Dream Log 8: A Creepy Doom Wad

This dream is part of a series of dreams I had lately that concerned video games. As of the time of these dreams, I have not played any of these sort of games nor have I really played any games as of late. What's even stranger is the fact that these dreams were both similar in the sense that they had the same mood and atmosphere. Very creepy and unsettling, I debate if I should even call them nightmares. The way these games were like would almost make them creepy pasta material only except they were formed in my dreams and I got to experience them by that way only. It's very rare that I get to play vidya in my dreams so these experiences are very noteworthy.

I am sitting in a desk in what I presume to be some sort of empty computer lab. Kind of looks like the ones you would see in a university STEM classroom. There's no lighting in the room other than the monitor in front of me and the exit sign to the door outside which you isn't completely pitched dark. I am the only one in room. I am messing around on the desktop for a bit until I come across some sort of .exe file which is labeled as Doom. Now I am very familiar with the game Doom as well as the wads, spinoffs, and sequels to the series (never cared for Bethesda's Doom. Fuck them for being a shitty company anyways) so I wasn't really expecting any surprises. Doom has always been more of an action fps game that made you feel pumped after playing it. Even the odd balls like Doom 64 and Doom 3 with their horror elements, still had action to back them up. This version of Doom was nothing like any of those.

I am spawned into this crypt of some sort. I would almost describe it a monochrome as there appears to be a lack of color. In fact, it's almost pitch black. The music is rather reminiscence of Doom 64 as it's mostly dark ambient but there's this sort of solemn choir in the background that complements the ambient darkness that this music conveys. It's not very Doom at all. I move my avatar forward and pick up a shotgun. There are some stairs ahead of me so I go up them. I have yet to see any mobs up till that point. This particular crypt, with gothic architecture, what appears to be web textures on the walls, and pillars all around and yet there's nothing to shoot at. Occasionally, I could hear a distant moan (a very deep one) in the background which didn't make me feel any better but I had some sort of weapon with me and about 20 rounds of ammo. Not that it made me feel any better progressing foward up these stairs.

I eventually come across one of the automatic doors which are typical of the classic doom games however, this one seemed to be made of some sort of stone. Nevertheless, it made that same sound of those automatic doors you'd hear in the vanilla game. As I made my way through that door, I look around and realize that I am in this massive cavern. It's unlike anything I've seen in any wad or game in this engine. Not to mention, this particular source port of Doom has mouse look so I am able to look all around the level. It kind of reminds me of the caverns I've used to go to back when I was younger. This place is massive, especially for Doom level standards. The cavern itself seems very natural with the only sense of anything being man made being the steps that traverse these depths. They are made of stone and go across these deep pits that look like they lead into the abyss. I wouldn't want to fall of these ledges and risk having to start the level all over again so I carefully move my avatar through these paths. It's not exactly pitch dark but the draw distance isn't that great. Yet somehow, you can feel the grand scale of this cavern all around you. That music isn't helping either nor are the constant moans in the background which now have an echo to them. Whomever made this wad really put all their effort into immersion since this is making me very uneasy to play through alone.

As I traverse the caves, I eventually come across some sort of look out point near the ceiling of the cave. Right at look out point there is this sign, a wooden one, right in the center of this platform. As I move closer, I try to read the sign but it's in some sort of glyphs I am unable to read. One thing I do recognize is a skull right bellow the sign, or rather, an entire skeleton lying on the ground. It's a 2D sprite like most mob corpses however this one seems to have animations of some sort. You could see little black things moving around the bones, as if they were some sort of bugs crawling on the corpse. Just as I was heading away from this platform, I hear this loud moaning sound (same as before) but it now sounds even closer and right behind me. The moan freaks me out and I turn around and prepare to unload on whatever is behind me but there is nothing. As I try to move away from the corpse, the screen turns black and then another screen with the title: Chapter 2. Appears in front of me.

As the screen fades back into the familiar Doom hud, I am now standing in what appears to be some sort of village. Just like the caves and the crypt, The area is all gray and dark with a hint of some brown and tans. This particular village seemed rather medieval which isn't really more Quake like than Doom like. The one thing that isn't gray or brown is the sky itself, which is a dark blood red with clouds also in a dark red tone. Just like the other level, there appears to be no mobs in sight. The music this time seems to be more or less organ music with a hint of industrial noise in the background. Like a giant machine squeaky and moving which is very loud. The village is setup in a way that the various buildings border a center plaza along with different pathways that lead up to it. In the center of this plaza is a waterfall, but there doesn't appear to be any water of any sort and right in the center of it all is what appears to be a statue of an Angel with Wings holding a sword high into the air. Normally, Doom has a lot of hellish imagery but I don't recall ever seeing any heavenly or angel imagery in these games or wads. It's an unusual sight for a Doom game, or any Doom wad in general.

Nevertheless, I have to move on and try to find the exit. I go through all these various paths leading away from the plaza but I am unable to get anywhere other than back to the plaza. No matter what path I take, I always end right back into the plaza. I don't encounter anything along the way, no jump scare mobs, no hidden pathways, no power ups or even weapons of any kind other than the shotgun I kept from the first level. I wasn't making any progress and at that point I was ready to quit for now. What I didn't realize however is that the entire level started to become darker and darker going from the outside towards the center. It was now becoming impossible to traverse the paths which would eventually lead me back to the plaza again anyways so the only thing I could do was stand there in the plaza and maybe look that the fountain and statue. As the darkness continued to envelope the area around me, the music became more and more louder as the darkness approached closer. The sky stated to dim as well. By the time the darkness was merely a few steps away from my avatar, the only thing that stood lit were the fountain and the statue of the angel, which was now becoming the only thing in sight of my avatar. Right then, my dream ended and I was awake in my bedroom.

Dreams about video games tend to be rather interesting in the sense that sometimes, you have dreams of real games that you can play (such as the dream I had about playing Street Fighter 2) but this particular dream was about a wad that I can't even find information about online. I know for a fact that there are some particular horror mods, wads, and stand alone games made with the Id Tech Engine but I wasn't able to find anything that was remotely similar to what I experienced in my dream. I don't even know if I can even claim it as some sort of demonic intervention in my dream like some of the nightmares I have since there really weren't any demonic entities or symbols in this dream. Which leaves me with barely any reasonable conclusion for my dream. Either my imagination was going wild, I was being manipulated not by a demonic entity but some sort of media altering hypnosis that kicked in after being in a gaming hiatus, or maybe this is some sort of vision into a wad made in another timeline. I wish I had the answer.

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