Steel Eden and the Dreamlands Visions


What are the Dreamlands Visions?

The Dreamlands Visions were a series of three mental events which revealed each of the three locations in the Dreamlands. The exact reason they occurred is unknown, as is their exact nature - they could have been anything from particularly strong daydreams to psychotic hallucinations to spiritual visions. Regardless of their nature, they hold a deep personal meaning for me, and I have trouble shaking the belief that they are somehow important to at least my own life. The exact origin and nature of the Dreamlands Visions is the first big question I'm trying to find the answer to here.



What are the Dreamlands?

That's the second of the three major questions I'm trying to discover the answer to. Before getting into some speculation on what they are generally, it's necessary to describe each location. There are three or four locations in the Dreamlands: two properly separated locations, and one pair of locations which, while distinct, share their essential essense in some sense. The first location, and the subject of the First Vision, is the Steel Eden. The second location, and the subject of the Second Vision, is the Knotted Suburbia. The third location and subject of the Third Vision, which is actually a pair of locations as mentioned, is called the Between.

The Steel Eden is a city of eternal night, in which I am the only inhabitant. The city's lights and shops continue to function without people, as does the internet and all other necessary utilities and services. The city is endless, continuing on in every direction forever - nevertheless, there are "false outskirts," which are pockets of lower building density which take on the appearance of the edge of the city, while actually being totally surrounded by further city if one walks far enough. The manner in which the city functions without people is unknown, but happens as though through magical response to my desires, with some restrictions. Essentially, if I desire a certain food, and go to a restaurant which would probably serve that food in real life, I will find it prepared and waiting for me - boxed if I wanted to pick it up, and served normally if I wanted to dine in. Likewise, if I desire a certain product, and enter a store which could conceivably have it in real life, I will find it there. As mentioned, the internet functions, but there is no new activity on it - instead, if I were desiring to find something, I would find that it had already existed online somewhere, posted in the past, unless it would be inconceivable for whatever I'm looking for to have existed without my influence. For example, if I commented somewhere, and hoped to find a comment that was apparently replying to it or mentioning it, I would not find it, since it is unimaginable that such a thing would exist. (The unrealistic operation of the city juxtaposed to the bizzarre places where logic seems to come back into play is very amusing to me.) The weather of the city is cool or slightly cold, but not uncomfortably so, and the weather is usually slightly cloudly with light rain or snow flurries. In this location, I am always around 23 years old. The Steel Eden is, despite its apparent loneliness, a very comfortable place, albeit one which is darkly comfortable in a manner difficult to describe. As a final note - despite still having desires in the city, I have no real needs - I will feel rested without sleep, full without eating, healthy without medicine, and so on. Nevertheless, I have desires, and it is enjoyable to rest sometimes, or to eat.

The Knotted Suburbia is an infinite suburbia-like location, where it is always daytime. Like the Steel Eden, the Knotted Suburbia responds to my desires. And again likewise, I have desires but no needs. The suburb mostly consists of identical houses, modeled after ones I saw as a child, but there are a few notable non-residential locations: outdoor swimming pools, a few shops, and a video rental store. In this location, I am always between the ages of 7 and 10, likely due to this location's connection to my childhood. Going with that age, my desires are different than in the Steel Eden, and the mysterious operation of the location is also different. Rather than going to particular stores and restaurants (though that is still an option), prepared foods will tend to appear when desired in the kitchen of the house I stay in, as long as I am not in or around the kitchen, and have not recently been in it. Any house I enter into will be identical to my own, but will have a distinct location, and thus will be differently positioned relative to shops and so on. If I nap in any of the identical houses, I will awaken in the same location in the house, but will find that I am in my original house, the "spawn" location, if you will. Despite it always being daytime, and the weather almost always being clear, the temperature is rarely hot. It is instead comfortably warm, and only hot when I desire to do activities that are improved by slight overheating, like swimming in the pool, or getting ice cream. The Knotted Suburbia is a childishly pleasant location, where things seem new and simple wonder is regained. Like all the other locations, I am totally alone in the suburb, but not lonely.

The Between is two distinct locations which were both witnessed in the Third Vision. In the first, I am around 18 years old, and I am driving a car on the highway through a permanent dusk. I never exit the car, but never need to - the car never loses any gas or becomes damaged, and I have no needs. Like the other locations, I am alone. No other cars are on the road. I pass through towns and cities, but never stop in them. I sense while driving that if I were to exit the vehicle, I would be potentially attacked by creatures of some sort, but I never see these creatures, and never exit the vehicle. Notably, this makes the Between the only location in which there is any sense of danger. I have no desire to eat in this location, but have a never-emptying can of Monster I can drink from when desiring caffeine or beverage. The weather is always foggy and cloudy. The second Between location consists of a train which is wholly empty of people, and from which I never disboard. Again I have no needs, and feel only subtle boredom while riding. Outside of the window is a forest obsured by fog and clouds. The time is dawn, and I am older - in my 40s or 50s, which is notably older than I actually am. There is a train car with food if I desire it, but the foods are restricted to hotel-style plastic packs of cereal and cardboard boxes of skim milk, and other similarly boring preprocessed and undersized foods. The feeling of both of these locations is subtle boredom, but the boredom of the car variation is more pleasant than the train variation.

With that addressed, I can now explain my speculations about what the Dreamlands are. The Visions were all separated by days or months (their exact dates are lost to time), so I had a lot of time to think about each before the next occurred. After the First Vision, I initially believed that the Steel Eden was a sort of waiting room between one life and the next, suggesting reincarnation as the explanation for this. I later dismissed this and began to believe it was merely a hallucination of some sort. While looking for things which might spur on another Vision, I discovered the existence of liminal space images, which I was wholly unfamiliar with prior to the Visions. Noting that they reminded me greatly of the Steel Eden, and were very popular at the time (the original "backrooms" image and story was posted only a few months prior), I suspected that I had perhaps simply tapped into the "Collective Unconscious" in some way. Later, I dismissed this and suggested to myself that it was merely due to the then-ongoing pandemic and lockdown that liminal space images were so popular, and thus related the Vision to the situation everyone was living through instead. I no longer dismiss any hypothesis outright, partly due to the discovery that the initial explosion of popularity of liminal space images happened prior to the pademic and lockdown in the US, almost as through the world knew that the world was about to feel a lot more liminal. In any case, I obviously have no idea what the Dreamlands really are - imaginary, spiritual, real, psychological, paranormal, whatever - but have created a lot of hypotheses on the subject - a lot of them, and add more all the time.



What is the significance of all this?

This is the third and final question I'm trying to answer about my experiences. I have some preliminary answers to this one, purely based on my search to answer the other two. So far in my life after these Visions, I've done a great deal of reading, as well as a great deal of media viewing, both to attempt to understand and to invoke these experiences - as such, nearly no part of my life anymore has been left untouched by the Dreamlands.

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