Dreams, Parallel Universes and Alternate Realities - 2

Read “Dreams, Parallel Universes and Alternate Realities - 1” for a background on my 1st experience with a lucid dream.

I had just got back from a strenuous hike to Algonquin and Wright on the Adirondacks High peaks. These are definitely not the toughest of the High Peaks, but I still found them strenuous because the terrain of the trail was almost entirely rocky and in some stretches slippery as well. Slip, I did, plenty of times, but fortunately was always able to regain control before hurting myself.

In any case, I get back, watch a couple of movies including Shawshank Redemption, set the alarm on my phone for 7 a.m Sunday Morning, and drift off to sleep. The alarm goes off at 7 and as usual I switch it off and go back to sleep.

I am climbing a rocky face of a peak. It’s quite steep and I have to strain all the muscles in my body to pull myself up. There are two others with me. I can’t see their faces but just as in the previous dream, I don’t feel that they are strangers. I am trying to get to a building on top of the peak. I have this strange sense of impending danger and I seem to be on a mission to save someone who has been forcefully detained in the building. I don’t know who that someone is, but it must be someone I care for since I have this strong feeling of loss.

I am pulling myself up holding onto a protruding rock. One of my co-climbers is on the others side of the rock and I can see a waterfall beyond him. The second of my co-climbers is a little ahead of us and almost at the top of the peak. That’s when I slip. I hold onto the rock with just one hand, but I feel like my grip is loosening.

I suddenly find myself transported into the body of the climber who is almost at the top. I feel no sense of remorse for my friend who had just slipped. It was like the “new me” did not even know that two other climbers existed. (I would like to think of the three climbers to be the same person along different timelines in the same universe, each following a path based on the different decisions I could have made while climbing up the cliff. Just as I realized that my first timeline would result in my death, I had jumped into a different one. Of course, this may sound like a pile of bull but cut me some slack, this is after all, my dream and my journal).

In any case, I jump, hold onto a wooden fence, and pull myself onto the top of the peak and into the building. There I see my youngest cousin on my Mother’s side (Hari). I am not sure if it was him that I was trying to save, but I had no time to ponder about that. I had just seen the villain in the dream, someone I was feeling a great sense of revulsion to. (Strangely though, the “villain”, resembled the Malayalam movie star, Jayaram). I reach out and grab his throat. He doesn’t resist, but he mutters something I found very strange. “There is this old saying. A meow is always a meow, but an eliyah can be an eliyah or a puliyah.”

(What was that? Meow is easy to understand, but by eliyah and puliyah, if he meant eli(mouse in malayalam) and puli(tiger in malayalam), then where does the “-yah” come in? I must be becoming crazier by the day.)

I have this strange sense of deja vu as soon as I hear him say those words but I can’t recollect why. I suddenly feel something on my back and I find myself shirtless. I look over my shoulders I and see a rat clinging onto my back. It’s small claws were clamped onto my back and I was finding it difficult to pull it off. I start to panic. I call out “Hari, help me.”, only to find him transformed into a mouse. I was still gesturing towards it to fight off the “evil” rat on my back. Hari cringes and runs off to the corner of the room.

I somehow manage to pull the rat off my back. I am holding it in my hands as I ponder over what to do with it. (In the dream, I seem to go over three possibilities, one after the other.) First, I instinctively throw it away to a corner of the room and watch the rat scamper away. Then in an instance I am holding the rat again. This time I throw it over the cliff that I just climbed. It was still not done. This time, I walk to a corner of the room and throw the rat into the Falls. I think, “This time I have got rid of it permanently”, as I wake up.