Dream night of May 23rd

A very vivid dream last night. There were multiple stages.

I was flying a plane. A little biplane. I believe other people were with me, flying their own planes. I kept going up too quickly and stalled out my plane a number of times.

A some point my father went missing.

It was nighttime. While I was in my plane, or perhaps atop the roof of my parents house, I looked out and in the distance I saw destruction. There was a large... tripod like monster/robot. Very tall. Much taller then in my sketch. Very War of the Worlds. It was sweeping the land in the distance, burning everything.

I was with my youngest sister. We were going through a city, gathering supplies. The tripods were coming and we needed to hide. We came across a coworker of mine who has a leg brace and I was concerned he wouldn't be able to escape in time. As we were parting ways Lindsey fell down an embankment and hurt her leg and I knew we weren't going to be able to get back home in time.

I went and ran around, looking for somewhere safe to go. Somewhere below ground. Where I was searching was this open boardwalk space with lots of outdoor restaurants and hedges. I went down a narrow brick staircase and found a tiny room and... an astronomer? living there. He said we could stay the night (which is when I knew the tripods would reach us). We piled down into the tiny space.

Before night fell I realized the world would be burned to ashes when the tripods passed-- or at least our immediate area. We would need supplies if we were to last more then another day. I ran up above ground and began to gather greens. There were lots of pea pods and vines which I started tearing down can piling in my arms. In the back of my mind, I knew that this would not be enough to survive. I uprooted some plans with the thought of replanting them the next day in the ashes but... I knew that they would be unlikely to live.

I returned, arms full of greens. Eventually the tripods came, which we could tell by the immense heat and great shaking and sounds. They had passed and things quieted. A worry rose within me- how deep did the burn go? Had our stairwell been filled in? Were we trapped by ash? If so, we could probably dig ourselves out and would eventually die if we didn't.

The dream ended with me convincing everyone in the bunker to go back to sleep, that we would investigate in the morning. I didn't say it, but I thought that if we were blocked in by ash we probably would be better off dead, dying peacefully in our sleep, then struggling to survive in the remaining baren world.

Thoughts:

• Again I start a dream flying, but doing so poorly
• Again my father goes missing
• Again witnessing a destructive & horrible thing behind my parent's home
• Again in the company of my family
• The bleakness towards the end is... uncharacteristic of me. I'm a fan of post-apocalyptic stories, but mostly to embrase the spirit of survival and hope from starting anew. This had a feeling of The Road, which I found horribly depressing.
• I do not wish for more dreams like this. Would much rather get back to my classic dream themes- rescuing children, hiding, searching, etc. Stressful, but not nearly so... devastating.