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Dreams of the ruined city

23:09 / 05.03.05

I have had recurring dreams of a city in ruins all my life. Never thought much about it until I found another person that also had such dreams from time to time and could identify some specific landmarks. He mentioned that he, in turn, had met others sharing the same dreams.

I am looking for others that have had such dreams to compare notes. Please respond, but do not post any detailed accounts of experiences here as we risk to influence each other.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:03 / 06.03.05

Mmmm. Yes to the dreams and to the recurring landmarks. However, I haven't had one in a little while and have mislaid my dream diary from the last time I did have one.

15:04 / 06.03.05

*raises hand*

Me too.

19:44 / 06.03.05

Yep, been there.

(question: is it OK to also post some general observations and feelings about this, or would you rather really avoid anything that might influence others? I agree detailed accounts of particular dreams are best avoided here, but I was thinking it might be helpful to include at least some information about the nature of these dreams...)

10:52 / 07.03.05

I'm not sure I've had dreams of ruined cities but certainly dreams of cities - flying through them usually.

dont know if it thats of intrest to you but happy to compare notes anyway.

Zhi

12:20 / 07.03.05

I was reading this and thinking, nope, haven't been there, and then realized that I have.

Funny, too, because I was thinking about starting a thread asking if anyone else had ever visited a place I call the White City, either in dreams or trancing. Same sort of situation; I know other people who have been there and describe it the same way I see it...

14:19 / 07.03.05

Perhaps we should set up a third-party for everyone to send their experiences to. This outsider can look through the accounts and determine how much exactly is similar, and what isn't at all alike. That person can then come back with results (perhaps sparing the details a bit) and those having the dreams will then know whether or not there is a connection without having their own dreams altered by impressions from others.

I'll volunteer to be the third-party if this plan is wanted, though someone else might want to take the position as I may be a bit slow with it as I'm kind of tied up with school.

Bard: One-Man Humaton Hoedown

14:38 / 07.03.05

A week or two before the Blackout of 2003 I had a dream of walking down a street of Toronto heading towards the lake, and seeing a huge flash of light. It ran up the streets, and all the manhole covers suddenly blew off.

In another part of the dream, later on, I was with some sort of urban tribe in a ruined city, squatting in a park, I think, or a former city square.

Most of my city-type dreams, though, involve really big malls. With Escher-like stairs and the like. Funny thing is, for the last while whenever I dream of a mall, no matter what it looks like on the outside, it has many of the same properties and appearences on the inside. Now that I think about it, that's rather odd, isn't it?

17:24 / 07.03.05

By chance I am reading a short story by Michael Moorcock called The Ruins as we speak. It concerns a man who is dreaming of crawling around infinite ruins.

Just thought I'd point out the coincidence. It's from a collection called The Time Dweller.

20:52 / 07.03.05

With Escher-like stairs and the like...

Oh yes, the Escher environment. Quite familiar with that theme in my dreams.

21:35 / 07.03.05

I have a lot of post-apocolyptic dreams, always very specific and vivid. How many people consider them to be nightmare dreams and how many travelling dreams?

05:24 / 08.03.05

No ruins, but all my life I've visited and revisited the same city in my dreams. There's a bookstore there I go to, which changes over the years as it expands and changed owners. Sometimes I expect to wake up still clutching the books I bought there.

11:08 / 08.03.05

Hm, looks like it's OK to post the slightly more elaborate response I initially had in mind:

Most of the ruins I've been in were eitheer grotesque dilapidated versions of real buildings, or were "new additions" to cities that I've lived in. Sometimes I was just quietly travelling around on my own, sometimes I was there as part of a community; usually including at least a few people I know IRL, and usually involved in some crazy artistic project - Robodok-style, for those who know it, but even weirder - that never really seems to take shape, or just having a nice get-together.

Having my roots largely in the squatters' movement and going on the occasional urban exploration spree IRL, I guess I'm a little more prone to feeling at home in such locations than the average citizen, and I never really thought much about these dreams - certainly not in the sense of feeling displaced or unsafe; it was more like having all the excess ballast removed from my life for a moment and having some peace and freedom for a while.

There's nothing post-apocalyptic or special about those places btw, they're usually just freakin' huge anonymous factories, railway stations, hospitals etc. that have been abandoned for years. Anything big enough will do.

