Dream Geography
Aug. 23rd, 2006 10:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothThere are recurring places that I see a lot in my dreams. One of them is the giant motel.
The bottom levels of the motel are a large open space surrounded by three levels of walkways. Sometimes it's a mall with a food court, sometimes it's a baroque ballroom. Usually, there's some sort of ride or attraction dominating the center of the room -- last night, it was a log flume ride decorated like a very realistic mountain stream.
In addition to a set of standard elevators (which are always crowded and not working well) there's the main elevator which hardly anyone uses. It's generally fancy and dangerous -- this time it was an octagonal platform with couches... and no railing. And no elevator shaft, it just sort of levitated up from the ground floor, past landing piers on each level of balconies, into a hole in the center of the ceiling.
Above the giant open space, there's some number of levels of ordinary hotel, but on top is a rickety penthouse, or attic, or some other structure that looks really old, really poorly put together, and has no right angles. That's always the best place to be, and you can only get there by using the central elevator, or sometimes a creepy, claustrophobic back stairwell.
The building never has any windows. Even when it's a giant, brightly lit mall, all the light comes from inside, although not from any identifiable source. Outside the building it's usually a somewhat trashy, run down commercial area, running the gamut from Factoria to Fife as far as density goes.
Sometimes, although not last night, the atticy place opens up into a whole new world of... well, basically dungeon adventure. The one I can remember, the 'motel' was actually my grandfather's mansion, and that was where he kept all the junk his family had accumulated over thousands of years.
This time the attic was basically a series of stacked ranch houses with families living in them -- each level was set up with a communal living room, kitchen, and so on.
The log flume up the mountain thing has also appeared in other dreams, although usually it's in a canyon instead of on top of a peak like that. It's almost always artificial.
I woke up from that dream during a sadly routine travel anxiety segment, where I drove back to the airport and returned the rental car, only to realize that I'd never checked out of the motel or bought an airline ticket. 9.9
The bottom levels of the motel are a large open space surrounded by three levels of walkways. Sometimes it's a mall with a food court, sometimes it's a baroque ballroom. Usually, there's some sort of ride or attraction dominating the center of the room -- last night, it was a log flume ride decorated like a very realistic mountain stream.
In addition to a set of standard elevators (which are always crowded and not working well) there's the main elevator which hardly anyone uses. It's generally fancy and dangerous -- this time it was an octagonal platform with couches... and no railing. And no elevator shaft, it just sort of levitated up from the ground floor, past landing piers on each level of balconies, into a hole in the center of the ceiling.
Above the giant open space, there's some number of levels of ordinary hotel, but on top is a rickety penthouse, or attic, or some other structure that looks really old, really poorly put together, and has no right angles. That's always the best place to be, and you can only get there by using the central elevator, or sometimes a creepy, claustrophobic back stairwell.
The building never has any windows. Even when it's a giant, brightly lit mall, all the light comes from inside, although not from any identifiable source. Outside the building it's usually a somewhat trashy, run down commercial area, running the gamut from Factoria to Fife as far as density goes.
Sometimes, although not last night, the atticy place opens up into a whole new world of... well, basically dungeon adventure. The one I can remember, the 'motel' was actually my grandfather's mansion, and that was where he kept all the junk his family had accumulated over thousands of years.
This time the attic was basically a series of stacked ranch houses with families living in them -- each level was set up with a communal living room, kitchen, and so on.
The log flume up the mountain thing has also appeared in other dreams, although usually it's in a canyon instead of on top of a peak like that. It's almost always artificial.
I woke up from that dream during a sadly routine travel anxiety segment, where I drove back to the airport and returned the rental car, only to realize that I'd never checked out of the motel or bought an airline ticket. 9.9
