Dream House

Everyone has a dream house. A nice place that they aspire to live in someday. Then, there’s the other type of dream house. The one that only shows up in your dreams, and isn’t necessarily where you want to live, just a construct of your mind.

The latter is what I’m speaking of here. I could talk about my real dream house, where I want to live, but I’ve already given the start, a tractor with all the implements, which includes land and a place to live. I may talk about that type of dream house later, but that will be much less interesting.

The illusive part about the dream house I’m talking about is that dream memories are very fleeting. But, I’ve seen this house many times and remember some things.

One, I’m not sure it could really ever exist. But, maybe it can.

When you walk in the front door, the house looks like a fairly normal tri-level house. Most tri-level houses I know have the kitchen and living room on the right or left side, with bedrooms going upstairs to the opposite direction and a larger recreation room downstairs, under the bedrooms. This one is different in the start.

You walk into the living room which extends to the right, and the kitchen to the left. In front of you is the upper level with bedrooms and a great room down below. This is normal enough. I’ve actually seen a house similar to this.

Now, in my dreams, the upstairs and living room are normal. Even the great room going down isn’t very unusual. Except for the door on the left. That’s where it gets interesting. I’ll just see if my words can paint a picture.

Most of the time, I don’t have to open this door, as I’m already in the main part of the house. Just inside that door is a very large living room. It’s actually several living room setups in one large room. I can’t tell you how many, I haven’t been able to keep that memory. But, it’s likely every living room I’ve seen in my Earth-life. All of them. Even the ones in the furniture stores. There may be over a hundred living room setups to navigate.

Once you do, there’s three more doors. One in the center, and one on either side. I usually go through the center door. This is a hallway. All the stairs to the right go down, the ones on the left go up. How far? Don’t know. Maybe one story, maybe two. I don’t look at a lot of ceilings in my dreams. But, apparently I have a mind obsessed with toilets.

When there isn’t a stairwell, there’s usually a toilet, sink and laundry room located in the wall space. They aren’t behind any doors. If you use these toilets, anyone walking down the hallway can see you. And I do know better than to use a dream toilet. Which could be why almost all the toilets have an issue that precludes their use. Sometimes, someone is sitting there, some are clogged and running over, and some are missing seats. I’m sure there are other errors, but every toilet is basically unusable. Thankfully for my bed.

The sinks aren’t really clean, either. The washers and dryers are many different types, and mostly in use. Sometimes they’re a little noisy, sometimes making too many bubbles.

Down the stairs to the right will lead you to the bedrooms. I’m not sure I can make this read as weird as what I see. But, you can walk bedroom to bedroom without going back up to the hallway. They are all connected on this lower level. And not with a standard hall. You literally walk through a bedroom to a door that leads to the next bedroom. Of course, my bedroom is in the end of this row of bedrooms. How many? See my comment on living rooms.

It would seem as if everyone I’ve ever saw has a bed here. And sometimes, those beds are occupied. Sometimes, the beds block the path. I’m sure you’ve seen some smaller bedrooms that don’t allow walk-around access to the bed. These exist here, but there’s a door on the other side of the bed. You just walk over the bed, and its occupant, and continue into the next bedroom.

Now, here’s another interesting room about halfway through the bedrooms. You maybe have noticed I said there were many toilets in the main hallway. But, I haven’t mentioned showers. That’s this room. Showers. And more toilets. Just like the toilets in the hallway, many of these showers are just shower heads sticking out of the wall. Sometimes, there are showers above a toilet. There are a few inside stalls as well. A few. This room is also massive, and even has a pair of shower rooms inside the big shower room.

Going into either of the inside shower rooms will show you many, many more showers. And more toilets. The rooms wander around and exit on the opposite side. There is a way to walk around these internal shower rooms, but I usually walk through the room.

Just to answer a question before it comes up, sometimes there are people taking showers. But, when I’m here, it isn’t something I really dwell on.

By the time I make it to my bedroom, my real-life(?) alarm wakes me up. Usually. There have been a couple times I’ve actually crawled into my dream bed and fallen asleep. What happens at this time? That’s about all I remember. It feels like I wake up just after this event, but it could be much later.

