I Lived 6 Years That Never Existed | Everything I Know Is a Dream

When we fall asleep, where do we go? Today's story explores this very idea while confronting a concept that may leave you questioning what is real. Welcome back to the Campfire Task Force. Pull up a log, settle in, grab your canteen because it's 3 a.m. somewhere, which means it's time for Red Web Scary Stories, the series where I, Trevor Collins, share my favorite terrifying tales from the internet with my friend, Alfredo Diaz. It's just waiting for us after death. It's just nothingness. No conscious, no thought, no anything. It's just complete non-existence. Dude, that's rattled my little brain since I was a child, you know? I know, man. What is it to feel, see, hear, taste, take all your five senses, maybe six senses if you're Fredo, and remove them all? What is that? If you can't perceive time, you can't even perceive nothing. Right. You just zip through time. So what is, do you just blip to the end of existence and then what? Oh, God. Yeah, it's just complete nothing forever, for infinity. Like, that's it, man. Like, no even thought or anything. No thought of non-existence, no feeling, nothing at all. Well, maybe, maybe the universe is just alive and our energies become one once again with this mega energy that is the universe and we are no longer a piece of the universe consciously, but instead part of a greater whole and there's peace and warmth in that. I don't know. Yeah, that'd be great. We started off with deep existential dread. Yeah, we did. Yeah, we did. I'm showing you a light in the dark. Okay. And now I'm about to drag you slowly back into that thought, you know? Right back. Yep. Hey, this is scary stories, okay? It is scary stories. I like this. We're sitting around this little campfire, this proverbial campfire. This is exactly what it's like when you pull out your little lantern, your flashlight, and you start, you know, waxing poetic about whatever. But today's story, man, it is, I think it's one of those fears that we all kind of have. It's one of those things we all think about. Oh, yeah. But you don't really grab onto it. It's not your typical boogeyman around the corner in the dark. It's not your monster in the closet. It is, like you said, you think about dreaming and what happens in that. And in the Red Web podcast, we talked about when you dream, I remember as a kid hearing this concept that you live a separate life. And when you're dreaming, that life is the real one. And this one is the dream. And, and I started talking about like dream war factions and stuff. And so many people were like interested in that idea, but I don't remember where I even heard that or where it came from. Again, you could just talk and talk and talk about it. There's so much, there's so much to think about, so much to explore. It's pretty wild. And the deepest thoughts are just hours. Yes, dude. Dude, absolutely. And as always, you know, as I walk you through this story, feel free to jump in with your thoughts, your reactions, your emotions, because this one really goes back and forth consistently and leaves you wondering just alongside with the protagonist, what's going on, what is real? What is dream? And I think the title really sets it up. Well, once we're done, I can't wait to look back on it as a full package. I like that. I mean, that's how I think about it when we go into all these. You know, red web episodes, I'm just like, what would it be like being in that situation? What would I do? How would I feel? Um, you know, and so if, if this was already structured around putting in a head space, I like it because then it might really be a vivid head space. Truly. Well, with that said, submitted for the approval of the task force, this is everything I know is a dream. As a preface, please note, this will probably be very long. I don't care if nobody reads it. Everybody in the world could read it and nothing would change. I just need to voice my concerns for my own sake. Perhaps by organizing everything on a page, I can make sense of things. Several years ago, I was in a brutal car accident. I was parked in front of a train track, waiting for the train to pass by. I was the last person not to make it across the tracks for visualization. There was a solid stream of. Cars on either side. If I had tried to sneak across, I would have rear ended the person in front of me before successfully clearing them. I could hear the train approaching and the black and yellow bars lowered in front of me. I am fascinated by train. So I was delighted to be so close. Finally getting a front row seat. The train was about a quarter mile from crossing when the driver behind me accelerated and nudged me forward a few feet, the bars bent and eventually snapped. And I was knocked joltingly onto the tracks. I panicked. And threw the car into reverse, trying to back out. The other car apparently had more horsepower, however. And to my horror, the car door aligned perfectly with the cattle guard from the front of the train. This is immediately final destination. You know what? Yes. You know what I mean? I kept sitting here like, oh, is he going to wake up? Is this a dream? Yeah, it's very fun destination. The first one, they all got locked in the car. Seatbelts weren't working. All that kind of stuff. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Very fun. All destination as you know, it's just like one of those things where do you really ever pass through train tracks like that without thinking? What if? Oh, my God, every time I think about it, right, there's the intrusive thought and I keep very far back. Yeah. And then us being us and the task force and all the topics we cover, I'm like, oh, I know, I know task force. You think about every once in a while. Truly. And here's the thing. The courtesy is you bump somebody onto the tracks, you keep pushing them. I'm a cross. All right. You've got the horsepower. Get your heavy whatever you're driving out of the way. This person is locked in their car. Mm hmm. I scrambled to get out of the car, but forgot about my seatbelt. I nearly strangled myself trying to get free, but by the time I unlatched it, it was too late. One fraction of a second of the loudest sound I have ever heard. And then blackness. And silence. I was certain that I had died. I didn't feel any pain. And certainly if I had survived, I'd be in agony. I tried to open my eyes, but nothing would happen. I tried to make a sound to wiggle my fingers or do anything, but I couldn't. It wasn't that I was paralyzed. It was more that I didn't have a body to manipulate. I was just a mind submerged in a pool. The only sentiment I felt was that I had returned to that state after being gone for a long time. Like forgetting how your parents' house smells until you visit home for the holidays. Gradually, I started to have feelings of sensation. Passing waves of warmth and wetness finally allowed me to determine where the edges of my body were. Almost as soon as I became aware of my physical self, it began to ache. I felt as if every inch of me had been pummeled with a baseball bat. The heavy wooden kind. Even opening my eyes was a spectacular ordeal. I was in the hospital. So I had survived after all. People moved to surround me. Faces that never fully came into focus hovered above my own. And sounds that vaguely resembled speech seemed to reach me through water. It wasn't long before I felt weak again and my eyes closed. This fading in and out of consciousness lasted for what felt like a very long time. Maybe months. Though the doctors told me it was only a matter of days. After that, I worked on speaking and swallowing food. Which seems silly, but it was actually a challenge at first. Finally, as more and more casts were removed, I was allowed to sit up and turn my head. For which I was incredibly grateful. According to my family and my then girlfriend Sarah, all of whom were overjoyed at being able to speak with me, I was asleep for several days. After the crash, I remember Sarah specifically saying she had missed being able to "stare at those beautiful eyes". Time passed at an excruciatingly slow pace until physical therapy finally escalated to the point where I could be pushed around in a wheelchair. The doctors were surprisingly hopeful that I'd be able to walk again, but it was what they called "cautious optimism". Nobody wanted to tell me I could be independent again and then have to admit they were wrong later on. I was very hopeful myself, though even transferring from chair to bed was a painful challenge. It was around this time that I had noticed I never dreamed anymore. When I slept, I only felt that same nothingness that I felt immediately after the crash. All the days blended together for a while after that. The next memory I can actually separate from the rest is the first time I tried to walk on my own. There were staff members holding onto my arms and waist just in case I fell, and with their help, I made it all the way across the room on my first try. The doctors said they had never seen such a rapid recovery in their lives. recovery i was giddy something that stands out to me is this nothingness yep there it is it's exactly dude you're seeing the future five seconds at a time it's exactly what you were saying at the beginning like he went back to this nothingness and suddenly it was familiar but now when he sleeps that's all he feels that's kind of terrifying it's it's really terrifying and we're getting a little bit of hope here right at the end or things are recovering so fast but that also is a medical thing that happens i forgot the actual term of it but it's when someone has something so traumatic happened to the body that the body kicks in the high gear then everything looks good vitals blood work all that kind of stuff it's like the body's last hoorah and then everything crashes out oh i know what you're talking about when people have this like this burst yeah yep it's yeah when the body is going through a lot of trauma and then they yeah they'll have this burst it's so unfortunate because again it's that hope right or it's just like oh my goodness such a unbelievable turnaround i can't believe it he was near death everything was declining and now everything is suddenly bang on the up like sky high on the up and it's like oh those are just they're gonna crash after yeah it's rough it's rough for sure it's so rough especially when you see that because especially in this moment there is a mixture of dread with what they're seeing or experiencing while sleeping mixed with this i'm super giddy i seem to be recovering very quickly christian our producer is chiming in to say it's terminal lucidity thank you very much christian that also happens especially with like dementia oriented patients where suddenly the mind comes back the clarity the sharpness the wit all comes back for a final 24 hours or