When I was a kid I used to have dreams about impossible pools, though they were a lot less barren these ones. They always felt very serene and fun. It brings back
for me, these pictures never felt like i was forced to be there. it feels like a place i shouldn't be; kinda like a construction site or a movie set, but it never felt like a punishment like prison or purgatory. i chose to be here. theres a deep feeling of "nobody is here, i probably shouldn't be here too", and at the same time the environment is urging me to keep going farther, deeper into them.
It kinda feels like me and someone else went someone we weren’t supposed to be, but they left me alone by myself. It would be fine when I wasn’t alone, but now it doesn’t feel safe anymore
In the Piranesi book, Piranesi also doesn’t perceive himself as a prisoner. He also doesn’t perceive himself to be trespassing in the House, rather believing himself to be a natural part of it, and even thinks he was there for his entire life. However, the captor who trapped him in the empty halls, does perceive him as a prisoner. Interestingly, when Piranesi finally remembers his life before the House, it takes him a long time before he’s ready to leave it and return to the real world. Just thought that was interesting
It's familiar yet strange kind of like when someone types a message in a language you understand when you don't expect it, like in a foreign country, or in a RUclips Comment section.. נכון..?
I find it odd that before ever hearing of this community and aesthetic of art I was also fascinated by large empty pool rooms and even drew some of my own. Seeing now that I wasn't alone in this oddly specific -core is definitely strange.
It's some kind of shared archetype, as to what it means specifically I'm not sure, but there's definitely something to it or it wouldn't resonate with so many.
I find it comforting that the human palette of imagination is pretty universal. I definitely don't think it "means" anything other than the fact that we're all mostly similar
Honestly, if ever I was to swim in one of these pools, truly alone and with only the sound of water and my own breathing accompanying me, ricocheting off of the walls around me, I would constantly be watching my back. I would never feel safe... There's a sense of unease that comes to me when I'm alone, as if I'm being deceived, and my fear of the unknown would chase me out of that pool very quickly. This is why, when I see these images, a feeling of discomfort and anxiety comes over me, which overpowers the tranquility. It feels almost... to good to be true.
oh look, a comment i cam relate to Honestly, I don't get how these things are relaxing to people. Anything could appear at any moment.. at any place. and you wouldn't know
@@shortberry_strawcake3877 yeah man, the sovietwave video he released 5 months ago was the first one he ever edited. I had to show him how to use the software back then
ive never been so fond of an analysis video before. people often describe dream pools as uncomfortable or scary, but i take a lot of comfort in these pictures. can't get enough of these empty, yet extremely beautiful pool waters.
I don't know what it is about them, but looking at these images makes me really really uneasy. I also feel that desire to want to explore it, but man it's just unsettling for some reason.
I completely agree! I actually wrote a poem based off of these images because they brought me so much comfort in a very odd way, but I completely understand the fear of dread from them
@@trackernivrig for me the emptiness is unsettling but also very serene. it almost feels like you're in some kind of afterlife. just exploring infinitely with no way out but also nothing to bother you
As a kid, I occasionally experienced episodes of delirium where the space around me seemed to expand into infinity. Sometimes it was just a normal room, the space inside growing absurdly large and empty, but I also remember one where I was simply tumbling down an endlessly tall, grassy hill, and another where I was floating on a turbulent ocean of white noise (like the monochrome static of a dead channel on old CRT TVs). Always the same feeling, but sometimes a different interpretation of it. You know when you see a candle flame flickering and getting tossed about by wind? I felt like I was the flame, like I could be snuffed out at any moment and there was nothing I could do about it, no way to escape or calm the air around me so I could be safe and in control. If not that, I could be carried off, end up lost and never find home again. It was terrifying, and I would cry uncontrollably until it was over. In adulthood, I've always been fascinated and drawn to depictions of liminal, surreal, infinite spaces. Even though the places in them are often serene or at least calm and quiet, I feel like there's some sort of connection with those childhood experiences. In retrospect it felt like I wasn't seeing a literal place, but maybe my brain was just trying to process a concept or an entity that was beyond human comprehension or our limited sense of scale. There's no panic anymore; it's a weird source of comfort and even yearning now, and maybe that means I'm subconsciously closer to coming to terms with whatever that higher concept is. Whether it represents infinity, death, some sort of god, the universe itself, or just a short circuit somewhere in my head? I still have no idea.
@@dannyfoxboi I never saw anyone about it, and always just thought of them as bad dreams. This was something that only happened a handful of times, long enough ago that I wouldn't even be able to tell you how old I was the last time it happened. Early childhood, maybe elementary school I think. To be clear though, I don't genuinely believe that there was any supernatural component to them. I just have a thing for art and media that conveys this sort of overwhelming sense of scale for conjuring a similar feeling in me, and it's fun to weave potential connections around that.
I have occasionally experienced dreams about the likes of what delirium you described, I would like to say when I looked back on them they were much more agonizing then when I experienced them. I will take an example that is about “dreampools”. In my dream, I am sent to a place similar to my Turkish hometown but it contains a never-ending column of pools and I have only instinct that tells me to walk. I walk, and walk and these blue tiled pools take up more and more of my head, I thought that was reality and at that point just had no will to feel about what I was seeing, probably why it was more frightening in hindsight. I woke up there.
When I was a kid I was walking through a market and all of a sudden the whole place was a huge desert with little shops all over. Even thought there are no deserts where I live.
These thing really made me bring back to how i felt exploring as a child. Whenever i saw a big arch, a closed door or a strange dark alley, it always felt like, if i just went there, went through that gate, it would go on forever. It felt like if i stepped through it would take me to whetever place my child head believed would make sense for it to lead to, usually ammounting to a jumbled mass of nonsense geometry of repeating pattern. Whenever i thought of something i decided wasn't right i always considered how it would work for long times sometimes even falling into a nonsense loop until just moving on. I still feel the desire to go there. To those nonsense places my child mind envisioned. Like those Dream pools. I just... want to be there. See it. Wander on and on.
I've actually been to a pool+spa that looks a lot like many of these. It was wonderful. They even had a dome in the middle of one area of the pool and it could only be accessed through the water, naturally. It had an amazing echo effect and colorful lights. That whole spa was one dream tbh. But very pricey so I couldn't go there more than twice.
@@daydene.6356 There's actually 2 places in Austria, Bad Hofgastein and Kaprun. But upon looking them up I just realized I mixed the two places up in my memory. The indoor dome structure was in Kaprun, and in Bad Hofgastein there was a canal with a tunnel, and a few water jets, where they gave out huge rubber rings that you could float on top of. It's kinda disappointing that I can't find a picture of the inside of that dome, you can only see the outside sticking out like a tube, with a hot tub on top of it, and you can also see the hole to swim through in there, but not the inside, sadly. I guess the ad photographers didn't want to make their fancy cameras wet. (Also disclaimer, most of the pool areas look pretty normal, but there's a few cool places which was where I remember playing the most in because they were the only fun areas lol)
I have a strange phobia of man-made objects interacting with water, pictures of sunken ships and even pool drains fill me with a dreadful feeling. But, strangely, these dream pools are so serene to me. I don't know why. They look so warm and comforting, despite that severe fear in the back of my mind of them. I've never seen art that has had this kind of effect on me before.
it makes sense to me. you aren't afraid of the pools themselves. your just afraid of the things that just so happen to be in the pools. specifically mechanical things...if i assume correctly
@@gusty7153 no, not quite. It's more like the unnatural combination of nature and machines. It just gives me chills to see human-made things interacting with water, especially for a long period of time. One of the worst things for me is seeing old anchors and chains covered in algae and sea-organisms. I know it doesn't make much sense to other people, but it genuinely sparks my fight or flight response.
@@VANITREE Maybe you’re not afraid of the pool structures because they’re just shapes stripped of any defining features outside of being pool tiles. Subconsciously, you’re not recognizing the steps and columns as man-made since they are blank.
Really enjoyed this video. I stumbled upon the liminal spaces stuff recently and it really left a weird feeling in my mind that I can't quite place. Something that kind of defies the labels of 'good or bad'. It's very odd.
When I was little I once had a dream I went to a theme park, maybe it was just a water park, but at all times you would be in water. Always shallow but just enough to swim in and that's always kind of fascinated me and I almost wished it existed. Is it practical? Hell no, but it's an interesting idea. Strangely for me I don't get any sort of haunting or anxious feeling looking at these images despite their barren liminal atmosphere. I just keep thinking to myself how much I'd like to visit them if they were real
I think this looks like what an AI thinks a swimming pool is, like it generated the pools themselves in a physical space and the people haven't entered yet.
Or something inhuman that apes at humanity. Like the entity in dead by daylight and its maps. There's also a game you might wanna look into if you wanna explore liminal spaces and it's called anemoiapolis. Pretty cool game. Gives the same feeling.
