My Dreams Of Galaxies

Occasionally, I seem to dream of standing on an alien world, sufficiently far out from the galaxy that it dominates the night sky.

Most recently, I've had that dream in the form of the explorer colony dream, and a short time back I had a dream which formed the foundation of a setting for Traveller called "The Waiting Stars."

The first such dream, however, came many years ago - and it is one I have never committed to any medium until now. In a way, this was the first of my galaxy dreams.

There is a building, which apparently I own. A complex of buildings, I have been turning it into a college, and attracting eager, talented students.

While exploring the incredibly ancient, labyrinthine basement complex running beneath the property, I encounter what looks like a portal - a trilithon, within which is a pouring curtain of mist. I pass through the mist, and end up elsewhere.

The "elsewhere" I end up in is abandoned; deserted. It looks as if the receiving trilithon is in the basement of a large building; part of the wall has collapsed.

I clamber up the pile of stones and rubble, clearing it near the top; there is an archway, and what looks like a slope of jumbled rocks with a clear passage up to the open sky above. So I clamber up these stones, heading for the fresh air, which has a kind of salty aroma. There is a periodic rushing sound from far above.

The sky above is a kind of purple, with almost no stars visible. I hear the rushing sound more clearly, now, and identify it as the sea. As I emerge, I find that I am standing on the site of what was once an imposing building of some sort, with the trilithon gate in the basement.

Taking my bearings, I look around and realise that it is twilight where I am. And that I am standing on top of what looks like a hill, some distance from the shore, and part of a range of hills extending ahead of me as far as the eye can see.

There are buildings all along the shoreline - it makes me think of Copacabana Beach in Rio, only after a cataclysm which made every human on Earth disappear, leaving behind mouldering, crumbling buildings. The buildings, all modern, are dark, their empty square windows and rotting concrete walls looking like tombstones, manifestations of soullessness and desolation.

I notice that the buildings t the left are, oddly enough, well-lit, despite there being no moon in the sky. And then I turn, and I see it, rising from sea beyond the horizon.

The Galaxy, in all its majesty, viewed at an angle; its light is brighter than moonlight.

That was all I remember from this, my first galaxy dream. I have had others since; this was my first.