Chapter 3: Exploring the Mysteries of Dreams

  Author’s Note:

  By now, you may have sensed my obsession with dreams and dimensions. Dreams hold a special place in my heart. They are not just nocturnal diversions to me—they are portals, echoes, and riddles. They are the invisible strings tying the mundane to the metaphysical. Of course I’ve had your normal fantastical dreams. Then I’ve also had what you would call supernatural dream experiences. These dreams came mostly when I was a kid under great stress. Perhaps as kids, we are more attuned to frequencies? Then as we get older, we lose the connection? I degrees. Let me give you some examples of the dreams I’ve had.

  —

  The Dreaming Child

  I was six years old in the early 90s, scribbling crayon doodles and gnawing on dinosaur action figures, when in the middle of the night, a dream seared itself into my conscience. It was no ordinary reverie. This was a preview: a hyper-realistic montage of my life unfurling like a home movie. I saw myself aged, graying at the temples, navigating a world both familiar and alien. It was my future. At least I thought it was my future. Maybe it was a vision of another dimension.

  I drove a green Jeep Laredo—a design not yet built—its bulky cheap plastic utilitarian lines cutting through a landscape choked by $8/gallon gasoline. I remember thinking that I was glad I was supplied a company car and that I didn’t have to pay for gas.

  I saw images of a future world. I had memories of a life that I hadn’t experienced yet. I remember reminiscing about college. I looked at my own reflection: This is me. I was a husband, a father of two, a Navy veteran. I scrubbed dishes in my own kitchen, wondering where old friends had vanished. The dream was a cheat sheet, a future I could not yet comprehend.

  Years later, fragments of that vision materialized. The Jeep’s silhouette debuted in showrooms. Gas prices climbed. Acquaintances from future childhood memories surfaced, like seeds planted years ago coming to fruition. The dream had not been a dream—it was the future, a map, and I was walking it.

  —

  The Weight of the Seen

  What does it mean to carry the future in your bones? As a small child, I woke trembling, clutching secrets too vast for my small hands. Can you imagine how this type of shock would stick with you your entire life? Can you imagine slowly over the course of your life watching things unfold as you knew it would? Would you tell people? I did. People thought I was crazy. I got lost in it. Was it just a dream? How was it so vivid? How did I come up with so many complex ideas when I couldn’t even read yet? It took years for me to reach an age to understand what I experienced. Did my dream pin me to a predetermined path? Is there free will? Or could I carve new routes through time?

  I struggled with the questions for years. One night in high school, I dreamed another simple dream. I dreamed that I woke up, went to turn on the light, and in a flash, the light burned out. It was so strange that it woke me up. I went to turn on the light, and then the light burned out just as I foresaw. Spooky, but I was used to it by this point.

  That night, I had a second premonition dream. The style of these dreams is consistent: third-person view, vivid, clear, and non-abstract. It was night and raining. I watched as my friend overdosed. That morning I called my friend and told him. He took me seriously. Our other friends gave him grief over it. They wanted him to come out that night. He refused and stayed home instead. Later, my friend confirmed that if he had gone with our friends that night, he would have indeed overdosed. They found out later that their drugs were laced, and he knew he would have been the first person to find out the hard way. That night, it started to rain. That dream was a thread I tugged. If I could alter one thread, could I unravel the tapestry entirely? I wondered if the future wasn’t predestined.

  —

  The River and the Raft

  Life kept moving towards the future I had seen. I had to experiment. Did saving my friend mean I could change my life from the premonition I had as a young child, or would actions eventually force me back into the same story that I was shown? I tried to diverge. I started to make choices in my life to force myself onto a different path. I built detours into my life, sabotaged routines, and sought randomness. Yet the broader current pulled me inexorably toward the horizon I’d glimpsed as a boy. Free will was a raft, but the river was time. I could move my path, decide where to dock, but I couldn’t make the river change its destination.

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  Over the years I began to think that there are infinite rivers. I began to suspect that my dream was not a glimpse of a single future, but an echo across dimensions. That every choice spawns a fractal me: a sailor, a father, a writer who dared to ask—What if the unseen is just as real as the seen? Do we communicate at the subconscious level?

  Perhaps time travel exists. Perhaps every time there’s a change, it creates a Mandela Effect, spinning off another dimension that exists just as much as our own. Perhaps there are multiple me’s out there living different lives, and when we die, we all combine into the same source version of me, who has lived and experienced many different paths. Maybe that’s how we evolve and become stronger, fuller beings on the other side.

  “Luke, I am your father.” Oh yeah, the Mandela Effect got me going for a minute.

  Perhaps as a child, I was simply a victim to an overactive imagination, scarred by a dream that followed me through my life. Perhaps I need therapy. Perhaps it's more fun living in a world where you think magic exists.

  —

  Soul Connection

  One dream experience that stands out in my memory occurred during my junior high days. My girlfriend and I were experimenting with the concept of shared dreams. We had read about lucid dreaming and the idea that people could meet in each other's dreams. Intrigued, we decided to put it to the test.

