My 26-hour shift to Dune (takes place between Dune and Dune Messiah)
The universe keeps forcing Dune on me. I love Frank Herbertās books and think the Dune movies have been well done. But itās too violent for me to shift to regularly. I always wake up here randomly. And I donāt know why I literally hate the desert. My family visited the Gobi edges one year in this reality. I was so miserable. I prefer places with forest and ocean. Hopefully, both combined. Now a desert by an ocean. I donāt know maybe I could change my mind. However, I did come across the trailer for Dune Messiah and that it looked well put together. Anyways, I was resting peacefully, minding my business, and then I was suddenly aware I was in my apartment in Dune. Completely unplanned and unwanted.
The audacity for my subconscious to make me live in Arrakis. You know I was totally meant to go to IX (a heavily implied Asian descended culture of the later novels). Anyways, I donāt think I was Fremen nor was my husband. I think we kind of just came to Arrakis as kids during the Jihad. I see him in every universe, and itās so fun. Itās like what the hell are you doing here? And the baby too? We were speaking a different language that wasnāt Chakobsa but a dialect of the Fremen Language formed by settlers from different planets. What we spoke was kind of a mix of what I can identify as some blend of Turkmen, Korean, and Kyrgyz. But the accent was really weird. I donāt know how to describe it. Anyways, we were all standing in the hall with my friends. Why we all had short bobs I do not know. I have literally never cut my hair in this reality. We were all wearing still suits because we came from outside. The still suits were much lighter colored to match the desert than what was depicted in the movie, and was slightly different in design. And I was basically upset with my husband. The reason is pretty stupid to mention. Apparently, he worked as security in like the outer regions of Arrakeen. To appease me, he was like do you want to go out to eat and I was like okay. And I handed my son to my mom who was upstairs.
So, our house had like this small rectangular shaped entry way. There were short stairs leading upstairs and I knew my family was up there. Everyone in Arrakeen was pretty much in family clans who lived communally either in big townhouses in quiet neighborhoods or in a series of floors within the high rises near the palace. We werenāt super wealthy or Fremen so we just owned a townhouse in a neighborhood not far from the city. The architecture was definitely very Soviet influenced. It is on a completely different scale and materials. Townhouses are made out of bricks, and mud. Iām not sure on the specifics of the high rises. Arrakeen is huge. Bigger than the area of Tokyo with way more people. Itās just this big sprawling city in the desert with a small man made river and some greenery nearby. The land is mainly flat. Few hills. The buildings are super tall and monolithic. But there is a section of completely black buildings and skyscrapers that are used by the elite. Itās basically a big f u to the poor as the rich donāt care about black coloring drawing in heat as they can afford to air condition it. Those buildings have really cool lounges which we planned to go to. Depending on the level was how weird it was. The higher of the floor, the richer. Those people liked their inner circle and we had ours. So, we usually hung around the lower or mid tiers where people just used spice, drank, and hung out. No, people donāt dance in Arrakeen lounges. We all sat around and talked.
The buildings are so tall with the bottom of the city virtually not being seen. Itās just one sky scraper after another and it must continue for at least five to six miles. The poor people live below in shanty towns (mostly non Fremen) where they work and constantly die building up Arrakeen. Life expectancy of the poor is so low because of all of the menial labor they do. Me and my husband went to one of our favorite places to eat before hitting the meet up spot with our other friends. Rich people regularly go to the bottom to get food or buy cheap goods. Usually, there is some security but the Fremen guards instill so much fear itās not a problem. Food here is actually pretty normal with a fusion of dishes. We got some type of fried dish of antelope meat mixed with grains.
Did I mention cars are not self-driving. My husband drove us there. There were kind of like cars that hovered because of how dense the understory of Arrakeen is you canāt really fly there. Poor people just walk to where they want to go. A type of highway system exists for only the upper classes to use. Anyways, as we passed I looked at the neighborhood. I literally had no awareness any other universe or reality existed. But I felt free and made my own decisions. I changed my mind about a thousand times before we reached the destination. Clustered in between the buildings are courtyards for the rich. It is like a huge trees reserve and botanical garden. Money. I donāt really know about this as I never handled money here. Everything was just kind of settled up by the men around me and I would look around at other stuff. The poor donāt really look you in the eye. They just kind of scuttle around.
Men work, women stay at home. Upper class women can do whatever they want with their day. We have desert spas near the lush but patchy terraforming fields I guess to grow plants stolen from other planets. Many drought tolerant species. I went with my friends who were a mix of single and married with kids. There are also cute little restaurants and play areas in the different districts. Me and my mom friends basically just hung out all day with our kids and were so upped on spice that we could party all night and crash a bit in the morning. Sandworms are basically a tourist trap now. You can go on excursions with Fremen guides who will basically steer one and you can ride. Brothels and sex slavery is more of a thing for Fremen and really elite families to do rather than people like me who were resettled. We were outsiders but became rich due to basically selling out our home planet in the Jihad. I would say the ranking of social classes is Fremen, those like me, pilgrims, and then people brought to build and terraform Arrakis by the Emperor. Those in my class we kind of do our own thing and work security. We also arenāt religious and donāt follow Aliaās teachings. That isnāt a problem as long as we stay out of the way and are good subjects.
Atreides propaganda is pretty much handled through those type of projectors in the film. I guess itās an exception for him to distribute these things amongst his discretion. Basically, there are some surveillance cameras in Arakeen matched with recordings over it. No one ever sees the Emperor or his court around town. They go out probably but we donāt hear about it. Sometimes, audio recordings are played on loud speakers throughout Arakeen. Itās like eight a.m. what do you want, nobody cares about how youāve conquered the umpteenth planet. But television shows or media like that isnāt a thing. Also the time was different. We used something called the Henring (Fenring - in my dialect we pronounced F as H) Army Battle System which was basically the time and tracking of time to organize the Jihad simultaneously. It was named Fenring after Caladan was relinquished by the Fenrings. From then after it was used by the upper class who contributed to the Jihad and during it.
I would always call the realities I shift to: my reality as the very presence of you changes the nature of that reality. Think about ientering realities as entering a body of water. You will slightly change the ph, introduce new bacteria, and disturb the sand/waves. Most of this is negligible in an ocean, lake, or large pond. But we can easily drastically affect a small puddle. A simple stomp can scatter a great deal of a shallow puddle. I think, no I know personally reality is like that, your preconceived biases inform and mold your reality. If you think the new films of Dune is what youāre going to get when going there, that is the world of the Dune. Likewise, I am more of a reader of the Dune books and had my own idea of what the world was like based on my lived experience. When reading the book, I interpreted I more through what the Soviet Union looked like and operated as in my head canon. As Frank Herbert did not have a lot of description of stuff in his novel. It was mainly the philosophy and moving the plot but he doesnāt really get into daily lives. And my subconscious basically just filled in the blanks based on my preconceived notions. I think I was only there for about 26 hours, but I was able to recall all of this when I woke up here.
I feel like people donāt talk about how it can take a few minutes upon waking up to reacclimatize. For like three or four minutes, Iām slowly coming down from being in another reality. Like oh I have to do that thing later, wait thatās not here. Maybe I should go across the street to this building. Arakeen is just out my window, wait no itās not. Thank god I didnāt stay there long. I mean it was cool but I hate shifting to Dune.