10:16 this is probably my new favorite atmospheric quotes. Edit: this whole video is great but this concept of infinite variating rooms is exactly my vibe, very inspiring
I find your video essays so interesting to watch - they bring really new, interesting ideas and you present them very eloquently with a relaxing voice that well matches the tone
I love these pictures so much!! I remember I’d always imagine myself sitting in places like these. The water usually went up to the shoulder. The only difference was that it was always raining. It was very comforting. Whenever I see these images I just want to jump inside of them and sit there… I don’t have a desire to explore. I just want to be there.
I think when I was younger I made a story about a kid who ended up getting caught up in a place that was very similar to the dream pools. Poolcore wasn’t a thing back then, so I used a picture of a flooded city to visualize my thoughts. Maybe I’ll revisit it.
I've had dreams similar to these images that have stuck in my memory for over a decade because of how surreal and alien they felt. Wandering alone through impossible architecture. The environment hits that uncanny valley level and it almost seems like your surroundings are a skinwalker version of what you would expect a man-made environment to look like. The maze is eternal. There is nothing outside the windows. When you look out, you just see blinding white light, their only purpose to provide lighting. There's always a feeling of being watched yet no evidence of any other living entity in this strange warped realm. The freaky part is how many parallels there are with my experiences with deep dreams and everything described about liminal spaces and projected through this type of 'backrooms art'. It must be some kind of strange shared experience. Maybe the backrooms do exist on some kind of metaphysical plane and sometimes our unconscious minds end up there while dreaming.
Me too! I’ve had a dream with a pool many years ago and it actually felt like a past life memory or something. It didn’t look like the tiled dreampools and it was more ancient looking with stone and statues but the vibe of secret/serene/unexplainable was the same. I actually saved pictures on pinterest that reminded me of it so i can remember. I also have dreams of huge buildings with giant rooms often. Rooms symbolize the mind in dreams so I imagine we all explore our own souls in our dreams as well as being aware of some unimaginably huge and empty universal consciousness ‚building‘. Sometimes we are scared of it and the loneliness in the backrooms. Sometimes we embrace the soft ripples in our private, interconnected dreampool.
I've had a dream at least 3 times that I can remember of a huge bathroom. Dark blue tile on the floor walls and ceiling, toilets in random places, sinks lining areas like lockers. Sometimes there would be stalls, sometimes the toilets would be out in the open. I seem to remember pillars as well.
I don't get why people feel scared of these photos. They're just beautifully designed pool architecture. This is basically the future of architecture, minimalism, warm lighting and simple colouring.
Some people cannot find comfort in that deserted expansive nonsense, by reason if one or all of the descriptors that I just mentioned. And then to some funny bunch like us, they’re weirdly beautiful, even if they are discomforting, and pull you in, to me it’s almost as if they must be explored by me because they simply have not been explored, there is no trace of any desire to have people within them and I wish to wander through that rejection
Pools actually get their distinct smell from the chlorine reacting with urine so these dream pools would probably smell like nothing, adding even more emptiness.
these images make me feel so weird... i feel thirsty , i feel refresh , lonely , wet , relaxed , slowed. its like i could just drown and wouldn't even suffer... like the pool heaven.
The pools that recurred in my dreams when I was a younger man were never new- all of my dream-pools were old. Yellowed tile on grout that had gone dark with age. These dreams were never well-lit. Many of the dreams took place at night, and were framed by my initial entrance into a sprawling, gymnasium-like compound, its exterior bare brutalist concrete against a starless, light-polluted urban sky. Others were simply staged in labyrinthine networks of tunnels, sloping passageways with two- or three-foot high staircases of the same decaying tile connecting strange, senseless hallways, basins, and rooms in one endless oubliette. Voices would ring out, always echoing faintly from another room, laughter, chatter, the sounds of winding down from exercise, but I rarely saw people- only familiar motion out of the corners of my eyes. I would hear splashing sounds, sometimes, or water jets kicking to life, or the low murmur of ventilation. Some rooms held shallow water that gave off a distinct sanitation-chemical smell, and sometimes the poolwater gave way to a locker-room atmosphere, moisture in the air, the smell of stale sweat and rust, the humid air making the tiles cling to my bare feet as I walked across them. I would roam through this decaying architecture in collapsed-time, never finding the bottom, only wandering the cramped passageways of a moist, dark, and dreaming city.
When I was a kid I had a dream about playing some "Call of Duty" kind of game and the map was a giant pool with a house sized structure to the right and all surrounded by tiled walls tall enough to not let you see the outside. Inside the house thing there was a bunch of smaller pools but all empty and repeating infinitely. I spent the whole game trying to learn the controls and find other players but I was alone. In the end I just played in the pool
When I have dreams about pools they are always indoors, but at first there are always other people and the places are usually huge but it's not like an infinite pool labyrinth. Also, dream-me always seeks out hidden spaces in these places, like a hidden room with a whirlpool in it or a empty, out-of-order looking sauna area. There is always this feeling of exploring something almost "forbidden" though, as if I am not supposed to be there.
The fact that there are openings where light comes through means hypothetically if I found a windowed room I could just... jump out. Great video btw, idk how it came into my recommened but this is really interesting
This video is great. I really can't wait for your channel to blow up and know I've been here since 270 subscribers! Keep up the good work man, it's amazing!
These videos are criminally underrated. The way you explain and define things is so articulate and brilliant. Before I watched your videos, it was hard to pinpoint exactly why I love these dream/weird core images so much. This is great! My only critique is that sometimes your voice is quieter than the sound effects in the background. Other than that, I love these videos and I'd love to hear you cover other art topics.
My dreampools inspired me to write a nosleep type story based around my dreamscapes as a whole. The first chapter, Waterpark, is about the one specific dream pool that's been in my dreams 3 or 4 times now
Dream pools are the only things from the liminal space aesthetic that actually freak me out. Ive always had a fear of water and always had nightmares about impossible pools like these.
great video, Piranesi is a favorite book of mine and the idea of wandering infinitely among ever expanding hallways that somehow permeate the light of night and day is kind of goals
You're an amazing essay RUclipsr. Your interest in all these topics is evidentally clear. And your connections to the modern world are so great. Relatable themes like loneliness and stress. Consumerist culture. And your connections to the past. You get it all in one video. Present, future, past. You DEFINETELY deserve more subs!
The algorithm has graced me with being able to find such an underrated channel as yours. Some solid video essays on some of my favorite stuff (this and the weirdcore video).
I can't believe you're doing a video about the dream pools! I've been completely captivated by the artwork and the silent and serene atmosphere they can capture with such intense lack of detail, what they could only accomplish without detail. While I've always been attracted to Liminal Spaces in general, there's just something about the never-ending minimalism of Dream Pools that is just so desperately enchanting. Your analysis on why it is so appealing makes so much sense, it's definitely something I could never quite put into the right words when asked " But why do you find this appealing?" but this will definitely help me in the future. I'm so glad finally someone is actually about the Dream Pools and not just putting up photos with music that never quite matches. Excellent video, I'll be sure to check out your other videos!
I always liked pools with low level of water I used to visit many pools in vacations with my family during my early childhood Water was always something very comfortable for me, plus the nostalgia of pools, I feel comfiness and calm seeing this images English is not my language, so maybe I sound pretty weird, but I wanted to share what and why this pictures seems to me so pretty
I was very high one night about 5 years ago and told my friend "what if they made houses that just had one foot of water in them everywhere and you waded around in it and just lived with your feet underwater all the time and you could control the temperature to make the water warm or cool" and he looked at me like I was crazy but here it is in painted form. As if straight from my THC-induced vision. So crazy this actually exists and is an entire genre of art I never knew about. Also, this was such a surreal analysis. I loved it. The insight and interpretation the narrator gives about the dreampools is itself very surreal, the way he flows from one concept to the next and conjures up such a depth of nostalgia, loneliness, meaning, life, death... reminds me of walking through my old neighborhood park as a kid in the light rain when no one was around, 1 am and not a soul awake, the entire park and woods that surrounded it felt like mine and the only source of light were the streetlights. Felt like time was frozen and I could live in those moments forever. Same kinda feelings are getting invoked in me here. This dude just earned a subscriber!
I was already uncomfortable at the point you said it wasn't too bad yet 😂though I can't look away from those strangely beautiful pictures. An absolutely wonderful video!
These images make me feel slightly unsettled but like I'm also curious to explore what lies in the darkness. They almost give me a sense of nostalgia like I can remember relaxing in this blue water or slowly floating about the endless rooms however, I can't picture going up or down the staircases, I can picture what it would like to go through the halls but not the stairs and im not sure why
that video is absolutely amazing, your analyse was mesmerizing. I have been talking about those pics with a friend and our heads just blewed up. mindfuck.
