Wherein my subconscious brain invents a religion

I had a very strange dream last night. It was strange enough that I remembered it, which is one thing, but also enough so that I felt the need to run to my computer and write it all down.

Because humans have a tendency when describing dreams to attempt to force them to conform with reality, or to force them to make better narrative sense, I am abstaining from actually editing what I wrote at 4 am after roughly five hours of sleep. That it is as coherent as it is, is uncanny.

On visit to NB, on walk, father takes sister and I to a church he just joined. Glass first floor, windows all around, swipe card access. Stairs upward of cement, include several missing steps near the stairwell (intentionally) — you have to somehow pull yourself up using the guardrail. Guard posted at first floor at a desk, only he’s just this big pleasant guy in a light blue robe. Once at the third floor, we realize it’s Torvuism — “first church of sentient beings”, worshipping gods. (I know such a thing doesn’t exist. My dream was weird. There’s Tarvuism, which I assume is where the dream came from, coz of a video posted a few weeks ago to Skepchick.)

They worship the prophet Helen Keller, who appears to them (each of them) as a “hive” — never got the details on that. Preacher starts out with “praise be to gods”, and on some alien tangent. Sister and I look at each other and kinda boggle a bit. Sister breaks the silence first, asking father, “wait, you’ve seen Helen Keller?” Dad nods. I add, “not just a movie about her?” and consider asking what he knows about her. People around us start getting suspicious. Sis says “You realize she doesn’t exist, right?” I add quickly, “no, she existed, but definitely not as a prophet for aliens. Really, Dad? Torvuism?” Jen says “Frickin Torvuism! Wow!” We start to get up to leave. Preacher realizes something’s up.

Two people start nattering to each other very near where we’re leaving — pews in front of us — about how they knew some atheists once, and how they absolutely had to scurry out of the building because they were too unholy to stay for long, and how they’re tools of Satan (guess it borrowed from Christianity) — complete with throwing up devil horns with one hand (this woman was dressed in shades of red and black and I couldn’t see her face, but she had thick glasses and a black beehive hairdo). I deliberately make sure my pace is exactly measured as though I was at my ease, but still want to get gone.

Sister pauses at stairwell door while I say, “in fact, name me an atheist that doesn’t believe in God, but believes in Satan?” The women say “None of them do, but that doesn’t stop them from having no morals and being corrupted by Satan.” I stride toward the exit a bit quicker now, realizing the priest’s on his way down (this is a big place of worship — for some reason, pews are aligned perpendicular to where preacher was, maybe whole building wrapped around with pews like that, with preacher in middle — not sure, details starting to fade). As I’m on my way to the door, I say, “My morals are superior to those of any religion, because they are dependent on my empathy for humans, and they can change in different situations — they are not dependent on a foundational text that was written once and can never change even when the morals they prescribe are totally immoral, like those of yours against homosexuals. I hope you all have a pleasant evening, it’s been fun seeing this.”

Priest hot on our heels, Jen and I enter stairwell, jen jumps down flight of stairs through the gap in the floor, catching the guardrail in a really slick bit of acrobatics. I have to follow her. People at first landing of three wonder what’s going on, Jen makes it down to second floor really quickly where guard is, priest hits stairwell and yells down to the guard to stop us (who for some reason say “Damn college freshmen!” and starts to get up to grab Jen. She slips past him. I realize I’m on second floor still, he’s below me, exit’s on the other side. Only way past him would be to go over the guardrail, land all the way on the first floor and tuck and roll toward the glass walls, do a 180, and make it to the swipe card doors. If they even stay unlocked now that the alert was raised. As I was at the very last second before I’d have to jump if I ever hoped to make it past the guard, without getting caught by the priest behind me, I woke up.

Seriously. Wow.

Yes, the sidebar about Tarvuism on Skepchick was actually written in the original note. All I did, for presentation here, was added two paragraph breaks. I swear on my honor, every detail in this note was in the dream in as much fidelity as I could manage. I returned to bed roughly 20 mins after typing this up, and promptly fell back asleep.

Whaddaya think? Funny farm material?

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Wherein my subconscious brain invents a religion
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4 thoughts on “Wherein my subconscious brain invents a religion

  1. 3

    Damn it, if only I’d known that you could blog about dreams. I had a doozy a couple of months ago, but figured it’d be boring and weird if I made a post out of it.

    I think I made the right decision. (You’re a freak, Jason!)

  2. 4

    Brilliant! I’ve been thinking about something similar, but inventing my own pseudoscience for April 1st, my first ‘Fools post in a couple of years.

    I just love how dreams can provide really cool inspiration for ideas, kinda like the ‘hungry tower’ nightmare that I used for a written description of tabletop RPG monsters.

    I’m going to have to keep a pad and pencil next to my bed more often in case the somnolent muse strikes.

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