Date: 28-07-2023
I had this dream half way in the morning as I was sleeping in on a day off. The dream was short, but a lot happened in that short while.
I was walking while sitting on an old bike, both legs just peddling besides the bike. With me was a young boy, maybe 6 years of age. He was also on a bike, a kids bike. In this dream I was – at least at that moment – the caretaker of this young boy. We were somewhere in a city, but I could see from the clothing people wore, and vehicles and lack of high rise buildings that I had gone back in time, but it was difficult for me to say how far. Somehow, in this dream, it was normal for me to sometimes stumble into the life of another person and live their life for a while.
The boy and I were walking with our bikes on the side walk, making idle conversation, but then a walking man passing us caught his eye. This man was dressed quite extravagantly, as if he was with the circus or something. I recall the colour purple. He also wore a tall black hat. He also wore a cape that apparently had some text on it, which the boy had read. The text was advertising some kind of meeting, perhaps something religious. It was meant to recruit people to go to that meeting. The little boy had read it and wanted to talk to the man, but I felt something was off with that man. Something was not right.
The little boy sped up to catch up with the man, who was walking quite fast. I too sped up and got in front of him, blocking his way with my bike. But since his bike was much smaller he was able to reverse and quickly pass me again. This went back and forth a few times until the boy also started calling out to the man. The man heard him and stopped. While I was still trying to intervene and get the little boy to move along, the boy and the man talked. Apparently the little boy had recurring dreams of something, and whatever it said on the man’s cape related to that. I was unable to break their conversation so I gave up my attempt. What they were discussing was also interesting.
I cannot remember any details to the content of their conversation. The only thing I remember is that the boy confirmed to the man that he had in fact had such a dream as the man hinted on on his cape. The man asked follow up questions about the dream. Things like colours, details about the figures in the dream, who was where when who said what, and so on and so forth. The little boy could explain the dream in detail. Apparently these dreams foretold something and the man explained how he was looking for people like that little boy. The man invited us both to come to the meeting, which he on his way to before being stopped by us. I was going to allow the little boy this indulgence as I could relate to having prophetic dreams. We were no longer on bikes now. We went to a big town square where a large open building sat. It was like a theatre but without the chairs and podium, and with one side of the building missing a wall; you could literally walk right in.
Inside were a lot of people. Strangely enough I saw a lot of modern clothing too, and even people with smartphones. It was a mix between old and new, like the town I was in was a sort of vintage town. The people gathered in a circle. The elders were seated on folding chairs. A lot of people sat inside the circle. The vibe was good and relaxed. Uplifting. An older man began by stating he saw some new faces. He directed his attention to the man who invited us to this meeting. Apparently this was a new face to this group. It doesn’t make sense now, but in the dream I didn’t find that odd. I was surprised though. He introduced himself. I can’t recall his name. The elderly man asked why he was here. I vividly recall the man’s reply: “I am a neutral party. I am just here to observe.” “Alright, fair enough. Welcome.” Said the elderly man.
I was now contemplating what to say. I too considered myself just observing. If it wasn’t for the little boy, I wouldn’t be there. But I also wanted to say who I really was. That this wasn’t me, but that I had come from the future. Somehow I thought this crowd would be open to it and wouldn’t outright discard my claims. But the elderly man didn’t ask me my name and story, and instead went on with the program. But a nice looking lady did ask me, and other people turned to me with a friendly smile, willing to hear my story. Somehow I got a tiny bit nervous and told them that I was a computer programmer that was programming a game called “The Dial of Destiny”, forgetting the time travel part. In this dream, this was all true, but in the life I live writing this dream down, I am not at all a computer programmer! Anyway, they seemed to know what a computer was, and were even familiar with the lore behind the game. They did say though, that the lore of the game came from a religion that goes against their believes. I said: “Yeah, I know. I’m just programming it, I don’t necessarily believe it. That was a satisfying answer for them.
We all turned to the elderly man again, who was now humming something while stretching his arms forward a bit while snapping his fingers. Everyone joined in on the humming, as did I. I also did the snapping finger action at first until I noticed I was the only one besides the elderly man to do it, so I stopped. Nobody seemed to have been bothered by it, maybe expecting a stranger not to know their customs. After maybe half a minute of chanting the crowd got up and moved to what used to be the open side of the building. But everything was smaller now. I recognized this location as the living room of my grandparents on my mother’s side in their old house. It was a bit larger but it was definitely that room. The glass pane of the front window was missing though. A very large rope came from outside and was laying on the table and a couch. Everyone grabbed a piece of the rope and started pulling it. Not me though. I passed along everyone to take a look outside the window where that rope was going.
I saw that the rope went behind the houses on the other side of the street, and went to the right. It disappeared into distant bushes. In the far distance between the houses I could see something though. It was a huge statue of a robot. It kind of resembled the robot from the Disney movie ‘Iron Giant’, but its eyes were really menacing. Glowing yellow, and wide open. It also had teeth. It was a huge robot, cause it was very far away but still towered over everything in sight. And disturbingly I could see the rope was around its neck. The people in the building with me were trying to pull the statue closer. And it worked. It started moving. It moved to the right though, so I figured the rope must be laying in a zigzag pattern all the way to that thing. It was scary to see the statue move, and I felt like maybe the people shouldn’t be pulling that rope, but I didn’t know how to convince them. They were so sure this was what they needed to do, and all I had was a gut feeling. I remained silent, but looked at the statue again, which was slowly moving closer but out of view behind the houses on the other side of the street. But although it had its body turned sideways, I saw its head was still fixed on me. It scared me.
