On Purgatory

While I'm on the subject of dreams, I'll tell you my dream about Purgatory. Purgatory, as my head would have it, is indeed leveled; instead of a screwed ramping, though, the levels are demarcated, one S.F-graded ridge on top of the next. There's quite a bit of them, too--maybe around 20? It makes for quite a mountain.

Purgatory is a city, certainly, a dense one. Many winding streets and drafty, spacious buildings that I'd date from the 18th century (not that I'm an expert). You will get modernization at several key points, mostly by retrofitting. Only light advertising. Not many people are out and about...maybe about the level of downtown Seattle early Saturday morning. All of the amenities are available, except if you want to be in a crowd, in which case I think you're out of luck.

It isn't as hard as you'd think--not really any fire or load-bearing. You have to learn lessons, which are imparted to you in any number of ingenious ways--simulated celebrities staff the cafes, for instance, and you have to take careful note of what casual pleasantries they choose to say. Why celebrities? The chance of getting to speak with them disarms you; you will take a message from them more readily, without the emotional charge speaking to an actual associate would give. Also, God is well aware that people want to talk to the famous while in the underworld; but how many times will an actual Alexander the Great consent to be trotted out? As for the lessons, I can't speak to their exact nature but I don't think there's anything as straightforward as "be charitable"; say, you buying a black-and-white frappe from Vic Morrow and him suggesting that you come by later with canned goods; the suggestions start at the far oblique, part of an exquisite battery of skillful means intended to motivate you along the path.

God will appear by various signs and wonders. Most notably, when God feels that you have finally learned the lesson of a particular level, a sort of light-phantasmagoria will appear 12 feet up and impressively report on your progress; you will then find yourself on the next level, with some more work to do.