The million-year-old university

In my recent post The twilight of the brain, I make passing reference to the image of "a university a million years old," which occurs in Whitley Strieber's book Transformation (1988). On June 23, I happened to be reading one of the few Strieber books I'd never read before, The Super Natural (2016, co-authored with Jeffrey J. Kripal of Rice University) and found that it includes a retelling of the ancient university story, with many differences from the Transformation version. I took out my copy of Transformation to try to find the passage in question -- and found that I had opened it up directly to that very page! The synchronicity fairies have spoken, and a detailed comparison must be made.

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The two accounts

Here is the story as it is told in Transformation (pp. 108-111 in my copy, though I understand pagination varies among editions).

In 1972 a number of vivid thoughts surfaced that I now [around 1987] realize were connected to that summer [of 1968, when Strieber was traveling in Europe]. They involved a journey to a great desert. This desert had a tan sky that was so bright it was difficult to look at. It never really got dark there.

The little men took me into an oasislike setting that was bordered by tall, very thin trees and crossed by a narrow lane. Over this lane there stood an enormously high arch. One of the men with me -- who seemed very jolly and gay -- said that the arch was to commemorate "the achievements of the scholars." Ahead I saw a completely tumbledown building. It was on a cliff at the edge of the oasis and was so old that it seemed almost to have blended with the stones themselves. Beyond and below it I could see the tremendous desert.

I was told that the building was a university "a million years old." I was really very excited to go inside. We approached the building and I said, "Is it in ruins?" The reply was, "No, but the scholars aren't much good at maintenance." There was an imposing entrance, but I was taken around to a side door that was reached by clambering over sharp volcanic rocks. These stones were fearsome, and for years afterward I had a recurring dream of climbing through them and trying very hard not to cut myself.

As we approached the door we encountered two taller, thin men with gigantic, black, almond-shaped eyes. They were not nearly as friendly as the small men in blue. In fact, when they stared at me I felt naked. It was hard to be in their presence. One of them said, "He isn't ready yet." This deflated me. Things had been going so well; I'd felt very much approved. Now there was a sense of desperation. Why wasn't I ready? I wanted to go in.

The two tall beings left. One of my guides announced, "They said you weren't ready, but now they're gone." So in we went. I found an absolutely featureless corridor made of what seemed to be dark-green stone. The floors were dusty and felt like packed earth. There were doorways, and light shone across the floor from each. I was taken into the first room. Its floor was etched with a circle, and there was a large window looking out over the desert.

When I went into the circle I wanted at once to dance. There was no music, but when I danced I felt a sensation that I cannot describe. The best way to characterize it would be to call it a movement that led at once to great loneliness and great excitement. When I danced I found myself for moments inside other people and other lives. I was walking up a narrow, curved road. A portly redheaded man was running toward me. He was wearing a white toga, and my impression was that I was seeing something happening in ancient Rome.

The dance took on a great passion and intensity. Round and round I went, sailing through armies of lives, places familiar and unfamiliar. It was as if my soul had hungered for this. I sailed round and round and round, going faster and faster. I don't know how long I danced, but it was glorious.

Reluctantly, I left the university and was taken to another building. This building was a three-story adobe structure down the lane from the university. In it there was a room for me to live in. It was unfurnished. I slept on the floor. Once I woke up to hear somebody talking loudly in English. Two men appeared, both of them normal-looking. They were wearing khaki clothes that looked military. I had the impression that they were Americans. One of them had a Bell & Howell movie camera, which he pointed at me. They were standing outside the door to the room behind a white tape. The one without the camera said, "Why are they keeping you outside of the enclosure?" I replied that I didn't know, and he looked absolutely furious.

Next I was with a woman who was so pale that even her lips were without color. She handed me a piece of fruit that looked like a giant fig. She told me to eat it. I said that I didn't care to eat it. She replied that I had to.

Feeling very dubious, I bit into it. At once there was a terrible bitterness, and it seemed like my head was going to split open.

 

I was aware of a group of people, some with tears in their eyes, watching me from behind the line of white tape as I went off on my own. I found that the grass was very soft and fine, and I sat in it for a time. Then I started to return to the university, but one of the tall beings who's said I wasn't ready was there. He waved me away and I thought it better not to go. I went instead to an area of shacks made of what looked like adobe and dried tree branches. They were very rough and simple. In them I would find things like a single wooden bowl, or a discarded blue uniform. Some of the small men were there, and I was so surprised at the simplicity of their dwellings that they laughed aloud at me.

 

There isn't any more than that. 

Here's the version given in The Super Natural (Chapter 4; I'm reading an electronic edition that doesn't have page numbers).

[B]ack in our apartment on Fifty-fifth Street in New York, I had a more arresting experience with the kobolds.

It came in the form of another powerful dream. It probably happened in 1973 or 1974, but I still recall it vividly.