The stairs to the left of the hallway? Those overlook a city. Maybe it’s a cavern. I really can’t tell, but it’s usually lit in red sunlight, or maybe neon lights. I don’t go to this side very often, but what I usually see looks like I’m either on top of the city or on a cliff top. It’s possible it’s neither, but I’m usually interacting with someone else in the room and don’t pay attention to what’s outside.

Now, let’s go back to the big living room and visit the right side door. This is a large door that leads to a very long, dark room. Probably as long as the bedroom series. But, I don’t go here very often. Same goes for the other door. It’s also mostly empty, but better lit.

Mostly empty. This room houses all the cars I’ve owned here on Earth. Sixty or so at this point. But, they look like Hot Wheels cars in this room. They are real and full-sized, just a very large room that has much more space.

Neither of these rooms seem to intersect with anything accessed by the center door. Completely separate as far as I can tell.

Except one thing. All my cars are bathed in a red light.

The Airport

Imagine you’re running through an airport to catch your flight. Now imagine that airport is the biggest you’ve ever seen, with several halls leading off of the main hall you’re stuck in. You’re trying to find the hall with flights to your state. Yes, this airport has a hall for each state. I expect this is based in the United States, but you could transcribe it to any other large nation, or Europe with its many nations.

The states aren’t in any particular order, possibly just who paid who more. As you can probably now imagine, this hall you’re in is rather massive. So much so that it really looks like several parallel halls with all the shops, carts, and rest areas strewn about. It is a rather nice airport.

Walking at a comfortable pace, the distance between each side hall takes nearly half an hour. You don’t have time for this, you’ve bought ice cream and don’t want it to melt before you get home. Supper will be waiting of course.

Did you catch that? Ice cream. You’re not toting your luggage, your toting your groceries. You do have a couple coolers, one with dry ice to keep frozen things frozen, but if you miss your flight, it may not be enough.

To make matters worse, some side halls have more than one state. But, every state also has a hall. I guess in airport lingo these would be terminals, but you first have to get through the hall. It’s a maze within a maze. I can add a few more mazes, but that arcade you’re passing looks fun, too.

There is a service desk, so maybe they could help. Okay, I’m sure they could help, but there’s at least a city’s worth of people waiting in line to be helped. They also have their groceries.

What kind of airport is this? One my mind has created. But, it gets better, as you may have already guessed. This is a grocery store. Of the future. Of sorts.

This particular dream always starts out in the local grocery store. Big chain box type, or sometimes the small-town affair. Doesn’t matter, they all exit into this airport.

Checking out with a basket full of food, the clerk tells me I forgot something on my list. But, not to worry, they’ll wait while I go fetch it. Wouldn’t want the wife to be upset you missed something after all.

Weird detail one. No matter the grocery store I’m in, whatever I forgot is in the far corner of the store. You would think this wouldn’t be a problem in the small-town store that has a measly ten aisles. But, this is when the store grows. And grows. It now covers the size of that small town, a one mile square. A little math will tell you the far corner of the store is just under a mile and a half away. If you could walk straight. Not even this crazy store has diagonal aisles.

The clerk has kept his word after that long hike, your items are waiting in your cooler, and the people behind you are waiting as well. Most people have ice cream or fudge bars or some other frozen confection. Of course they do. The scanner is now green, you have completed your list. How much did that cost? Nothing. Just time.

The first time my mind brought me here, I had no idea what was next. I was expecting to step outside and walk towards my vehicle of choice. Not here. The doors are the same, with the same wind curtain you don’t find in small-town stores. Even if you’re in the small-town store that’s larger than the small town. I would honestly love to see a store this size. Heck, I’d settle for seeing any building that covers that amount of space. It’d have to be impressive.

The carpet in this airport changes as you walk through it. Or run. New textures and colors. Same for the walls. Some look like they belong in a movie theater. Some like an old airport. The ceiling changes, too. Sometimes a clear sunroof, sometimes a tent.

Thankfully, it doesn’t matter if you catch the wrong hall. You can still move to other halls from most of the other halls. Unless you actually find the terminal. Then you can’t access it since it isn’t your state. They know where you’re supposed to be going. This airport isn’t for tourism, just grocery shopping. There are other airports for those types of activities. One for sports, one for movies, one for work. You get the picture.

