I had a hard time waking up this morning. I have been on jury duty since Monday, and it has taken its toll. We were in court until almost 7 pm on Monday, and I had a difficult time going to sleep later that night. Before I left, I was told to report at 9 am on Tuesday, then on Tuesday, I was told to return on Wednesday at 9 am. I am uncertain yet if I will be asked to return on Thursday; the clerk said I was to call the automated number at 7 am tomorrow (Thursday) to find out. In the past, I was exempt as a student and caregiver to my Mom when she was dianosed with dermatomyositis, so I have not served jury duty for almost 10 years. I think they are going to abuse my duty to civic service to make up for all that time. LOL (or not LOL). All I know is my sleep pattern is screwed up and probably the reason for the hair-raising dreams.
Anyway . . .
The dream from which I awoke this morning was disturbing. It took place in another location; a location that I have often dreamed about in other dreams. Those dreams are kind of dystopian.
The buildings and streets remind me of the movie
Brazil (1985). Ergo, a dream within a dream.
This morning's dream was about demonic-like male twins in their early 20s. Each one hauntingly beautiful with rugged facial featues, tall and toned, dark hair, light skin, but the way they looked at you was diabolical. They kept following a group of my friends and me around the apocalyptic city. As for my friends in the dream, I am not sure who they were; they are not people I hang around in real life (whew). Well, maybe one of them kind of looked like a classmate of mine from grad school, but I am hesitant to confirm. The twins had the power to take over a person's body by way of entering it through the mouth, slowly devouring the body until it was all consumed, then the body would implode and evaporate. Much like a vampire when it first dies of exposure to the sun: it burns and explodes into dust. These twins were scary looking. I wish I had the talents of Stephen King to better describe my dream in finite detail because the dream had me shaken for a long time after I woke up. I don't even know from where the dream originated as I have not watched a horror (or even sci fi) movie in days. I was frightened in the dream, too, because we could not evade the twins. At one point, one of the twins stopped showing up and the other twin (I call him the lone twin) became more powerful, almost omnipotent. He could find us wherever we went in the dream; the nihilist city was abandoned (like it usually is in my other dreams) and only my friends and I are driving around in it desperately trying to lose the one twin - but he keeps finding us. Each time the lone twin shows up, he manages to overtake one of us. Sometimes he will possess the body, other times, he will vanish with the body or do a "jeepers creepers" and dismantle the body right in front of us. It's disgusting what this evil twin does. I recall one point in the dream when a friend and I are the only ones left, we are driving like mad in that frightening city, escaping the maniacal twin, and we arrive at a point that is extremely familiar to me (because I have dreamt of it before), and I say to myself, "please, not this place, don't let him find us here." It dawns on me that the exact location is the same one in my previous dreams where I usually find solace. I recall waking up to a 6:00 am text from my spouse (who is in Austin with her employee for a DPS work trip). I tried to make sense over the disturbing feeling I had, and then it hit me, the dreams I usually have of the dystopian city are not scary or menacing; the dreams are usually me driving around and looking at buildings I find beautiful. So, by having this city pop up in today's dream, it was threatening the very place that I normally find peaceful. I think I fell asleep again at some point while trying to reconcile the dream and feelings; perhaps it was like a reverie. I could see myself in the evil dream silently shouting and freaking out because my city of solace was being invaded by this evil man, this lone twin, and we could not lose him.
A movie even reared itself in the dream. Not a movie I had ever seen, though. I think it was the lone twin from hell who trapped us in a theatre room where the movie reel was playing. The lone twin was holding us captive and making sure we watched the gory flick. The movie was about a hospital and some of the nurses and doctors who work there. Moreover, the dream explicitly revolved around three nurses. Two of the nurses had finished up their shift and were going to a party. The third nurse (the person I think was my former classmate) was pulling a double, and upon finishing up her shift, was leaving for a vacation at a beach coast in another country. As it turns out, both of the twins were in attendance at the party. The twins killed several people, and it was horrible; the dream didn't fail in being blood- and gore-packed. My friends and I were scared as we watched the movie because we knew the kind of powers the twins had, and they were inescapable. We watched in horror as the party goers tried to escape and how each one was cornered and massacred. The two nurses were the only ones who managed to evade the wretched twins, and for unknown reasons, the nurses end up driving back to the hospital, and they start telling their story to the other nurses and doctors on duty.
