02-22-04 @ 9:43 am EST

Near the tail-end of Tape 22/64, I came across a recurring dream that wasn't of the "public bathroom anxiety" or "late for class" type. (I have BUTTLOADS of THOSE dreams...) I've been wondering when the hell I'll come across a "darkness falling" or "forgotten pet" or "crypt tunnels" or any other type of recurring dream such as I have nowadays. They can't ALL be new.

Almost word for word from my transcription to paper (will be edited for inclusion in the Dreamforest):

In part I was in my room and it seemed like I was trying to clean stuff up around near my white dresser. I was looking for something. I moved the boxes away from the dresser and now, on the lefthand side of my dresser, under my windows, there was a space about a foot, foot and a half across. It went back into the corner under my window and back into this corner there was this ledge, under the window. My windows weren't covered, the light was coming in--everything in my room was kind of yellowish-white. Where this ledge met the corner, it ran on along the next wall, but in the corner there was like a small table built into the ledge, triangular. On this there was a little tiny glass vial or vase. I thought, "If only I could clean up the rest of my room and have it look as clean as that ledge! And if I could get back to that nice little ledge." I looked down below me and I was looking into my bottom drawer; there was some old stuff there. It had this strange smell to it I think--I don't know if it was that sick sweet smell that I've dreamed about before or not, but for some reason it started to scare me. All this really old stuff down there and I didn't know what was down there. I could see some old books and stuff. There was a kind of blanket near me--it might've been my old brown blanket, I don't know--but I grabbed it and pulled it over the drawer, I think, and I backed away and started putting all the other stuff back, so I couldn't see down into the drawer and everything else there.

--11/30/96

This is an old recurring theme of mine, possibly a variant of the childhood "Blue Room" nightmare ( http://tdreamjournal.tripod.com/early/theblueroom.html ). An element of it also appears in "The False Pirate" ( http://tdreamjournal.tripod.com/2001/032701.html ) although not in quite as threatening a manner. Aside from the form it takes in those dreams I'd completely forgotten about this theme until hearing it on this tape from eight years ago.

Basically in this dream I will be digging around in my room, usually in the bottom of a chest of drawers (dresser), when I'll come across some very old items of mine. Usually papers and drawings and such, though maybe also including old toys; for some reason I think of a Spirograph, so maybe one dream had parts from a Spirograph set. *shrug* At first I'll be curious to see what's in here, but then the sheer oldness of the things...the fact that I can't even remember writing or drawing what was on them, if they feature writing or drawings...and the additional element of the sickly smell surrounding them...always drive me off in fear. I specifically remember a dream like this in which I was digging in the bottom of my other dresser (I used to have two, the white one and an offwhite one), although aside from that I can't recall the details. Oddly, I also remember a variant "Blue Room" nightmare in which the bad smell emanated from beside the offwhite dresser, near where an old drawing of mine had once been taped. The smell is what I KNOW in the dream to be the smell of death and decay--a sickly sweet smell, really horrid. My dad--somebody who would likely KNOW this smell (he was in Vietnam), once, unprompted by me, described what death and decay would smell like, and it verified what my dreams have told me.

The only thing is, as far as I can recall, I have NEVER smelled this in real life...so how I can know what it smells like in my dreams, I have no clue. :/

In my dreams the smell always seems to be associated with my bedroom, for some odd reason. I just realized that...what I was ACTUALLY going to type was, it's always associated with an aspect of something old and forgotten and seemingly harmless at first. But the bedroom part applies too...at the moment I can't recall any specific "sickly sweet smell" dreams which took place anywhere outside my room, though it's possible.

Even the lighting in the dream above reminds me of the Blue Room dream (not the same color, but sunlight pouring through uncovered windows, making the room seem pleasant). The "odd element out" is the part with the little shelf and vial. I never really get back to that vial throughout the dream, so now I really wonder what that part means.

Another related variant of these is the "Toy Chest" dream...in which I dig through an old toy chest of mine with great anticipation, only to discover rot and insects and all kinds of filth in the bottom. This one could be based on reality--I DID have such a toy chest once, and after being placed in the wet basement, its bottom DID start to rot out--but in my dream it's still upstairs in my bedroom...maybe it even shows up in the Blue Room itself, I can't be sure (since I grew too panicked to ever explore the Blue Room, myself).

The Blue Room nightmare has always been one such that's bugged me and given me an eerie feeling. Most likely it's because of that bad smell I should not recognize but do. As in the dresser dreams it seems to signify something hidden under pleasant or otherwise harmless things, something bad.

Well, I could theorize, but then I just start to sound paranoid. Sometimes a dream is just a dream. I would say more on other subjects but I'm not in the best of moods today for various reasons, so tar...