Sunday 9 December 2007

Nightly Wanderings

Another dream:

I was working at a factory on the Exeter Streatham Campus, which is made up entirely of hills, and it was on one of the higher ones. This factory was nuclear powered, and made money - literally it printed it.

I was in the main hall, in line to get to work, and I, the dreamer, was telling myself, "please don't let it blow up, please don't let it blow up, please don't let it blow up," because I was so afraid of there being a nuclear meltdown.

An announcement came on the loudspeaker, and it said something about there being a plutonium leak, and that we should all head outside in an orderly fashion, and that this was not a drill. So, we all walked outside and down some of the hill.

When we had walked far enough, I said, "alright, now's when we start running, right?" The people around me didn't want to run though, they didn't know why. I told them it was in case the factory exploded. They wanted to walk -

Then the factory exploded, there was, literally, a nuclear explosion, mushroom cloud and everything. The people ducked behind one of the hills and I did too, and I remember trying to time holding my breath for when the shockwave passed, because breathing in radioactive dust might kill me.

I walked around with my shirt over my mouth for a few seconds, and flying through the air were bits of money from the factory. One touched my finger, and I wondered if I was going to die.



And this dream became an event for every other dream I had that night. A related dream, later in the evening, was that I was back in my house. My mom was doing something mundane, like watching CSI or something, and I went outside into the woods behind my house. They were dead and covered with ash, and I saw a rabbit that looked really tired. Then one of my cats - Peach - came up and started batting it like she was going to kill it, and I picked her up, saying "no, Peach, it's just been shook out of hibernation, leave it alone." Or something like that. I started walking back to my house and I could see my neighbor's yard from the woods.

Now my neighbor lives on a piece of what was my family's property, that we subdivided to pay for college. His yard was all green and fine - also, by normal geography, it shouldn't have been where it was, because it was on the other side of my woods from where I was. For some reason, I was afraid that my neighbor would buy my family's house, and then later I could come back and buy his house, and then when he died I could buy our original house from his estate and finally restore the property to its rightful ownership. But I was afraid that things would work out like that, with him buying my family's house.



Those were just two parts of my dreams, but I woke up today feeling like a completely different person from the day before - the nuclear explosion, which literally became an event in the timeline of my dreams, I think kind of changed my perceptions on things. I don't know.

Some things that have happened in my life that could lead to this:

- I might've just decided on Copenhagen by Michael Frayn for my thesis. We're not approved but it's up there, and that's all about nuclear war, shattering perceptions, and the like.
- Clay von Carlowitz and I were talking about Fat Man and Little Boy, in which a scientist stops a nuclear explosion but gets serious radiation poisoning and dies.
- Winter Break just started here, meaning a serious perception shift from work-time to free-time, and also virtually everyone is gone, and I'll have to spend Christmas here with a few leftoever people
- I'm looking down the barrel of college, with its ending, and trying to plan for life after college - a large upheaval in my thought up until now.

I told my mom about this dream and we talked about it for a while. It was great. If anyone has any idea what it could mean, drop a line!

2 comments:

Spelunker said...

Okay, so I'm going to take a crack at interpreting your dream.

The fact that you were going to work at a factory and dreading it (in a way) means that you're growing to resent your unchanging habits and predictability. The factory blowing up like a nuclear bomb means these feelings have left you feeling helpless and like you've lost control: you're scared of something crucial/precious ending despite the fact that big changes are already on their way.

This feeds into the second part of your dream. Walking around in woods covered in ash suggests that you're trying to return to a more innocent/spiritual part of yourself but some bitter change or disruption in your life has prevented it and left you facing the unknown. You're becoming overwhelmed by this situation that needs to be resolved. Coming across a tired rabbit might mean that you're positive outlook for your future endeavors is waning. The cat coming along and showing aggression towards the rabbit means that your creative nature/"feminine" side is coming into conflict with your exhaustive efforts to keep your outlook bright.

How does that sound? I looked up some of the key elements in your dream in a dream dictionary and sort of put together the story from there. Who was it again in the Bible who interpreted the King's dream that no one else could and he became an advisor or something of the sort after? Was it Joseph? Man, now I'm going to be wondering for the rest of the day...

The Project said...

So you know that not only was Copenhagen very nearly my thesis, but is perhaps the contemporary play I am (still) most excited about directing?

Amazing piece. If you (build) direct it, I will come.