Terra Incognita

Well, first of all, what would be the difference in significance of food at Walmart and ice cream at Dairy Queen, Anthony?

To me, Roshan, the difference in significance between the Walgreens snacks and Dairy Queen ice cream would be in how frequently I purchase them, which actually struck me upon waking up. Buying snacks at Walgreens is something I do pretty regularly, as does my brother; Dairy Queen ice cream is something we almost never get.

In general, though, I don't know.

I think I was in Europe. War was in progress. There were two "teams." I didn't recognize anyone on either one. Some of my allies and I were in a standoff against the enemy team in a small, square, outdoor parking lot situated between two small buildings, a third wall flanking us from my left, like this. Nothing remarkable was happening (other than the situation itself, of course), but at some point or other, I tried to calmly walk away from the scene. Before I got away, however, I got shot in the heart. I felt no pain, yet immediately collapsed—a pool of blood spreading around me, my eyes fixed on the line where the enemy-side building met the sky. I reasoned that I was now going to die, but at first, and only for a brief moment, did not at all feel the gravity of it. Various ideas about what was going to happen next ran through my mind as I felt myself drifting into darkness: "Hm, I would think that in a minute from now, my consciousness will permanently dissolve into a state resembling sleep," "Or perhaps, my consciousness will be transported somewhere, but it doesn't seem like this is happening and I wouldn't expect it to," "So, I guess this is it. Is this reversible?", etc., etc. It was that last question, "Is this reversible?", that really got to me; the answer, of course, was that it isn't reversible; I'd been shot in the heart and I was actually dying, finally. I felt myself sinking further and further into that darkness, but my consciousness wasn't quite budging. I recognized that, now, everything I'd seen, felt, and known up to that point was going to eternally disappear for me; everything within and without me was nullified, I hadn't written a will, said goodbye to my friends and family, finished thinking about what I wanted to, achieved what I wanted to, nor fulfilled my other wishes and dreams, etc. Then, I started to freak out. I hadn't yet forged a way to priorly and fully understand and make peace with my death; I wasn't ready yet, and I felt angry, both for being unable to do that for myself within my life span (despite struggling to) and for now having to die for this totally SUDDEN and STUPID and UNCALLED FOR reason. Simultaneously, however, I felt almost relieved; it was a combination of the extreme tension of freaking out and the relief of no tension whatsoever, though the former took precedence; despite the relief, I was still terrified. In the extremely short time I had left, I tried to mitigate the terror but felt unable. I then sunk all the way into the darkness, felt my consciousness more fully drifting away, and then I woke up.

This was one of the most troubling dreams I've ever had, and I still feel troubled by it.
Today, I saw a video on YouTube of a guy getting slapped in his prison cell for losing a bet and not paying commissary, or something, and almost dying (EDIT: HE DID die. And the reason he got slapped that fucking hard was because he lied about his sexual assault of a minor charges). Although it isn't graphic/gory, I won't link the video. I'm surprised it's even on YouTube. The comments disturbed me far more than the video itself.
Anyways, seeing this video made me feel even more troubled by the dream. I'm not sure how to internally reconcile such occurrences, not to mention all of those unspeakable YouTube comments, and it makes me want to scream out loud.

Anthony wrote: ↑Thu Jun 30, 2022 1:13 am and I felt angry...for now having to die for this totally SUDDEN and STUPID and UNCALLED FOR reason.

And what was that reason, Anthony? That there was a war, that you got shot, or that you tried to calmly walk away from your allies in a standoff against your enemies and so were a deserter?

Roshan

Well, I should have specified that it was someone on the front lines from the enemy side who shot me.

So, although it makes sense both symbolically and based on my 'irl' behavior that this would be the reason, and it still may very well be:

or that you tried to calmly walk away from your allies in a standoff against your enemies and so were a deserter?

I'm not 100% sure that's what it was. I do think the fact that I walked away is a very important aspect of the dream, and I'm inclined to interpret it as something like, "I walked away from my allies in a standoff against my enemies, was thus a deserter, and got what was coming to me—the consequences of my selfishness, regardless of whether it was my allies or enemies who shot me."

In the dream, the situation just felt incredibly precarious; my having been shot immediately registered to me as something like "having been forced into a game of Russian Roulette and then losing," as though someone randomly chose to flip a coin to determine whether or not I should live or die, and in the dream, it felt "stupid."

