TRANSCRIPT: SOMNARIUM. S.015 – The Mall World Phenomena

Case of Nick Parker. First seen by Dr. Susan Renwyck on September 18th, 2008, for recurring nightmares, fragmented sleep, and episodes of disorientation associated with a maze-like indoor dream environment.

LISTEN ON:

PDF DOWNLOAD:

S.015 – The Mall World Phenomena

<- Back to Transcripts

Next Episode ->

INTRO

[hdd spins up]

Okay so. Before we start with today’s file, quick update.

Maddy took the second drive home with her. She said she was gonna run some kind of tool on it, something that might help index the structure a little bit… better.

Hopefully that’ll make the mess of it easier to understand.

In the meantime, she’s also going through the files herself to see what she can find.

She said she’d let me know if anything useful turns up.

[pause]

Anyway, moving on to today’s case.

I only skimmed this one at first because, honestly, it didn’t seem all that remarkable.

Lucid dreaming. A mall. Weird recurring architecture. That sort of thing.

But the more I read, the less harmless it started to sound.

PATIENT APPLICATION

Applicant: Nick Parker
Date: September 11th, 2008
Referral: Self

Dear Dr. Renwyck,

I’m reaching out to you in hopes of getting help with some sleeping problems I’ve been having.

For a while now I’ve been practicing lucid dreaming, but lately I’ve been having trouble sleeping even on normal nights.

I realize this may sound strange, but have you ever heard of something called the Mall World Phenomena?

Well, that’s where this all started.

It was a couple of months ago. I was searching around online, going down the usual rabbit holes about urban myths, when I came across a small messaging board.

It’s called “The Oneironauts”, a small community revolving around the practice of lucid dreaming.

You can find all kinds of guides and instructions on how to lucid dream. But what really caught my attention was a specific thread called “The Mall World Phenomena”.

People described seeing the same 80s era shopping mall. You know, with the neon signs and retro feel to it?

Well all of these users were strangely accurate in recounting what they had seen, with other users chiming in on specific details not mentioned by others.

At first it seemed like a joke, but as I explored more and more of the message board I quickly came to realize that people were actually practicing lucid dreaming. And for some reason this shopping mall was a recurring theme that people kept seeing.

Still skeptical at this point, I reluctantly opened the thread “Lucid Dreaming and how to become an Oneironaut”.

Inside there was a complete manual and step-by-step instructions on how to lucid dream.

I’ll spare you the details since you’re the expert on this stuff and probably know better, but needless to say I tried it out.

At first it was mundane stuff, trying to take control of the tiniest details in my dreams.

I kept a meticulous log, as the oneironauts suggested, and documented every step of my experimentation.

Soon enough, I was ready to take my first steps in the mall.

It took me a little over a week to finally walk through a door and end up in the mall.

I couldn’t believe my eyes at first, the vast empty mall brightly lit by neon signs was a view to behold. But the oneironauts weren’t lying. It felt unreal in a way that’s hard to describe, and I immediately understood why people kept going back.

I knew it was only a dream, but it didn’t feel like a dream. It felt like a place I wanted to understand.

That next morning I made a post in the mall world thread, detailing my first visit to the mall.

I was quickly congratulated and people welcomed me in becoming a real oneironaut.

Between all those messages, there was one that was out place. Back then, I didn’t pay much attention to it, but maybe I should’ve heeded their warning more.

“Enjoy exploring, but if you see a large figure watching you from a distance, wake up immediately.”

I shrugged it off as someone trying to scare me. The truth is, by then I was already too curious to take the warning seriously.

It was a few nights later, when I was exploring the mall and forcing myself to wake up, taking notes of landmarks and storefronts while carefully drawing out the map, that I first noticed him.

Exactly as described, from one of the upper levels I saw a large hulking figure standing in a poorly lit section, looking down at me.

I vaguely remembered the warning, but told myself they were probably just trying to scare me. So I turned around, looked up and waved at the figure. After all, it was only a dream.

I regret that now. I should’ve listened.

I kept going back anyway, exploring, investigating and mapping out the mall. Night after night my working map got bigger and bigger. It got so big, that I decided to empty out one of my bedroom walls so I could start putting the crudely drawn maps on it.

This continued for weeks. I was sleeping worse, functioning worse, and still I kept going back. I don’t remember a single night where I didn’t spot the figure.

It all changed when one night I got lost. I remember going through a familiar couple of sections that led to a large atrium with a fountain in the middle.

When I turned to take a left turn, towards the section that had only fast food chains, I was suddenly met with a wall.