so yeah and uh at the end of it all yeah that's very interesting that you keyed in on that i'm curious like how that theory will unfold from here exactly obviously i wasn't out of the woods yet but soon i was allowed to live at home again with frequent pt sessions and some weeks after that i returned to work life was almost normal for a while except for a very slight limp in my left leg the side that the train had hit me on i was feeling pretty normal it was only after a month of living in my very own house that weird things started to happen the very first thing i noticed was that i felt an occasional stinging in my right forearm like a thin needle was puncturing my skin it was a tiny prick maybe twice a day at most i figured it was just nerve trauma or something and blocked it from my mind feigning ignorance was harder to do when i started to hear things though while i was reading in bed one night i thought i heard sarah crying i strained my ears to make sure and i definitely heard her sobs but that was the only thing i could think of the next morning i woke up very distantly like i was submerged in a pool again this concept of the pool and this nothingness is no longer now just in their dreams but in their world yeah so it's kind of bleeding over it's what it seems like yeah i have two thoughts here right okay is it because because the mind is a powerful thing and it can play a lot of tricks on you and so is it the mind that's as you know that has gone through trauma waves of emotions and things that he's possibly seeing or is this some type of supernatural thing that's happening have they kind of like pierced the veil or you know skirted death type thing and the third eye open kind of stuff you know yeah like like insidious or something where i guess that's more sleep oriented and because there's this comatose child in the back you know yeah i mean this is very sleep oriented too though yeah yeah so yeah i get that oh man i know it could be with this i will say they're cooking right now they're cooking dude i'm with you i fully expect you know ghouls and ghosts and things but the fact that it's so far it's like emulating his girlfriend and sounds and little pinpricks i'm very curious what comes next yeah i don't like it though i made my way downstairs quickly concerned that she had hurt herself or something but she was just washing dishes in the kitchen are you okay i asked cautiously yeah why she asked nonchalantly no reason i dismissed these oddities as best i could after all how could anyone expect to recover from being hit by a train without some lingering effects every so often mostly when i was trying to fall asleep or sitting in a silent room i would hear occasional sounds that i couldn't connect at first gradually i determined that they were hospital sounds stretchers being rolled across tiled floors beeping from machines rapid chatter between nurses and doctors although i figured anyone who had suffered as much trauma as i had would experience some degree of whatever i was experiencing i decided to bring it up with my doctor he told me it was perfectly normal for someone in my circumstances and he could prescribe me a sleep aid if i felt it was necessary i told him it wasn't a big deal i was just satisfied that my doctor could explain my symptoms yes i love this talk to the doctor exactly very wise character we're following here you know i'm a fan of that yeah i mean because it can be very frustrating right when you're listening to a story watching a movie or show or something like that and there's situations where it's like someone asks the main character what's going on like oh nothing and it's like okay i saw everything that you just saw and like it's right i get like yeah sure sometimes people bury things but it's also just like just tell them like you know what i mean and so the fact that it went to the doctor medical professional yes you can argue the doctor is just doing the whole like uh take this it'll fix it you know i mean so medication and stuff like that sure but he's trying to go through the proper channels right you can you have to have some faith in something somewhere and so the fact that he went through the proper channels the doctor isn't alarmed right that is soothing to me right i think that soothes me entirely because they're the medical professional they know what you've gone through they know all the ins and outs and nuances they're going to be a judgment-free zone you hope obviously this is a tough thing to confront anybody about and so it is difficult but so many problems i feel like are fixed by just conversing about it and i love a story that's not predicated on hiding things yes or just not talking about it because that feels like the easiest thing to fix 100 yep exactly the odd glimpses of what seemed to be my past only increased in frequency when i slept i finally dreamed again but it was always the same thing if i saw anything at all it was a hospital room sometimes there were other people in the room and sometimes i was alone with the machines there was one night in particular in which the dream was more vivid and gripping than usual my eyes opened wearily to see sarah asleep on the chair beside my hospital bed sarah i croaked she jerked awake henry she scrambled to my side clutching my hand at this point it occurred to me i was dreaming i stared right into sarah's eyes i'm asleep right now she seemed concerned no henry you're finally awake