Sir, good job. In my years of living, I have never seen a video as good as this. I’ve seen it around 4 times through the span of a year, and each time, i think about the last time. The nostalgia that emanates from this video makes me feel warm, like I’m in my old house watching tv. I applaud you.
Have you ever explored a partially flooded abandoned building? It reminds me of that, but so much more pristine and well lit. I can't help but to want to want to explore, but my natural instincts are screaming at me not to.
To me these pools never seemed scary or uneasy but more of something calm and peaceful where i can just wonder and not care too much about my problems and just unplug myself from my daily reality. The lighting, the color of the water and the cleanliness of the tiles just brings warmth to me, like some sort of call of the void type of feeling where you feel content with yourself for the time being. If these were real i would definitely visit them.
I've had many dreams like this featuring pools, usually a lot dirtier and more cramped or poorly lit. It's pretty interesting to see this concept as art
I have dreams of being lost in large, empty spaces, like malls, and airport terminals, as well as endlessly huge mansions. I like how the term "purgatory", and "sanctuary for the lost" are applicable to liminal spaces. This is a fascinating psychological phenomenon, indeed. The stuff of dreams, and nightmares, combined. Thanks for sharing this.
Not gonna lie, The Dreampools don't give me a sense of dread. Some of them with the dark tunnels do creep me out a little, but still not really a sense of dread. Turqoise and clear waters, around a meter deep. No sounds around you. Just imagine being able to swim there, all alone, with sunlight/warm lights around you. For me, this litterally looks like the perfect place to relax, especially if you turn on some relaxing soundtracks. If i ever become a millionaire and can build a private pool, i am making one in the style of The Dreampools.
Im so happy these grew in popularity. When i was a kid i used to have dreams of massive water parks in the middle of impossibly deep pools and they were insane.
your voice is very nice to listen and you covered this very well i had no idea there was this much history and such let alone a person responsible for t h e pool photos so i really appreciate this deep dive !!
While these are definitely liminal spaces, I feel the dreampools lend themselves just as much to being superstructures. You touched on it in the video where you noted how these places are obviously artificial but seemingly impossible for any human civilization or society to create them. Jacob Geller made a pretty god video essay on them that you should check out.
I have dreams about swimming pools on occasions. One of them was a swimming pool complex mashed together with my grandma's house. It was like a cramped, narrow house with winding hallways on the ground floor, and then a crazy pool design not unlike some of these Pike renders for the basement floor. In the dream I had to drain the pool part of the house so me and my friends could explore the pool complex further. It was a calm dream; there was no sense of dread like a shadowy figure chasing me or the pool filling up with water when I was down there. It strangely felt comfortable.
I like structures like these. Structures who reject habitation not because they are hostile but simply because they were made without any understanding of what would make them habitable, they attempt to mimic it but there is no understanding there, simply structure and architecture, drained of reason but still designed in pursuit of it, as if maybe it was known once so long ago
Just recently saw an indie “horror” game based on this concept! Forget what it was called, but it was filled with these senseless meandering pool rooms, and you’re wandering through them trying to find a way out and not go insane. It was super well executed!
Omg I’m getting flashbacks to a time I had a dream that has a pool that looked A LOT like this. There weren’t tiles, they were concrete, and I think in one of the pools someone I knew was in it.
Great work, I personaly feel a lot of attraction to this idea of infinite pools, something absolutely serene, that you could explore for all time. There's something about the false monotomy too, the repetition that isn't, that invites us to contemplation. Like the Palace in the video game Echo.
This takes me back to when I got high on mushrooms and listened to Alan Parsons Project for the first time (I was going album by album in chronological order). When listening to "Genesis Ch.1 V.32" I felt an illusion (which I did recognize as such at the time) where I was absolutely alone in the universe, sitting in a planet full of acqueducts in a vaguely Greek style. There were pointless columns stacked atop equally pointless arches, all in plain and pure white and with barely any ornaments. All I could see were nonsensical structures rising above the bright blue ocean, and it was warm with a slight breeze. I was sure there had never been any life in this world nor would there ever be, and I have never felt so relaxed.
as someone who also likes to overanalyze my own feelings on things, and also i am one of the people that takes great comfort in these types of liminal images, i think i can shed some light on my perspective at least. i was someone who grew up seeing these types of empty 'liminal spaces' often, as my family did quite a bit of residential and business cleaning work. for me those spaces were a comfort as a child. i was alone in places like empty ballparks while my mother and grandmother cleaned. i was safe and free to wander. empty spaces like this can provoke a relaxed feeling for me, as i never had any discomfort with empty buildings to begin with. for me as well, they do indeed cause a feeling of a comforting dream as well. the dreampools in particular share many aspects of what an enjoyable dream often will make a space look like. as when dreaming, you may not remember exact details, but you'll remember disjointed parts that make up the whole. such as with a pool, if you enjoyed being in pools by yourself, you may not think of people as part of the comfort either. you may remember the warm rays of sunshine coming through windows of an indoor pool, but you don't remember what was outside the building. you'll remember the subtle ripples that reflected the light, but possibly not the act that caused those ripples. as a child you may remember avoiding deeper parts of the pools, so your mind finds comfort in the idea of shallow clear blue water. dreams can include things that you've also never seen before, such as architecture inspired by movies, commercials, artworks, but not things you've really been to. to me all of this is what conjures a feeling of relaxed comfort from these images. they to me feel like places not meant to be interpreted in any reality, but as places our minds can create to visit freely as a rest. a place without meaning or purpose, a place simply to explore and enjoy as a visitor, and then leave when satisfied. and in a way, they almost bring a tinge of melancholy for myself, as in my current very upsetting circumstances, the images have me longing for calm quiet. for me, the vastness only brings the enjoyable idea of exploration, the possibility that there is so much to see. this is what i feel with many of these types of surreal images. i am also someone that enjoys walking down empty city areas as well, and i should say i find horror content in general to be a comfort, but that is a different topic. i think there's far more to be said and explored as to why people can connect with these images in vastly different ways, and why often these surreal landscapes and architectures can bring wonder and relaxation to some. i find there's often a huge focus on the horrific aspects of these pieces of art and the discomfort, while very little is truly explored as to why it's such a popular subject of comfort. other than just people pointing out nostalgic influences. i think it's often forgotten that many find impossible architecture to be as something to be enjoyed in the same way as impossible natural wonders. though much of it comes down to if the unknown scares you or intrigues you. also something to keep in mind, is even if an artist doesn't have a particular intent or meaning behind a piece, they still wanted to create it. they still found joy in some way with creating the piece. a good question to ask when looking at series like this is "what brings this artist joy in creating these scenes"
When I was a kid around 5-7 i had a vivid dream of infinite pools like this but with architecture kinda like greek / renaissance era style. Gave me crazy deja vu/nostalgia seeing this video
¿Why the water is not still even when there is no one to move it? Well, an automatic filter to keep the water clean and " clorured " (if that's a word) could be an explanation
I think what makes me feel strange is the combination of shadows and light. The light, though you can never see the source, looks like the type of light you’d see from a window. That makes me feel nice, it’s sunny outside, and I can see where I am. But then there’s the shadowy corridors and corners, that make me feel uneasy because I don’t know what could be in it. It makes me feel trapped, like I need to stay in the pleasant sunlight, because I don’t know what could happen if I left it. At least in the light, I can see what’s coming. I Can see my surroundings, and that there is no monster near me. The shadows don’t give me such a comfort, they make me blind, they make me vulnerable. I would never know if someone, or rather, something, was coming unless it made a noise, but I wouldn’t hear that very well if I was trudging through the water, and its splashes echoed through the dark hall. The liminal space feeling makes it have a lot more implications. It makes me think it’s much more likely there would be something in the pools, since this seems to be like a Backrooms level, and those have many different impossible creatures. I know there are creatures from that concept that hide in the dark. I know that a creature could hear me, that if I was too noisy in the water, I would attract it. So I’d be trapped in the sunlight, standing for however long I’d be there, trying to keep quiet. I’d stand until my legs hurt too much and I collapsed. It truly feels like there’s no way out, unless I went down those terrifying dark hallways and risked the possibility of something else being there with me.
I found this video extremely fascinating, because I have seen these pictures before - but never with context. I never realized that they were supposed to make me feel uneasy, I just wanted to go and relax in there. So thank you for the video!
i remembered when these surfaced the internet, 2 years after pictures like these came out i saw a few and i was terrified, i cant have been the only one to dream about these places, just absolute dread, chlorine so strong, every room was different, turn back and the room wouldnt be there anymore, they kept changing, youd be lucky to get a room youve gone through, it felt like something was there with me
I remember having nightmares of endless yet familiar hallways. Warped and twisted versions of places that brought me a sense of comfort and safety contorted into infinite hallways. Yet this brings me a sense of peace. As if I could just start to float on the water forever and forget everything else. Becoming one with the Dreampools.