Everyone in the nation, or region, goes to the same airport. Mingle with the other states.

Eventually, I do find the right hall and the right terminal and get on the airplane. It’s comfortable. Mostly. Your coolers sit next to you. And you sit next to the coolers belonging to another patron.

One of the unfortunate parts is that I usually go from the terminal to seated on the plane. I don’t get the luxury of walking down the aisle of this plane to get an idea of how large it is. But, I would suspect it’s a little larger than most jumbo jets. It has to be, most of my town is here.

Have I missed my flight before? Yes. The next flight is tomorrow. Your wife is unhappy at the melted ice cream. But, it isn’t uncommon to miss a flight. There are many other souls wondering the airport. Looking for the next flight to their state.

Maybe I left out one little detail. The hall you take today to get home isn’t the hall you’d take tomorrow, or the one you took yesterday. Good luck.

But, my flight just landed at local airport. Now to find which hall I parked my truck in.

The Woods

This is really a two in one, as the second is rather short. But, potentially more interesting.

First, you’ll need a little background, as this place is mostly real. My Earth-family lives on a small acreage that happens to sit atop a modest hill. It’s about a city block from the main road up to the house, with the rise finishing about half-way into the property. How high? Modest. The base of the house on the hill is a bit higher than the top of the house on the other side of the road.

The road did cut into what was the hill at some time in the past, so part of the property has a bit steeper grade, but the upper half is basically flat. One interesting tidbit. If you want to grow trees, don’t have a wood-burning stove. At least that worked for my Earth-parents. They tried for many years to grow trees, but they all died. One year, my Earth-dad removed the wood-burning stoves and replaced them with corn stoves. Trees grew.

Another important piece of information is that I have an Earth-sister. Older. Probably just like any other older sister. Except maybe the cats, but they aren’t part of this particular dream. Only the property and sister. Oh, and she’s mostly out of character in this dream. Although she cares for the properties in that part of the country that I don’t reside in, she is not the tech-savvy person.

Usually, this dream starts when we’re playing cards. Or dominos. Typically, we’ll listen to music. Sometimes it’s fifties music, sometimes nineties. And everything in between. We’ve also watched the crackling fireplace that is shown around Christmas, just to see how long it takes to repeat. Watching is a loose word here. A more recent watching of this fireplace video took six hours to determine the fifteen minute loop time. But, none of this is important. Aside from the game-playing aspect.

Although we don’t pay a lot of attention to the music being played, we do notice it stops. After a time. Maybe five minutes, maybe a couple hours. It’s usually brought up about this time as to whether we should just watch a movie. That determination is never made in my dream, but my sister and I are walking to the opposite corner of the property. Through the woods.

In reality, you’d be hard-pressed to call the sprouting trees a wooded area. But, the dream has a wooded area you would call woods in the classic term. The goose pen is also missing in the dream. This is good, as you really don’t want to spend your precious dream time trying to walk around the gifts the geese leave behind.

Of course, it’s dark. We usually don’t start playing games until after dinner, and it’s usually dark. Sometimes, there is a sunset to comment on, but not in the dream. There is the sound of birds in the trees, and an owl. Both are likely. There is an owl nearby that does like fresh goose.

At this point in the dream, I have no idea why we’re walking down to the edge of the property. As I stated, my sister is in charge of tech-things in this dream. And the general maintenance overall. There are some comments about thinning out some trees and removing the ones that have died. Maybe even a passing comment about reinstalling a wood-burning stove. That comment is met with the rustling of leaves.

That doesn’t spook me much. I’m used to sentient trees. But, the wood-cutter’s shack is a little out of place. We don’t even bother with it.

Once we reach the bottom of the hill, we cross the road into a field access drive on the adjacent property. It has the requisite cattle guard. Or, what I think is a cattle guard. After we walk around the cattle guard, my sister stops and picks up the corner. Revealing a set of stairs going down. And you thought this was going to resemble anything normal?