"There's a bookstore there I go to, which changes over the years as it expands and changed owners. Sometimes I expect to wake up still clutching the books I bought there."

Heh... I've actually spent hours searching my place for books I acquired in a dream on a few occasions, or looking for streets that I, apparently, had only visited while dreaming (Lovecraft, anyone?).

14:48 / 08.03.05

Ruins, yes, but generally VERY OLD ones.

I'm not sure the Ruined City is the same as the White City, either. Maybe.

Mine are almost all by the seaside, but that's all my dreams anyway. The significant ones, at least.

14:59 / 08.03.05

I'm not sure the Ruined City is the same as the White City, either. Maybe.

I don't believe they are; in my experience they're not. I just thought it was interesting that someone else started a parageography thread at the same time I was considering it.

(Er... do you know the White City, then, grant? Not to hijack the thread...)

farseer /pokes out an i

18:27 / 09.03.05

Ruined cities, usually not more then a collection of megalithic white stones, broken columns, and trashed aquaduct-type architecture. Lots of 'every part of this building is gone except for these two thresholds and that corner bit of a wall over there.' I'm usually travelling through the area, or can see it from atop a mountain ridge/cliff/etc.

I've gone urban spelunking IRL on a few walkabouts, and haven't seen anything like this yet. Picture a cross between Machu Picchu and greek acropolis, all tumbled down. Last few times I've seen it/been there, it seemed as if the city were still 'alive'. Hm. Not sure how to translate it into words. Stupid language.

Clemn XuLa - tha mike rula

17:20 / 10.03.05

I had a dream in which I found some rare edition of something by Lovecraft, I spent several days after thinking about when I would get a chance to read it. It was the strongest false dream memory I've had since I was quite young. Strangely enough I haven't really read any Lovecraft at all.

18:54 / 10.03.05

Ruined City, check. Often my home city, post bomb or whatever, migrating with packs of surivors looting for food and goods and hiding in tunnels, once driving around in a jeep with a radiation meter and working to thwart the Dark Man who caused it all with some sort of plague a-la The Stand. Several times witnessing the bombs going off.

A couple of times on missions with others in the more abstract Ruined City proper, not my own but the archetype of it, which involved a fair bit of driving around dressed like Matrix characters with my crew through grey and dreary streets and tense standoffs with demonics in similarly smart suits. Something about getting an important book back.

I used to regularly dream of seek-and-destroy missions about rooting out and destroying a demon of some sort. The first visit I recall to the Ruined City was such a one, killing a shadowy fellow that required some clever shapeshifting to beat, which liberated a small territory for a White Lady. Notable mostly for being recognizably that place that I returned to a number of times since.

I know of some other locals who've been there, too. Its pretty well documented territory, I'd say.

Never been to the White City, though I've seen the Golden City a couple of times.

21:03 / 10.03.05

farseer: that sounds about right. A few lumps of shaped stone on a cliff overlooking the ocean for me, overtaken by moss or other vegetation. Perhaps an abode for spirits? A city of ancestors?

cusm: I've had postapocalyptic dreams, but they don't fit this idea for me because the city doesn't seem to matter, just the situation. If that makes sense.

Sekhmet: I don't know if I know the White City. I recognize the archetype, but if I've dealt with it at all personally, it's only at a distance. Something retreating on the horizon. And that, not frequently. But as a... what, a story element, a "deep image," yeah. I think what I like about Corbusier more than most modernists (who I don't get into) is that he, in some ways, was evoking this image. Like a cross between Metropolis and Mikonos, right?

I need to start journaling again (inasmuch as the restless, early-rising 2-yr-old will allow me to).

13:47 / 11.03.05

Whoa!

What a response. I suggest we all send our reports (as detailed as possible) to Charrellz on the forum. After a month or so (some of us are incredibly busy), Charrellz should have read through the reports and write a commentary himself. Oneironaut report writers should indicate if they are ok posting these reports together with Charrellz summary on-line. They should also say if they want to anynomous, referred to by nickname or by full name in this documentation.

Please give some sort of answer to the following questions in your reports (rather short than omitted):

- How does the city look? Describe landmarks and milieus you have been to.
- How did you feel about the city?
- What did you do while being in the city?
- Were there other people there? What did they do?
- How were people dressed?
- Have these dreams been recurring?
- Have these dreams affected your daily life somehow?
- Have these dreams been inspired by daily life activities (such as urban exploration)?