I need a dreampool themed playlist that would be so cool. Especially if the songs had like sounds of dripping water! The first song that comes to mind is gooey by glass animals. Even better if the playlist itself is edited to sound echoey/underwater ohmygosh someone make this please
As someone who grew up around a lot of beaches and artificial pools these images are intensely relaxing to me, they feel like somewhere I could just swim and lounge in the water for hours.
I would love to go to wherever these pictures were taken. Assuming the space is lit like in these pictures, I think I'd find it enjoyable in a weird way. I don't really know why though
These remind me of dreams I used to have. I would be swimming in a pool of golden water, endlessly searching for somewhere to rest. But there were never any such places to be found. These images are haunting to me.
These images weirdly remind me of brief moments in time. Strange far away memories of a short second at a pool party as a kid, chilling in an empty corner looking at no one in front of me.. no one but water, an empty tiled wall and the smell of chlorine. It's disturbing to think of yourself in an empty pool. It feels scary; the water, the hard and cold surfaces. These images make you want to keep looking in search of someone, even something that makes you feel a bit less alone. Thank you for this video, I found it really impactful, something about all of this definitely resonates
I had a dream like this before. It was like a pool that had a hole in it, so I went thru it. There were tons of pools in there which lead to rooms of more giant pools. Something about pools reaches our deep subconscious. Super interesting. (Edit) I was gonna say it looked like the hell in Dante's inferno! It was like a bunch of different pools which spiralled down. Man, this is getting so interesting (Edit 2) Alright I'm subbed
i often dream of pools, specifically swimming in crystal clear water. the pools are always rectangular shaped and sometimes other people swim with me. it’s the most relaxing and freeing experience, i literally wake up feeling refreshed.
i remember when i was really young, i had a dream about a very large indoor pool that was bright, but had some water slides. i went into the water slide and it felt like it was never ending. once i came out of the slide, it was a completely different pool that looked like the exact same room. none of my family was there, but it was eerily peaceful. these photos always remind me of that dream
There is something about pools that have always just felt nice to me. When you go under the water and you can see all the people around but the loud noises are muffled and it simply feels serene. It's a feeling I don't think can ever be replaced. I'm kinda terrified of other bodies of water like the ocean or lakes cause they feel so unending but pools feel confined, safe almost
I don't think so, it sounds more like a separate concept then the Backrooms. Plus, there's no real possibly that it's a Backrooms level since there's NO significance of it being one
A thing about the lighting... what it reminds me of is sunday afternoons in spring: it's just a little uncomfortably hot, and it's already afternoon or early evening; my mind was already thinking that the weekend was lost, and tomorrow I'd have to go back to school where I didn't want to. I became anxious as I felt there was nothing to do, and yet how I didn't have time to do anything anymore. Looking back at it, I think there was a sense of being trapped in a loop, similar to the feeling these pictures evoke. Like the purgatory you described. Good analysis and good video
ok, I'm watchin this again. I'd never heard of Borges, so thanks for that. I've just ordered his collected works. I fear there is a rabbit hole here worth exploring...
I got two of his collected writings. some really trippy stories that make you think. Some didn't strike me personally. Is a bit of a mixed bag. His writing is just very different from modern conventions
I'd never heard about Dreampools until this video (which I got to from your one on Sovietwave). In Phoenix, Arizona there are a number of stormwater drainage canals, which are built to carry flooding from heavy monsoon rain. Because Phoenix is incredibly dry, they are usually completely empty, or have just a tiny trickle of water down the middle. As a child, I rode a bicycle along the sides of these canals (there were paved bike and walking paths). I long wanted to explore the canals from inside them, but never had the guts to violate the NO TRESPASSING signs. I had a recurring series of dreams across several years which involved entering the canals, traveling along them, and finding increasingly fantastical structures and tunnels, all made from the same bleak tan concrete as the real canals. As I've been a lucid dreamer since even before that age, I knew I was in a dream and thus had no fear of the unknown, merely enjoying the exploration and adventure. When I saw these images, I felt nostalgia for those dreams of impossible canals, and I felt welcoming and a certain at-home feeling from them. It makes me wonder if the artist had similar dreams, but about pools. Now I shall sleep, and attempt to dream of the Dreampools.
Back in 2020, I had gotten seriously ill for several months of my life. we found what it is and I’m doing better now, but I’ll never forget those few months before I received treatment. I almost constantly had a fever, and I made no contact with anyone, so the only memories I had was going to the hospital so many times and these trippy fever dreams. The dreams would last so long a whole world was created in my head, with murderous family members and a cult dedicated to heating pads. But what I remembered the most was the water parks and pools. The entire time I was sick I longed for nothing but my partner (now my husband) and the pools. I don’t know where these pools are or where such a strong need to return to them were, but I would watch pool videos and waterpark videos all day long. I made my dad promise me if I got better he’d take me to the water park, and this world all took place at waterpark resorts in a strange back room manner. Now I’m obsessed with liminal spaces, backrooms, and poolrooms, because even before I knew what they were, it felt like my body was calling me back there when I’m weak, like this is my home and my safe haven
I've had dreams of something similar to this 15 years ago. It was memorable and it was beautiful. Similar to the white tiles but more elaborate pillars and walls. There were alot of people there there were slides and lounges you can lounge or do whatever but in waist deep water. Everything was underground you can go above ground and be in a regular resort type pool with tunnels and stairs to go underground it was beautiful.
It's really awesome how you traced back the origins of this cool genre of internet art and gave an explanation as to why it captures the minds of so many people and seems to be intertwined with our psyche. The books you were refrencing in this video also look cool as hell I'm going to have to read Piranesi.
When I was a kid I used to have dreams about impossible pools, though they were a lot less barren these ones. They always felt very serene and fun. It brings back
Me too! I was also able to breath in them but only a few breaths or so before I had to come up for air lol
Yes, I does indeed bring back
Same omg
I thought I was the only one who had dreams about those! It’s really fascinating to see others having the same dreams as I did
SAAMEE
for me, these pictures never felt like i was forced to be there. it feels like a place i shouldn't be; kinda like a construction site or a movie set, but it never felt like a punishment like prison or purgatory. i chose to be here. theres a deep feeling of "nobody is here, i probably shouldn't be here too", and at the same time the environment is urging me to keep going farther, deeper into them.
It kinda feels like me and someone else went someone we weren’t supposed to be, but they left me alone by myself. It would be fine when I wasn’t alone, but now it doesn’t feel safe anymore
In the Piranesi book, Piranesi also doesn’t perceive himself as a prisoner. He also doesn’t perceive himself to be trespassing in the House, rather believing himself to be a natural part of it, and even thinks he was there for his entire life. However, the captor who trapped him in the empty halls, does perceive him as a prisoner. Interestingly, when Piranesi finally remembers his life before the House, it takes him a long time before he’s ready to leave it and return to the real world. Just thought that was interesting
Like a well lit tunnel that's partially flooded or other such abandoned places. It's a place that's been forgotten, but still remains.
Well, if nobody is there, why can't you be the first? At least, that's how I like to think about it.
It's familiar yet strange
kind of like when someone types a message in a language you understand when you don't expect it, like in a foreign country, or in a RUclips Comment section.. נכון..?
I love looking at dreampools, something about the combination of the excitement of exploration and peaceful loneliness is deeply relaxing to me
Totally! It’s not scary.. I would like to visit it.
What if your not alone
Yes
I feel like im in heaven or something it also look like what will i dream of
ARENA MODE ACTIVATED
*round 1 begin*
I find it odd that before ever hearing of this community and aesthetic of art I was also fascinated by large empty pool rooms and even drew some of my own. Seeing now that I wasn't alone in this oddly specific -core is definitely strange.
It's some kind of shared archetype, as to what it means specifically I'm not sure, but there's definitely something to it or it wouldn't resonate with so many.
These rooms must be the server farms for the simulation
The synchronicities have hitted us all brother. Even in our thoughts we aren't really alone, we're always next to someone.
I find it comforting that the human palette of imagination is pretty universal. I definitely don't think it "means" anything other than the fact that we're all mostly similar
Honestly, if ever I was to swim in one of these pools, truly alone and with only the sound of water and my own breathing accompanying me, ricocheting off of the walls around me, I would constantly be watching my back. I would never feel safe...
There's a sense of unease that comes to me when I'm alone, as if I'm being deceived, and my fear of the unknown would chase me out of that pool very quickly.
This is why, when I see these images, a feeling of discomfort and anxiety comes over me, which overpowers the tranquility. It feels almost... to good to be true.
