This thread has kind of died, alas, but I had to pop in and document my absolutely WILD dream for posterity's sake.
The Plot of the Next Hot YA Novel
| Discuss || Interpret || Draw |
Trigger Warnings: None
Dreaming Techniques: None
I was part of a group, some sort of student-age-type group I think, all living in relative proximity in this massive complex around a hydroelectric plant. The public spaces had very detailed-pattern carpeting and stuff like decorative buttresses (? I don't remember what those in-corner details are called) and vaguely reminded me of a super fancy hotel because it was mostly a lot of hallways, all in a ring around the giant turbine. There were also windows all over the place, from which you could see the hydro motor shaft and stuff. Pretty cool place.
There was a leader of the group, more of a teacher-like figure I guess, and he was taking us around to explore, but he also had an ulterior motive. I don't remember if he ever exposited exactly what he wanted, but I (and I think a couple others) recognized that he was doing this thing out of greed and something would go Very Wrong if he tried, but we were afraid to speak out against him, so we went along anyway.
One night, he took us down some maintenance tunnels and through a space that he had dug, to a wall. He broke through, and we found ourselves in the "old" complex: an exact (and I mean EXACT, down to the carpeting) copy of the one we were living in, but the current complex had been built on top of the old one and the old one had been abandoned with most things still inside. It was nearly pitch dark down there, and we had to stick together with sound and vague impressions of where the others were. We went through two lit spaces with any sort of lighting. One was some kind of convenience/grocery store, and we wondered at the fact that there was still food that had just been left on the shelves. We also got into a brief debate about whether anything in the room was still edible, particularly the chocolate bars, as it looked well-preserved but the old complex had also been buried for a very long time.
The other place with lighting was the library, and that's where our Evil Chaperone took us. He instructed us to spread out, and look for a certain book. It wasn't a big library, and there were maybe half a dozen of us? And there was also a really good window onto the turbine shaft. Chaperone just sat and waited, because of course he did, that's what the Bad Guy does. I had a bag with me that could fit a few books, and everyone apparently knew I like to read new things because no one batted an eye when I stuck a few interesting-looking titles in my bag as I went. None of the titles were anything I would recognize in the waking world, although a few were very similar, like the parallel-universe version of them. And then, I found the book that Bad Guy was looking for! I very clumsily tried to hide the fact that I found it, casually slipped it in my bag with the others, and continued looking. We were questioned when no one had found anything, and I'm a nervous liar, but Bad Guy didn't catch on.
Finally we gave up and started the return. It was harrowing both directions, but this time I almost lost the group. I got really turned around and was close to being lost in the pitch-black halls for eternity, but I think one of my friends called out or something so I could find them again.
Back in the normal complex, we had some food in our individual rooms, and mine was dry, crumbled, didn't taste right. I think it might have been because we tried to scavenge the food from the old complex for some bizarro reason, but it could also have been something to do with The Book. Because The Book had also been affecting me, in a very nebulous way, until I almost quoted it at someone, despite having never even opened it since we got it back. At this point, I woke up, but man, is that ever the start of a crazy supernatural plot or what?? Sentient book taking over the protag, bad guy chaperoning the group and trying to get a hold of the book, protag trying to hide that they're being taken over by the book-
Notes:
This was a very notable dream for me because it is so much more in-depth than most of my dreams are! For one thing, it had an actual plot, which has some familiar beats but is not a specific plot I recall seeing ANYwhere before. And, possibly more impressively, the plot still makes sense outside of dreamspace. I would watch this TV show. For another thing, none of the characters NOR THE LOCATION were familiar. 90% of the time, the locations in my dreams are slightly-modified versions of familiar places, be they IRL or Minecraft or other media spots. I don't think anything like this place exists anywhere on Earth, nor in anything I've read, watched, or played, ever. And after all that, I was the protagonist? I'm hardly ever the protag in my dreams with plot. Usually I'm just One of The Group, or I'm spectating from above and slightly to the left.
