my dreams are endlessly fascinating to me (and most likely me alone) but i want to practice writing so i'm going to try and write about them. part documentation, part worldbuilding, part diary? welcome to Dreamtown.
there's been a continuity to my dreams for the last few years that i think grew out of my recurring nightmares. as i dealt with my trauma and the nightmares eased up, i think my brain started to explore the same setting with less fear, which meant less terrifying dreams in the same space, which meant more details could develop. i thought this was neat so i started paying attention, and i'm sure that reinforced it. it still interests and amuses me so here we are.
not all of my dreams take place in Dreamtown explicitly, but most of them do. i still have nightmares and some of them take place in Dreamtown, but not all of them. they are also much more varied than they used to be, though they still follow a few basic themes most of the time. naturally most of the themes are rooted in trauma, but one of them is more opaque to me and i think it's interesting - the best way i can describe it is just Something Is Wrong With the Sky. this is usually in terms of really freaky weather events but sometimes it's more cosmic. the worst nightmares i've ever had are in this genre. one of them was the source of the single greatest dread i have ever felt before or since, asleep or awake - and i've been through some shit. i might write about it in more detail at some point.
but anyway, first of all, the setting. a funhouse approximation of my current home (New Dreamtown) and my teenage hellscape (Old Dreamtown), connected by a long highway. they're not far apart, yet the highway is long. things exist outside of Dreamtown - there's a huge city in the periphery, with massive infrastructure and airports and lots of weird museums. it's 'far away' but it's also connected to the top floor of the library. we'll get to that.
between these places, and along that long highway, is a shit ton of wilderness in a few different flavors. outside New Dreamtown is hiking country - winding paths through massive boulders trailing down towards swampy cypress forest - while Old Dreamtown backs up against an ocean. some of its beaches are sandy tourist-trap affairs, but others are pebbly and volcanic and require swimming and climbing to explore. it's drier down there though, not tropical. there are more browns than greens. the ocean itself is huge and cold and demands respect. there are spirelike islands in the distance.
the wildlife is one of my favorite details. a recurring theme is being inside during storms and watching through the window as animals (sometimes real, often bizarre) gather - for shelter? maybe. usually i am more scared during those storms than they seem to be. sometimes there are scary things out in the wilderness, but nothing bad has ever actually happened out there. more so that my dreamself recognizes that it's intruding and respectfully gets the absolute fuck away from the scary thing. which i suppose is comforting. the ocean dreams are rarer but usually have the wildest fauna going on.
there are a few points of interest in New Dreamtown, the main one being the campus. it's an Escher-style layering of brickwork plazas and seating areas. there are many buildings, but my dreamself is not privy to most of them. their main stop on campus is the aforementioned library. two words to describe the library are 'labyrinth' and 'stairs.' there are many floors and many counterintuitive ways to move between them. some of them are secret. some are definitely cursed. but the books! this is what first tipped me off to the continuity - my dreamself would worry about half-remembered books they'd borrowed last time and had forgotten to return. the top floor of the library is very distinctly a bookstore, which is odd, but they have the most beautiful, massively oversized, illustrated books. and the bookstore is usually how dream transitions to the city, like there's a parallel exit miles away in the middle of the metropolis.