I figured I must’ve made a mistake or misremembered, so I turned around and walked past the fountain and wanted to take the hallway leading to the bronze statue of a bull, but instead there was a shuttered storefront.

At that point I figured I might as well retrace my steps as this might be a different room than the one I was used to.

When I turned back to the hallway I entered the atrium from the figure was standing there.

Menacingly it was blocking the way back, leaving only one way to go.

The final hallway was dark. So dark, that I couldn’t even see where it ended.

I shot awake when I heard the footsteps sprinting at me from the dark.

That was enough for me to stop for a few nights. Up until then I’d still been treating it like some kind of thrill, and that was the first time it really scared me.

The next few nights were normal, I don’t remember what I dreamt or if I dreamt.

What finally put me over the edge to realize that I screwed up and might need help is when I went to the local big-box store.

I went in to get my monthly supply of soda and snacks. It took me longer than I’d like to admit to find my favorite drinks and couldn’t locate the aisle with all the snacks until I asked an employee for help.

It was such a strange experience to get lost in a place that should’ve been easy to navigate, but I figured they had just changed the layout.

I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t find the exit. I went through aisle after aisle after aisle, but it was just more of the same unfamiliar shelves.

The next thing I remember I was sitting against a wall with my knees up to my chest and an employee asking me if I was alright.

My doctor said I had a panic attack and that I might be suffering from agoraphobia.

I know that’s ridiculous. But I don’t have a better explanation.

Please, help me.

CONSULTATION NOTE

Patient: Nick Parker
Date: September 18th, 2008
Subject: Initial consultation; possible emerging pattern

Mr. Parker presented as alert, cooperative, and fully oriented throughout the consultation, though visibly fatigued. Speech was coherent and organized, and he described his symptoms in a clear chronological manner. Primary complaints are difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep, increased daytime fatigue, and escalating episodes of disorientation in large indoor environments following repeated attempts at lucid dreaming.

A substantial portion of the session focused on the patient’s involvement with online lucid dreaming communities and his increasing preoccupation with what he described as a recurring indoor dream setting resembling a shopping mall. He reports not only repeated return to this environment during sleep, but an increasingly compulsive effort to re-enter it deliberately, document it, and impose structure on it through mapping. This fixation appears to have outlasted the point at which the experience ceased to be enjoyable.

What concerns me most is the degree to which the patient continues to speak about lucid dreaming as something he is reluctant to relinquish, despite clear evidence that it is worsening both his sleep and daytime functioning. There is an addictive quality to the behavior, though not in the usual chemical sense. He appears drawn less to the practice itself than to the promise of returning to the same internal environment and making sense of it.

At present, I am unsure whether this represents a recognizable extension of an existing pattern or something adjacent to one. The spatial consistency described is unusual, but it is too early to draw a stronger conclusion.

Patient was advised to discontinue lucid dream induction immediately, reduce nighttime sleep interruption, and continue documenting symptoms with emphasis on sleep quality, disorientation, and any further waking overlap.

SLEEP DIARY

Friday, September 19th, 2008

I had my first consultation with Dr. Renwyck yesterday.

She was professional. Calm. Hard to read.

I told her about the mall, about the lucid dreaming, about the warning on the message board, and about what happened at the big-box store. She listened without interrupting much, wrote things down, and then told me, as plainly as she could, that I need to stop.

No more induction methods. No alarms in the middle of the night. No dream journaling at 3 in the morning. No more trying to force myself back into that place.

According to her, I’ve been fragmenting my sleep so badly that my brain has started blurring the line between dream-space and waking orientation. She said the disorientation I’ve been having during the day is likely a combination of exhaustion, anxiety, and the amount of mental energy I’m pouring into the mall. She told me I need to stop feeding it.

I know she’s probably right.

Of course she’s right.

Ever since the consultation, all I can think about is the mall.

The fountain in the atrium. The upper walkways. The food court with all the glowing signs and no people behind the counters. The way every storefront looks like it should mean something, like if I just spent enough time there I’d eventually understand how it all fits together.

I know how unhealthy that sounds now that I’ve said it out loud to somebody else.

Last night I tried to sleep normally. No alarms. No reality checks. No intention-setting before bed. Just lights out and silence.

I slept badly anyway.

Not because I went back there. I don’t think I did. If I dreamed at all, I don’t remember it. But I lay awake for what felt like hours with that awful restless feeling, like I was missing something important.

That’s the part I haven’t admitted to anyone yet.

I don’t just feel afraid of the mall.

I miss it.

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

I lasted longer than I expected.

Almost a week.

No lucid dreaming, no attempts, no notes except these entries. I kept telling myself I was doing the right thing. I went to bed at normal hours. Tried reading before sleep. Tried not to look at the message board.