The stairs down are cut out of the dirt. There is an important distinction here. The ground in reality is more sand than dirt. Part of being on an ancient river bed. That hill? Ancient beach at the top. More dirt up there, but still quite sandy. The next set of hills south have a much better dirt to sand ratio. But, these stairs are cut out of nice dirt, not quite the super-rich black dirt, but definitely not sandy dirt.

The stairs are also lit. Poorly. The light reminds me of LEDs, but the quantity is more of a fifteen watt incandescent light bulb. Mix that image and stir. It does take some time to reach the bottom of the stairs, where it opens up into a nice-sized room. Maybe twenty foot square. Based on walking distance, it’s safe to assume we’re back under our own property at this time.

The back wall of this room is most interesting. I just stand there, looking, in my dream. I really don’t understand what I’m looking at, and less about where it’s at. The back wall has a dirt table that’s about half the total height of the room. Dirt ledge may be more accurate. Underneath, there are several cable connections. Most of them are open, but some have coax cables. Nothing special about the cables, they are the same thing you see in your house if you have cable. Or satellite.

On the ledge, there are hundreds of what looks like cable boxes. All stacked on each other somewhat neatly, but it does have that indication of a little hap-hazard-ness. Most of the boxes have a number, some only have lights. The one my sister is heading for has a red light. She shakes her head muttering something about people not paying for their service in a timely manner. The boxes know.

She walks over to a set of boxes on the left that seem to be segregated from the others. And she starts moving cables around. After I look around the rest of the room, I notice it is pretty much full of these boxes. Some in piles, some in stacks. There are also cables everywhere. Every. Where.

After she says the music should work again, we walk out of the little room and back up the property to resume our games. This is where I generally wake up. But, the short dream is next, and actually fits quite nicely here. Since it does have to do with trees.

I’m always alone in this dream. And, I am using dream lightly here, as this is more of a brief memory. The interesting part about this dream has nothing to do with the dream itself. More about a meme I read. I don’t remember if the meme had an image or just text, but it describes this dream to a tee. I’m not the only one? Is it proof of matrix reality? No and probably not, but something I may explore some other time.

As for this dreamlet, I’m usually walking in the woods. I’m looking for a certain bird with quite the unique call. It’s a high-pitched beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. I turn my head to see where it’s coming from. Beep. Beep. Beep.

It really seems to be coming from everywhere. So, I pick a direction and start walking. Beep. Beep. Beep. Eventually, I come to a small clearing in the trees. The night is dark, but there’s an eerie glow. Beep. Beep. Beep. I turn in each direction, waiting. Beep. Beep. Beep. I can’t tell which direction the bird is. I can’t even tell if there is more than one. Beep. Beep. Beep.

I see a large tree on one side of the clearing. Beep. Beep. Beep. I walk toward the tree, watching the leaves dance. Beep. Beep. Beep. The tree begins to glow from within. Beep. Beep. Beep. I see the flicker of light. Beep. Beep. Beep. Eyes, opening, and looking at me. Beep. Beep. Beep. Then more eyes. Beep. Beep. Beep. The tree is full of eyes. Beep. Beep. Beep. I get closer. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Beep. Beep. Beep. I recognize the eyes. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Beep. Beep. Beep. It’s my alarm clock. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Spaceship Dreams

I was going to write something else tonight, but this dream is fresh. And not what I would expect. Maybe I should, it ties a lot of history together.

First, I should introduce you to a few things. First would be Aushlin Xhunder’s carrier. The first thing you should know is that it’s big. Maybe huge, gargantuan, massive. None of these really do any justice.

First, the shape. It’s almost like an almond in shape. Pointy on one end, and kinda bulbous on the other. We’ll call the pointy end the front, even though the bulbous end carries the big weapon. There is a portion of that weapon on the pointy end, but it isn’t quite as powerful. From what Aushlin has said, the small weapon is mainly only good for planetary attacks. Or moons. The big weapon? Stars and gas giants. I understand that it’s been tested once. In an uninhabited system. It’s now a small nebula. Nasty, god-like power.

How big is the weapon compared to the ship? It covers most of the back. But, this dream only concerns one of the primary decks. There are eight of them, or four if you look from far away.

