Dreamscape

Introduction
I've always been fascinated by my own dreams. While most people seem to pass off dreams as random neurological events, I see them as subconscious messages coming through to tell us something. It could be about something about ourselves that we are unaware of, or it could be instances of precognition. Many people dismiss that thought train as pseudoscientific and "new age hippie nonsense." Whether or not that is true has yet to be known.

As for me, I try to understand my dreams so that I can learn something about myself and make the appropriate personality changes. That's why I often keep a dream journal to record my dreams while I still remember them. Allow me to share four of those dreams with you. I want you to try to make sense of them.

Dream 1: The Changing House (August 19, 2010)
I sat up in my bed, not at all surprised that my bedroom light was on. I got up and stepped outside my bedroom door. Everything was familiar to me, since it looked just like how it did in my own house. The walls were white with some pictures of Jesus, and the doors were the same wooden brown as they had always been.

As soon as I stepped out of the hallway into the living room, though, everything had changed. My living room now had dark brown wooden walls, and it was so tall that the ceiling couldn't be seen. On the floor sat a bunch of tiny, ornate furniture made of gold and oak. The living room was quite dark, though I could still see the room around me. I actually felt a sense of serenity in the new living room, almost like it was something I'd known all my life.

Looking behind me, I noticed that the hallway I'd exited from had changed to match the design of the new living room. I walked to the middle of the new living room, examining the furniture along the way, and found many doors covering the walls before me and to my sides. I looked through some of them, only to find closets full of dust and containing only brooms and dustpans.

I'd wondered if anyone else was in the new house with me, and so I called out my family members' names. I got no reply to any of their names, and so I reckoned that I must have been alone in the house. With that, I checked a door that was on the wall to my right.

I opened the door and found myself in a bedroom with a queen-sized bed. At one corner of the wall was a large flat-screen TV playing some movie. The scene that was playing showed the characters (whoever they were) walking across a vast, white snow scape. They might have been in the Himalayas or something. I watched the TV movie for a while, eventually realizing that the whole movie consisted of nothing but these characters walking across the snow. I gave up on it and stepped outside the bedroom.

When I stepped back into the living room, I noticed that things had changed again. Now the walls were made of stone, the furniture was scattered all over the place, and it felt as though there was a big gust of wind inside the house. It made me feel uneasy. Looking around, I noticed that there weren't any doors anymore, and the hallway from which I came no longer was there. I was confined to that living room.

I tried calling for my family, this time with fear in my voice, only to be answered by a bellowing, "Nobody's here, you little runt! Stop crying out for them!" The voice had come from behind me, and when I turned to look at the source of the voice, I found myself staring at the TV from the bedroom. It showed the snow scene, except the characters now lay there dead. I called out again, tears in my eyes, and the voice from the TV bellowed, "Fine, I'll just shut you up myself!" Only moments later, the dream faded to black as I collapsed onto the wooden living room floor.

Dream 2: The Gothic Building (May 10, 2011)
I was climbing inside what I now consider an old Gothic building. Rain and the faint clap of thunder could be heard from outside, and it was the only sounds I heard as I climbed through those black stone tunnels. I had an occasional break to wander around a dark platform with stained glass windows, though I was still forced to climb through it for whatever reason.

After climbing for what seemed like hours, I finally made it to the top floor. When I crawled up to the top floor, I could see before me a large stained-glass window. It was beautiful and decorated with a large image of Jesus. Above the window was a circular stained glass window decorated with the Holy Trinity&mdash;the Father, the on, and the Holy Spirit. The lightning was the only source of light here, and from my perch at the top of the building, I could make out an entire city that looked like it was from Medieval Germany (the Holy Roman Empire, if you will).

It was then that something rather odd happened. All of a sudden, my legs began to charge at the window of Jesus, carrying my surprised body with them. I tried to stop them, though nothing worked. I continued to careen towards the image of Jesus, horrified at the inevitable fate that lay before me. When I got very close to it, the image changed to an image of the Grim Reaper. That's when I found myself jumping through it like I was jumping into a swimming pool, and I saw the cobblestone streets below me. I screamed as I fell to them, the dream fading to black moments before I hit the ground. The last sounds that I heard of the dream were the rain and the fading echoes of my screams.

Dream 3: The City of Androids (June 21, 2012)
I was making my way up a ladder that led up through a bunch of thin tunnels. I couldn't see that far ahead of me, since it was pretty dark inside them. Every now and then, the tunnel branched off into different sections, though when I went to investigate them, they always led to dead ends. I was climbing through these tunnels for what seemed like forever, though at some point I reached the top. There was a hatch there, so I opened it and climbed through it. I found myself walking through a tall and long hallway that curved just a little bit to my left. I looked up to see how tall it was, though it was too high for me to see the ceiling. It was white and well-illuminated, and it looked very futuristic, though I was the only person walking through it for whatever reason. I didn't care.

I walked for a while, checking out some of the technology that was omnipresent in the hallway. Holograms and mechanical machines and androids were seen doing whatever it was that they were doing. At some point, an android passed by me. It waved at me, smiling and saying, "Hello," in a voice that almost seemed human. I said hi in return, still blown away by my environment.

A little while later, I was greeted by a long pane of glass. Looking into it, I saw that it was a very long movie theater. There were several rows of seats that faced a big, long screen. The whole theater was just as devoid of life as the rest of the building had been up to this point. There wasn't even an android that sat in it. It was completely empty.

