you have to take the stairs

I'm sure there's a good way to begin this, but I've tried various ways and failed. I've been having some strange recurring dreams. They involve, well, I’m suddenly reminded of another, which involves strange systems of public toilets that never have doors. But that’s for another time. I’m haunted by a strange and somewhat inexplicable fear of elevators. But only in my dreams, mind you.

I probably have, on average, 3-5 dreams per month during which I’m either in an elevator, about to get on an elevator, or avoiding an elevator that I am absolutely convinced is going to fall. This has been going on for years. Possibly my whole life, although not with such persistent frequency as in the last couple years.

Last night, the absurdity reached its peak. I wouldn’t say that the contents of this particular dream were any more out of the ordinary than usual. But when I woke up with that familiar strangeness that remains after having these dreams, I found myself thinking, “what the hell?” It’s safe to say that I’ve commented about this tendency here and there, perhaps to a friend as a casual addition to a conversation about what unnerves us. But normally I have the dreams, wake up with an uneasy feeling, and then go about my life assuming I’ve put it behind me. Until the next elevator nightmare, I don’t think much of it. But today I woke with the wonder of what it is that makes this, of all things, the theme recurring in my unconscious thought.

Riding in an elevator is nearly a daily occurrence for me. Now that I work on the second floor, I shouldn’t be employing their use as much. Throughout the day, I do usually take the stairs. But sometimes I’m in such a hurry to get to work (on time) that I bust through the first entrance I reach, a newly-reopened “deluxe” entrance where the elevators are really the only way to go. There are stairs but the door at the top of them is frequently locked, and it’s frustrating when you’re running late to have to bolt back down the stairs and then wait for the elevator that you should have taken in the first place.

So am I at all uncomfortable on my semi-daily elevator journey? Nope. The elevators at work don’t bother me much, although I must say that the elevators that went up to the 20-somethingth floor of the building work used to inhabit were a bit reminiscent of a theme park ride. They were speedy in both directions and they were at times pretty noisy and wobbly. I’m glad I didn’t work in that building, (I just visited when sent on errands) although the views were fabulous and probably made up for it.

So do I experience fear when I take other elevators? Nah. Not really. There’s the occasional odd experience when the doors take a little too long to open, or I hear a strange noise or the compartment rumbles oddly. But on the whole, these fairly infrequent and rather quick journeys are done and over with, and I continue on my way unscathed.

So what is it that goes on in my life that drives me to have these insanely frequent nightmares? I’m not sure I believe in the typical dream mumbo-jumbo (although I have to admit I’m not very well versed in it, so perhaps I shouldn’t make such blanket statements). But I’m not convinced there’s much that I can do to avoid them, nor do I particularly care to take drastic measures to stop them (they could stop though, that would be just fine with me). I’m not in search of an answer as much as I just find it interesting to chronicle. So chronicle I will.

I therefore submit a strange and incomplete record of the elevator-related nightmares I currently recall.

Foreign Elevators.

I was in a strange European country, traveling around in an elevator that operated more like one from Willy Wonka/CCF. Oddly enough, it was not this particular vertically, horizontally, every-which-way-ly flying elevator that petrified me. It wasn’t until I was dropped off at a large, shiny, black-box building that my irrational fear resurfaced. I am uncertain what mission I had that involved me elevating to the top of this building (which I believe had a quite beautiful and impressive black marble exterior – thus the sheen). All I new was that I would have preferred attempting to scale the outside over taking the elevator. It might have had weak glass flooring or seemed otherwise unstable - the dream is too distant now to recall exactly. Ultimately, a gang of oddly dressed hooligans pushed me into the elevator, which went up before going down (apparently I had to go underground, not up to the top), and my mission was to deliver a memo to no one in particular and be on my way. I never took the elevator back up, but I was outside of the building before I knew it, and as I recall, on my way to waking up before any sort of results could come about.

The Workplace.

Although it was an absolute that I was at work, this dream-workplace in no way resembled the building I actually work in – something which so often happens to me in dreams. It was rather sci-fi-esque in appearance. I was in the basement and my only option to get from floor to floor was an elaborate and confusing network of elevators. Some took you to one level, others took you to another. I ended up on the wrong floor because I refused to take one particular elevator that, reasons unbeknownst to me, freaked me out beyond belief - but also was the only one that went to my desired level. So I could hardly get to the right floor, but I could hardly make myself take that elevator. I think there were also futuristic go-carts (exciting!) but I didn’t get to actually ride any. Not that a go-cart would have helped me go from level to level unless there had been a ramp hidden somewhere.