Yeah, I feel that
oh look, a comment i cam relate to
Honestly, I don't get how these things are relaxing to people. Anything could appear at any moment.. at any place. and you wouldn't know
I’ve seen some images of dreampools that look comforting but most of them, I agree with what you said
I don't think anybody watching this would think that you just started making videos a few months ago
Thank you, senpai
..wait he did?? Bro this is so well made :0
@@shortberry_strawcake3877 yeah man, the sovietwave video he released 5 months ago was the first one he ever edited. I had to show him how to use the software back then
He did WHAT?
ive never been so fond of an analysis video before. people often describe dream pools as uncomfortable or scary, but i take a lot of comfort in these pictures. can't get enough of these empty, yet extremely beautiful pool waters.
I don't know what it is about them, but looking at these images makes me really really uneasy. I also feel that desire to want to explore it, but man it's just unsettling for some reason.
@@trackernivrig i find them unsettling because there is no way out in any of these pictures and i can't really visualize them being here
Tbh i like that lonly feel
I completely agree! I actually wrote a poem based off of these images because they brought me so much comfort in a very odd way, but I completely understand the fear of dread from them
@@trackernivrig for me the emptiness is unsettling but also very serene. it almost feels like you're in some kind of afterlife. just exploring infinitely with no way out but also nothing to bother you
As a kid, I occasionally experienced episodes of delirium where the space around me seemed to expand into infinity. Sometimes it was just a normal room, the space inside growing absurdly large and empty, but I also remember one where I was simply tumbling down an endlessly tall, grassy hill, and another where I was floating on a turbulent ocean of white noise (like the monochrome static of a dead channel on old CRT TVs). Always the same feeling, but sometimes a different interpretation of it.
You know when you see a candle flame flickering and getting tossed about by wind? I felt like I was the flame, like I could be snuffed out at any moment and there was nothing I could do about it, no way to escape or calm the air around me so I could be safe and in control. If not that, I could be carried off, end up lost and never find home again. It was terrifying, and I would cry uncontrollably until it was over.
In adulthood, I've always been fascinated and drawn to depictions of liminal, surreal, infinite spaces. Even though the places in them are often serene or at least calm and quiet, I feel like there's some sort of connection with those childhood experiences. In retrospect it felt like I wasn't seeing a literal place, but maybe my brain was just trying to process a concept or an entity that was beyond human comprehension or our limited sense of scale. There's no panic anymore; it's a weird source of comfort and even yearning now, and maybe that means I'm subconsciously closer to coming to terms with whatever that higher concept is. Whether it represents infinity, death, some sort of god, the universe itself, or just a short circuit somewhere in my head? I still have no idea.
Did you ever get your delirium check out by a doctor or a psychiatrist? (This is a genuine question. I have no intention of sounding rude.)
@@dannyfoxboi I never saw anyone about it, and always just thought of them as bad dreams.
This was something that only happened a handful of times, long enough ago that I wouldn't even be able to tell you how old I was the last time it happened. Early childhood, maybe elementary school I think.
To be clear though, I don't genuinely believe that there was any supernatural component to them. I just have a thing for art and media that conveys this sort of overwhelming sense of scale for conjuring a similar feeling in me, and it's fun to weave potential connections around that.
I have similar things happen too, when I close my eyes and shake my head on my pillow it brings me to a Dark grey plane that's just infinite.
I have occasionally experienced dreams about the likes of what delirium you described, I would like to say when I looked back on them they were much more agonizing then when I experienced them. I will take an example that is about “dreampools”.
In my dream, I am sent to a place similar to my Turkish hometown but it contains a never-ending column of pools and I have only instinct that tells me to walk. I walk, and walk and these blue tiled pools take up more and more of my head, I thought that was reality and at that point just had no will to feel about what I was seeing, probably why it was more frightening in hindsight. I woke up there.
When I was a kid I was walking through a market and all of a sudden the whole place was a huge desert with little shops all over. Even thought there are no deserts where I live.
These thing really made me bring back to how i felt exploring as a child.
Whenever i saw a big arch, a closed door or a strange dark alley, it always felt like, if i just went there, went through that gate, it would go on forever.
It felt like if i stepped through it would take me to whetever place my child head believed would make sense for it to lead to, usually ammounting to a jumbled mass of nonsense geometry of repeating pattern. Whenever i thought of something i decided wasn't right i always considered how it would work for long times sometimes even falling into a nonsense loop until just moving on.
I still feel the desire to go there. To those nonsense places my child mind envisioned.
Like those Dream pools.
I just... want to be there. See it. Wander on and on.
this
I've actually been to a pool+spa that looks a lot like many of these. It was wonderful. They even had a dome in the middle of one area of the pool and it could only be accessed through the water, naturally. It had an amazing echo effect and colorful lights. That whole spa was one dream tbh. But very pricey so I couldn't go there more than twice.
what was the place called and where is it
@@daydene.6356 There's actually 2 places in Austria, Bad Hofgastein and Kaprun. But upon looking them up I just realized I mixed the two places up in my memory.
The indoor dome structure was in Kaprun, and in Bad Hofgastein there was a canal with a tunnel, and a few water jets, where they gave out huge rubber rings that you could float on top of.
It's kinda disappointing that I can't find a picture of the inside of that dome, you can only see the outside sticking out like a tube, with a hot tub on top of it, and you can also see the hole to swim through in there, but not the inside, sadly. I guess the ad photographers didn't want to make their fancy cameras wet.
(Also disclaimer, most of the pool areas look pretty normal, but there's a few cool places which was where I remember playing the most in because they were the only fun areas lol)
I have a strange phobia of man-made objects interacting with water, pictures of sunken ships and even pool drains fill me with a dreadful feeling. But, strangely, these dream pools are so serene to me. I don't know why. They look so warm and comforting, despite that severe fear in the back of my mind of them. I've never seen art that has had this kind of effect on me before.
it makes sense to me. you aren't afraid of the pools themselves. your just afraid of the things that just so happen to be in the pools. specifically mechanical things...if i assume correctly
@@gusty7153 no, not quite. It's more like the unnatural combination of nature and machines. It just gives me chills to see human-made things interacting with water, especially for a long period of time. One of the worst things for me is seeing old anchors and chains covered in algae and sea-organisms. I know it doesn't make much sense to other people, but it genuinely sparks my fight or flight response.
@@VANITREE oh hrrm
Submecanophobia moment.
@@VANITREE Maybe you’re not afraid of the pool structures because they’re just shapes stripped of any defining features outside of being pool tiles.
Subconsciously, you’re not recognizing the steps and columns as man-made since they are blank.
i like to think the so called "windows" are just a realistic PNG image showing clouds in an absolute crystal clear light blue sky
*insert windows startup sound
I saw some of them almost as watersides in some of these pictures
i just imagine a white bright void
Really enjoyed this video. I stumbled upon the liminal spaces stuff recently and it really left a weird feeling in my mind that I can't quite place. Something that kind of defies the labels of 'good or bad'. It's very odd.
Hey man, funny to stumble across you here. Love your videos. Liminal spaces definitely offer a unique sublime experience.
eyyyy Inferno, you too huh? xD
Something that kind of defies the labels of 'good or bad'. Well put.
the first dreampool image i saw, i thought it was a real place. all of these images are incredibly well done and i applaud the person that made them
When I was little I once had a dream I went to a theme park, maybe it was just a water park, but at all times you would be in water. Always shallow but just enough to swim in and that's always kind of fascinated me and I almost wished it existed. Is it practical? Hell no, but it's an interesting idea. Strangely for me I don't get any sort of haunting or anxious feeling looking at these images despite their barren liminal atmosphere. I just keep thinking to myself how much I'd like to visit them if they were real
Wait... These are renders?
I actually thought these were real places you can visit! It Looks so realistic! Woah!
😂😂
That actually make me sad these can't be visited
@@nunyabiznes33 same
Seems like a job for VR
@@patricknoble2911 you can visit some of them in a roblox game
I think this looks like what an AI thinks a swimming pool is, like it generated the pools themselves in a physical space and the people haven't entered yet.
Or something inhuman that apes at humanity. Like the entity in dead by daylight and its maps. There's also a game you might wanna look into if you wanna explore liminal spaces and it's called anemoiapolis. Pretty cool game. Gives the same feeling.
i like these pictures. unlike the other liminal spaces, they feel so safe and peaceful somehow...
10:16 this is probably my new favorite atmospheric quotes.
Edit: this whole video is great but this concept of infinite variating rooms is exactly my vibe, very inspiring
Check out The Backrooms then! Similar vibe. There's a wiki like SCP has but it gets cheesy fast. Dreamcore or weirdcore might also be up your alley!