Also, tell your friends about this project and check if they want to contribute. I also suggest that we find another person to do the reading, just to get a second opinion.

Let's shake some dust.

17:21 / 11.03.05

grant - Interesting; the place I call the White City sounds like it may be the city that you and farseer have visited as the Ruined City, only before it fell... It's got vaguely classical architecture, with many towers and domes, all of white stone, in a mountainous area, very near a large body of water - either an ocean, or a very large lake or inland sea.

The Ruined City that I've seen is somewhat more modern - not glass-sky-rise modern, but more like a European town with layers of architecture, starting in a medieval period and going through the steam-engine era. It has an apocalyptic feel. Sometimes I'm there during the disaster, sometimes after it's already occurred.

12:15 / 14.03.05

Sekhmet: The second one you described, that's the one!

19:42 / 14.03.05

Simulacra: Is Charrellz cool with getting these reports? Oh wait, yeah, he is. I'm on it.

Sekhmet: I'm not sure if "fallen" feels right -- just, in my case, immensely old and nearly forgotten.

19:47 / 14.03.05

Hooray, more work. Well, get your reports sent in. Should we open this up to non-lithers for a larger input? In other words, can we ask our buddies or blog-readers if they have had these dreams and for their input?

19:49 / 14.03.05

Oh yeah, almost forgot. You can PM them to me, or you can send to my gmail.com account: charrellz. (Harvest that, you damn dirty email-stealing-spammer-bots!)

20:47 / 14.03.05

last Sunday, I read this thread and decided against contributing as my own story didn't fit the theme of the thread and I didn't want to go off topic but here goes

I haven't had such a dream but last week, the new series of Enterprise started over here in the UK

I am a big Trek fan and despite feeling pretty cool towards this latest series, there was nothing on so I watched it. In the episode, Archer was infected with a gene replacing virus that basically converted him to another species

spoilers:

the transformed crewmen were searching for their lost paradise like city. They found the city but it was in ruins as the race had died out thousands of years before.
The virus had been this doomed races' only way of ensuring that something of their legacy would last out, as they faced destruction

Not really specifically related to your thread but eerily coincedental as this show was on the same day as you posted your thread

sorry for the digression

Henningjohnathan

22:17 / 14.03.05

Definitely. Usually the city is set in the "bottom" on the banks of the river where I grew up. Also, I have a landscpe in my dreams where I know I'll have a nightmare if I go there.

19:08 / 15.03.05

Charrellz: Sure, let others join in as well. And try to find another crew member if you have too much to do.

02:26 / 16.03.05

So far I have received reports from the following people:

grant

We seem to be moving a little slow on this one. That or there has been a PMing failure...
(Not reprimanding anyone for tardiness, just thought an update was in order)

03:31 / 22.03.05

Ummmm... is anybody else sending in a report? So far I've gotten info from grant and pornotaxi. That's it. Please tell me everyone is just really behind schedule.

06:58 / 22.03.05

Im happy to help should you need it..

11:44 / 22.03.05

I am terribly behind schedule - I plan to finish my report during this week. Thanks for the update, anyhow!

12:22 / 22.03.05

I'll try to take care of it at lunch today, Chuckster.

If you think this is behind schedule, go to Creation and look at the Wandering Notebook threads. You'll feel better.

18:02 / 28.03.05

It is the city without time- 'synchronicity'

21:33 / 07.04.05

i've been to one which i thought was a lost Aztec/Incan city. Then i went alone, into one of the moss & vine-covered structures & it turned all sleek & modern, in brown bricks, & there was a wicked pool party with loads of party people. People were speaking in Spanish.

i also visited a grand Chinese-looking city teeming with people, merhcants, flying vessels & dragons. It was more like Laputa + Dungeons & Dragons + Chinese.
i've been to the Forbidden City in Beijing, & the dream city looked nothing like a REAL ancient Chinese city, but the architecture of that dream city was PHENOMENAL, very intricate with a lot of fantastic detail. i was near the outer ramparts of a central palace or a city hall, a HUGE building, overlooking a vast, sprawling city which was below it on all 4 sides. Flying ferries & ships rose into the air. A lot of people, some i knew, bustling around me doing their own business. Very vibrant.
Again, the colour scheme was BROWN. Tawny browns, golden browns, dark browns, tea brown.