(Male, 30’s) I’m not usually creeped out by insects in everyday life however…
In this dream, I was working at a brand new research facility. Incidentally, the building where I work is actually less than a year old too.) In the dream, everything in this new place was white and all the lights were extremely bright, either from sunlight or from overhead lights. There was just the faintest pattern on the floor, linoleum tile in very light gray and white checkerboard pattern. What all this white helped reveal was that we had a pretty significant problem with cockroaches. Whenever I’d open a cupboard, easily a dozen of the little things would fall out from the shelves almost like a black liquid spilling to the floor where they’d reform into a coherent mass and then run into some nook or cranny. It happened all the time, all day long. They’d appear from the cupboards, the drawers, the desk… everywhere. They were clearly not just an isolated group of bugs, rather we were infested.
I had gotten to the point where the puddles of black roaches almost — ALMOST — didn’t shock me or bother me when my boss in the dream insisted that a female co-worker and myself needed to canvas the neighborhood and find out who was sending us all these roaches. Yes, there was very definitely the sense in my boss’ mind that these bugs were somehow some kind of sabotage or something. So this co-worker and myself stop doing all of the work that WE have to do and go off on this pointless road show. We’re touring all the factories in the area and giving the same lecture. The factories are these ancient monstrosities, red brick with tiny windows very very high up that makes the work floors dark and makes them feel like they’re sunk deep into the ground. They were like factory buildings out of Charles Dickens’ time.
So we’re at one of these factories and it’s my turn to give the talk about roaches and if anyone sees any to let us know. The podium to address all the workers is about ten feet tall and made from soft red clay bricks. I climb to the top of the podium and at this instant I can see myself from the perspective of the crowd. I’m up there talking about roaches… when in fact the ENTIRE FLOOR of this factory is a mass of roaches, running here and there. It’s almost like a carpet or a field where the stalks of grain are all just black and are being blown back and forth by the wind. The roaches are running over the toes of people’s work boots and over the toes of my co-worker’s shoes but no one seems to mind. Do I have to point out that since I was now watching the speech from the perspective of the audience that these bugs were crawling over ME as well? I tried not to lift my feet because I could just imagine them crawling up my pant legs. But I did move my feet a little and it felt like I was stuck in molasses or scorched motor oil. Sticky. Black. There was absolutely no possibility that I could run away.
When I reach the part of my speech where I’m explaining that we’re concerned about the roaches, all of the bugs stop and prick up their antennae like they’re listening. Then they all start pouring, literally as if they were a shiny black liquid, they start pouring down this brass drain in the floor. For some reason, I had the sense that they were all heading for our brand new facility, that they were going to flood the place. Our speech wasn’t successful; our boss was going to be very upset.
