Introduction: Due to a lack of time to write a post this evening, I'm copying a record of a dream I had awhile back, I think sometime between 2001-2004. I have kept a record of my dreams (or as many as I can remember to write down) since about that time and the dream below is the second dream I recorded. Any time I record a dream, I do it within a week of having the dream, but usually within a day or two of having it. I do this so that I am as accurate as possible with every detail that I remember from the dream. I find it even more interesting that at the time I had this dream, I did not know that many/most tall buildings do not have a 13th floor. Sorry if it is a little poorly written; I don't usually edit my dream logs but just write like crazy until I have written it all down (especially when it is a long dream). It wasn't until later that I completely understood the meaning behind this dream, but the overall theme of this dream kind-of falls in line with the theme of this blog...
Right before I woke up the other morning, I had a dream in which many of the details remain obscure.
I remember getting abused, at least verbally if not physically, by several “bad people,” all of which were adults but threatening menaces. I lived in a place full of them and no one was nice or helpful…in this place, there were either the victims like me or the menaces like those chasing, abusing, and lying to me. Somehow, maybe by eavesdropping or hearing about it from another “victim” by word of mouth, I found out that there was another place where everyone is like a child even if they are really adults. Everyone there apparently look like children and are innocent like children and that where they lived was a safe and good place to live. I didn’t know what to believe about this place because this place in which I was barely surviving was so evil. I had no home, no friends, no parents. I did not know where I came from or where I belonged. I had many questions, but no one cared, no one answered me truthfully, and many abused or ignored me. None of my questions were answered.
Everyone habitually deceived me, and so when I finally heard about this special place, I doubted if I should ever get there even if it did exist. No one bothered to tell me how to get there.
There was this huge round elevator (shaped like a cylindrical column) in which one half of it was on the outside of some huge building or connection of buildings and the other half faced the inside of the building or connection of buildings. The elevator was mostly see-through (with the exception of a lot of metal bars) and so you could kind of see where you were heading, but not clearly. The elevator stopped at many floors because it could go up so high. However, there was one missing floor at which the elevator would not stop, nor did the elevator have a “button” for this floor: the 13th floor.
The 13th floor as I soon found out was apparently that special place where everyone is like children. The 13th floor was like another world. Evidently, there was a particular way to get to the 13th floor (and the only way to get there was by using the elevator, which didn’t even have the option to stop at a 13th floor). Only certain people could get to the 13th floor, and only certain people knew what to do to get the elevator to go to the 13th floor.
Since I was living in such an evil place, my only hope was that I could somehow figure out how to get to this special place of children that I didn’t know whether or not it really existed (since people always deceived me); how to get to this 13th floor that the building or connection of buildings didn’t have and at which the elevator might or might not stop. So I spent all of my time running away from the “bad people” who were “bad” to me and trying over and over to get to this 13th floor. Every time the elevator would be around the 11th floor and going up, I would close my eyes tight hoping that the elevator would stop at the 13th floor. Sometimes, some of the “bad people” would follow me onto the elevator to scoff at me while I tried to find the 13th floor and they would say things like “You’re putting your hope in something that doesn’t exist. Some good that will do you. Just forget it. You don’t belong anywhere. You’ll never get to the 13th floor. There is no 13th floor.” But what else was I to put my hope in? There were so many things I didn’t know or understand and never would in this place I was living because I was always deceived.
One day I was running and trying to escape severe abuse and my possible murder by the “bad people” and they were chasing me but lost me when I slipped into the elevator. But those “bad people” are sneaky and tricky individuals. I was catching my breath once the door of the elevator closed and started moving upwards. I stood there in anticipation and wondering what I should do. At the 5th floor, the elevator stopped and one of the “bad people” stood there with an evil grin on her face; she was a woman dressed all in black and had a big black head of hair and what was more intimidating: she towered at least 3 feet over me. I do not know how old I was at the time, but perhaps a teenager since I know I was not an adult nor an actual child either; either way, this “bad woman” seemed like a giant monster to me. She stepped inside the elevator and I had two choices: stay trapped in the elevator with her or step out into the 5th floor (it could have been any other floor as well, except for the 13th of course) and risk getting caught, abused, and maybe even killed by the “bad people.”
I do not know why, but I was under the impression that on this particular day they feared something about me (although they did not show their fear, but rather their dominance over me due to whatever their fear of me was) and so they were trying to kill me now. I do not know how I knew this, I just did. And so I was trying to escape. To where I didn’t know because I had lost most of my hope in finding the 13th floor by this time. I had hoped that the people on the 13th floor would answer all my questions and take care of me, but if I couldn’t get to the 13th floor or if a 13th floor didn’t even exist, then I obviously didn’t belong there and could not escape to it.
So to give myself more time to think, I decided to stay on the elevator with the “bad woman.” I guess there was some rule or something that prevented her from physically harming me in any way so long as we were on the elevator. But I had no doubt that she would follow me wherever I finally got off (for I could obviously not stay on the elevator forever) and then either take me to the other “bad people” or just kill me as soon as we got off the elevator. I pushed the button to the very highest floor, which was some very large number, and intended to keep going up and down until I figured out something to do. A tear ran down my face. I was desperate for refuge. I quietly ran my fingers along the buttons to all the floors and my hand paused over the buttons for floor 12 and 14 and wishing with all my heart that there was a button for a 13th floor.
