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Fever Dreams

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Couple starting points.

I am a USPS contractor in Alaska. In winter, sniffles and colds come with the job. Yesterday, those ailments became worse, turning into a fever. So I took some cold medicine and went to bed early. Strange dreams ensued.

The other starting point is the world of Athas, an AD&D world that was published shortly before I lost interest in that game. What is relevant here is the transition: originally Athas was a world of oceans sailed by Halfling mariners. (the Blue World) Time passed, the oceans receded, immense forests sprouted and new races erected civilizations (the Green Age). Things went wonky. The God's went away. Sorcerers appeared, using spells powered by life energy. Genocidal wars were fought by these mages, turning the forest into desert.

I had several dreams during my lengthy snooze (14 hours) but most are fragmentary at best; driving through a park in Hawaii, a series of dubious meetings with friends and relatives, that sort of thing. But the main dream...

When it started, I was a sailor on a ship traversing a deep blue sea, occasionally calling at ports on green islands. But, I kept having 'flashes.' I'd blink, and just for an instant, I'd see forest or desert instead of waves.

Then, an abrupt discontinuity: I wasn't on a ship, but was one of the drivers for a military style truck (canvas top in the back), part of convoy making our way along a muddy dirt road through dense forest. My companion was an older gent with wild white hair who spoke excitedly about the ocean. A couple times he touched my face, and just for an instant, I was back on the ship. I told him I wanted to see the real thing, not some vision.

'You will,' he said.

The trucks labored up a steep hill. At the summit, we were greeted with a view of a fair sized lake filling most of valley - maybe a few miles each way. 'See,' said the old guy, 'the ocean.'

'No,' I told him, 'that's a lake. And not that big of one.'

He accused me of having no imagination.

Another abrupt transition followed. Still in a truck, and still on a rough road through wooded country...but much less vibrant. Large groves of stunted trees surrounded by patchy grass.

We reached another valley, an immense depression hundreds of yards (meters) deep and (apparently) hundreds of miles or kilometers across, its bottom dotted with small brackish pools and sand dunes. The old guy looks at me and says 'This is an ocean.'

'I see a giant pit.'

'It will be an ocean.' The old guy dismounted from the truck, had the others unpack some equipment, and began what I interpreted in the dream as 'the Ritual.' It didn't take long. An oval a few yards or meters appeared in the air above the depression, near a wall of rock. Water burst forth. Lots of water. It took the old guy a while (days?) to get it stabilized, but then he broke camp, left it running, moved a few miles away and opened a second spigot in the air. And then a third. For quite a while (days? weeks?) these vortices spewed water into the huge valley. But then they began to falter. And I noticed something about the surrounding landscape -

- the already patchy and not too healthy forest was dying, being reduced to isolated, withered groves, surrounded by dead grass and sand.

Then the torrents erupting from the spigots dropped to a trickle and stopped.

'See,' said the old man. 'An ocean.'

But what I saw was a vast basin filled with ooze and muddy pools. 'No,' I told him. 'This is a marsh, a bog, a waste.' I pointed at the ravaged wood. 'And you destroyed the forest to create it.'

He accused me of having no imagination.

I took the truck and left him there, alternately fuming and extorting his remaining followers.
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Hello ThinkerX!

Yeah, a combination of infectious disease with high fever often ends up causing very strong and unusual dreams. Fever dreams are particularly weird and unnerving, but still I find yours weirder than usual and quite intriguing. The dream instability that you have described is typical of fevers stuff as well, I mean the continuous and illogical transformations of the setting.

In your case, the Fever Dream was influenced by your knowledge of a Fantasy world and that made everything more powerful.

That old man was particularly unnerving, in my view. What did his eyes look like? Did he smile to you? Any unusual feature in his appearance, like fangs or something different in his hands? What about the other occupants of the truck? Fever Dream characters tend to be frightening and even monstrous in nature, so you were lucky if he was just crazy and weird.

I take particular interest in the fact that you experienced a time sensation of days or even weeks as the water was flowing. This does not happen to everybody, but it sometimes happens to me and I enjoy it very much. Did you experience night time in that place? Twilight? Or maybe it was just a perpetual day or sunset?

What level of details could you see in the forests and the sea?
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Here, one of my Fever Dreams from a long time ago!

This one happened when I was a little girl, about nine or ten years old if I recall correctly. One day I was sick with a sore throat or something, I was in high fever and that night this weird and unnerving dream came to me.

I was in outer space, or at least it was a vast and dark place without up and down. The space or whatever that it was felt cold and very lonely, it was a sensation... I am not sure, like it was an evil realm and I was not supposed to be there. There were no stars in the distance. Then, two enormous ships appeared in the darkness.

They were like pirate ships from a movie, wooden and with sails and everything, but they were not normal ships at all. The only way that I can describe them is as brutal and monstrous... Just looking at them was scary, and then they started to fight by shooting great cannon balls and eerie balls of fire at each other.

I watched as every impact caused great damage, I knew that people were dying in both ships and I wanted it to stop... The battle continued anyway, I just wanted to escape from that place and then I finally woke up.

It does not sound so scary today, but the sensation in those moments was very unnerving and tragic.

This one could turn into a Fantasy setting, now that I think of it! A universe without stars, but light exists anyway. Instead of planets there are just comets and giant ice asteroids, and all starships are like those in my dream. Interesting...
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
That old man was particularly unnerving, in my view. What did his eyes look like? Did he smile to you? Any unusual feature in his appearance, like fangs or something different in his hands? What about the other occupants of the truck? Fever Dream characters tend to be frightening and even monstrous in nature, so you were lucky if he was just crazy and weird.

Hard to remember now, but at the time he came across as personable. Likable. If anything he was a bit shorter than average. Filled with boundless energy and conviction. As to the other people...I didn't have too much to do with them. I was in front, sharing the cab with the old guy (or by myself), the others rode in the back or in other trucks. I have vague recollections they tended towards the large, muscular side.
 
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