To get an idea, cut your almond lengthwise twice. Once through the fatter direction and once through the short direction. Now, place a hair between each half. That’s about what his ship looks like, except instead of a gap in the middle, there’s the center core with the drive and weapon energy systems. And of course all the living quarters, maintenance shops, food courts, shopping centers, storage, armories, etc. All the things you need to keep everyone happy and the ship safe from, well, anything.

I have no idea how many smaller ships are on this large ship, but several would be a good start. But, that has only some importance for this dream.

Back to this ship bay. That gap in the almond you cut? That’s where we’re standing. I’ve been here many times. Usually looking out over one of the giants in the star system. Sometimes, a planet I don’t recognize. This time? Earth’s moon. Now this dream is fairly common. I’ve been on this ship before, when I was talking with Aushlin. I can’t tell you what form I had taken, or when this was. Neither are too important, but I can tell you I was with Aushlin long enough to devote a section of the website to his stories. Not that my own story has gotten very far at this point.

Confirmation dream. Maybe that’s what these typically are. Reliving memories of past lives. Not entirely uncommon for my ilk. My mother and father had both said I would have these, which is how this website exists.

I usually arrive on this bay via a smaller fighter craft or transport ship. One of the smaller ones. The smallest fighter craft has room for only the pilot and three warrior droids. Their primary purpose is to protect the ship when it’s alone somewhere. The larger ships carry a few more that the pilot, and sometimes crew, can use to conduct missions. The largest fighter class ship has six of these droids. It’s the third smallest manned fighting ship in the fleet, and has room for two. Pilot and weapons coordinator.

Just slightly smaller than the large fighter is the small transport ship. It has two droids, and the interior is a bit larger than a single car garage on Earth. It easily fits a pickup and has room around it.

The only other ship I’ve been on is what he calls the battleship. It carries a few fighter craft, and is big. There’s usually one sitting in the bay. I have walked up to one of the landing gear pads before. Without a ladder, you aren’t climbing on top of it. And it’s about the size of a house. There are six of them. How tall is it? I would guess around four hundred feet. And about a half mile long. Also, shaped like an almond. But not cut. The fighters on the battle ship sit behind blast doors, so they can’t be seen most of the time. But, the numerous guns can. It has a large primary weapon in what we’re calling the back, along with many turrets. And missile launchers.

Windows on these craft? Only in the transports and smaller fighters. The large fighter will either have windows or blast shields. The transports have windows on the top, where the pilots sit. The bridge itself is in the belly of the ship for the battleship and anything larger. Fighter pilots sit just in front of the winglets located halfway down the body. Transport pilots sit in the front and top.

None of this is important for the dream, aside from standing fairly close to a battleship after arriving with my wife, daughter, and a blurred area that I’m assuming is my next child. We usually show up on a transport, but this time it was a large fighter.

All of this is fairly normal. So far. Sometimes, we arrive on the smallest transport, just my small immediate family. Sometimes, a larger transport with all our extended family and some friends. And other times it’s just myself in one of the fighters.

Back to the size of this bay. When you look up, you can see the mirror to the deck you’re on. Remember, Aushlin’s people mastered gravity. Each of these bays has a couple decks, each lined with a variety of craft. Fighters, transports, battleships, terrestrial tanks, and even larger craft than the battleship. There’s also a terrestrial carrier, or a few, on this ship. It exits through a door in the bay that leads to its storage location. Around the storage area is where most of the housing is located. On several decks. Each family has what basically looks like a normal Earth-style house. Complete with a small yard. And garden. There’s also a few grass parks to enjoy. Small city. Complete.

The terrestrial carrier is much taller than any skyscraper on Earth. And it’s properly proportioned. It also holds a reasonable percentage of the people the space carrier holds. Eight of these is well over half of the housing for the entire carrier. The carrier isn’t the largest ship. There’s one more. That one more is the one I’m on. Double everything, then add a little.

The bay of the carrier is tall enough to allow this terrestrial carrier to be launched. You can’t have anything in its path, but it fits between the upper and lower deck with some room to spare. It’s carried down to the planet using four specially equipped battleships.

So, here we are standing on this deck, next to the battleship. On the other side of us is the fighter we arrived in. As usual for these dreams, we’re alone. There are some droids around, but no people. Aushlin is never in these dreams.