  We practiced meditation techniques, focusing on creating a mental link between us. The plan was simple: I would visit her in her dream and then call her the next day to recount our dream encounter as proof of my journey. After several attempts, one night the experiment seemed to work.

  In my dream, I found myself on a serene beach in Hawaii. The sun was setting, casting a warm glow over the gentle waves. I was amazed to see my girlfriend there, her form slightly different but recognizable. I approached her, feeling a mix of excitement and disbelief. To confirm it was truly her, I decided to use a secret word as proof of our connection. I whispered the word "waterfall" to her.

  The next day, I called her with anticipation. When she mentioned the word "waterfall," I was stunned. It was a moment of triumph and wonder, a fleeting connection that transcended the boundaries of our waking reality.

  This experience, though singular, reinforced my belief in the mysterious and sometimes inexplicable nature of dreams. It was a reminder that our consciousness extends beyond the physical realm, and that the boundaries between our dreams and reality are perhaps more fluid than we realize.

  —

  The Visitor

  Here’s another junior high dream for you. I dreamt I was in my school. It was one of those dreams where the hallway just stretched on forever and I couldn't find my locker. Of course, to me, nothing out of the ordinary. Dreams can be weird and abstract like that.

  Then, my great grandma approached me. She was wearing a white nightgown with an intricate design on the sleeves and collar. Her body kept morphing and flashing between being ninety plus years old to, I’d say, early twenties. Her hair would flash between old lady curled hair to straight and youthful. What I saw was vivid and wild, but in the dream state, completely normal. I asked my grandma, “Grandma, what are you doing here?”

  “I just came to say goodbye.”

  “Goodbye? Okay, but what are you doing here at my school?”

  Grandma looked around at the never-ending hallway. “Oh, is that what this is? Your school? Okay, if you say so.”

  Her expression told me that she didn’t think we were in a school. It was weird to her; she couldn’t see what I saw. She continued, “Well, I love you. I just wanted to say goodbye.”

  She was giddy, excited to continue on her path. I was confused. I am in school and grandma wanted to say goodbye? Now where was my locker again?

  I woke up in a rush. The dream stuck with me; it was powerful for some reason. I looked at the time, noting it was just after midnight—Mother’s Day. What a strange dream. I woke up the next morning, got ready for my day, and my mom came to me, telling me that she had news that my great-grandma had died. We went to the care facility. Grandma was wearing the same nightgown as in the dream. The nurses confirmed she died around the time I woke up from my dream.

  Another overactive imagination? Or was I visited by my grandma before she moved on? I’ll let you decide. But for me, you can see how my thoughts and beliefs are starting to form. If you haven’t already, you should check out Blake Crouch’s Recursion book. If you’re into these types of thoughts.

  —

  Dream of a Lifetime

  Of course, I’ve had the usual assortment of dreams—flying dreams that leave me giddy, nightmares that make my heart race, and recurring dreams that feel like reruns of some forgotten show. But there was one dream that stood out, a grand adventure that felt like an entire lifetime condensed into a single night.

  I dreamed I was a Viking, my boots sinking into the frost-bitten soil of a foreign land. Armed with a sword that felt as much a part of me as my own arm, I fought creatures that defied the laws of nature—beasts with too many eyes, shadows that moved on their own, and spirits that whispered in languages long dead. I sailed across stormy seas, built a life in a rugged settlement, and even found love in the arms of a shieldmaiden whose laughter could calm the wildest of storms. I aged in that dream, felt the weight of battles won and lost, and mourned the friends I’d buried.

  When I woke, the sun was just beginning to creep through my curtains, and for a moment, I felt a strange sense of loss. That dream had been so real, so all-encompassing, that it left me wondering if somewhere, in some other time or dimension, that life was just as real as this one. It was a fun dream to wake up from, but it also left me with a question that’s stayed with me ever since: How much of what we dream is truly just imagination?

  —

  The Dream That Never Ended

  Now I bring us to this last dream. At twelve, I fell into a dream that refused to let me go. It was an abstract one. Unlike ordinary recurring dreams, this dream progressed. It picked up where the last left off, weaving a continuous narrative across six months of sleep. Every single night, I lived and fought in that place until one night, I escaped—and woke. I didn’t have any other dreams for six months. I haven’t had that dream since it ended.

  That dream became Arch’s, which you will read in the next chapter. I’ve altered the details to fit his world, but the bones are mine. Like Arch, I walk the line between skeptic and believer, between science and spirit. Obviously I’m changing some things to make it fit this book, but now you have some context of where my ideas come from.

  —

  The Question

  So I ask you, reader: Is the future a cage or a canvas? Are we prisoners of our visions, or architects of the unseen? The answers may lie in the spaces between sleep and waking—in the dreams you’ve carried like I’ve carried mine.