Just ordered that book after hearing just that quote. Seen it mentioned in other limnal type videos already.
I find your video essays so interesting to watch - they bring really new, interesting ideas and you present them very eloquently with a relaxing voice that well matches the tone
thxx. You can always recommend topics btw (can't promise I'll do them tho)
I love these pictures so much!! I remember I’d always imagine myself sitting in places like these. The water usually went up to the shoulder. The only difference was that it was always raining. It was very comforting. Whenever I see these images I just want to jump inside of them and sit there… I don’t have a desire to explore. I just want to be there.
I think when I was younger I made a story about a kid who ended up getting caught up in a place that was very similar to the dream pools. Poolcore wasn’t a thing back then, so I used a picture of a flooded city to visualize my thoughts. Maybe I’ll revisit it.
I've had dreams similar to these images that have stuck in my memory for over a decade because of how surreal and alien they felt. Wandering alone through impossible architecture. The environment hits that uncanny valley level and it almost seems like your surroundings are a skinwalker version of what you would expect a man-made environment to look like. The maze is eternal. There is nothing outside the windows. When you look out, you just see blinding white light, their only purpose to provide lighting. There's always a feeling of being watched yet no evidence of any other living entity in this strange warped realm. The freaky part is how many parallels there are with my experiences with deep dreams and everything described about liminal spaces and projected through this type of 'backrooms art'. It must be some kind of strange shared experience. Maybe the backrooms do exist on some kind of metaphysical plane and sometimes our unconscious minds end up there while dreaming.
I had those dreams too!
Me too! I’ve had a dream with a pool many years ago and it actually felt like a past life memory or something. It didn’t look like the tiled dreampools and it was more ancient looking with stone and statues but the vibe of secret/serene/unexplainable was the same. I actually saved pictures on pinterest that reminded me of it so i can remember. I also have dreams of huge buildings with giant rooms often. Rooms symbolize the mind in dreams so I imagine we all explore our own souls in our dreams as well as being aware of some unimaginably huge and empty universal consciousness ‚building‘. Sometimes we are scared of it and the loneliness in the backrooms. Sometimes we embrace the soft ripples in our private, interconnected dreampool.
I've had a dream at least 3 times that I can remember of a huge bathroom. Dark blue tile on the floor walls and ceiling, toilets in random places, sinks lining areas like lockers. Sometimes there would be stalls, sometimes the toilets would be out in the open. I seem to remember pillars as well.
I don't get why people feel scared of these photos. They're just beautifully designed pool architecture. This is basically the future of architecture, minimalism, warm lighting and simple colouring.
Some people cannot find comfort in that deserted expansive nonsense, by reason if one or all of the descriptors that I just mentioned. And then to some funny bunch like us, they’re weirdly beautiful, even if they are discomforting, and pull you in, to me it’s almost as if they must be explored by me because they simply have not been explored, there is no trace of any desire to have people within them and I wish to wander through that rejection
@@lazydroidproductions1087 solitude?
@@samuelabela7685 beyond solitude, complete and total alone-ness
Pools actually get their distinct smell from the chlorine reacting with urine so these dream pools would probably smell like nothing, adding even more emptiness.
I wish I didn't read that comment now
It would have cost you zero dollars to not share that information
Why would you tell me this... I'm never swimming in a pool again
So thats what my pool was missing.
Thanks.
@@jakezepeda1267 on the contrary your pool not having pee is a good thing 😂
these images make me feel so weird... i feel thirsty , i feel refresh , lonely , wet , relaxed , slowed. its like i could just drown and wouldn't even suffer... like the pool heaven.
The pools that recurred in my dreams when I was a younger man were never new- all of my dream-pools were old. Yellowed tile on grout that had gone dark with age. These dreams were never well-lit. Many of the dreams took place at night, and were framed by my initial entrance into a sprawling, gymnasium-like compound, its exterior bare brutalist concrete against a starless, light-polluted urban sky. Others were simply staged in labyrinthine networks of tunnels, sloping passageways with two- or three-foot high staircases of the same decaying tile connecting strange, senseless hallways, basins, and rooms in one endless oubliette. Voices would ring out, always echoing faintly from another room, laughter, chatter, the sounds of winding down from exercise, but I rarely saw people- only familiar motion out of the corners of my eyes. I would hear splashing sounds, sometimes, or water jets kicking to life, or the low murmur of ventilation. Some rooms held shallow water that gave off a distinct sanitation-chemical smell, and sometimes the poolwater gave way to a locker-room atmosphere, moisture in the air, the smell of stale sweat and rust, the humid air making the tiles cling to my bare feet as I walked across them. I would roam through this decaying architecture in collapsed-time, never finding the bottom, only wandering the cramped passageways of a moist, dark, and dreaming city.
When I was a kid I had a dream about playing some "Call of Duty" kind of game and the map was a giant pool with a house sized structure to the right and all surrounded by tiled walls tall enough to not let you see the outside. Inside the house thing there was a bunch of smaller pools but all empty and repeating infinitely. I spent the whole game trying to learn the controls and find other players but I was alone. In the end I just played in the pool
Damn
When I have dreams about pools they are always indoors, but at first there are always other people and the places are usually huge but it's not like an infinite pool labyrinth. Also, dream-me always seeks out hidden spaces in these places, like a hidden room with a whirlpool in it or a empty, out-of-order looking sauna area. There is always this feeling of exploring something almost "forbidden" though, as if I am not supposed to be there.
i used to do kinda professional swimming when i was younger, i think because of that indoor pools give me sutch a weard and nostalgic feeling
The fact that there are openings where light comes through means hypothetically if I found a windowed room I could just... jump out. Great video btw, idk how it came into my recommened but this is really interesting
The outside would probably be more rooms.
Out side the window you see an endless sky, you look down and you can't see the ground, just more sky
@@gracel5348 time to become a cartoon and use toilet plungers?
This video is great. I really can't wait for your channel to blow up and know I've been here since 270 subscribers! Keep up the good work man, it's amazing!
These videos are criminally underrated. The way you explain and define things is so articulate and brilliant. Before I watched your videos, it was hard to pinpoint exactly why I love these dream/weird core images so much. This is great! My only critique is that sometimes your voice is quieter than the sound effects in the background. Other than that, I love these videos and I'd love to hear you cover other art topics.
Thx for the feedback, I can work with that
My dreampools inspired me to write a nosleep type story based around my dreamscapes as a whole. The first chapter, Waterpark, is about the one specific dream pool that's been in my dreams 3 or 4 times now
What do u mean by 'nosleep' ?
@@sora_animates_sometimes the subreddit r/nosleep, it's a creative writing roleplay sub for horror stories
@@normalguycraig oh ok
@DevianDog i havent finished it yet homie
Cease self-promoter
It gives me a “fairy fountain” vibe from Ocarina of time..
So misterious but so paceful 🤤✨
Dream pools are the only things from the liminal space aesthetic that actually freak me out.
Ive always had a fear of water and always had nightmares about impossible pools like these.
great video, Piranesi is a favorite book of mine and the idea of wandering infinitely among ever expanding hallways that somehow permeate the light of night and day is kind of goals
You're an amazing essay RUclipsr. Your interest in all these topics is evidentally clear. And your connections to the modern world are so great. Relatable themes like loneliness and stress. Consumerist culture. And your connections to the past. You get it all in one video. Present, future, past.
You DEFINETELY deserve more subs!
The algorithm has graced me with being able to find such an underrated channel as yours. Some solid video essays on some of my favorite stuff (this and the weirdcore video).
I can't believe you're doing a video about the dream pools! I've been completely captivated by the artwork and the silent and serene atmosphere they can capture with such intense lack of detail, what they could only accomplish without detail. While I've always been attracted to Liminal Spaces in general, there's just something about the never-ending minimalism of Dream Pools that is just so desperately enchanting.
Your analysis on why it is so appealing makes so much sense, it's definitely something I could never quite put into the right words when asked " But why do you find this appealing?" but this will definitely help me in the future.
I'm so glad finally someone is actually about the Dream Pools and not just putting up photos with music that never quite matches.
Excellent video, I'll be sure to check out your other videos!
I always liked pools with low level of water
I used to visit many pools in vacations with my family during my early childhood
Water was always something very comfortable for me, plus the nostalgia of pools, I feel comfiness and calm seeing this images
English is not my language, so maybe I sound pretty weird, but I wanted to share what and why this pictures seems to me so pretty
I was very high one night about 5 years ago and told my friend "what if they made houses that just had one foot of water in them everywhere and you waded around in it and just lived with your feet underwater all the time and you could control the temperature to make the water warm or cool" and he looked at me like I was crazy but here it is in painted form. As if straight from my THC-induced vision. So crazy this actually exists and is an entire genre of art I never knew about.
