INTRODUCTION

My dreams are one long nightmare. It started when I was 12-13 years old and has continued ever since--I get a new installment either every night or second night, continuing from where it stopped the night before. Here are the most recent installments:

Nightmare 1: ENERGY BALL

Unclear how it started. But at some point I was among decayed buildings and skyscrapers, like downtown Montreal only ruined. I was hiding by a tower, and something was looking for me. I knew it was Lucifer but it looked like just a black shadow (in these dreams I never see what he really looks like). He was on top of the building and looking for me furiously. He shot a ball of energy at me and I ran for my life, jumping on top of a skyscraper (in my nightmares, I'm always able to run fast and jump really high. Yet I'm scared of heights and don't know why I'd hide on top of a skyscraper).

When the ball of energy hit where I'd been standing, it exploded the bottom half of the building. But the tower still stood upright, and from the black crater at its foot emerged monstrous beasts of every kind (and kinds I've not seen in movies). From my hiding place on top of the skyscraper, I see survivors of the fireball attack running away, and monsters hunting them in the streets, eating them, ripping them to shreds.

The shock of the scenario woke me up.

Nightmare 2: DOME IN THE FLOOD

A great flood washed away everything in its path...at least almost everything. I was in a strange building, a dome made of glass, standing together with two or three relatives and my girlfriend at the time. We saw this flood come rushing toward us, and then it hit the dome and shattered all the glass, enveloping us and the other random people inside the dome. But it didn't kill us--after it hit, we were floating on top of the "immense tidal wave" and we kind of rode the wave during its destructive path.

NOTE

Not all the episodes of my continuing dream are nightmarish, but most are. There's a re-occurring theme of End Of The World.

--Shawn King

EDITOR'S NOTE

Recuring dreams are common, but what Shawn has seems quite rare: episodic dreaming, consecutive installments forming one epic lifelong dream. Of course, this is just how dreams could describe the waking world--a sequence of episodic dreams forming a narrative. Continuity and consistency are the only criteria letting us judge experiences real or not--if two worlds alternate and both are consistent, we have no grounds for judging one "dream" and one "reality." In Shawn's case, only consistency is left: a world in perpetual crisis--perpetually ending--is unlikely to be real.

On the other hand, read the news....

--Chris Wayan

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