But, this time, my wife pulls on my shirt sleeve and points out of the bay toward the moon.

What I saw was enough to snap me out of a nice sleep. There was a rebound image as I struggled with waking up.

The rebound? I was standing next to a toenail.

The first image, a dragon was flying into the bay. Wings outstretched so they don’t hit either deck.

Drak-Bar had arrived.

Nice Roads

This one won't take up much of a page, but I found it interesting enough to share. If the dream gets any more complex, I'll make an update here.

You may be asking how often any of the dreams I write about appear. I would say maybe a couple time each year. Some are new, like this one. But even the new ones will grab elements from older dreams. Most nights, my dreams are either basically mundane, or non-memorable. Mundane would be dreams that pertain to my life on Earth. Day to day stuff. Boring stuff.

This dream is a bit weird and involves a lady I once knew on Earth. I can remember her by voice and presence, but not by name. This isn't unusual, I'm horrible with names. As for my wife and daughter, they are with us as well. Sitting in the back seat as normal. The front seat passenger is less normal.

The dream starts on a highway. Much like most of the interstate highways in the middle of the country. Two lanes in each direction, separated by a shallow ditch. Every so often, a bridge spans the highway, and even less often, ramps enter and exit the highway. Except, the real highways are paved. This one isn't.

The highway isn't gravel, or even really another prepped road type. It's just grass with tracks in it. It is a rather pleasant ride, very smooth. Smoother than the roads in the state I currently reside, but similar to the neighboring states. There is a faint hint of dust when I happen to see other vehicles. That is rare. The highway is mostly empty.

This dream does seem to connect with another dream I have, but hasn't been placed on this site. I may go into more detail later, but essentially that dream does share something in common. I drive everywhere. And, I do mean everywhere.

At one point, my front seat passenger states she'd like us to visit her new house. My wife agrees. So, we take the next exit. Here, there is a town. The town sits on a grass field. Prairie grass, not Kentucky Bluegrass. Same as the highway.

As we drive through the town, she mentions she lives on a lower level. So we drive into what looks like a large parking garage. But, it more looks like the stairways in an apartment complex. We drive down the stairs, which are easy to navigate in my pickup. Even the turns aren't much of an issue. Always left hand turns, if you're curious. It would be right hand turns coming back out. But, I didn't see that part. I woke up.

I did see us going all the way down to my friend's apartment. After a few levels, we leveled out into a courtyard. There were people wondering about, some were eating at the various restaurants, some were just enjoying the nice Kentucky Bluegrass. No one was in a car. We drove through.

There was another stairway. We drove down another couple levels to the apartment rows. Again, we drove, others walked. Most of the people walking were going into their apartments. Now, it sounds like we're deep underground, but I can still see the sunlight at this point.

We turn into her apartment. No, we didn't get out of my truck, we drove into the living room. Then we got out.

And, then it gets weird. Normally when my wife and I travel, I'll get out of my truck and open a door for her and my daughter to exit. Daughter first. I help her onto the step bar, then with the large (for her) step to the ground. This part plays out in my dream just fine.

I mention to my friend something about liking her apartment. It was new to her, so that's a pretty normal conversation line, nevermind the truck parked in the living room, which itself is perfectly normal in the dream. This is when my friend mentions that this was part of a game show.

And, that's where my mind said it was too weird and woke me up.

There is another dream I have where I drive everywhere as well. This one deals with a city built on the side of a mountain, but the entrance to the city is on the other side of the mountain. If you choose the right exit. That one may show up below this one. Someday. Which may be the past for you.

The City

Cities. I would say they come in several shapes and sizes, but that's only an outward appearance. When you're in a city, they seem to be about the same. A lot of buildings, a lot of concrete, and a lot of people. And, a lot of store fronts. Whether or not they are interesting is up to individual preference.

At one time, I did enjoy cities on Earth. I bought a house that was twenty minutes from the heart of the nearest city. Maybe thirty minutes during holidays and weekends. But, my house was in a quiet neighborhood with none of the city noise. Occasionally you could hear a siren or a large truck, but it was mostly quiet. Now, it takes twenty minutes to get a quarter of the way to the city. I have pretty much no interest in visiting that city again, but that's partly because of the one to two hour commute. The other part is the crime and lack of parking. Safe parking, anyway.