Also, this was such a surreal analysis. I loved it. The insight and interpretation the narrator gives about the dreampools is itself very surreal, the way he flows from one concept to the next and conjures up such a depth of nostalgia, loneliness, meaning, life, death... reminds me of walking through my old neighborhood park as a kid in the light rain when no one was around, 1 am and not a soul awake, the entire park and woods that surrounded it felt like mine and the only source of light were the streetlights. Felt like time was frozen and I could live in those moments forever. Same kinda feelings are getting invoked in me here. This dude just earned a subscriber!
Me and my group of friends started calling these images "pool world" and all agree that they are terrifying
I was already uncomfortable at the point you said it wasn't too bad yet 😂though I can't look away from those strangely beautiful pictures. An absolutely wonderful video!
These images make me feel slightly unsettled but like I'm also curious to explore what lies in the darkness. They almost give me a sense of nostalgia like I can remember relaxing in this blue water or slowly floating about the endless rooms however, I can't picture going up or down the staircases, I can picture what it would like to go through the halls but not the stairs and im not sure why
that video is absolutely amazing, your analyse was mesmerizing. I have been talking about those pics with a friend and our heads just blewed up. mindfuck.
Sir, good job. In my years of living, I have never seen a video as good as this. I’ve seen it around 4 times through the span of a year, and each time, i think about the last time. The nostalgia that emanates from this video makes me feel warm, like I’m in my old house watching tv. I applaud you.
Have you ever explored a partially flooded abandoned building? It reminds me of that, but so much more pristine and well lit. I can't help but to want to want to explore, but my natural instincts are screaming at me not to.
To me these pools never seemed scary or uneasy but more of something calm and peaceful where i can just wonder and not care too much about my problems and just unplug myself from my daily reality. The lighting, the color of the water and the cleanliness of the tiles just brings warmth to me, like some sort of call of the void type of feeling where you feel content with yourself for the time being. If these were real i would definitely visit them.
I've had many dreams like this featuring pools, usually a lot dirtier and more cramped or poorly lit. It's pretty interesting to see this concept as art
I have dreams of being lost in large, empty spaces, like malls, and airport terminals, as well as endlessly huge mansions. I like how the term "purgatory", and "sanctuary for the lost" are applicable to liminal spaces. This is a fascinating psychological phenomenon, indeed. The stuff of dreams, and nightmares, combined. Thanks for sharing this.
Not gonna lie, The Dreampools don't give me a sense of dread. Some of them with the dark tunnels do creep me out a little, but still not really a sense of dread. Turqoise and clear waters, around a meter deep. No sounds around you. Just imagine being able to swim there, all alone, with sunlight/warm lights around you. For me, this litterally looks like the perfect place to relax, especially if you turn on some relaxing soundtracks. If i ever become a millionaire and can build a private pool, i am making one in the style of The Dreampools.
Im so happy these grew in popularity. When i was a kid i used to have dreams of massive water parks in the middle of impossibly deep pools and they were insane.
your voice is very nice to listen and you covered this very well i had no idea there was this much history and such let alone a person responsible for t h e pool photos so i really appreciate this deep dive !!
While these are definitely liminal spaces, I feel the dreampools lend themselves just as much to being superstructures. You touched on it in the video where you noted how these places are obviously artificial but seemingly impossible for any human civilization or society to create them. Jacob Geller made a pretty god video essay on them that you should check out.
when you see these images for the first time, you always feel like youve seen them before, but cant recall where.
I have dreams about swimming pools on occasions. One of them was a swimming pool complex mashed together with my grandma's house. It was like a cramped, narrow house with winding hallways on the ground floor, and then a crazy pool design not unlike some of these Pike renders for the basement floor. In the dream I had to drain the pool part of the house so me and my friends could explore the pool complex further. It was a calm dream; there was no sense of dread like a shadowy figure chasing me or the pool filling up with water when I was down there. It strangely felt comfortable.
The ripples could be from the water being water cycled since they're clorinated
or the wind
@@treetheenderhyena1880 ...wind in the dreampools?
@@ScutoidStudios yes
@@treetheenderhyena1880 fair enough, but I'd think it'd be humid and still air like in a pool room
@@ScutoidStudios If the light hypothetically did lead to the outside, it could be an oncoming breeze.
I like structures like these. Structures who reject habitation not because they are hostile but simply because they were made without any understanding of what would make them habitable, they attempt to mimic it but there is no understanding there, simply structure and architecture, drained of reason but still designed in pursuit of it, as if maybe it was known once so long ago
Just recently saw an indie “horror” game based on this concept! Forget what it was called, but it was filled with these senseless meandering pool rooms, and you’re wandering through them trying to find a way out and not go insane. It was super well executed!
what was it called?
I just found my new favorite thing. Thanks, random person on the Internet.
When I was a kid I had dreams about those kinds of pools it really felt wonderful
i once heard things like dream pools and liminal spaces described as "worlds that have forgotten humanity"
Omg I’m getting flashbacks to a time I had a dream that has a pool that looked A LOT like this. There weren’t tiles, they were concrete, and I think in one of the pools someone I knew was in it.
Great work, I personaly feel a lot of attraction to this idea of infinite pools, something absolutely serene, that you could explore for all time. There's something about the false monotomy too, the repetition that isn't, that invites us to contemplation. Like the Palace in the video game Echo.
This takes me back to when I got high on mushrooms and listened to Alan Parsons Project for the first time (I was going album by album in chronological order). When listening to "Genesis Ch.1 V.32" I felt an illusion (which I did recognize as such at the time) where I was absolutely alone in the universe, sitting in a planet full of acqueducts in a vaguely Greek style.
There were pointless columns stacked atop equally pointless arches, all in plain and pure white and with barely any ornaments. All I could see were nonsensical structures rising above the bright blue ocean, and it was warm with a slight breeze. I was sure there had never been any life in this world nor would there ever be, and I have never felt so relaxed.
Sounds dope
as someone who also likes to overanalyze my own feelings on things, and also i am one of the people that takes great comfort in these types of liminal images, i think i can shed some light on my perspective at least. i was someone who grew up seeing these types of empty 'liminal spaces' often, as my family did quite a bit of residential and business cleaning work. for me those spaces were a comfort as a child. i was alone in places like empty ballparks while my mother and grandmother cleaned. i was safe and free to wander. empty spaces like this can provoke a relaxed feeling for me, as i never had any discomfort with empty buildings to begin with. for me as well, they do indeed cause a feeling of a comforting dream as well. the dreampools in particular share many aspects of what an enjoyable dream often will make a space look like. as when dreaming, you may not remember exact details, but you'll remember disjointed parts that make up the whole. such as with a pool, if you enjoyed being in pools by yourself, you may not think of people as part of the comfort either. you may remember the warm rays of sunshine coming through windows of an indoor pool, but you don't remember what was outside the building. you'll remember the subtle ripples that reflected the light, but possibly not the act that caused those ripples. as a child you may remember avoiding deeper parts of the pools, so your mind finds comfort in the idea of shallow clear blue water. dreams can include things that you've also never seen before, such as architecture inspired by movies, commercials, artworks, but not things you've really been to. to me all of this is what conjures a feeling of relaxed comfort from these images. they to me feel like places not meant to be interpreted in any reality, but as places our minds can create to visit freely as a rest. a place without meaning or purpose, a place simply to explore and enjoy as a visitor, and then leave when satisfied. and in a way, they almost bring a tinge of melancholy for myself, as in my current very upsetting circumstances, the images have me longing for calm quiet. for me, the vastness only brings the enjoyable idea of exploration, the possibility that there is so much to see.
this is what i feel with many of these types of surreal images. i am also someone that enjoys walking down empty city areas as well, and i should say i find horror content in general to be a comfort, but that is a different topic.
i think there's far more to be said and explored as to why people can connect with these images in vastly different ways, and why often these surreal landscapes and architectures can bring wonder and relaxation to some. i find there's often a huge focus on the horrific aspects of these pieces of art and the discomfort, while very little is truly explored as to why it's such a popular subject of comfort. other than just people pointing out nostalgic influences. i think it's often forgotten that many find impossible architecture to be as something to be enjoyed in the same way as impossible natural wonders. though much of it comes down to if the unknown scares you or intrigues you.
also something to keep in mind, is even if an artist doesn't have a particular intent or meaning behind a piece, they still wanted to create it. they still found joy in some way with creating the piece. a good question to ask when looking at series like this is "what brings this artist joy in creating these scenes"
I would swim in one.....they look safe and calm and the artwork is beautiful
When I was a kid around 5-7 i had a vivid dream of infinite pools like this but with architecture kinda like greek / renaissance era style. Gave me crazy deja vu/nostalgia seeing this video
¿Why the water is not still even when there is no one to move it?
