theydonthavetobelieve-blog

[theydonthavetobelieve-blog]

1 - the Hoax

In 2006, a New York City psychiatrist is interviewing a patient about a man they saw in their dreams. The subject matter of the dream is never stated, nor is it ever fully explained as to why this dude even decided to draft out a poorly drawn sketch of this man, who shall hence forth be known as, “this man”, but he did. The psychiatrist later sees another patient who notices the sketch on the doctor’s desk, and immediately recognizes the figure. A few more incidents later and the doctor begins to advertise posters saying, “Ever Dream This Man” and the sketch around the city. Think there’s more to this story? 

Well there isn’t. It’s a hoax. The doctor, the man, “this man” - it’s just a big marketing campaign. VICE put out an article about this, and then immediately retracted it - because it’s a hoax. The images of the man are designed to resemble characteristics that are...common. You can do the research yourself, go ahead. It’s no big secret that this isn’t fake. There’s photos of fliers that are posted around the world even to this day, yup those are just meaningless pieces of papers that promoted a marketing campaign. It’s really quite clever. However, you think I’d feel a sense of relief when I found out that this man was a creation of some Italian marketing specialist^1

I stumbled upon an article on my Facebook feed. I saw the words “dream” and “common”, and then this creepy person sketched out, so thanks Google for monitoring my online activity and bumping shit I wanna see. I was at work when I was reading through the article, basically tricking me into believing this entire thing. It even had a website associated with it, a “.org” website so it must be legit. I tried to dig into my thoughts to see if I ever dreamt this man. But I didn’t. He did look oddly familiar, but there were no specific instances or features that I could absolutely and whole-heartedly proclaim from my workspace that I did indeed see this man in my dreams. 

So I just let it go. Went on with the rest of my day. Now it’s been a period of “mandatory overtime” at work, so I’m very much burnt out at the end of my days. Often times when I get home, I end up laying down and sleeping through four nap time alarms and fucking up my entire night’s sleep, but whatever. This time I was laying down, watching a video of pro-skateboarder Ben Raybourn tearing up a bowl and advertising Bronson Speed Co. bearings, and suddenly I’m in a forest. Not literally, but in my dreams - and it was a big forest. Kinda familiar, but, no offense to those who are very proud of their local nature, forests seem to look the same to me. I was surrounded by other people, not in a threatening way - which I should say often my dreams involve people hating me. No, this time I was surrounded by faces I knew, but faces that I can’t recall at this moment. I’m walking through the woods, with a friend, a real life friend who will be called “Paul” for this instance. I’m holding a bass guitar in my hands, my bass guitar, and we suddenly reach what looks to be the back of a department store - you know, where they have a loading dock and a dumpster, perhaps some old product just thrown out. 

There’s this wall, well two walls. Adjacent to one another with a platform at the top. Some might be able to wedge between the two walls and do a cool spider wall crawl up them, well at least in a dream. That’s what Paul does, and I try as well but I’m still holding a bass guitar. He throws down some sort of rope so that I can grab and climb up, but he ends up just attempting to swing me to get me to the platform. As he’s doing this, someone approaches the wall while I am in mid swing. It’s this man. And he’s in a costume of some sorts, all big and fuzzy. He’s running towards me, gesturing with his hands to wait for him and help him get up as well. I like to think I’m a nice person to help out a stranger, even in my dreams. So i extended a free hand towards him, I have no idea where the bass guitar went at this point tbh, and I can’t reach him. I’m now swinging up and there’s no way to get back to him unless I swing back down. 

Here’s the part that I still hear in my head: as I swing away from him and watch his hope disappear, he reaches out his arms and screams, “The gates to heaven are closed! The gates are closed!” I wake up, scared - terrified. 

1) For those who are curious, the individual’s name is Andrea Natella, and the “this man” hoax is on their online portfolio

[theydonthavetobelieve-blog]

Hello!

My name is Kyle, I’m twenty one years old, I live in Philadelphia, PA, and that’s really anything you would have to know about me. 

I started this project as means to understand the things that I go through, a personal journal in a way (although I have two other actual, personal journals). It strained from a dream i had during post-work nap. What it becomes later on, I have no idea. 

My creativity is only hindered by me, as it stands for anybody else. 

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this.