Exegesis

Dreamlands Map

The Dreamlands Map shows the two structures which the Dreamlands might take. According to the first version, called the "Island View," there are four infinite "islands" in the Dreamlands, each with two connections to other "islands" that allow movement between them to take place. According to the second version, called the "Nesting View," each of the locations is contained within the others, creating a recursive self-containing system where each location contains each other and itself, though often indirectly. In either model, the only method of transferring between areas, given that each is infinite and therefore impossible to move past physically, is to sleep with the desire to leave. Upon leaving, I always first awake in one of the two versions of the Between, and only then sleep and awake in another area. The "Nesting View" model supposes that each realm is actually the dream of another realm, making the whole of the Dreamlands a system of self-containing nested dreams. The "Island View" model instead supposes that all four specific locations exist distinctly from one another in the same shared "space," called the Doldrums - a metaphysically indeterminable and incoherent sea of infinite nothingness.

The First Vision

The Steel Eden. Permanent night. Music echoes through the streets - vaporwave, Leyland Kirby, some such haunting and haunted music. A chill in the air - not cold, but cool, comfortable. Light rain, or else light flurries of snow. I am at peace. I am alone.

The city is empty and infinite, but the stores befriend me - they produce what I want, when I want it. Movies I want to see - old, new, non-existent - play in every theater. Objects I want line the stores. Food I want is ready in every restaurant. Things I do not want exist too, to make finding those that I do want more pleasurable. An infinite and empty mall is not out of place here - nor is a normal Blockbuster, still functional, next to a bar which serves drug cocktails I desire, something which does not exist. The whole place is impossible in a comforting manner. The city is lit up with neon signs, tall visual advertisements, and so on. It is bright, though no natural light penetrates the city, save from the dim and ever-present moon.

Some signs are in Japanese, some in Korean, some in English, some in other languages. If I had to pick a location for the city, though, it would be Japan. Some false outskirts exist, which appear to be on the edge of the city, but which truly exist only in a pocket of temporary low density, to add atmosphere to the city.

I am an adult, and my needs are equally adult in this place, but all are met by myself and the city. The internet still exists, but no others are present online. The web is in a permanent state of crystallized eternity, but offers enough interesting information to be worth looking at. Websites existent and non-existent exist, as in the city itself. Again, should I look for anything, I am able to find it eventually.

The whole Vision was in a first-person point of view, which is odd for me, since I dream and imagine in a third-person point of view. I have no need for sleep here, though I can sleep if I wish.

I could easily live in any apartment - indeed, even in any store - but I have settled in a high-rise apartment, far above the streets. My apartment is small but cozy, and covered in a womb of blankets, fairy lights, warm neon, and posters of comfort characters, bands, movies, and so on.

The Second Vision

The Knotted Suburbia. Eternal day, warm with sunshine, but never hot. It rarely rains, but when it does, I desire it to do so. I am a child here, and my needs are those of a child. I delight in the warm and the soft. I am alone here as well. There are no drug bars, but a Blockbuster would still fit here. An infinite suburb, with some recesses with shops I would like to frequent. I have no need for groceries, but I haunt the stores to bathe in the atmosphere. I might get a DVD or VHS from a shop, or a candy, but I have no need for groceries. The home I live in is the exact home I lived in as a child, the third one I can recall, with two floors, two bedrooms, a cozy living room with a TV that felt big at the time, and so on. The kitchen provides for me when I am hungry. Unlike the city, I cannot get far from my home. When I wish to go home, I find myself never too far from home, no matter how far I have walked. I have no need for sleep, but find myself wont to take naps and sleep more than in the Steel Eden.

The Knotted Suburbia has those things I desired as a child - video games, movies, television. The internet that exists there is child-friendly and is otherwise a rough approximation of what the internet was like in the mid-2000s. I might get on the computer to play Club Penguin or similar games, but no others are present. I have many blankets, perhaps even more than in the Steel Eden. I can sleep anywhere, as I might have as a child.

Simple things feel exciting - a rainstorm is wondrous still, as it was as a child, even a small rainstorm - a rainbow is magical in the original way - a movie is a wonderful thing, a show doubly so for its short length. I do not read much here, but when I do, it is a very magical experience, enchanted as it was in my youth, and I read things appropriate to that young age of around seven.

This place was originally misunderstood as a Hell, but was later understood to be a Heaven equal to the SE, merely a different one.

The Third Vision

The Between. Foggy, always dusk or dawn, impossible to tell which. I am either in a car or on a train, the third vision being actually two visions of the same locale. The train provides for my minimal needs, but I find myself less inclined to excessive boredom, hunger, and such here. The car provides nothing, but in it, I have no need, save to drive and enjoy the scenery. No others are present, as always. This is less a happy place than the other two visions, being incredibly neutral. Similarly, getting off of the train or out of the car never occurs, but strange and terrible creatures exist in the outside world, if I were to exit either. I never get off of the train or out of the car, but instead eventually drift into sleep, and find myself in either the Knotted Suburbia or the Steel Eden - without waking, I might add. Sleep simply serves as a gateway to realizing I am already in the Steel Eden or Knotted Suburbia, with little recognition of ever being in the Between. I arrive in a similar manner - by desiring to be elsewhere while in the Steel Eden or Knotted Suburbia, while falling asleep. I find myself in the Between, with little recollection of wishing to be elsewhere. The car goes through many types of locales, but never fully into them - I drive through only the outskirts of cities, and find myself mostly in forest. The train rides only through forest. The road is also deeper into dusk or earlier in dawn, darker, while the forest is always either late dawn or early dusk - brighter than the road, though consistently semi-dark.