Dream 002-B

The Slides Beneath the Fog

Status: Rare Occurrence

First Manifestation: Age 10

Last Occurrence: Approximately 8 years before this analysis

Typical Aftereffect: Emotional paralysis, shameful grief, obsessive mental purging Subjective Severity: ███████░

Advisory Note: Do not climb. Do not follow. Do not open your eyes beneath the surface. What you think is love may already be dead.

Of all the subconscious chaos that’s ever slipped through my sleep; of all the inmates that have seized control of the asylum that is my dreaming mind; this is the one that leaves me wrecked.

It’s short. Brutal. Inescapably symbolic. When I wake, I do everything I can to burn it from memory. But it always leaves a scar.

The dream never begins. It’s already happening when I arrive.

I become aware mid-run, tearing barefoot across a strange construct. Something obscene in its simplicity. Eight steel playground slides, (View diagram) straight out of some retro 1980s swing set, are arranged in a perfect square formation. Each pair of slides is positioned end-to-end, forming the sides of the square. The entire thing is suspended just inches above the surface of an utterly still ocean.

The ocean is dead quiet. No wind. No waves. No birds. No life. Just water like black glass and a choking fog that clings low across the surface.

Above it all, a swollen moon hangs in the sky, veiled by thick, bruised clouds. Its light filters through the mist, giving everything a sickly, unnatural glow. It’s beautiful, in the same way embalming fluid might be beautiful under a microscope.

When I become conscious of the dream, I’m already running.

I don’t know why. I never do. I’m racing up one slide, down the next, around and around this hellish metal altar. My father is ahead of me, doing the same. We don’t speak. There is no sound but our feet pounding metal and the groaning whine of the slides beginning to buckle under the strain.

They shudder with each lap, as if our weight is unraveling the laws that hold them together.

Then… it gives.

I watch as one of the slides collapses under my father. He plunges into the fog-covered water. I follow seconds later. The entire square of slides crumples inward, collapsing into the sea like a steel funeral pyre.

Under the surface, the world is darker still. And silent.

I tread water for a moment. Waiting. He doesn’t surface.

Something bumps my leg.

For a split second I think: Dad.

I dive, hoping to help him. But when I open my eyes underwater… I meet a stare.

A corpse. Eyes wide. Mouth slack. Motionless... yet inches from my face. I recoil in horror, twist away... and collide with another. Then another. The water is full of the dead.

Floating. Staring. Waiting.

I scream. Water rushes in. I choke, convulse... and wake in a panic.

Clarifying Note: This dream has no connection to actual trauma with my father. I was lucky enough to grow up with two loving, present parents. The horror here isn’t about family dysfunction. It’s about symbolic loss... of control, of protection, of meaning.

And the water never forgets.