I now felt like I had enough reason to request everyone to stop pulling the rope, but as I walked into the crowd to stop them, we were all shocked by a loud noise. It was too late. A loud long lasting monotone chant echoed through the neighbourhood: “HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” It was loud even though you could tell this came from a considerable distance. It sounded like a relaxed confident shaman’s chant, but it was menacing just by its volume alone. The people of the group had immediately stopped pulling the rope, and were standing idle in a sort of disbelief. I went back to the window to see if I could see the statue, but as I was looking through the window trying to spot it over the horizon, loud footsteps were heard and felt. It was no longer a statue, but was moving on its own. As the footsteps came closer both audibly and by the shaking of the ground, its menacing face appeared over the treeline. It looked directly as me. I went into complete panic mode.
I knew this house inside out, and my instincts took over completely. I wanted to go into the basement. So I ran towards the door to exit the living room, but one of the teen boys tried to prevent me from opening that door. Perhaps also in his instincts to keep at least an extra door between him and the danger. But I was not in any state of mind to reason with anyone or even to invite him with me, I just kept pulling on the doorknob, while he yelled “NO!” and tried to keep the door closed. But I was determined and pushed him aside and opened the door, opened the door on the other side of the hallway, and went down into the basement. I could hear the others ask out loud where I was going, and they even began to laugh at me when they saw I went down the stairs of the basement, almost in a bullying way, laughing at my expression of fear. I didn’t care.
Down in the basement I crawled under the stairs and tugged my legs towards my torso and closed my arms around my legs. For a minute it was completely silent. For a moment there was hope that the danger had passed, but then the chant repeated itself. This time it was much louder and clearly therefore much closer to the house: “HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” Suddenly it became really dark. like the creature was towering over the house while its shadow darkened the surroundings. I pulled my legs closer with my arms and started praying asking: “Lord please protect me from this evil. Please protect me.” I squeezed my eyes shut while praying, expecting the roof to be torn from the house at any moment, contemplating if I kept still whether that robot would be able to spot me.
But then I woke up. Relieved, obviously. But one thing I found odd. My heart was not racing in my chest. I would’ve expected my heartbeat to be way up, but it wasn’t. No sweat either. Most often I would wake up from such a dream with left over signs of the terror I was enduring. I was also immediately alright after waking up. I did not have to take a minute to digest it.
Analysis:
This was a fascinating dream. There’s so much depth in this dream.
The role I had and what eventually happened between me and the little boy reminds me of my relationship with my brother. I have always felt protective of him. This is something instinctive, and I think other people with younger siblings can relate. Even though my little brother is far from little now (he actually is quite a bit longer and stronger than I am) I can never shake this feeling I want to protect him. But in this dream I ultimately failed in that mission. I can only assume that little boy perished. I might’ve been able to protect him against certain dangers, but not the dangers he himself was determined to seek out. This is true for real life too; I cannot protect my brother – little or not – from dangers he himself wants to seek out. And if I go along with him, I might find myself in the face of that same danger. I don’t want to reveal more private information than this, but it is relevant to the current situation.
I regret participating with the group chant. I was pretending to be someone I am not, even though in the dream I believed to be that person, I also knew I was just embodying them. And even still, regardless of that all, I participated in some kind of cult-ish ritual in a believe that I do not have in order to fit in with a group I had no good reason to want to fit in with. To me this is a wisdom revealed; the advice to be aware of who I am and who I want to be, and to not let myself be captured into a persona I do not wish to embody. Don’t pretend to be someone. Don’t pretend to be yourself. Just be you. Be who you actually are. This is something I struggle with sometimes. I sometimes find myself participating in things I do not want to participate in because it actually goes against my convictions and believes, both in real life and online.
The danger I foresaw when those people were all pulling that thing closer, and not daring to express this to those people is something I can definitely relate to in real life. I struggle even to tell my wife what I think is on the horizon if humanity does not stop mindlessly doing what they are doing through technology, specifically social media. With everything we do online on those platforms we are bringing the danger closer to us, up to a point where that danger can no longer be stopped by mortal hands, and where that danger will come closer on its own. I think that’s where AI is heading, and I think – just as in this dream – people will only realise what the hell they were doing when that point of no return is crossed. It will suddenly shake them out of their slave-like state of mind and back into reality. And just as in this dream do I find it very difficult to tell people who are helping to close the distance between us and this danger to stop what they are doing. Where do I start? All I have is my gut feeling. I can explain it well, but for those who are oblivious I sound like a complete lunatic.
Interestingly enough, in this dream, I was from the future, where in that dream I was actually a computer programmer, programming a game called “The Dial of Destiny”. Currently I am working on a draft for chapter 20 of my work, and this little detail of this dream of me being a computer programmer might have something to do with that. I might actually be. But I don’t want to spoil that yet. In any case, the fact that I did feel this to be the truth in this dream is fascinating in light of the content of that coming chapter.