But, this isn't about any city I've seen lately. Or at least, physically seen. I've seen this city many times. Many, many times. The problem is, I don't know where it's from. Or, if it's truly imaginary. This is the problem of a melded mind. Memories can appear to be dreams, and dreams can appear to be memories. In either case, I'm pretty sure this city isn't presently on Earth. It may be in the future. That is another possibility.

There are two distinct features of this city. The first is that it's built on the side of a mountain. The highway runs on the flatter ground next to the mountains. At first glance, you may be thinking of any cities built adjacent to the mountains, like the Front Range, or any front range like it. But, there's a significant difference. This city isn't on the flatter grounds, it's entirely built on the mountain-side. Terraced, I assume.

That assumption is only because I see this city at night, so I don't get a lot of detail about individual roads. But, I do see many buildings, seemingly on top of each other. I'm usually driving along the highway beside the city. I'll drive either way, so the city is either on my left or right. The other side of the highway holds a dark plain, dotted with the occasional light.

Closest to this highway are a few amusement parks. And, yes, they are all large. And busy. I probably should mention that I sometimes drive for a couple hours along this city. At highway speeds. It's a very large city. That alone brings up an interesting tidbit of trivia. At the population density of New York City, all the people in the United States could fit into Florida. Four times. I only used Florida because of the recent hurricane. Also, all the waste in the world wouldn't cover Texas. Not even close. Now imagine how much trash it'd take to create the garbage worlds depicted in some movies and books.

There are times in my dream that I exit the highway, usually to turn into one of these amusement parks. But, I no more than exit the highway and the dream stops.

Also along the highway are things you'd expect to see. Restaurants, gas stations, box stores, and so on. But, I never see the names of these places. No golden arches, green diamonds, crowns, hats, or circles. My dream self just knows what these buildings are. And, again, when I venture off the highway, my mind awakens or switches gears.

There are also rodeo arenas, car race tracks for straight lines and turns and ovals, drive in movies, along with many other entertainment options. You would think your dreams would want to entertain you at some point. Maybe I just have cruel dreams.

Now, there is one shopping mall I am able to enter. What I don't remember is if it's truly part of the same dream, or same location, but it feels like it. What's significant about this mall is the entry way.

I'm usually walking up to the massive arch signifying the entry to the mall. This arch is visible from the highway, but when I see the arch, I'm immediately brought to my feet at its entry point. My car is nowhere to be seen. It's dark behind me, the only light is coming from the mall. Deserted light. The kind of light you only see in horror movies.

I have never hesitated walking into the entrance. Just beyond the arch lies several statues of animals. Many different animals, including dinosaurs. They are all made of stone or concrete. It looks to be a display of sorts, a place for children to learn and adults to wander in relaxation. This stone zoo takes up quite some space, as you can imagine, but it does have nice walking paths between the animals. You can climb on them if you choose, as they all sit in what looks like would have been nice grass. But, it's dark and dead in my dream. The animals are also dirty, like they've been sitting abandoned for several years. I can see the smooth wear marks created by thousands of children climbing on them, but the layer of dust is significant on most of the animals. Minus my hand flowing across a few as I walk along.

After this zoo, the walkway opens into a large common area. Surrounded by several buildings. The architecture is very fine, and no where near the squares seen in many current cities on Earth. All the buildings are dark, except for a token lamp above their entry doors, or lighting the stairs in front of them.

The buildings on the left and right are tall and massive, but intricate in their design. The building that's always directly in front of me is much lower, but contains a near endless series of glass entry doors. They all match, but they are not square, or rectangles with simple arches. They are much more beautiful. And unlocked.

This one building reminds me of a building I see in other dreams, but those dreams have people. This dream has only me. And this abandoned mall.

As for the city on the hill, I don't see any real movement. No car lights buzzing around. But, the amusement park rides are moving. But, I'm much too far away to see people in them.

If the shopping mall is in this city or not, I can't say. But, I can say the building seems to play a part somewhere else. When I can gather the information for that kind of dream, you'll see it here. But, it's way too choppy at this moment.