Well, an automatic filter to keep the water clean and " clorured " (if that's a word) could be an explanation
I think what makes me feel strange is the combination of shadows and light. The light, though you can never see the source, looks like the type of light you’d see from a window. That makes me feel nice, it’s sunny outside, and I can see where I am. But then there’s the shadowy corridors and corners, that make me feel uneasy because I don’t know what could be in it. It makes me feel trapped, like I need to stay in the pleasant sunlight, because I don’t know what could happen if I left it. At least in the light, I can see what’s coming. I Can see my surroundings, and that there is no monster near me. The shadows don’t give me such a comfort, they make me blind, they make me vulnerable. I would never know if someone, or rather, something, was coming unless it made a noise, but I wouldn’t hear that very well if I was trudging through the water, and its splashes echoed through the dark hall.
The liminal space feeling makes it have a lot more implications. It makes me think it’s much more likely there would be something in the pools, since this seems to be like a Backrooms level, and those have many different impossible creatures. I know there are creatures from that concept that hide in the dark. I know that a creature could hear me, that if I was too noisy in the water, I would attract it. So I’d be trapped in the sunlight, standing for however long I’d be there, trying to keep quiet. I’d stand until my legs hurt too much and I collapsed. It truly feels like there’s no way out, unless I went down those terrifying dark hallways and risked the possibility of something else being there with me.
I would've loved to swim in those types of pools, looking at these images make me feel at peace
I found this video extremely fascinating, because I have seen these pictures before - but never with context. I never realized that they were supposed to make me feel uneasy, I just wanted to go and relax in there. So thank you for the video!
I'd love a pool like this. idc if there's demons in the shadows of the pool or somthin, I just wanna swim there.
i remembered when these surfaced the internet, 2 years after pictures like these came out i saw a few and i was terrified, i cant have been the only one to dream about these places, just absolute dread, chlorine so strong, every room was different, turn back and the room wouldnt be there anymore, they kept changing, youd be lucky to get a room youve gone through, it felt like something was there with me
:3 u my fav video essay creator
I remember having nightmares of endless yet familiar hallways. Warped and twisted versions of places that brought me a sense of comfort and safety contorted into infinite hallways. Yet this brings me a sense of peace. As if I could just start to float on the water forever and forget everything else. Becoming one with the Dreampools.
I need a dreampool themed playlist that would be so cool. Especially if the songs had like sounds of dripping water! The first song that comes to mind is gooey by glass animals. Even better if the playlist itself is edited to sound echoey/underwater ohmygosh someone make this please
This is just the beginning. Some songs may work and some songs might not. I'll add on to it forever.
As someone who grew up around a lot of beaches and artificial pools these images are intensely relaxing to me, they feel like somewhere I could just swim and lounge in the water for hours.
I would love to go to wherever these pictures were taken. Assuming the space is lit like in these pictures, I think I'd find it enjoyable in a weird way. I don't really know why though
These remind me of dreams I used to have. I would be swimming in a pool of golden water, endlessly searching for somewhere to rest. But there were never any such places to be found. These images are haunting to me.
Honestly would be really cool if some company/business tried to somewhat replicate this in real life.
These images weirdly remind me of brief moments in time. Strange far away memories of a short second at a pool party as a kid, chilling in an empty corner looking at no one in front of me.. no one but water, an empty tiled wall and the smell of chlorine. It's disturbing to think of yourself in an empty pool. It feels scary; the water, the hard and cold surfaces. These images make you want to keep looking in search of someone, even something that makes you feel a bit less alone. Thank you for this video, I found it really impactful, something about all of this definitely resonates
I had a dream like this before. It was like a pool that had a hole in it, so I went thru it. There were tons of pools in there which lead to rooms of more giant pools. Something about pools reaches our deep subconscious. Super interesting.
(Edit) I was gonna say it looked like the hell in Dante's inferno! It was like a bunch of different pools which spiralled down. Man, this is getting so interesting
(Edit 2) Alright I'm subbed
i often dream of pools, specifically swimming in crystal clear water. the pools are always rectangular shaped and sometimes other people swim with me. it’s the most relaxing and freeing experience, i literally wake up feeling refreshed.
Dream pools lowkey scare me they look incomplete and feels like there’s no way out of them
holy SHISH
I dreamt about one of those, with a gecko on the wall
THEY REALLY ARE DREAMPOOLS
i remember when i was really young, i had a dream about a very large indoor pool that was bright, but had some water slides. i went into the water slide and it felt like it was never ending. once i came out of the slide, it was a completely different pool that looked like the exact same room. none of my family was there, but it was eerily peaceful. these photos always remind me of that dream
Some of these images vaguely remind me of the bathroom maze dreams I have from time to time
There is something about pools that have always just felt nice to me. When you go under the water and you can see all the people around but the loud noises are muffled and it simply feels serene. It's a feeling I don't think can ever be replaced. I'm kinda terrified of other bodies of water like the ocean or lakes cause they feel so unending but pools feel confined, safe almost
this is totally a level of the backrooms
I don't think so, it sounds more like a separate concept then the Backrooms. Plus, there's no real possibly that it's a Backrooms level since there's NO significance of it being one
@@Joshrivers2010 it was a joke 😭but that was before someone actually made an official backrooms entry on it so ig it is in fact a backrooms level now
A thing about the lighting... what it reminds me of is sunday afternoons in spring: it's just a little uncomfortably hot, and it's already afternoon or early evening; my mind was already thinking that the weekend was lost, and tomorrow I'd have to go back to school where I didn't want to. I became anxious as I felt there was nothing to do, and yet how I didn't have time to do anything anymore. Looking back at it, I think there was a sense of being trapped in a loop, similar to the feeling these pictures evoke. Like the purgatory you described.
Good analysis and good video
i wasnt expecting to have an extistential crisis today
ok, I'm watchin this again. I'd never heard of Borges, so thanks for that. I've just ordered his collected works. I fear there is a rabbit hole here worth exploring...
I got two of his collected writings. some really trippy stories that make you think. Some didn't strike me personally. Is a bit of a mixed bag. His writing is just very different from modern conventions
🍜
Heck! When I saw these images, I immediately thought of Piranesi, as the feeling was almost exact. So good to see you quote it.
I'd never heard about Dreampools until this video (which I got to from your one on Sovietwave). In Phoenix, Arizona there are a number of stormwater drainage canals, which are built to carry flooding from heavy monsoon rain. Because Phoenix is incredibly dry, they are usually completely empty, or have just a tiny trickle of water down the middle. As a child, I rode a bicycle along the sides of these canals (there were paved bike and walking paths). I long wanted to explore the canals from inside them, but never had the guts to violate the NO TRESPASSING signs. I had a recurring series of dreams across several years which involved entering the canals, traveling along them, and finding increasingly fantastical structures and tunnels, all made from the same bleak tan concrete as the real canals. As I've been a lucid dreamer since even before that age, I knew I was in a dream and thus had no fear of the unknown, merely enjoying the exploration and adventure. When I saw these images, I felt nostalgia for those dreams of impossible canals, and I felt welcoming and a certain at-home feeling from them. It makes me wonder if the artist had similar dreams, but about pools. Now I shall sleep, and attempt to dream of the Dreampools.
Back in 2020, I had gotten seriously ill for several months of my life. we found what it is and I’m doing better now, but I’ll never forget those few months before I received treatment. I almost constantly had a fever, and I made no contact with anyone, so the only memories I had was going to the hospital so many times and these trippy fever dreams. The dreams would last so long a whole world was created in my head, with murderous family members and a cult dedicated to heating pads. But what I remembered the most was the water parks and pools. The entire time I was sick I longed for nothing but my partner (now my husband) and the pools. I don’t know where these pools are or where such a strong need to return to them were, but I would watch pool videos and waterpark videos all day long. I made my dad promise me if I got better he’d take me to the water park, and this world all took place at waterpark resorts in a strange back room manner. Now I’m obsessed with liminal spaces, backrooms, and poolrooms, because even before I knew what they were, it felt like my body was calling me back there when I’m weak, like this is my home and my safe haven
Bro you could turn the heating pad cult into a Nightvale spin-off no cap
I've had dreams of something similar to this 15 years ago. It was memorable and it was beautiful. Similar to the white tiles but more elaborate pillars and walls. There were alot of people there there were slides and lounges you can lounge or do whatever but in waist deep water. Everything was underground you can go above ground and be in a regular resort type pool with tunnels and stairs to go underground it was beautiful.
It's really awesome how you traced back the origins of this cool genre of internet art and gave an explanation as to why it captures the minds of so many people and seems to be intertwined with our psyche. The books you were refrencing in this video also look cool as hell I'm going to have to read Piranesi.