Every night, Jessica Tilton has the same dream. As soon as she enters REM sleep, she’s transported into a labyrinthine mall complex that includes a hospital, a school, an airport and an amusement park. There are fairgrounds, mountains, a parking garage, an underground market and a theater, and it’s all set against the backdrop of an unnamed ocean.
The layout of the mall can shift, and parts of it look abandoned. Though nothing exactly like it exists in real life, it still evokes an uncanny feeling, as if Ms. Tilton has been there before.
Ms. Tilton, a 32-year-old artist and content creator from Texas, has been having these dreams for as long as she can remember, but in recent years, she says, she has gained the agency within them to explore. It’s not lucid dreaming — she does not have complete control — but she can remember the settings of her dreams, and how they connect. That’s what made her decide to draw a detailed map of her dreamscape and share it on TikTok.
Her video has since been viewed more than one million times, and she is not alone: Thousands of people on TikTok and Reddit have said they also dream of the same space, which they collectively refer to as “Mall World.”
The dimensions and layout of each dream mall differ, but the people posting about it say their mall worlds share numerous similarities. Some have dreamed of the same food court, or of a staircase that leads nowhere. The malls are liminal spaces, frequently full of people who exist mostly as part of the scenery. They evoke in the dreamer an eerie feeling of nostalgia, confusion and emptiness. Sometimes they feel scary, almost like a nightmare.
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