The Ultimate.

It’s what I fear each time, but what has only happened once: in this dream, the elevator actually dropped. There wasn’t much context surrounding where I was or why I was there, or even how the elevator had broken. All I knew was that I was alone in the elevator, on my way up and feeling nervous as usual, and then elevator slowed down and the usual shakiness occurred. I feared the worst, and then the worst actually happened. Something snapped and down I went. I wasn’t even experiencing that strange sensation that one gets in dreams when they’re falling – but I was acutely aware of the fact that I was in an elevator and that I was plummeting to my death. I kept thinking that if I jumped up at the right time, I could avoid otherwise certain death. I think I was even aware of the fact that it was ironic that I was going to die this way since I had been having so many dreams about this particular happening. I scolded myself; it was playing with fate to go on that particular elevator, and shame, shame on me. But then I woke up. No harm done.

Last night.

I had been signed up for some sort of seminar that would take place at a nearby location that I lived and worked at before college. The seminar was to be held on the 9^th floor – never mind the fact that in reality this building has only four levels. I got in an elevator with a group of people who mumbled idly about the lecturing we would endure. The elevator cab, which looked like no more than a hastily constructed wooden box, shakily ascended to about the 7^th floor. Doors never opening, it came to an abrupt stop, swung for a while, and then dutifully sunk to the first floor to collect additional passengers before it would finish delivering us to the 9^th floor. At the prospect of making yet another journey in this warbling contraption, as well as greatly disliking being pressed against the side of the creaking walls to make room for the newcomers, I think I shrieked a bit, and squeezed my way out of the elevator, announcing that I would take the stairs. Everyone thought I was crazy, and seemed to believe that climbing nine flights of stairs was an unbelievable and impossible feat. It shouldn’t have been, and I was determined, driven by both my fear of the elevator and that strange sense of claustrophobia that overcame me - which can only be linked back to my recent train rides home on the ridiculously overcrowded Boston mass transit. In the end of this dream, I believe I neither made it to the top via the stairs (some stragglers that couldn’t fit in the elevator came along with me, and we made our journey up the stairs with frequent, strangely motivated stops and tours of about every other floor), nor did I tragically die. So all in all, not a particularly terrible elevator dream.

In General.

Most of my dreams relating to elevator fright are not so elaborate or lengthy. More often than not, I’ve simply stepped into the cab of an elevator (or am on one already when I become aware) it goes to a point then slows, stutters, quivers a bit, and then I’m either left scrambling to exit as soon as I can, or stuck in that moment, petrified that it will fall, feeling like the floor beneath me is about as stable as if it were made of loose, brittle netting.

Come to think of it, escalators are really a much better bet. The worst thing that you might have to do if they break down is engage your idle legs and finish walking whichever direction you were headed. OK, so the consequences might be a bit more severe, but I’m sure much less life-threatening. I understand we can’t just go throughout the world, replacing all elevators with escalators. I suppose it’s due to space restraints; we’ve had to develop the elevator because escalators take up so much room. But not much more than that of a staircase, which come to think of it, has to be paired with every elevator! With some thinking, we could have developed slightly deeper steps that would accommodate wheelchairs and strollers, thereby reducing our reliance on elevators. It’s a shame, really. Not once have I been tormented by a killer escalator, its metal jaws opening to swallow me when I forget to step off at the end of my ride.

Perhaps it’s that the very nature of elevators is just odd. You stand in this lift, seemingly in stasis, but when the door opens, it’s as if one stage set has simply been replaced with another, and all that rumbling was just the stagehands working quickly to get things in place before the curtains, er, elevator doors are opened. Or perhaps it’s that they serve as a sort of median in your experience – the bridge from one locale to another. You’re forced in a silence with your thoughts, and no matter what you come up with to ponder (your next meeting, your plans for the evening, number 118 of 500 ways to avoid that special someone), even if you don’t acknowledge it, you clearly know you’re in an elevator. And you know you’ve taken a risk entering, and trusting that the cords won’t snap, that a gear won’t slip, that you won’t find yourself thinking your final thoughts as you plunge in this dark container down to the bottom of the elevator shaft.