A description of a dream that I emailed to a few friends. Circa 1998.)
I had this dream last night. No pun intended, but it was reminiscent of the film "Last Night" in that it seemed to be about the end of the world, or at least the end of the terrestrial world.
Apparently there was a flood coming, and coming rapidly. It wasn't coming in the form of a catastrophic tidal wave, but rather a calm but steady rising of the waters.
There were a number of characters in the dream, I believe they were an assortment of my friends, but no particular faces come to mind. We were in a rural setting. It was mountainous, similar to, but not exactly like, the landscape in the Cape Breton highlands. Somewhat like the less dramatic eastern highlands, perhaps, like the area around Ingonish. It appeared to be late winter or early spring. It was not particularly cold, but there was snow around, especially in the mountains.
The dream was quite long and involved, and linear, but my memory of it is scattered and not completely coherent. I remember there being some sort of gathering or meeting in which we discussed the coming flood, and we realized there was nothing we could do to prevent it. All we could do was seek high ground and hope that the flood stopped before it reached whatever height we were able to climb to. We did not know what was causing the flood, but there was a general feeling that it would probably not stop, that the rising water would cover everything.
The first real visual memory is that of standing on a low rise, looking toward the sea, with the mountain behind me. The coast was about a kilometer away. It looked peaceful. Then there was a lot of dialog, after which we began to scramble up the mountain, as it was late afternoon and we knew the water was coming.
The mountain was quite steep and snowy, and forested. I remember climbing with my hands and feet going through the thick wet snow, using trees and whatever else I could grab to keep me from falling back. At that point the sea had come the full kilometer towards us and was lapping at the base of the mountain. The urgency of the climb didn't make that much sense, really. The water was rising, but it wasn't exactly on our heels once we started to climb.
At the top of the mountain, which was probably 300 meters, we found a chalet, with a view of the sea through a wall of windows. We spent an anxious night there, with lots of booze, although we were not really drinking to excess. The mood was somber but not panicky. We all knew that the water would most likely rise higher than the chalet, but we didn't know how long it would take. There was a small feeling that we might survive, but it seemed unlikely. One tangible bit of evidence of our attitude was that there was no effort to keep the chalet tidy. There didn't seem to be any point. There were drinking glasses all around and there was no attempt to clean up. I remember specifically picking up a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label scotch, and having to pick through the glasses scattered all about to find a clean one. I found a few clean water glasses, but I was searching for a proper "old fashioned" scotch-drinking glass. I ended up using a dirty one.
The night passed, and in the morning I went to the window to check on the water's progress. I was alarmed to see that the water was within ten vertical meters of the chalet, meaning it had raised about 300 meters overnight. I didn't panic, but had a deep sinking feeling. At this rate, the water would be at our doorstep within half an hour. There didn't seem to be anyone around at the time (I think the others were asleep). I switched into "find a solution" mode, but there didn't seem to be one. Even if we had a boat or a canoe, it would be like being set down in the middle of the Atlantic ocean with no food or water. There was simply nowhere to go. The last thing I remember was my wondering if the chalet would float. Then I woke up.
*Protoblogging