Started out this one by pulling into the parking lot of a casino. I could tell that's what it was because I could see people playing slots through the windows, though the architecture was "distributed" and modular, something like Habitat 67.
Just more of the extravagant, impractical nonsense that commonly appears in my dreams. Various sections of the building, elevated high off the ground, had trees growing on top with colored lights strung through the branches. I couldn't see but assumed there was grass as well.
When I entered, thumping music threatened to deafen me. Bizarrely, the very same windows I'd looked into this place through now looked out into what appeared to be outer space. Beautiful women walked by dressed like the Halloween costume version of a stewardess.
All around me were people playing various games. Just one big ol' Skinner box, albeit with pretty colored lights and huge 3D displays. I headed upstairs, more interested in the tree I'd seen earlier than the prospect of gambling.
Knowledge of casino margins, their business model, the psychology of gambling and so on have prevented me from ever taking an interest in it. I don't see the point of playing what is effectively a very simple videogame that is no fun by itself, but putting money into it I won't get back.
Up here, under the starry sky, I could see people seated at picnic tables beneath the trees. It felt very safe and comfortable. Like living in a magic moment. The colored lights dangling from the branches, the night sky, friends and lovers chatting to one another animatedly.
I made my way back inside looking for something to eat. There was a seafood bar with crab legs, prawns and so on. I ate my fill. There was no indication it cost anything and nobody stopped me. But the more I explored, the more the casino just folded back on itself.
There was nothing like a hallway. There were long rooms, but even these had slot machines or similar lining one wall and big windows lining the other. There was nowhere you could go without any gambling machines present.
Then I happened to peek into a room where I discovered the casino hostesses were not humans, but robots of some kind. I saw them being disassembled. Only there was no machinery inside. When a technician removed an arm or a leg it was just skin colored all the way through.
Do they have bones? I could see no evidence of it. And how come I couldn't see any seams on their shoulders when they were assembled and walking around? Like it's some sort of weird gelatinous material that just fuses together or comes apart as needed.
A man in a suit who must've been the manager came up behind me without my noticing. He grabbed me by the shoulder and asked what I thought I was doing, eating all his food without playing any of the games. I admitted I don't like gambling. He asked what I was doing in a casino, then.
I didn't really have any good answer to that, so I wound up working off what I owed him. Mostly pushing around wheelbarrows full of those fleshy skin tone arms and legs, then helping to assemble more hostesses. When the technician didn't reply to any of my questions, I began to suspect he was one of them.
Finally it grew late. Customers went home. I'd had enough to drink that I didn't want to drive home, and apparently cabs don't exist in this world as I didn't call one. The manager told me I was off the hook for the seafood and could crash there if I wanted to.
I wound up sleeping atop a pile of arms, legs and torsos. They twitched subtly and were warm, despite not being connected to each other or powered up that I knew of. It would have been sexy had the pieces been assembled properly. Instead it was just weird, but comfortable.
It grew warmer and warmer, until I tried to get up because it was becoming muggy and overbearing. But I couldn't. My legs had fallen off. My arms, too, had detached from my body at the shoulders. I struggled to move around with just my torso until my head also fell off.
I wasn't scared, oddly. I figured this was where the parts came from for the hostesses, technicians and other workers. They had been humans once. Some sort of transformation happens if you're this close to them, surrounded by that material for long enough.
I thought about my new life working at this casino. I wondered if escape was even possible. Presumably they had some means to make me fall apart on command or nobody would stay here. But maybe the reason the others stay here is because they like it?
Four hostesses came in, and were surprised to see me there. "Is it really okay for us to sleep here? He's in the pile." Another reassured her it was okay, because I was one of them now. They all proceeded to lay next to/around me on the pile, and slowly fall apart into limbs, torsos and heads.
One spooned me, another draped herself over me like a blanket. It was unexpectedly unarousing. I felt like that would be inappropriate, as I was "related" to them now. Made out of the same exact stuff. We just kind of fused into a warm blob.
I received no answers and came to no conclusions. I was just too exhausted to think any more, and drifted off to sleep as the overbearing warmth enveloped me. I'm not going to hazard any guesses about symbology, but probably a psychologist would have a field day with this one.
Just catching up on your dream reports which are quite compelling to read. I thought I had some crazy symbolism !
Out of curiosity, did this dream and the mass shooting dream both happen around the same time?
Have you thought about any connections between the two?
2 days apart, and no I haven't.
Reading them both, it occurred to me that there was maybe some significance in the way you experienced two opposing ways of being.
Also, you mentioned at the end of the shooting dream that you wish a solution was presented. It seemed reading this dream that those solutions might somehow be provided here.
If they were my dreams... I'd consider how in the the shooting dream, the character was literally "banging his brains against a wall", or a bullet in this case, similar to the idea of beating one's head against a wall, willfully doing the same thing over and over again despite the damage it is doing.
But this dream has a much different tone. A willing acceptance of what is. This character's identity has been torn apart (literally pieces of his body torn off and replaced), but unlike the terror and pain of the other dream, he seems to be very willing and accepting of this state of being.
As a side thought, not sure if you have read much about Shamanism and dismemberment dreams, might be worth checking out...
Man, that is some interesting jazz. I will look into that.
man
casino food costs an arm and a leg these days
( ಠ_ಠ)
cool!