I was on a plateau in the middle of an enormous desert. The horizons were much too far away, as if the planet was two or three times its normal size -- or, I suppose, as if it was not this planet at all. Before me on the plateau was a narrow road, snaking elegantly through an expanse of close-cropped grass. There were tall trees, like cedars of Lebanon, in a grove off to my right. Ahead, the road passed beneath a tall triumphal arch. To my left was a squat oval building perhaps three stories tall, set in the side of a cliff. Beyond it was the immense desert view that I was seeing. The building was dark blue, and its windows had louvered awnings. The sun was bright and powerful, flooding everything with chalk-white light.

Having no idea what I should do, I decided to walk toward the building. As I went under the arch, I was joined by two small men wearing clothes that were busy with flaps, the overalls of workers. The clothes and the men themselves were a dark, iridescent blue, the same color as the building.

They drew me along to a little ravine. In it were some lean-tos made of sticks. They indicated that this was where they lived. I said, "These aren't even huts." One of them replied in a low, breathy voice, "They're all we need." At that moment, I got the impression of vast stretches of time, and how hard it was to maintain environmental balance, how you must waste nothing if you expect to survive long enough to matter. From that brief instant would later arise my own deep concern with the environment [. . .].

I asked them about the building. One of them replied that it was a university. Now that we were close to it, I could see that it was a wreck. I said, "It looks like it's in ruins." The reply, through bubbling humor, was, "It's a million years old and the scholars aren't very good at maintenance." Then they asked me if I would like to attend it.

I can remember the shocked delight and eagerness that flashed through me. I could see an arched doorway in the base. But as I drew closer, I found myself struggling through a field of sharp boulders. At that point, two very strange beings appeared, as tall as I was, very thin, with great, slanted black eyes that disturbed me very much as they bored into me.

One of them said, "He's not ready." This seemed to disappoint the blue fellows. It certainly disappointed me, and I tried to get around them, but they blocked my way. I sensed that the whole history and meaning of humanity must be known in that place, and that if I could matriculate there, I could learn the truth of us and the secrets of our lives [. . .]. I wanted to go in, and badly, but I understood that I had to obey them. The little blue men reacted with regret. They still thought I was ready. Finally, I turned away. The next moment, I woke up.

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The core story

Here is the core narrative, consisting of the overlap between the two accounts. This overlap is so substantial that these can only be read as two different versions of the same experience.

Strieber was in a large desert where the sunlight was very bright. There were tall trees, grass, and a narrow road or lane, which passed under a very large arch. At least from the time he reached the arch, and perhaps before that, he was accompanied by little men in blue.

He saw a building, built into the side of a cliff. He thought it must be in ruins, but the little men explained that it was a million-year-old university, and that the scholars weren't very good at maintenance. He had to climb through a field of sharp rocks to reach the entrance. At the entrance, he was met by two taller, thin beings with large slanted black eyes that stared into him in a way that he found disturbing. These two beings said he wasn't ready to enter the university. This disappointed both Strieber and the little men, who thought he was ready.

At some point, either before or after this attempt to enter the university, he saw some extremely simple dwellings made of sticks and understood that the little men lived in them.

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Differences

At first glance, the most obvious difference is that Super Natural presents this as a dream Strieber had in New York in 1973 or 1974, whereas Transformation presents it as something he actually experienced during his summer in continental Europe in 1968. Looking more carefully at the Transformation account, though, I see that he is careful to avoid actually calling it a memory. Rather, it was one of "a number of vivid thoughts" that "surfaced" in 1972, which he later decided "were connected to that summer" of 1968. In other words, nothing in Transformation is strictly inconsistent with the whole thing's being a dream or fantasy that he had in New York in the early 1970s.

The other glaring difference is that the Super Natural version ends when Strieber is prevented from entering the university, turns away, and wakes up -- whereas the Transformation version continues for seven more paragraphs, with Strieber entering the university after all, dancing there and seeing a vision of ancient Rome (a theme which he would revisit in The Secret School, this time placing it in his childhood), and even living in the vicinity of the university for a period of time. This seems awfully hard to square with Super Natural's "The next moment, I woke up" -- unless the narrative in Transformation is spliced together from several originally separate dreams or fantasies; he does introduce it with a reference to "a number of vivid thoughts." Apparently, by the time he wrote Super Natural, Strieber was no longer so sure that these scenes belonged together, or that they had any reference to 1968.

Besides these two biggies, there are a number of minor differences. Transformation refers only to "little men in blue," but Super Natural adds that the men themselves were "a dark, iridescent blue," too, as was the university building. In Transformation, we are told that the university "seemed almost to have blended with the stones themselves," which seems inconsistent with its being blue.

In Transformation, Strieber is led by the little men from the beginning; in Super Natural, he is on his own at first and is joined by the little men when he reaches the arch.

In Transformation, Strieber sees the little men's very simple dwellings after visiting the university, and their reaction to his surprise is to laugh out loud. In Super Natural, he sees the dwellings before the university, and the little men's reaction is to solemnly intone, "They're all we need," triggering a moment of insight which Strieber considers as marking the beginning of his concern with environmental issues. The supposedly transformative impact of this episode is missing in Transformation.