Meanwhile, the bad woman snorted in disgust and scoffed at me calling me names and saying in a more anxious and earnest voice than I had ever heard before: “You don’t know how to get there. Give it up! You don’t belong anywhere; no one wants you.” There was something different in her voice; I had heard her as well as others scoff at me before and say similar things, but this time her voice seemed more forceful and full of anxiety. I also noticed something different in her remarks. She didn’t say (like they usually did) that the 13th floor didn’t exist; she only said that I didn’t know how to get there…which means that there was a 13th floor! Didn’t it?
I scowled at her and then faced my back to her and pressed the front of my body against the side of the elevator and pushed my face up against the glass and looked out as the elevator moved upwards; we had already passed the 14th floor by this time and so I realized that I’d have to wait until we came back down for another chance to try to get to the 13th floor, although I still didn’t know how. I continued looking out the glass walls of the elevator and trying to ignore the sneering comments from the woman in black when the elevator suddenly did something weird, like a little jolt or something. I looked back at the bad woman in alarm wondering what she had done, but I saw that on her face was an equally alarmed expression. I quickly turned my face back to look outside the elevator. I could not make out what was happening or where we were going, but it looked to me like the column of floors disappeared and that the elevator was no longer moving in the same building or connection of buildings. I closed my eyes and placed my hands flat on the round walls of the elevator and after a couple more jolts, I ascertained that the elevator was moving sideways!
I had never heard of any elevator moving sideways! I glanced back at the bad woman wondering if she did indeed have something to do with this odd event, but her face remained alarmed and then she suddenly panicked. She shot a piercing glare at me and then stepped forward, shoved me aside into the wall, and then like a maniac started to push every button that was on the panel of the elevator. Then she stepped back in anticipation and I just stared at her in horror and cowered against the far opposite side of the elevator from her. Alas, all the buttons she pushed were unresponsive. Some other force had a hold of the elevator and I became rather alarmed as well.
The elevator traveled sideways for quite a while and moved at a quicker pace. Finally it started to slow down and come to a halt. Standing on opposite sides of the round elevator, the bad woman and I looked at each other with different expressions: my own was one of anxiety and confusion, while hers was mixed with anger, resentment, and even shock. I looked out of the elevator and tried to see where the elevator had taken us and suddenly the door began to open. I peered out of the open doorway to see a softly lighted hallway that had tan-colored walls and reddish carpet. The hallway went down a ways and then turned to the left. What was different about this than any other floor at which the elevator stopped in the connection of buildings we had left was that there was no visible action, no people, and something else for which I couldn’t immediately think of the words. The door also did not close after being open for a minute either like it usually did, for I was certainly standing there peering out from inside the elevator for several minutes while the bad woman stood there glaring at me as if she was either going to burn me into the floor with her stare or pounce on me at any moment.
I looked back to the hallway and suddenly I saw the small lights in the hallway blink at me and I realized what the feeling was that I couldn’t previously describe: it was a sense of being welcomed, encouraged. A sense of belonging. Upon realizing this, I immediately started moving towards the doorway of the elevator even though I was not quite sure where I was. As soon as I moved forward, so did the bad woman, who reached out with both arms to grab me and keep me inside the elevator, which of course gave me all the more reason to want to leave the elevator at this floor no matter where I was. She continued pulling on me, maintaining her death grip on my arm, grabbing at my hair, and kicking my legs so I would stumble. With all my willpower, I struggled to step out of the elevator and I finally made it halfway out the doorway. The woman’s hand was still holding me and so was halfway out of the doorway too, then she quickly let go and pulled her arm back inside the elevator. I stumbled forward after she let go and then stood up outside the elevator looking in at her with a look of triumph on my face.
“What are you looking so smug about? You’ve gotten yourself nowhere, except to a deserted place where you will starve and die anyway. Stop being foolish. Come back in here at once!” the woman said forcefully.
I shook my head and stood there free, knowing somehow that she was unable to follow me outside of the elevator—whether she was electrically shocked or something when her hand crossed the elevator doorway, I do not know, but it was obvious that she could not join me outside the elevator. I confidently turned my back to the elevator and started to walk down the hallway. As soon as I turned my back to the elevator, I heard the door close and the sound of the elevator starting to move away, along with muffled sounds as if someone was banging angrily on a wall. I heard it all, but did not look back. I had no desire to.
I continued down the hallway until it turned left and I continued to follow it into a room with a single brown wooden desk and a girl behind it who looked like a teenager too, yet like a child. She was bent over a paper writing something, with a smile on her face. I had no clue who she was, but there was something very warm about her appearance.
I ran up to her around the desk and threw my arms around her neck and started to sob. I had no idea what had overcome me, but I continued to sob in her hair and neck and I said “I’ve found you at last. Please don’t send me away. I have so many questions. Will you answer them? Will you take care of me? Where am I? I’ve searched for so long for a place to belong!” I felt like a little lost child.
After a few minutes, the girl gently pulled me away from her neck and looked sincerely into my eyes. She said softly, “Do not be afraid, my dear. You are safe now. We’ll take care of you and answer all of your questions. We’ve been expecting you. You belong here, child.” The girl stood up and with her arm around my shoulders, led me around the desk and towards a door in the room. I glanced back at the desk as if wondering what had just come over me in that fit of emotion. As I glanced back, bright and colorful words appeared on the front of the desk that said “13th Floor.” I quickly looked back at the girl’s face next to me who smiled at me knowingly as if she knew what I had just seen.
I made it! I had been through so many hardships and abuse and had never belonged anywhere, all the while seeking for this place that I had only heard of through rumors and striving to reach it my whole life.
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