Nicotine Dreams: Sewers and Searching

This post is part of a series of articles that reflect on nicotine induced dreams. During 2012 whilst attempting to quit smoking, I was using patches as part of a Nicotine Replacement Therapy program. I became very aware of heightened recall of dreams I experienced whilst wearing a nicotine patch and began to document them accordingly. This is one such dream.

I was with another male, I don’t recall who; at the time though I knew him. We were looking down into an open, circular manhole grate, I don’t recall the surrounding area. We didn’t speak, but both agreed somehow that we would go into the sewer.

I entered first, climbing down a rusted steel ladder. The length of the actual cylindrical entrance  was perhaps a couple of meters. The walls were covered with huge woodlice, the size of dvd cases, I kicked most of them away into the sewers, then slid down the remainder of the ladder which stopped level with the ceiling, and dropped down from there into the murky sewage water. The walls were grey stone, slimy and grimy; the air thick and misty. Visibility was low, but I could tell I was in a t-junction section. Metal grates, sort of portcullis’ blocked all exits from my location, and the ladder was too high above me for me to jump and reach it. There’s a strange black plant, kind of like black seaweed draping from the ceiling in the corners of the room.

I could see a closed valve on the floor in the centre of the t-junction intersection that led down into the ground. I never tried to operate it, but strangely for some reason I had a strange feeling that it wouldn’t work anyway, like a deja vu moment, acquired knowledge from where I do not know. I don’t recall the other male coming down into the sewer, but I see him now stood near the valve, and suddenly a huge octopus like tentacle emerged from the sludge around his feet, it’s pink in colour with small yellow sucker pads all over it. The tentacle is around 7 foot in length, and it begins to attempt to restrain the other male, coiling around him. He is crying out, striking at the tentacle with what appears to be a knife. I do not assist, simply observe. The tentacle retreats. I turn away momentarily, and when I look back, the male is gone.

I am looking for something, I do not know what exactly. I see the white wardrobe from my bedroom in an alcove, beside a small square desk with a strange box atop it, covered in odd markings and symbols. I open the wardrobe doors,  in hindsight too easily given that the water level is so high, but I did not pick up on this at the time. There is a chest high shelf inside the wardrobe, and 5 drawers beneath the shelf. I begin pulling piles of neatly folded white and grey clothes from the shelf and chucking them into the sewage, frantically looking for something; I don’t know what. I clear the shelf, and then begin opening and searching the drawers. Each time I feel satisfied that there is nothing of interest amongst the clothes, I tear the entire drawer out and discard it behind me in the sewer water. I get through around 3 of the drawers before turning away for some reason, I think I can just sense a presence?

There behind the valve in the darkness I can make out the face of the octopus, staring at me menacingly. I wake up.