Last night I had an enigmatic dream that turned nightmarish and dystopian.
At least twice, I became aware I was dreaming. I even woke up inside the dream—a dream-within-a-dream—and then went back to sleep to keep dreaming, so I could finish it and write it down. At one point, while I was “awake” inside the dream, I was already writing a story based on the dream. And now I’m writing parts of it here.
Anyway—this is how it started.
Inside the dream within the dream, in the second—actually the third—layer, I was in the city centre, in a concealed place, with a guy I used to know vaguely and a teacher. The teacher had us make transfers using carbon paper—right there on the floor—and then interpret them: what emotions they stirred, what thoughts they triggered.
The image was seemingly simple: a skull with flowers. A vanitas motif, or a stereotypical gothic tattoo.
After waking up inside the dream (back in the second layer), I returned to that same location to see if there was anything real about what I’d seen. There was nothing printed on the floor—but I did see the skull, like a shadow in the exact same spot. I stood there wondering if it was just a pattern my brain was imposing on the world, a moment of pareidolia. It felt very eerie.
Then something stranger happened: I experienced an echo of another person’s life, and it made me wonder if it was something divine at work. I heard what he was hearing—and what he was hearing was what another person was hearing—and who knows how many people the message had passed through before reaching us.
It was part song, part voice note. Distorted and cryptic, yet somehow it made perfect sense in context—eerily aligned with the present moment as I walked through the city centre, like it had been timed to meet me there.
Then—“the next day,” in the dream—a woman pulled me into that same spot at night. She told me a nightmarish prophecy: a plague was coming, to affect the city, maybe the entire world. And the plague, she said, would bear the face of the first person to find us in that place.
And then it began.
We didn’t see the person then. Whoever it was, they were hiding. And suddenly there were little creatures everywhere—crawling things with indistinguishable human faces. A nightmare for me. Apparently they would grow, and over time their feeding habits would change.
I woke up inside the first dream layer and felt relieved, because I knew it wasn’t real—though I’d kind of known all along. In the second and third layers, I’d already been aware I was dreaming. I also kept remembering I had to be somewhere soon (a real meeting I have IRL), like an anchor tugging at me from the waking world.
In the first dream layer, I realised again that it was a dream—and then, finally, I woke up for real.
It almost makes me wonder if I’m still dreaming.
DIANA MARIN 