i'm right here it's been so long of course you would say that you're part of my dream i smiled amused i'll probably wake up any second but as i spoke the familiar soreness caught up to me all at once it practically knocked the wind out of my lungs henry no her distress was now evident i don't know what you're talking about stay with me henry stay awake look at me i shook my head defiantly and closed my eyes when i opened them i was back in my own bed it was about three in the morning i sat awake pondering what i had just seen i thought i heard sarah crying again even though i could see that she was sleeping right beside me this is inception we're so many layers deep and i just like like i said the whole train thing i was like is this a dream like what's happening here and then it didn't seem like it was and so i was like okay i had a false sense of comfort there and now it's like the realities are blurring together we don't know what's real what's not and like not only is it like can the character trust his own mind it's like can we trust the character right because they maybe don't know what's up down left or right i do like their theory that they're like this feels like i'm glimpsing my past like when i was recovering but then they say something like a familiar soreness seemed to creep over me and that's when they once again kind of fell asleep against their will almost what are you thinking at this junction i know where we're going but i'm very curious on your your current theory before we continue it just might be a blend of you know his dreaming mind fading through that and between reality or if anything like final glimpses of his moments yeah it's very loose it's very back and forth some parts are vivid and some parts are very subtle i think it's his mind fighting like last last hopes interesting well let's continue when sarah finally woke up she rolled over and laid an arm across my chest good morning big guy she smiled groggily if i was asleep right now would you tell me i asked what she chuckled it's kind of heavy stuff to drop on a sleepy person. Just bear with me. If I was asleep right now, dreaming, you know, would you tell me? Well, I feel pretty real, she noted, patting different parts of her body. Do you think I'm not real? Of course not, I said. We got ready for our day. I couldn't stop thinking about my dream, though. I noticed that when I tried really hard to space out at work and listen closely enough, I could hear the hospital sounds more clearly. I was naturally concerned about this. The poking and prodding, Fredo. This is you on display right here. I love this. Yeah, a lot of poking and prodding. And then also, they're sitting there and they're asking the question. And if it is their dream, then they're asking themselves that question. Oh, oh, that's, oh, you're so right. They're asking themselves. Yep. And so if they were dreaming, what would it say? And if they, weren't dreaming, I also love that they themselves, it's like a three-way conversation. They asked this person who might be themselves, but then in their own head, they're like, what would your inner mind want to say in a moment like this? Like your inner consciousness, would it try to protect you and lie if this is a dream? Or if it wasn't a dream, like, would it try to tell you the truth? Like, would it try to claw its way out and be like, you need to wake up? I don't know. Maybe that's a hint. Maybe that's a hint. That night, I was. I went to bed early. And just as I thought, I was transported immediately to the hospital bed. I felt the thin sheets beneath my fingers. I opened my eyes and Sarah was reading a book in the same chair as before. I just looked at her for a long time, trying to discern if she was real. She certainly seemed real enough. She turned the pages with the same flourish that she always had and chewed on one of the temples of her reading glasses. Eventually, she looked up and met my eyes. You're awake again, she gasped. Victoria! Paul! He's awake! My parents were entering the room moments later, looking excited. I talked with them all for a long time. Of course, my parents, too, denied the fact that I was asleep. But that topic quickly passed. Instead, we discussed my condition. I had been in a coma for almost three months with little response. They had been slowly losing hope for my recovery until my brain showed signs of activity. Since that time, they had been visiting me frequently, hoping that I would wake up. It seemed a pretty convincing story. Oh, see? That's the thing. Like, what's real? What's not real? The two worlds are fighting you. Yeah. They're both telling you that they're real. And again, all right, this could be the dream within the dream. Mm-hmm. I mean, look. Look, when I was younger, I would wet the bed. Was that last week? Oh, sorry. Yeah, when I was younger. When I was one week younger. So dumb. What happened? What was weird was I'd be dreaming that I'm on a toilet and I need to use the restroom. Oh, yeah. And then in that dream, sometimes I'd catch myself and I'd be like, "Is this a dream? Am I about to wet the bed? Or is this like, am I really on the toilet and am I good to go?" Mm-hmm. My mind would tell myself, "No, you're good. You can go." And I'd wake up and I'm like, "Oh, shit. I've kissed myself." Isn't it funny, though, that you almost always ask the question before your brain convinces you, "Ah, it's totally fine." Yeah. I remember that same feeling. I