I am writing this post mainly for myself, but at the same time I wanted to share. However, while we are on the topic of sharing, I must state upfront that I have changed my Creative Commons License from “Attribution-Share Alike” to “Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works.” Most of the content on this blog I would gladly consider sharing openly, but my dreams are uniquely my own and for the time being I would like to keep them that way. You never know when I will get bit by the novel or screenplay writing bug (especially with this particular dream).

Dreams have always fascinated me. Sometimes my dreams jump around from one subject to another; sometimes they stay on course and unfold like an epic adventure. A few of them have recurring themes (e.g., tornadoes). Then there are the déjà vu dreams in which I later feel like I must have dreamt this before (i.e., premonition dreams). While they are often vivid, my dreams are also soon forgotten as the sleepyness wears off and I have had my morning coffee. While I have recounted dreams before, I have never before taken the time to write one down (though in retrospect I wish I had).

I am starting a new series on Transformatum by titling this Dream Diary #1. However, unlike my other weekly standards (Monday Meditation and Friday Vespers) it will be hit or miss and not based on any type of schedule.

Last Night’s Dream (written in stream of consciousness)

My dream is flashing back and forth between three types of scenery—an arctic landscape, a snowless winter (full of dead vegetation and lots of running water) and a series of indoor rooms that are dark and artificially lit. I am not exactly sure where I am geographically, but wherever it is I am employed in some sort of outdoor work. I have a few comrades with me, including a dog (a golden retriever I believe). It is very cold outside. In one of the scenes I am wearing waders and working my way up what appears to be a stream. Off to the side are abandoned vehicles. There is a fire truck and a few transfer trucks stuck in the muddy shallows. As I move past them I am waving a long pole with a disk affixed to the tip (much like a metal detector) across the water, the surface of which is skimming over with ice before my eyes. It melts with each pass of the wand. I daydream and think of a bright summer day in which I am playing catch with the dog and my eldest son. All of a sudden I hear the dog barking and I snap back to reality—at least what seems like reality in the dream. I spin around to see the trucks lurching forward, down the stream bed, only now I realize that it was not a stream at all. Instead, it appears to have once been a road. The trucks are following each other like trains on a track, sliding silently on the icy wet mix. I can see that they are headed directly for the rest of my group. I run toward them yelling, but only the dog and I notice that a horrible accident is imminent. Afterwards, the dream shifts back to the dimly lit indoors. I am talking with someone unseen. I must have lost everyone in the crew, including the dog. I am wrestling with whether or not to go back to whatever it is that I was doing. On a table is a cage of hamsters. I pick one up and play with it as we talk. When a decision is reached the hamster does not want to go back into the cage, so I take it with me. I then step onto an elevator, not the typical office building variety, but rather something much more industrial and futuristic; like something you might see at a top secret military installation. As the door closes the hamster jumps out of my hands and into the crack of the elevator door. I am certain that it is crushed. The elevator whirs and starts climbing up. When it reaches its stop and the door opens I am almost blinded by the bright arctic wasteland. I step out into the cold and see the hamster a few steps in front of me. It may have survived the elevator, but it will not last long here. So I pick it up and place it in my pocket. The next set of sequences are of me driving various vehicles (jeeps and tractors) around in the snow and ice. I can hear myself talking as if I am narrating a documentary film. I am reflecting on the loneliness, the solitude, the difficulty of surviving in such a harsh environment and the work that I lose myself in. In one scene I am actually playing around by running a blue jeep through huge snow drifts, even rolling it over a couple times. Then my dream flashes to a blue corregated steel building covered with about three feet of snow. There are close to a dozen vehicles in the icy parking lot. Between the round headlights and the icicles hanging like fangs off of the grills, they have the appearance of monsters. I am still narrating, this time talking about how there are ten of us now. I say something about how few people come to this place. Those who do are at a point in which they have no other choice. This is their final chance for…

Then my three year old daughter abruptly wakes me up. Weird, huh?