When I got to the door that led into the theater, an android asked me, "Would you like to see today's feature presentation?" I said yes, and the android allowed me to step inside. Before it closed the door, it said, "We hope you enjoy the show." I gave my thanks, and then I found a seat. The screen was quite close, even with my seat being towards the back row, and as I looked around, the silence and emptiness of the theater began to bother me a bit. I thought, "Why is there no one else in here? Where is everybody? Where could they be? For that matter, what am I doing in this&mdash;"

Interrupting my thoughts, the movie suddenly began blaring. It caught me completely off guard, though despite my shock, I continued to watch. I didn't see a title for the movie. Not even a year.

It was about World War III, and from what I could tell, the war had gotten completely out of hand. Nuclear warheads devastated many places. Cities burned as their screaming civilians began to roast like barbeque meat. On the front lines, soldiers were falling left and right and being crushed by tanks. In the ruins of the nuked cities, living civilians quickly resorted to cannibalism. Every scene was shown in grisly detail that made me sick to my stomach. What kind of fucked-up freak makes a movie like this and puts it on the silver screen?

As the violence relentlessly continued, the scene panned up to show the skies, which were filled with skeletons. The army of skeletons was led by a winged skeleton wielding a shield and sword. Pointing its sword to the Earth below, the skeleton commander initiated the attack against Earth. One by one, the skeletons slaughtered the rest of humanity, ending with the skeleton commander swinging at the Earth with its sword in its left hand, followed by a burst of bright light that seared my eyeballs. When the light cleared, all that could be seen was a shot of the Earth floating through space. It was completely engulfed in fire and smoke, though everything was silent. Not even the flames made noise; all was dark, and all was quiet. After a whole minute of the shot of the silent Earth, the film faded to black. I was struck with awe at what I'd just seen, and I had hoped it was just a really fucked-up movie. However, my hope was shattered when "based on a true story" appeared in white letters.

The whole environment was then slowly enveloped in darkness, and for the remainder of the dream, all that could be seen was those garish white words that read:
 * Based on a true story.

Dream 4: The Hotel (July 22, 2015)
My family and I were in this beautiful resort hotel on a vacation. It was both a hotel and a water park, and we felt like it was the perfect place for us to stay. It was bustling with happy people relaxing and enjoying the water park.

We settled into our room and decided to head down to enjoy the water park. My parents took my baby sister to a kids area, and my older sister and I simply grabbed our phones and went to enjoy the rides.

Because the place was so busy, most of our time was spent waiting to get on the rides. They were well worth the wait, though. They were by far the most fun water slides I'd ever been on in my life. I almost didn't want to leave.

Almost.

I sometimes witnessed the sounds of explosions near the hotel, and the subsequent screams thereafter. However, the employees just calmly told everyone that everything was fine, and like that, it was like nothing had even happened. It struck me as odd, and questions began to fill my head.

Some time later, my parents and my sisters came looking for me. I was just about to get on a ride I'd waited a very long time for, and my mom was calling me to come with them. I could tell she felt something was wrong, though my dad and sisters were each confused and worried. I was about to go to them, though an employee smiled at me and said, "Just go ahead. You've waited long enough." Without further a due, I went on the ride. I didn't enjoy it as much as the other rides because thoughts were racing through my head. Why were my folks so concerned? What's wrong? Why were they all looking for me? Did it have to do with the explosions?

I got off the ride, and then I went to my folks. They were all still waiting for me near the entrance to the ride. I went with them to the room we were staying in. We were packing all of our things, though for some reason, there seemed to be more and more things to put away as we continued packing. It seemed like an endless amount of things needed to be put away. My dad said we didn't have much time, and we should just leave everything behind. We were hesitant to do this, but another explosion made us change our minds. We only took our electronics with us as we left the room.

People were frantically running about, and now the employees could no longer calm them down. On our way to the ground floor, we noticed some of the employees go into authorized personnel rooms. It looked like there were guns inside, though we couldn't make much else out.

At the front of the hotel, there were employees pushing people back into the hotel. The people desperately wanted out, though most of them were refused the right to leave. Among the commotion, we miraculously were able to make it through with some of the lucky ones. We rushed to the family car and made sure we were all accounted for. Thankfully, none of us were left behind. As my dad tried to start the car, we saw an airplane careen right into the hotel. It crashed right through the place where our room was, exploding into a heap of fire. Right before the car started, we saw the employees open fire onto the hotel guests. Left and right, people fell dead to the ground, their blood staining the water park a deep shade of red. I covered my baby sister's eyes, to protect her from seeing that horrific massacre that, were we only moments later to try to avoid, we would have been a part of. My dad drove away from the place as we were all recoiling in absolute terror.

As we drove along the road, my dad said, "As long as we're all here, we're okay."

The dream faded to black as my dad continued driving on the road. We were all haunted by what happened. I awoke from this dream feeling incredibly terrorized, and I needed emotional support from my parents and sisters in order to overcome it.

Conclusion
I personally don't know if these dreams have any real significance. Perhaps they are nothing more than random scenes generated by a busy brain trying to compartmentalize important information. Feel free to debate this if you want. Maybe you can even try to decode what's going on in these dreams. You may be able to discover a deeper meaning to each of them.

Many people think that dreams are nothing but neural phenomena.

Let's just hope that's true.