I think that perversely we would all like something really bad to happen. Maybe not forever and definitely without the long term consequences that those kinds of things tend to encompass. Nevertheless, who would not want to try living in a zombie apocalypse or as a swashbuckling pirate. It does not even have to be so grim. Why not as a space adventurer or with superpowers.
I mean eventually coming back would be nice, but where do we ever really get to indulge in these fantasies. Even if you argued that “Oh! Varun don’t you know? This is literally the point of books, movies, and video games?” Ok, how about you stop talking before you sound silly. Even the vast array of mediums available do not let you live those experiences. They may let you have a first person POV in your book or whatever, but at the end of the day you are still following the story set by the coder, producer, or writer of that thing. I will admit they give a very rich sensory experience of being there. However, the temporal, decision making sides of our brain don’t get to experience the intricacies of the catastrophe. The point here would be to find a place where you could exert autonomy over these kinds of situations. We want to be in a zombie apocalypse.
Now may be an apt place to advocate for the merits of dreaming and sleep in general. I mean you become the protagonist to whatever world or situation you build. At the same time you do not have that sense of awareness that everything will be alright in the end. You get to be placed in a seemingly real life situation. With things like lucid dreams there would even be a measure of control over the dream itself. You get all the experience, yet none of the actual consequences of what you dream. In theory, you could immerse yourself in whatever situation you want.
Again, there are a couple of issues. I don’t know about you, but I’m no Buddhist with dharma and self control over every cell. I once had a dream where I spent all night making a burger. All the ingredients were absolutely, positively juicy. You best believe it was the best burger ever created. Despite this, I also woke up before I got even a slice or nibble. I would not be able to create the desired situation.
As a side note there are some studies about dream journals and that they are supposed to give you mastery over things related to sleep and dreams, but I remain unconvinced.
Along with that, there is something ephemeral and feverish about dreams that doesn’t give you the cold biting sensation of real life. The situation and context usually doesn’t make sense and a lot of your rational decision making capabilities aren’t there.
All of these things can feel pretty exciting, but they will not get you into that zombie apocalypse. Therefore, I did some research and I hypothesize you could have some hybrid covid spiders biting people making spider zombies. There are some serious merits about this approach, especially with the authenticity of the experience. This research was also pretty surface level (what did you expect), so there are probably some pretty legit ways of making this happen outside of my ideas with spiders. (Inducing some kind of extreme schizophrenia may be possible although very unethical). It also seems like a huge hassle to make this happen. Not really the 5 minute instant ramen noodles but more of the 15-20 years of culinary experience to make fresh noodles.
Now, I’m going to be real for a second, this is probably not going to happen. Wake up to reality. Let’s say there was, there really was a zombie apocalypse, there is also no reason to believe that it would make you behave any differently than if you lived in Naperville.
I suggest reading The Magicians if you don’t believe me.
To anyone who still really wants something big to happen this is what I have to say to them: it really comes down to the fact that we want things to happen to us. I mean it is pretty easy going through life waiting for a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier to fall into our backyards. Nonetheless, those things do not happen. Serendipity does not fall into your arms. Your reality usually does not spontaneously change. You do not do normal, comfortable things waiting for lighting to strike with excitement. I make it sound pretty grand, but even if it is as mundane as quitting cross country (because running is not fun), you should probably do it.
Varun,
I will admit, your first sentence caught me very off guard, but it was a great hook because I suddenly felt a huge need to finish your text. Personally, I would disagree because I would definitely not want to be in a zombie apocalypse, no matter what. The experience would definitely be an immersive one, but I would probably be terrified the entire time. Horror movies give me nightmares, so I would probably never recover from a real zombie apocalypse.
As for the dreams, I would probably also not want to dream about being in a zombie apocalypse, even though it’s technically not real. For me, all my dreams are realistic so I would genuinely feel all the emotions from being in a zombie apocalypse. I also can’t control my dreams, so if I’m screwed, I’m just screwed. One time, I dreamed I went through an entire school day, and then when I woke up, I had to go to school all over again. As you can probably guess, that was a rough day.
For the hybrid covid spider hypothesis, I personally feel like someone was just a die-hard Spiderman fan and tried to implement it into real life. Furthermore, I would have also liked it if you talked more about what The Magicians was about, but otherwise your blog was a really interesting read and I liked how you added a little piece of advice for the reader at the end.
Hi Varun, your blog on dreams and the Zombie apocalypse is really fascinating. I like how you point out that we can be our own protagonist in our dreams and dream of all the extraordinary things that we wanted, which will not happen in real life. But I do have to say, when I dream it really felt like reality until the moment that I woke up. Similarly to you I don’t like my dreams that I was able to get a lot of good snack and get a lot of food, but before I even eat them I was awake from my dream, regretful. I had a dream of a whole chocolate party and everything was made out of chocolate it was amazing, but I woke up soon after I dream of it and didn’t get to eat the chocolates yet. I am really disappointed in some dreams when I was scared because I was running away from someone chasing me and I was slowing down even though I wanted to speed up, and I wasn’t able to use superpowers like invincibility in my dream, it didn’t feel right. But anyway, I do not want to get into zombie apocalypse, I will be one of the first to become a zombie, so no thank you. But the idea was interesting. I really like your blog. It made me think back to the dreams that I still remember.
Hey Varun!
First of all, I want to say that this blog post was very entertaining to read. I like how you jumped from different topics within your writing, yet they were all organized under the idea of wanting something bad or big to happen, which is so odd but not incorrect (I feel like,,,). Also, I found it interesting how you chose to write your post on trying to GET INTO a zombie apocalypse, rather than how to SURVIVE one because I feel like I see more media about the latter. I honestly hate zombies, so instead, I find myself more often thinking about how to survive an apocalypse if the world suddenly fell apart with dead corpses roaming Earth.
Also, the part where you hypothesize being able to start a zombie apocalypse spiderman style was my favorite paragraph, because it felt like I was reading into a dream I wrote in a random notebook to not forget what had happened, the moment I woke up. It was fun to read and caught me off guard— Overall, nice blog!!
Fun post to read 🙂
Interestingly enough, I have found that, in my free time, my thoughts can drift into the realm of morbid curiosity much like you described. What would World War 3 look like? What would a natural disaster look like? How would I react if I specifically was placed into a life-altering situation? With regard to the second one, I’ve actually sunk many hours into watching the Weather Channel and similar programs to watch documentaries on tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. and their myriad effects upon nature and society. Never would I actually want these events to happen to myself, to family and friends, or to strangers I don’t know, but in every case I have minimal connection to the setting or people involved in a catastrophic event, It’s much easier to dissociate myself from the horror on the ground, watch with fascination as the storm rages on, and forget about what being a victim of such an event would actually entail. Everyone chases that next rush, even if it comes from the most unlikely of sources. The brain will manufacture that rush for you if it’s lacking in your daily routine through your dreams, and if you find yourself having those types of dreams frequently, those dreams that are so far-fetched they only are realized through movies and fiction, then I agree with your final message to go out and do something. If you’re not progressing towards something and don’t have some source to quench the main character desire you described in life, then switching something up can be just the spark you need.