I still thought about it constantly.

Waking life has felt dull all week. Flat… Smaller, somehow. I go to work, come home, eat dinner, stare at the television, and all the while some part of me keeps circling back to the same thought: if I can just get one more look at the map, one more pass through the atrium, one more walk past the fountain, maybe I can finally make sense of it.

So last night I gave in.

I didn’t do the full routine. I told myself that mattered. I just stayed up a little later than usual, thought about the mall, pictured the entrance I’d always used, and let myself drift with it in mind.

That was enough.

I was there almost immediately.

Everything looked brighter than I remembered. It didn’t feel more welcoming, but clearer. The neon signs reflected off the polished floor. The fountain in the atrium was running again. I could hear the water before I saw it. For a moment, and this is embarrassing to write, I felt relieved. Genuinely relieved. Like I’d come back to somewhere that had been waiting for me.

I started walking.

The same storefronts were there. The shuttered music shop. The place with the bronze bull statue further down one of the corridors. The row of fast food counters with illuminated menu boards and no staff. Enough of it matched my notes that I felt that stupid rush all over again. That same conviction that the place could be learned.

Then I saw him.

Upper level. Half in shadow. Standing still and looking down at me.

The figure was exactly where I would’ve expected him by now, which is probably the worst part. I noticed him, felt that brief spike of fear, and then kept going.

That should tell me everything I need to know about where my head is at.

Later, when I tried to retrace a familiar route back towards the atrium, I took a corridor I know should have opened onto the food court.

Instead it dead-ended at a blank wall.

Not a store. Not a boarded-up renovation space. Just a wall.

I stood there staring at it long enough to start feeling stupid, then turned back and found the atrium again from another direction.

The fountain was still there.

But the figure wasn’t on the upper level anymore.

I woke up before I found him again.

All day I’ve been telling myself that was enough. That I’m done now.

I don’t believe that for one minute.

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008

Something’s wrong.

I keep wanting to write “with me,” but I don’t think that’s it. It feels more like something is wrong with space itself. Or with the way my mind is moving through it. Does that make sense?

Anyway. I went to a home goods store after work. Not the same big-box place as before. Different building, different layout, somewhere I’ve only been once or twice. I needed a desk lamp, for writing notes in the middle of the night.

Nothing happened at first. I got a cart, walked in, passed kitchen supplies and bedding and seasonal junk set up near the entrance. Normal. Boring. Fine.

Then I looked up and had the sudden, absolute certainty that if I kept going straight I’d come to the atrium.

That’s ridiculous, obviously. There was no atrium. It was a warehouse store. One floor, exposed ceiling, fluorescent lighting.

And still, for a few seconds, I believed it completely.

I took another turn and couldn’t find the front of the store again. Then I couldn’t find the lighting aisle. Then I couldn’t tell whether I was circling the same section or not.

I started moving faster. But that only made it worse.

Everything was shelves and signs that should have been helpful and somehow weren’t. I kept thinking if I could just get to the main aisle I could get my bearings, but every aisle opened to another stretch of merchandise that looked almost, but not quite, familiar.

The panic hit hard. Not all at once, slowly, creeping up on me.

My chest tightened. My hands went numb. Every time I turned a corner and didn’t see the exit, something in me dropped a little further.

And the entire time I had this horrible urge to look up, as if I expected to see him standing on some balcony that wasn’t there.

I don’t remember how I got out. I remember sitting in my car afterwards gripping the steering wheel tightly with the air conditioner blasting in my face.

I’m writing this down because I know what Dr. Renwyck would say. She’d say this is exactly what she warned me about. Exhaustion. Conditioning. Obsession. My brain dragging dream logic into the daytime because I have spent too long teaching it to do exactly that.

She’s probably right.

But it feels too real.

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

I had my follow-up with Dr. Renwyck today.

She was more direct this time.

She asked whether I had continued the lucid dreaming. I said no. Or not really. I said I’d had a few normal dreams and that the daytime disorientation had been the bigger issue lately.

That was a lie.

I’ve been doing it more.

Not less. More.

After the store incident, I told myself I needed answers. That if this thing had started crossing over into the day, then the only way to deal with it was to understand what had changed. I started setting alarms again. Waking myself up after a few hours. Going back to sleep with the mall in mind. Writing notes. Checking the board. Comparing details. Looking at my wall of maps until I could barely keep my eyes open.

I know how bad that sounds.

Dr. Renwyck told me, very plainly, that I’m feeding the problem every time I do this. She said I’m treating the mall like a puzzle I can solve if I just spend enough time with it, and that this need for an answer is exactly what’s keeping me trapped in the cycle.