I was bickering with Nicolette like we did when we were kids, except we were the ages that we currently are. We were in the house we grew up in together. I don't remember what we were bickering about—something silly—but at some point, we walked outside, where there happened to be a family reunion of sorts, and sat in a circle of chairs with everyone else as we continued arguing. She sat on the right side of my brother and I sat on the left. Eventually, instead of just half-heartedly bickering, I started nitpicking her statements with far greater precision and she got pissed, but I 'won' and felt accomplished. At that point, I looked away from her and into a distant reflective surface in which I saw my own face, which appeared distorted in a completely uncanny, unappealing, and creepy way. I paused at the sight of myself, just looking, but then suddenly realized in the reflection that there was a Whole Foods behind me ("behind the appearance of my face there was a Whole Foods," holy shit, Anthony). I had to use the bathroom, and since I didn't think there were any other bathrooms around, I decided to use the one at the Whole Foods. In the bathroom, however, there were tons of guys, each of whom was obviously larger and stronger than me, and weirdly enough, had the faces of people that picked on me when I was a kid. When I walked into one of the stalls, one of them came in from behind me, grabbed and squeezed my genitals, and pinched my chest very hard. I freaked out, headbutt him with the back of my head, got him to let go, and ran out of the stall. When I tried to make it out of the bathroom, this happened three or four more times, groping different parts of my body, and with two of the guys, I knew that the only reason I was able to get away was that they let me. It felt like I was walking through a 'grope gauntlet' and by the end felt extremely violated. There was a mall connected to the Whole Foods, so I tried using the mall bathroom instead, but the same exact thing happened (and with the same people).

Three dreams I recently had. All are memories (and a lot of this will be going in the history of mental health thread as well)—

1.
I was in Kindergarten. It was either the first or last few weeks of the year—I don't remember—but for a while, I had been struggling to make it from the bus to my classroom at the beginning of each day. Despite having been shown the way to my classroom numerous times, I couldn't remember it, especially (according to how I felt at the time) given the immensity of the school and the fact that everything looked the same, so how was I supposed to tell from the outside which classroom was mine and which wasn't (mind you, at this time, my eyesight was terrible and I hadn't been prescribed glasses yet)? Would I have to check every single room? So every day, I'd go to school, struggle to find my classroom, and despite my shyness, would either ask for help or some teacher would just rush to.

One day, however, the teachers decided not to help me at all, instead allowing me to learn via independence. Walking off the bus, I recalled a thought I'd had the day before: my classroom had a pet turtle, and if I wanted to find the way, all I'd have to do is walk past all of the classrooms, spot the one with a turtle tank, and walk inside. So I did. I walked up and down the hallways, peered into each classroom, grew increasingly anxious as the hallways emptied and time went on, and in the end spotted no turtles. So, I asked one teacher, some middle-old aged lady, if she'd tell me where my classroom was, and she basically shrugged at me and told me she didn't know. When I went to the next teacher, the same thing happened. And with the next teacher? Same thing. After running to multiple teachers who refused to help me, I began to cry, feeling strongly the impending doom of being trapped, lost in the maze of the hallways. Eventually, though, after enough hysterical scrambling, I was able to find my classroom on my own. I went to my teacher and told her "I was trying to find the turtle, but I couldn't. Where is it?" and she pointed to the corner of the classroom, away from the door, where it was sitting in its tank. She moved it from its original spot where it was visible from outside the classroom. I immediately thought something to the effect of "There was no reason to move the turtle" and felt mildly frustrated that she had.

tbcd

It was the middle of summer. I was a kid, my parents had divorced—I was living with my dad—and I was at my old old house with the pond in the backyard, playing alone outdoors. I skipped into my backyard and there was this very large oak tree (which never existed irl) that I tried to scale but was unable. I didn’t care. Then, I noticed my dad near the back porch doing some light landscaping work (idk what), and I asked him, “Dad, I just tried to climb that tree. Have you yourself tried to climb the tree?” and he said “No. Now that I’ve divorced your mother, I’m going to have what I like. I think trees without leaves are prettier than trees with leaves, so that’s what we’re going to have now.” So I walked over to the pond, stood in front of it, and began thinking “Jesus, I’m stuck with this guy for nearly a decade more, and throughout it I will only get to have dead trees in my yard, only get to see dead trees from my window…” Then, some kind of white ball—I could not discern its state of matter—rolled to my feet. I looked ahead of me, saw the pond, and right before the pond, a collection of very large, very colorful eggs that looked like dinosaur eggs, as well as a collection of white raccoons. I tried to throw the ball into the lake, just to see if I could, consciously hoping it would not land near the raccoons, but the ball nevertheless zigzagged in the air and fell right next to them. They started running toward us, so I sprinted toward the house, and on the way, noticed that it wasn’t my dad standing there anymore, but Carl Jung. Jung began running away from the house, but the raccoons were gaining speed on him. I made it into the house and started yelling “Jung! Jung! Turn around and run back in this way!” So, he did, then made it into the house, and I was almost able to close the door without a raccoon entering, but one still did and then began chasing and biting us.

Tbcd interpretation coming