Trip to Another Dimension
by James
I'm not sure I can convey to you what I went through several weeks ago, but I will try. I work a swing shift, so my hours are very odd. One morning at about 3 a.m. or so, I was lying in bed watching television, still an hour or so from my usual bedtime. I reached for the remote and, for lack of a better way to put it, fell asleep. The strange thing is, I was not yet sleepy and didn't drift off to sleep like I normally would. Actually, it would be better explained if I said I passed out.
The next thing I remember someone was shaking me awake as I slept in the lobby of a kind of trade school. I knew who I was, why I was there, and knew the person waking me up. I was apparently in this school taking a welders class. I had afternoon classes, but decided to leave early. Everything was fine until I walked outside and asked a friend what time it was. When she said 11:30, something about it just didn't seem right. As I realized I wasn't in the right place, I suddenly became very groggy and felt like I was going to pass out. I even thought, "This is just a dream," but it was much more than that. Everything was real. I could feel the gravel under my feet, feel the breeze against my body. At one point I smelled garbage. I then realized that the wind was blowing from the direction of a large dumpster. I don't think I can emphasis just how real it was other than to say think about how you feel right now. That's what this felt like. I could see, touch, smell. I was there, living what was my life, but not my life. I was extremely groggy, but kept fighting it. Actually, I was afraid to pass out, not really certain that I would wake up again.
I'll try to make the rest of this brief, but I'm not sure I can. If I told the entire story, it might go on for some time. In this "dream," my memory was a little like Swiss cheese. I knew some things about my life here, but not everything. It seemed that I knew everyday things, like why I was at the school and people I came in contact with everyday, but not things that would be general knowledge or things that a person wouldn't consciously think about day to day. I have a cousin that lives here, and in my "dream" he lived nearby the school. He was married, like he is in "real life," but they lived in an apartment instead of a house and also did not yet have a baby. He could immediately tell something was wrong by the look on my face. I tried to tell him what was happening and he was skeptical at first, but as I kept talking he started to believe me. With his help, and the help of a friend, we figured out some differences between my two worlds. Several people I know either did not exist or never moved to the area. At least neither of them knew who they were when I mentioned their names. I know that at least one of them did not exist at all. I brought up the name of two brothers we all know. They knew the oldest, but told me he was an only child. I have talked to the oldest of the brothers about this, and he has told me he remembered his parents argued for a long time about having another child. She wanted one, he didn't. They were both adamant about their position and he finally gave in.
There were several other small differences, and many things were much the same. The largest difference, however, was the town we lived in. In "real life" I live in a small town called Nocona. In my "dream," Nocona didn't even exist and we all lived in a town called Yancy. Another larger city to the East is Gainesville, which also didn't exist. From what I could tell, Yancy was approximately where Gainesville should have been. Many things in Yancy were like a combination of Nocona and Gainesville. For instance, the water tower was exactly like the one in Nocona with the high school mascots name on it. Of course, the one in my dream said Yancy instead of Nocona. I have done some research, and found that the only reason Nocona exists today is because some land owners allowed the railroad to be built running across their land. If they had said no, the railroad would have gone farther south. I also found a prominent lawyer and judge from the Gainesville area named Yancy Lewis. Apparently he was quite successful and popular during his time. All in all, this experience lasted about two hours. Unlike most dreams, it didn't jump around from one time to another. If I walked somewhere that took six minutes to get there, it took six minutes. Eventually, in the "dream," my cousin talked me into laying down, telling me I looked like walking death.
When I woke up, I was back in my world in my own bed. Oddly enough, it was 11:30 a.m. by my clock. For the first couple of hours, I was just in a kind of daze. I chuckle now because the first thing I did was get the local newspaper from the living room to make sure it said Nocona instead of Yancy. Again, I don't think I can explain just how real it all was other than to say I was there. I have talked to a couple of friends, including my cousin, and they have said they had experiences that were much the same, but didn't last nearly as long. They would only be in the "dream" for a couple of minutes before blacking out.