Night of August 17, 1985. Saturday.

This was probably one of my most common dream themes during certain time periods as a young adult. It usually involves either erupting volcanoes or meteor showers. I would say the volcanoes are a bit more common.

I would not call them nightmares for the most part (depending on the particular dream of course). They are more like some sort of meandering exercise in futility while under a sort of odd stress - yet sometimes turn out very nice, actually. The usual idea is, volcanoes are “approaching” (or rather more and more are growing and becoming active) and it is that way from north to south and no way to escape except by going, say west or east as fast and as far as possible, with no option to go back. Somehow, I and others manage to do this (do not ask how we get across the ocean, no logic in that, really, as this is not usually the type of dream I perform the act of running over the water in as is common in other dreams).

There is some sort of idea that when we go all the way around the world and come back from the other side, the volcanoes will be cooled off or inactive by that point. I used to think this type of dream was fairly common with most people, but really have not read about it that much. It is almost humorous in its implication if not seemingly futile regarding some scenes.

Strangely, there is almost always a group or two of people who believe that going towards the danger is somehow going to be better than running away, something to do with getting to where the danger has “already been” (but also usually still there or very close-by, to be honest), which is similar to the logic of going all the way around the world and coming back from the other side but perceived as far more risky even in the dream. I am not quite sure how it would be done, and do not recall dreams that revealed what happened to these people with alternate views.

Sometimes, the world is “safe” again, but mostly barren. Other times there is an uneasy feeling that the danger is growing in both directions and we may eventually reach where it is approaching from the opposite direction and be caught in the middle (which is often only related to fires). In one dream, with meteors, the large meteorites (all bigger than basketballs) rolled along the ground for a considerable distance, which of course would not happen in reality.

In some versions there is a weird notion of whether to run straight away or to go at some sort of angle, say forty-five degrees, due to “covering more distance”, which of course, in this case, is a ridiculous concept. Covering more distance does not equate to getting farther away in a continuous straight direction. You might as well run horizontal to the line of destruction using that logic, until it reaches you. This is similar to the idea of running in a zigzagging pattern to escape a tyrannosaurus in a few childhood dreams.