remember eventually catching it better and better and being like, "No, this isn't fine. This is a fake toilet." And then I'd wake up and run to the bathroom. Yep. And sometimes I'd catch myself. But that's the thing. Dreams want to convince you that they're real. Mm-hmm. And so this is him being like, "Hey, what happened here? Am I awake? What's real? It's not real." And again, it's mind like, "No, this is fine." It's fine. It's fine. That is fascinating. And under the idea that there is a different reality that you actually do live, you're never actually asleep. You just transition into this other reality. What if that other reality is just pranking you, like, "I try to pee in the toilet as much as possible just in case my other self just pees their pants somewhere." You know what I mean? I'm always talking to myself going, "Ah, no, you're just dreaming." You're just dreaming. Oh, that's so interesting. I love this conflict, though, because as a reader, we're theorizing along the way. I thought it started to feel so clear. But then I realized, "Oh, this is then you have this battle of okay which reality is real or under like the conversation that we had at the very beginning what if none of it's real what if he's passed away and he's in this nothingness where you have no senses because you're nothing and so your nothingness creates an illusion and so you are now living in this illusion because you have no other stimulus because you have no senses you know what i mean exactly it's the layers dude i swear this is probably what christopher nolan was just sitting there thinking about and then he was like i could make a movie about this this is a movie we gotta go deeper because like damn you know and that that's the beautiful thing about this story where it's less of a scary story and more of a deep thought and deep conversation yeah yeah okay and but even then that conversation is still very chilling oh it's fundamental you know the philosophy underscoring this is deeply human deeply curious and still very dark yeah after many hours of talking i had to stop i was legitimately sleepy of course they all understood and i fell back asleep only this time i didn't wake up in my own bed i woke up in the same hospital bed a few hours later i had to think about it for a very long time but eventually concluded that i must have imagined my miraculous recovery and had been in a coma the whole time after all as you can imagine it was hard to accept at first since then i've been in a coma for a long time i have been making a second recovery which has been slower and less successful than the first time that's why after a long time i was mostly convinced that i'm really awake this time nobody walks after getting blindsided by a train at least not without lots of hard work i still only left my wheelchair on crutches and it's been six years now it probably sounds like a bittersweet ending and at one point i agreed i was prepared to live happily ever after in my wheelchair and maybe even graduate to crutches someday except for one thing when i'm getting ready for bed after i turned off my lamp and my head hits the pillow i can still hear them the faint sounds of a busy hospital i know that many of you will say but i'm real this is real life of course you're awake but that's what you're supposed to say nobody's gonna tell me i'm fake you're dreaming wake up i'm still asleep and i've learned to deal with it i know that nobody i meet during the day is real but i'm tired so i just pretend and that will have to do what i don't know how to feel about that one so are we still in a coma that's the thing are we still in a coma or is this like a learned behavior is this the actual remember the doctor in the dream was saying this was a trauma response it's not a trauma it's a trauma it's a trauma it's a trauma natural so in the real world now is it the trauma response or is it still a dream the story is set up so well that you don't know what do you think what do you think i think he's still fighting for his life in this coma that's what i think it is i think it's his mind his body obviously it's like it wants to live and he just can't wake up he just can't recover out of it but he's conscious enough or his body's fighting for it right oh man yeah uh six years i know dude that's so hard i mean right we have the story itself but then again it's just like six years dude like what do you what do you even do like one the atrophy that happens to your muscles and everything so your body will have to relearn how to do all those things you know like we were watching the matrix talk about oh you have to learn how to you know you're seeing for the first time things like that i never used them before yeah here's the reason why i didn't use them before exactly and but then also like the family you know what i mean it is one thing it's arguably worse because if you lose someone they're gone you go through the process of grieving not like they're there they're not dead but they're in this like comatose state and then who knows if they're gonna wake up when they'll wake up like oh my god yeah the the limbo state of hope and grief extended so you can't really go through it all the processes because you can literally go and see them you know yeah or what remains of them with again the optimism that they come back right this is so such an interesting take on horror because it's so possible it's so real you know obviously we're