[Dream Report] The Concrete Theme Park Resort

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I dream about theme parks pretty often. Not necessarily in the sense of a business, but like, whole cities where people live and work that have rides and other attractions seamlessly integrated. Like if you could live in Disney World or Epcot.

Is it all the same world, and I'm just getting glimpses of different parts of it on different nights? An unanswerable question. But this time I saw some parts which were especially bizarre.

For example, there was a Space Needle style tower with a rotating restaurant and gift shop at the top of it. There were books lining all the shelves, for sale to guests. Everybody was eating lobster. The waitress was a girl I used to know before I moved.

She was like "what are you doing here?" I answered that I honestly didn't know. She invited me to stay and eat, but I was intent on seeing the rest of the park in the span of a day, so we said our farewells.

From the tower's elevator I could see about half the park was elevated up off the ground on a huge platform. It was landscaped with grass and ponds so I didn't even realize until then that I hadn't actually been at ground level, just due to the sheer size of it.

When I asked someone in the elevator with me what's under the platform, they replied that it's a massive parking structure. This way the theme park owners paid less for land. It's weird when a dream tries to make pragmatic sense.

I passed a couple of gift shops on my way out. I actually had to go through an office complex. Someone stopped me and told me to get back to work. I insisted I didn't work there. But when they showed me a cubicle, it had all my stuff in it. I quit, then cleared out my stuff.

The gift shops sold various interesting trinkets. The first sold glow tubes and wristbands, worn by employees of that shop wearing black clothing to contrast the glowing wearables against. There was also a black light to enhance the effect, but it made them look ghoulish.

Another shop sold actual working laser guns. They were motorized and split apart, and lit up with LEDs like toys, but then fired real dangerous laser beams. Why sell these to children? It seemed irresponsible, especially in a densely packed public place like a theme park.

Once at the bottom, yet still not truly at ground level because of the platform, I set off for the rides. The first one was a moving water ride. An artificial indoor river carried me along in a colorful inner tube. Near the end I saw a steep chute that would dump me out into some kind of basin.

Fearful, I grabbed onto the edge. From here I could see there was a cushioned inflatable rotating disc below with differently sized holes in it. Another rider got stuck behind me. "What's the hold up??" I replied by asking him what the deal is with the rotating inflatable disc.

"You get a prize that depends what hole you fall into the water through. The smallest one wins a trip to Hawaii." Because I'd grabbed onto something, I could now carefully wait until the smallest hole was underneath me, then drop. But it was caught on camera and I didn't get the prize because they felt I'd cheated.

The next attraction was an entirely indoor simulation of a tropical resort. It was all water, fifteen feet deep, with wooden platforms on wooden supports holding up concrete cabins you could stay the night in. When I asked why they were made of concrete, a park employee told me because the attraction also simulates monsoons.

No sooner had he said that than an alarm sounded. I took refuge in one of the cabins as instructed. Then a violent indoor monsoon began. The cabin swayed on the wooden supports and I feared it wouldn't hold. There was scuba gear inside with me, so I put it on, then dove outside into the water.

Somehow below the surface of the water, everything was silent and still. I could look up at the storm raging on the surface, but could feel none of it. Like the surface of the water was a portal to another world, and down here I was totally separated and insulated from the worst of it.

I noticed other divers swimming in cris-cross patterns among the rows of cabin stilts. When I next looked up, the storm had ceased so I returned to my cabin and, sopping wet, climbed inside. All the stuff I'd brought with me from the space needle was gone!

I went to complain about it but could find no park employees. So I returned once more to my cabin, only to find all of my stuff was there again! I couldn't make sense of it. Did someone steal it, but then return it? Or just dream logic finally seeping through.

Anyway it ended here, leaving me with more questions than answers.

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^{Stay Cozy!}