The Backrooms

"If you're not careful and you "noclip" out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of ﬂuorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in"

The Backrooms are an alternate dimension, but one that is not like many other alternate dimensions in the universe. While others seem to be pocket dimensions that are linked to our own reality, the Backrooms runs deep INSIDE our own reality, meaning there is no physical way to enter it. Rather, a person enters the Backrooms when in a state of deep despair, or during sleep.

The Backrooms appear to be a series of randomly generated rooms interconnected with one another. The wallpaper, ceiling, and carpet are all a sort of dull yellow, and there are overhead fluorescent lights, similar to the ones found in many buildings from the 70s or 80s. The entire dimension is therefore brightly lit at all times.

Entering The Backrooms
Entering the Backrooms can be done randomly during sleep. Often, a person will have a dream about entering through the exact same place as while doing this, then they will find themselves in the Backrooms, in full consciousness.

If you enter the Backrooms in this way, several things change. For one, you cannot sleep. It's usually described as the sound of the fluorescent lights keeping you awake, but some researchers believe that a person who is consciously here has simultaneously entered a state of unconsciousness, preventing them from sleep.

In addition, a person's bodily functions are still active when entering this way. This means that a person will eventually die of hunger or thirst while trapped here. They will also have to urinate and defecate. Eventually, a person will become severely sleep-deprived as well, and will constantly feel the need to sleep, but they will not be able to.

There seems to be no exit when one enters the Backrooms like this. Rooms go on forever, and if you break the walls, you'll just reveal more walls, or possibly another room the same as the one you exited from. The only way to exit, it seems, is through death.

The Backrooms Monster
A solitary creature roams the Backrooms. It only appears in certain dreams, and the person never sees it; they simply hear its cries, and immediately turn and run in the opposite direction.

When consciously entering the Backrooms, it is believed to be possible to encounter the monster. However, this is pure speculation, as no one has ever entered the Backrooms consciously and told the tale. It may be possible to kill the Backrooms Monster; whether this would free a person from the Backrooms remains to be seen.

Special Backrooms
Recently, reports have come flooding in of "special Backrooms." These seem to place similar to the Backrooms which appear in different ways. For instance, they can appear as an endless mall, an endless university campus, an endless shanty town, and most likely any other type of place as well.

These places can be found through dreaming. When one enters one, they experience a type of lucidity which allows them control over their own actions. They are then free to roam the Backroom. Most people describe it as a maze of impossibly-steep rooms and stairwells that interconnect and then can be "climbed" through sheer force of will. Other common details are secret passages, abandoned shops, and underground food-storage-like areas that can be accessed by climbing down a certain stairway or escalator, or by jumping off the edge of a room.

What is curious about these Special Backrooms is that they seem to be interconnected. If one makes a change in these, this change will show up in other peoples' dreams. For instance, a person can knock down a shelf of food, and if another person happens to pass by this same area in their dream, they will see the shelf knocked down. Each Special Backroom is infinite, so it is unlikely for this to happen, but this proves that these places are linked. It is believed they are formed through shared experiences; a group of people who all have visited the same mall will all see the same infinite mall in their dreams.

The Backrooms Monster seems to exist in the Special Backrooms as well. His cries can be heard from any part of these backrooms. They are often transmitted through other means as well; in a stadium, the cries will come from a loudspeaker; in a school, they will come over the PA; etc.

Getting Trapped in a Special Backroom
It seems to be possible to become trapped in a Special Backroom. If this happens, a person's actual body enters a coma for as long as it takes the person to "escape."

Getting trapped and escaping are both not understood. Certain stimuli probably cause a Backrooms to hold a person in their dream, but these stimuli are unknown. Similarly, there are probably actions one has to take to free themselves from the Backroom, which is completely unknown.

What is known is that a person trapped in a Special Backroom cannot find a physical exit, as the place is infinite. The person's normal bodily functions will also begin to become apparent, and the person will feel the need to eat, drink, urinate, defecate, etc. Strangely, someone trapped in a Special Backroom can actually sleep. Given that food is readily available to be found in most of these Special Backrooms, and the place is infinite, so there is always more food, life here seems to be completely self-sustainable.

It is also possible to meet other people visiting or trapped in the Special Backroom. One can interact with those who are entering the place temporarily through dreams; talking, touching, and everything else a person could do. These temporary dreamers are described as "fizzling out" when their dream ends.

One can also meet other people who are trapped, though this is uncommon. If this happens, the two people will often take to living together in order to avoid the crushing loneliness of the place.

It is theorized that certain people may be living in these places for years while in comas.