Week 4

Lately I have been having a sort of recurring dream. The events are mostly different, but the location is the same in each one. They have been set in very extreme looking landscape, with familiar cities and towns. I am not sure why this specific place has continued to appear in my dreams, and I am very intrigued by it.

There are hills with a dirt road wrapping around them, leading to different places. There is “Ojai” and its neighborhoods, “Moorpark”, “Ventura”, etc. The strange thing about the landscape is that the earth is bright orange. Reminiscent of the hills and mountains in some of Utah’s national parks I visited as a kid. Occasionally, in this alien landscape, I come across other scenery. I traveled to “Moorpark” and saw that it was right along the bluest water I could imagine. “Ojai” looked like the deserts of Arizona, with light colored dust covering the ground, and Joshua trees dotting front yards

            Aside from the names of places, their locations are completely skewed from reality. A fifteen-minute stroll would find me in a place that in reality is over an hour away. Towns are smaller, and seemingly empty.

            The first time I found myself in this alternate reality I was visiting someone in a fancy gated community. I have no recollection of who it was, now or then. I strolled with this mystery person Eastward along the neon orange dirt road, talking the whole way. At some point we stopped and turned around. I recall feeling thirsty, which fit the dry desert scenery well. We walked back, and past our starting point farther into Ojai, the earth changing along a gradient of orange to beige. We wound through neighborhoods on their dirt roads. Each house was similar and each yard was almost identical. A four-foot chain-link fence, an average sized front yard, and a dark wood-paneled single story house. At some point the person left and I was standing in front of a house looking over an empty field of dust, toward the orange hills.

             I have mostly forgotten the second “day” in the surreal environment. I vaguely recall wandering down the road to another city along side the water. Against the orange hills, the blue water seemed just as vivid, almost turquoise. I walked along the docks, with restaurants and shops, and boats. At the end of the dock there was a large paddleboat, similar to the ones I‘ve seen in history books. Every building was beautifully crafted, with ornate woodwork painted gold and red.

            The third time I walked along the dirt road, a city had sprung up in a valley that had previously been sparsely inhabited. Every house was the same. It seemed as though I was in an airplane flying over a housing development the size of Ventura. Every house was the same. Beige, two stories, terracotta roof. Rows and rows, with paved asphalt roads winding through. Only a few trees peeked out from the black streets. I recall being shocked by the instant materialization of this mega-neighborhood and wondering what it was. I looked out at it for a few moments before heading back along the road.