One of the nurses asks if they have never heard the story of the twins who died in the hospital. All heads point toward her, and no one answers as if to convey that, no, they have never heard that story. The nurse explains how 55 years ago, the hospital was built on property that belonged to the twin's elderly, sickly maternal grandmother. The city took the property without just cause and demolished the decrepit house. They paid the old lady way below the market value of the property. This made the old lady more ill than she had been, and she ended up in critical care in the hospital. Upon hearing of this, the twin's mother, who was also in poor health and had been estranged from her blood family for years, drove to see her mother in the hospital, which was over two hours away. Along the way, in her car, the twin's mother thought about how her husband had forced her to cut ties with her mom, dad, and entire relations just a few short months following their wedding. She thought how unfair it had been for him to do that to her, but mostly, she was disgusted with herself for letting it happen and for allowing her sons, the twins, to grow up not knowing her side of the family. The mother starts feeling fatigued, which happened often since she became ill. She was halfway to the city when she gets a sharp pain in her side, and she screams in agony and loses control of the car; the car plummets over into a 100-ft ravine along the dark, desolate road. The ravine is especially flooded with water during this time of the year. The mother dies on impact, but her car would not be found for days. The twins are in another state in college when they learn about their grandmother's fate and that their mother has gone missing. Their father moved out of the house after their mother got sick, so they know they cannot rely on him for news of their mother's whereabouts. They are frantic with worry and the next day, they decide to drive back home and then to the city where the hospital is. They plan to take the same route their mother would have taken in anticipation of finding her themselves. You see, the police and state troopers haven't been able to find their mother or the car. The brothers stop at different locations along the way where a car could have driven off or pulled over, but they find nothing. With each passing hour, the brothers are overcome with fraught because the chances of finding their mother alive are decreasing. It has been an extremly cold winter, and even though it has not snowed yet, the strong winds and frequent rains have made for a thick haze, which makes it hard to see too far in the distance. The brothers make the drive along the same route, five times in two days. They do not go to the hospital because the nursing staff has told them that their grandmother has not had any visitors since she was admitted, so they are sure that their mother never arrived. Plus, the police searched the hospital parking lot and the surrounding areas and have not found evidence of their mother having arrived at the hospital. On the third day, the twins decide to make the two-hour drive once again, but this time, they are going to the hospital to meet their grandmother. It takes the twins several hours to arrive at the hospital because they have taken their time and stopped at different locations that they might have missed the other five times. The twins are overwhelmed at seeing their grandmother; their mother looks just like her. The grandmother is in a coma, so the twins cannot talk to her, but they each go to oppostie sides of the bed and simultaneously hold hands with her. The twins are overcome with grief and regret remembering what their mother lost upon marrying their father. The twins, at the same time, feel a pain in their heart, and they know . . . they know their mother was gone forever. They cry like they have never cried, not caring about being silent since their maternal grandmother cannot hear them. The twins stayed with their grandmother the entire night. She passed away in the early morning. The twins felt alone. They felt betrayed. They were angry. They heard the story about how the city had robbed their grandmother of her home and how it led to her being hospitalized. The twins became enraged as they spoke about the domino effect the city caused. The twins came up with a plan: they were going to burn down the hospital at night. They had been beaten by their father almost each day until they were old enough to fight back, so they did not have much respect for others. The twins were hardened by life. The only love they knew was of their mother's, and she was gone now. Upon getting things ready for the fire, one of the twins climbed into the elevator shaft to tamper with the brakes. He knew that elevators should not be used during fires, but he counted on the fact that people do stupid things when panicked and that someone would surely try to use the elevator. If they did, they would die, too. He did not want anyone to be able to escape the fire. Meanwhile, his brother (the lone twin) was in the stairwell making sure the doors at each floor level were unable to be opened. The twin in the elevator shaft tripped and became entangled in the steel ropes. He hit his head as he fell, the rope gripped his ankle and kept him from falling. As he awoke, he saw where he was; he panicked and reached up to try to grasp the rope, but he was too weak and disoriented. He thought about his brother and hoped he would come look for him. The lone twin was finishing up with breaking the last door on the first floor when he heard the elevator start up. He got mad thinking his brother had not dismantled the elevator system, it was the only job he had to do, and he had clearly mucked it up. He took the elevator to the penultimate floor and scanned the halls for signs of hospital staff or visitors. He then pushed the button for the floor below without getting in the elevator. He listened for the bell that would sound the arrival of the elevator to its destination and opened the doors. He could not see his brother, but he heard moaning so he quickly jumped down onto the top of the elevator car. He got on his belly and checked over and around the car. He finally noticed a foot; his brother's shoe. His brother was tied up in the steel cables. The lone twin found a loose cable and used it to rappel down to help his brother. Just then, he heard the elevaror motor start; oh, no, someone is using the car again. It was after midnight, the lone twin wondered why in the hell were so many people up and around in the shitty little hospital so fucking late at night. Just as the elevaror reached the floor it was bound for, the remaining cables holding the elevator car started to fray - until they broke. The elevator car dropped and the twins were killed. The nurse stretched the story by saying that legend goes that the brothers were so concumed by hate and evil that it not only caused their own deaths, but it sent them straight to hell where they would dwell for all eternity; killing those they were unable to kill when they were alive. The nurses and doctors looked in horror as the nurse ended the tale. They were unsettled and creeped out. The movie then cuts to the nurse at the beach. She is painting by the seaside and decides to stop and return to the hotel for dinner. The movie shows her getting attacked by the lone brother in the elevator. The movie ends at the hospital with the nurse's friends and coworkers crying as they learn of her death, the nurse storyteller has the last say, she says, "it's damn ironic that the two nurses escaped from a certain deathtrap and this other nurse died in a far away place where it was supposed to be safe and peaceful." The movie in my dream ends, I revert back to the frightful dream. This is the point where my friend (the last one left) and I get into the car and end up driving around, all panicked, in the streets of the dystopian city where I once knew only serenity-filled dreams.
It is late right now, and part of me is still disturbed by the dream. A dream within a dream. What does it mean?
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