gonna explore we did an scp last time we explore ghouls and whatnot but this one's so interesting because it's such a conversation starter i'm of like a couple of minds there's a lot of religious answers and spiritual answers to what happens when you die and you're like oh my god i'm gonna die and i'm gonna die and i'm gonna die but there's also some that are just like you know maybe when you die it's just like you have this spark you know there's a lot of theories on this but you have this spark where you have a flash before your eyes and some people guesstimate that maybe that little spark can can extend time like you live in that spark for a question mark maybe it's a few seconds maybe it's minutes maybe it's hours days years what if he's living in that spark for that moment and so like this is him just in his afterlife or on his way to afterlife yeah or what if he is in a deeper dream and he has been comatose in this years is imaginary. Like, cause he dreamed a full recovery and going back to work and a complex life only for all that to be undone. So afterlife, he is dreaming or he has recovered, but he has what the doctor in the dream was talking about, which is like, this is understandable, uh, symptoms to what he went through, you know? Cause it does feel more realistic, the recovery from being, I mean, obliterated by a train, especially if it's got a cattle guard. If you know what those are, that's kind of like the, uh, triangular kind of grid that's on the front of trains, the, uh, the bars. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's called a cattle guard because if cattle are walking across the train tracks, it kind of throws them out of the way rather than going under the tracks and then derailing the train. It's kind of gruesome, but I mean, I'm just thinking your doors open, you're trapped in your seatbelt, you get hit by a train, not knowing the speed of it. That doesn't feel like a very likely recovery or something to live through, but if you do live through it, this does feel like a more accurate recovery six years on, you know, you're, you're hopeful that maybe you can upgrade to crutches someday. Like, yeah. So like, I almost want to say it's, it is a reality here, but, but again, it's such a good conversation. I don't know. I don't know. I know. I mean, you could take it so many different ways. Yeah. And then even then if you, if you want to, right, you could take it into a supernatural realm or you take it into a scientific realm, right? Or, you know, if you're a doctor, you could take a look at this. You could take a look at this. You could look at this from so many different angles because you have this scientific knowledge that you can have here behind all this. And so it's just like, oh man. What I think I really liked about this, and we're going to try to do this, Christian and I, as we continue to source stories and pull them together is, you know, there's, there's a lot of like classic creepy posses. We're going to explore a lot of SCPs, but there's also a lot of stories from over the decade plus of time that amazing authors have put fingers to keyboards, pens to paper. But what I like about this story is that it's a lot of, it's a lot of stories that are, it's a lot of, it's a lot of story in particular. And it reminds me of what I saw is why I don't drive anymore from episode four or whatever, is that it feels like our natural conversation of what we would do, what we would try, what we would think is naturally going along with what the story is doing itself. It feels very much like a real person dropped into an interesting scenario rather than being like, well, suspend the disbelief of logic. Like the logic's all there. It's just like everything outside of that is, you know, out of their control. Right. It's, it's just very well crafted. It's very well crafted. Yeah. It's just really well done. Yeah. And I think it really makes you think, I think it's this underlying dread that crosses into reality and deep thoughts that people have. So it's less blockbuster Hollywood jump scare in your face and very deep. Yeah. A slow simmer of an existential, you know, reality shaker. But no, when I was younger, I would dabble with lucid dreaming. There's ways to kind of practice it. You go into a dream with the idea of reality checking. For me, it was always like trying to associate scratching my head or hitting a light switch with like a reality check. Cause in your dream, you might not feel the itch. You might not see the light turn on. And so like, I don't know, I think you and I both have like this history around dreaming and sleeping and whether it be lucid dreaming or sleep paralysis, that this feels very visceral to those experiences. Oh, most definitely. Yeah. What a story task force. We turn it to you as the campfire begins to die down. What do you think? What is going on here? What are your theories? Let us know in the comments here, or join us on our Patreon page via redwebpod.com where we have a discord channel and we have a discussion board for every story we put up for every red web episode that goes up, where everybody can kind of come together as a community and have these very same conversations that Fredo and I have. Yeah. But with that, our story for the night comes to an end. Fredo, I'll give you just enough time to catch up on some sleep and let your guard down. And I'll see you right back here in two weeks for yet another terrifying tale.