns, illuminated faintly by rays of sunshine coming in through gaps in the ceiling. There was also water pouring in through the gaps like so many waterfalls into a pool far below. My companion wore mountain climbing gear.

When I asked where we were going, she answered we had to descend to the pool at the bottom of the cavern. I balked and said we’d never make it but she egged me on until I gave in and began to rappel down the slippery wet side of the cavern. There was also some light bouldering to be done near the bottom.

Once down there, we found an aquarium set up with a laptop and some sensors. She explained she captured some of the species of fish native to the caves and was monitoring their health in captivity compared to those still in the pool to determine whether they could be brought back and raised in the lab.

There were other climbers down here. They were hard at work cleaning fish they caught. My companion, who must’ve been a marine biology student specializing in caves or something, scolded them for contaminating her research. They ignored her.

I remarked that what they were doing looked interesting, and I wanted to try. I asked if anybody could do it. The one nearest me snapped that no, of course not just anybody could do it and asked who I think I am. I apologized, then returned to the boulders at the base of the cavern wall we’d descended.

After a long, physically strenuous climb back to the ledge we’d been walking along, we took a break to eat and drink. I got out a neon green Gameboy with a bright backlit, high resolution color screen. As if you took modern technology and put it into an old Gameboy case you spray painted.

I was playing some sort of 2D Metroid style game. There was a beautiful forest of red trees in crisp detail I was exploring until I fell down a hole. I then found myself in an underground cavern, in the game, just like the one we were actually in. After exploring for a bit, I captured some sort of snake-like dinosaur.

After placing it in a hole, it transformed into a biological missile which I stood on top of and rode back up out of the hole and into space. Once in space I landed on an asteroid with gross pulsating organic insides. It became a forced scrolling level where I had to keep moving right to survive.

I fought these enemies who could roll up into a ball just like me, but they were pale white human sized insects. After trying to escape them by rolling down into a maze, I couldn’t find the exit before the forced scrolling moved the screen enough that I was caught against the edge, and died.

It was time to get up and resume the hike anyways. The ledge ascended like a ramp, then another, then another until we reached the top of the mountain this whole cave system was inside of. At the top was a jaw droppingly beautiful palace, or temple of some kind.

It was all perfectly geometric. Steep, sharp angles, smooth surfaces, painstakingly carved out of the tip of the mountain itself. It was shaped, at the base, like a truncated pyramid. That is to say, the top half of it chopped off to create a flat surface where people could walk around.

This big flat platform had artificial hot spring style pools carved into it. We approached the steaming water and got in. Our clothes simply disappeared. I was embarrassed until I saw nobody else was, then I stopped caring. In the center of the big, flat stone platform jutted up a massive inverted stone pyramid. I noticed some of those coin operated binoculars around the very edge for scoping out the landscape.

I then reasoned that if there was a flat platform down here, there was an even bigger one at the top of the inverted pyramid. So we got out of the steaming pool and headed for a doorway in the base of it. Our clothes did not reappear. I tried to cover myself until I noticed my companion didn’t even bother and was amused that I even cared. “Do you not trust people?”she asked, as I puzzled over what that had to do with it.

When I asked how our clothes could do that, she told me I’m dreaming. Oh, of course I thought, wholly unfazed. After ascending a stone stairwell carved right out of the center of the inverted pyramid, we emerged onto a huge flat space, the top of the inverted pyramid.

There were spaces carved out here into which soil had been deposited so they could plant grass, palm trees, and ferns. But those were all on their own little “islands”, as nearly the entire platform was just one gigantic steaming pool. We swam up to the edge to discover the rim was made out of glass.

This made it feel very precarious, as if there was no edge to it at all. We luxuriated in the steaming water for a time until getting pruny. Then headed back down the stairwell, descending the stone ledges as we re-traced our steps through the cave system. On our way, we passed those people cleaning fish.

I spotted the one who snapped at me. “So this really is a dream, right?” She nodded. I looked at that guy, and erased him. He just popped out of existence. She was shocked and appalled. “What? He’s just part of my dream” I protested. She pointed out that she’s also part of my dream and asked if I would also delete her so casually if she upset me.

That got me thinking about the morality of eradicating parts of myself I don’t like rather than finding productive outlets for them or simply embracing myself as a flawed individual. For some reason, at the base of the mountain was a parking lot, like this mountain cave palace thing is some sort of tourist attraction.

She and I parted ways here as I searched for my car. Instead I found my electric moped which I use most of the time to save on gas. “Was I really so dumb to come all this way on a moped” I wondered, but then realized it’s not like I had any gear on me. Everything looked so real, I couldn’t believe I was dreaming.

I touched the handlebars and they felt real. I flipped up the kickstand, and it felt real. Everything looked and felt like reality, with the same clarity as waking life. But then I noticed the parking lot had about a dozen other identical mopeds. When I approached them, they weren’t just the same model.

They were identical copies. Same stickers, same dings, everything. It drove home for me that no matter how real it looked and felt, I must really be dreaming. “Well that’s a relief” I thought, “at least I didn’t actually kill that guy.” I don’t think I woke up immediately after this, but there were no more dreams after it.