I almost laughed when she said trapped.

Because she has no idea…

The mall is changing now.

It still wears the same shape when I first get there. Storefronts. Food court. Neon. Escalators. But the longer I stay, the less convincing it becomes. Corridors go on too long. Closed shutters stretch where shops should be. Service hallways branch off in places I swear were walls before. The signs don’t contradict the layout anymore because they barely seem to refer to anything. They just hang there over empty passages like labels someone forgot to remove.

And the figure is closer.

So much closer.

I don’t believe it’s just following me anymore. I think it’s waiting for me at certain points. Like it knows where I’m trying to go before I do.

I lied to Dr. Renwyck because I knew what she’d say.

Stop.

Throw away the maps.

Get off the board.

Sleep normally.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe that’s the only sane thing left to do.

So why am I already thinking about going back tonight?

Monday, October 13th, 2008

I think I finally understand what I’ve been doing wrong.

This whole time I’ve been treating the mall as if it were the thing itself. A stable environment. A place with rules, boundaries, sections, and routes I could learn if I just kept at it long enough.

I don’t think that’s true anymore.

The mall is just the part that makes sense first.

Underneath it, or behind it, maybe, is something else. The same shape over and over, wearing different details depending on how long you look.

Last night I made it farther than I ever have.

The fountain atrium was there at first, but the water was gone. The bronze bull was gone too, only the pedestal left behind. I kept moving. Past shuttered storefronts, down a corridor that should have opened into the food court, through a service door that should not have been unlocked.

After that, it stopped resembling a mall at all.

Concrete passages. Dark turns. Long stretches with no signs, no windows, no sound except my own footsteps.

And then footsteps that weren’t mine.

I didn’t see him at first. I heard him.

Heavy, measured steps somewhere behind me, then above me, then ahead of me in a way that made no sense. Like distance and direction had stopped meaning what they should.

I should’ve woken myself up immediately. I realize that now. But I had the strongest feeling I’ve ever had in that place. Stronger than fear. Stronger than panic. I was close to something central. Something important. Not an exit. Not safety. The part that’s been hidden from the start.

So I’m going back.

One last time.

Even though I fear I might not come back.

But for the record, if you ever see a retro 80s mall in your dreams, wake up.

PATIENT RECORD ADDENDUM

Patient: Nick Parker
Date: October 16th, 2008
Subject: Failed follow-up; patient uncontactable

Mr. Parker failed to attend his scheduled follow-up appointment. Multiple attempts to contact him by telephone were unsuccessful. Given the recent escalation in symptoms, increasing daytime disorientation, and the degree of preoccupation described during his last consultation, I felt a welfare check was warranted.

At the time of his most recent visit, I was already concerned that the patient was minimizing the extent of his continued lucid dream induction. His presentation suggested significantly impaired judgment with regard to sleep disruption and symptom reinforcement. While I cannot rule out a more conventional psychiatric explanation for the deterioration described in his diary, the material later recovered from his residence is difficult to reconcile with insomnia alone.

Detective Raynor’s report is attached below.

Attached to this addendum is a scan of a police report.

NOREN POLICE DEPARTMENT
MAJOR CRIMES DIVISION
INCIDENT REPORT

Case Number: [REDACTED]
Reporting Officer: Detective James Raynor
Date: October 17th, 2008
Location: [REDACTED], Noren
Incident Type: Welfare Check / missing person follow-up

Per request from Dr. Susan Renwyck, a welfare check was conducted at the residence of Nick Parker after repeated failure to attend follow-up care and multiple unsuccessful contact attempts.

There was no response at the door.

Building management confirmed the tenant had not been seen for at least two days, though no one could provide an exact time. Entry was authorized.

The apartment showed no immediate indication of forced entry, struggle, or hurried departure. Wallet, keys, and everyday personal effects were present. The kitchen sink contained an unwashed glass and plate. A jacket was draped over the back of a chair. The bed appeared slept in, though not recently remade. Nothing in the residence suggested packing or intent to travel.

The living room, however, had been almost entirely repurposed.

One wall had been cleared and covered floor to ceiling with taped pages, hand-drawn route diagrams, and annotated floor plans. At first glance the drawings resembled the layout of a shopping mall or indoor commercial center. Repeated labels included “atrium,” “fountain,” “food court,” “music store,” “upper level,” “service hall,” and “bull statue.” Many of the pages had been revised multiple times. Corridors were crossed out and redrawn. Junctions were moved, relabeled, or connected by arrows pointing in contradictory directions. In several places, older versions had not been discarded but taped over with newer corrections, creating a layered effect as if the subject had been trying to keep pace with a layout that would not stay fixed.

