Been having apocalyptic dreams again lately. A while ago I had a dream that alien colonizers had annihilated nature and enslaved all of humanity. Was it conventional slavery or some kind of mind control? I no longer remember, but I do remember it was at a preposterously cosmic scale – stars being arranged in rows. I was in a spaceship, but I don’t recall if I was planning some suicidal resistance gesture or just trying to survive for a few minutes.
The newer dream was more of a supernatural apocalypse. The entire world had corroded away under something like a super fungus, including rocks, earth, water, all physical substance. Left in its stead was a sloppy approximation of the annihilated world, populated by sad and confused ghosts that were trying to convince themselves that there was still some kind of concrete reality that they could live in and depend on.
I was in a room where part of the floor had corroded away, and people were discussing what could be done to repair it. I knew that was futile, that the place was on the verge of dissolving forever, but I let them have their plans. Is it better to have a false hope or a hopeless truth? It probably depends on the situation, but my dream self was leaning toward the former.
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I’m with you on the former, with the reservation that like so many things what people hope for varies from the absolutely impossible to the virtually certain, and given that it can be difficult to judge until after the fact what is false hope. I do think having hope is better for peoples mental health than having no hope, that doesn’t mean I personally have much hope about anything, but I am pretty sure that is not a good way to live.
Sorry if that’s too near doomerism, but the subject does invite it.
it’s true, it was invited… that was what my dream self was thinking, in waking hours i treat it situationally. personally i look for what i believe seems possible and hold onto that.
For some reason, my eyes were crossed when I read the title.
I saw “Decomposting”.
Larry Niven’s Puppeteers were known to re-arrange stars.
im definitely decomposting on this one… rearranging stars is so pointless … did they have a reason?
actually… it was planets…
It’s complicated…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierson%27s_Puppeteers
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