The further inward the diagrams progressed, the less recognizable they became.

What began as rough but legible mall-like plans gradually gave way to denser arrangements of branching passageways, dead ends, loops, and narrow concrete-looking corridors with no clear commercial features at all. In the margins of several pages, Mr. Parker had written short notes in all capital letters:

“NOT A STORE ANYMORE”
“WAS A WALL BEFORE”
“FOOD COURT GONE”
“ATRIUM MOVED”
“HE WAS WAITING HERE”
“DO NOT TAKE SERVICE HALL”

Near the center of the room was a large handmade model occupying most of the floor space between the couch and television stand. It had been assembled from cardboard, foam board, tape, packaging inserts, and other household scrap. The model appeared to represent the same environment depicted on the walls.

The outer sections resembled a mall in miniature: open walkways, escalator wells, a circular central atrium, and small storefront facades marked by hand with names or shorthand labels. Some sections had been painted or colored in neon shades, suggesting signage. A shallow dish had been placed at the center of the atrium, presumably to represent the fountain described in the surrounding notes.

Toward the interior, the model became increasingly crude and difficult to interpret. The storefront facades stopped. The open walkways narrowed into corridors. Whole sections had been torn apart and rebuilt multiple times. Cardboard walls doubled back on themselves in impossible ways. Several pieces had been pinned into place rather than fixed permanently, as if the subject had expected to move them again. One area near the middle had partially collapsed under its own weight and been reinforced with books stacked underneath the base.

There were no figurines placed throughout the model, but on an upper ledge overlooking the central atrium Mr. Parker had positioned a dark, roughly human-shaped object constructed from tape and blackened cardboard. It was taller than any of the surrounding improvised structures and set in such a way that it appeared to be looking down over the display.

The subject’s computer was powered on when officers entered the apartment. Internet history and open browser tabs indicated repeated visits to an online lucid dreaming forum calling itself “The Oneironauts.” Cached pages and printed forum extracts recovered from the desk area included discussions of recurring dream environments, lucid dream techniques, sleep interruption methods, and a thread labeled “The Mall World Phenomena.” Several user posts had been highlighted or underlined. One printed warning had been circled heavily:

“Enjoy exploring, but if you see a large figure watching you from a distance, wake up immediately.”

On the desk were multiple notebooks containing sleep logs, alarm schedules, and handwritten comparisons between dream visits. The subject appeared to have been intentionally interrupting his sleep across several weeks in order to re-enter the same recurring environment. Later notebook entries became harder to follow and increasingly fragmented. Repeated phrases included:

“same shape underneath”
“it lets you understand it at first”
“not the mall itself”
“closer each time”
“behind the storefronts”
“don’t let it lead you”

The final notebook left open on the desk contained a short handwritten line matching the content of the patient’s last diary entry:

“One last time. If the center exists, I think I can reach it now.”

No sign of Mr. Parker was found in the residence.

No blood, signs of violence, or evidence of third-party entry were observed. At present, the case remains open as a missing person matter. Based on the condition of the apartment, the subject appears to have been in a state of severe sleep deprivation and escalating fixation prior to disappearance.

Personal note: I have seen obsession leave a mark on a room before. Usually it produces clutter, repetition, or paranoia of a kind you can recognize. This was more deliberate than that. More methodical. It looked less like fantasy and more like someone trying to reproduce a place accurately before they forgot it.

CONCLUSION

No body. No sign of a break-in. No evidence that anyone else had been in the apartment.

Just a missing man, a wall full of maps, and a crude model of a place that should not exist.

What stands out to me is how methodical all of it was.

Not messy. Not random. Methodical.

By the end, Nick didn’t seem any closer to letting it go. If anything, he sounded more certain than ever that there was something still waiting for him in there.

I agree with Renwyck here, this is something we haven’t seen before. It wasn’t about obsession or being chased or running out of time. This was about… a place? No. About architecture.

Like a maze.

A labyrinth.

There’s one other thing I can’t stop thinking about.

The message board.

The Oneironauts.

I’ve sent that name over to Maddy to see if she can find anything. The board, the thread, archived posts, cached pages… whatever’s left, if anything is left at all.

Because if Nick really did find a whole group of people talking about the same place back in 2008, then he clearly wasn’t the only one seeing it.

And if even part of that board is still out there somewhere, I want to know what happened to the others.

[pause]

Anyway.

That’s enough for today.

I’ll let you know if Maddy finds anything.

NO FURTHER MATERIAL RECOVERED

OUTRO PLAYS