In dreams begin responsibilities

When I dream, I dream very vividly. My dreams are so real that often when I wake up I am confused as to whether or not they actually happened. The emotions attached to them, in turn, are so strong that I usually need to lay in bed for a few minutes and mentally talk myself down from them, so I don’t go into my day mad at someone for something they did in my subconscious. I also believe, strongly, in precognitive dreams, or dreams that foretell the future somehow. Don’t laugh. I swear it happens. Usually it’s something mundane and I wake up thinking, “ That was weird,” and then two months later it will flash back to me in a strange sense of déjà vu. Like yesterday, in Maria’s pool, as we were getting ready to play water volleyball and were dividing up into teams, a moment, a short one, Nirm on my right and Luke right in front of me, water lapping gently on our midriffs, sun filtering through the trees onto our backs, and the sound of Maria laughing. I had dreamt that. I remember being confused when I woke from that dream, all, who do I know that has a pool? Duh. Maria has a pool, but up until yesterday, I had never been there. When these moments happen, it’s both disarming and comforting. It freaks me out for a second and I feel like I’m living in a cheesy sci-fi flick, but in the end makes me feel as though I am exactly where I’m supposed to be in life.

Therefore, when I have nightmares, which isn’t very often, they scare the shit out of me and stick with me for a long, long time.

Last night, I had a dream that I guess could qualify as a nightmare. I certainly woke up freaked out. It was a long dream, which is unusual because my dreams typically are pretty short. Because it was so long, bits and pieces have gone missing, but here’s what I remember:

The war with Iraq/Terror/Bush’s blunder/whatever-you-want-to-call-it had turned into World War III. And we were not winning. America had been invaded at this point, and I was living in this huge house hiding out from…I don’t know exactly who. And the house and people who lived in it with us, I want to say they were Amish because of how plainly they dressed. Then again, I was dressed plainly as well, so perhaps I was posing as Amish or the plain dress was a result of the direction of the people who had invaded us. At any rate, the house was really ginormous, filled with secret passageways and hidden back closets. One closet, in particular, I hid in quite often (Another weird thing about my dreams – often I feel they all connect somehow and often when I’m dreaming I as a person or character in my dreams I have my own separate set of memories. It’s weird, I know) and at one point when I was hiding in this closet and I discovered this whole other sub-closet within it. And hanging there, in the sub-closet among other garments, was a burqa. It was a beautiful burqa, made of fine material, golden in color with metallic threads weaving in the fabric. Seeing the burqa both scared me and comforted me, somehow. I think the fear came from the thought that, truly, we as a nation had reached a turning point in the war, that we were officially losing, and life as we all knew it would never be the same again. That things would never go back to “normal.” Also, the fear that I would in the future forced to wear a burqa.

(Please do not email me or comment about this. I have no prejudice against Islamic women who believe in their faith and choose to wear a burqa, because I’ve heard and understand that instead of being oppressive, it is, in fact quite liberating. That instead of being judged on appearance, it allows women to be judged on her intellect, faith, and personality. Which, as a girl who has never felt thin or beautiful, that’s quite a thrilling concept. However. I do take issue with women being forced to wear it by the Taliban or extremists when they don’t believe, or don’t want to. Public beatings for not wearing a burqa is not cool, you know? Also – it was a DREAM, so I can’t exactly control it. I’m not trying to be bigoted or offensive in anyway though.)

I was sort of comforted by the burqa, because I thought to myself, Ah, now I have a secret weapon when I need it. I can wear this and pose as a believer (sorry…again a DREAM, can’t control it exactly) and stay safe.

The dream continued with me doing mundane tasks – taking care of the vegetable garden (stores had all been closed or bombed out so we had to grow our own food), cleaning, cooking, trying to keep a low profile, and in my spare time, exploring this huge house. On one such occasion, I discovered a whole new set of rooms which contained beautiful ornate furniture and paintings. Here’s where the dream kind of gets weird. I looked into the drawer of this magnificent chest of drawers, and inside was all of this Nazi paraphernalia – photos, documents, flags, which really freaked me out. I quickly shut the drawer and didn’t want to open it again, or any others for that matter, for fear of seeing more.

A few days later (I told you, long dream) the owner of the house, the woman who was hiding us, started screaming to hide, find a secret passageway out of the house, that they knew we were there. And then I ran to my closet and began a frantic search for the sub closet, and trying to find the burqa and put it on so they would think I was one of them. But I was too sloppy and rushed and I couldn’t find it, and instead got lost in this maze of rooms that I had never been in before. I went to open this one door and inside found this meeting room where hundreds and hundreds of Nazis were holding a slave trade of some sort and then they noticed me and all started chasing me. I ran off through yet another secret passageway, and managed to make my way outside of the house, into the back yard.

Once outside in the back yard, I ran into Renee who, I believe, was living next door to me throughout this whole ordeal.

“Hide me!” I frantically asked her.

“There’s no point,” she told me, tears dripping down her dirt-stained face. “The war is over. We’re done. We lost. They just announced it on the news. They’re coming for all of us.”

At that point, the reality of it hit both of us as we realized that there was no hope and we would never see our families again, or many of our friends, or possibly each other. We hugged each other trying to hold back our tears and looked up into the sky were planes were skywriting messages of doom. We broke our hug, and men in gas masks were running towards us as we raised our hands in surrender…

I think I sat in bed for a full ten minutes whispering to myself, “Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, just a dream, just a dream…”

While I don’t think this was a precognitive dream ala the pool dream, I don’t think I should ignore it either. Interesting fact: since the start of the Iraq War, I’ve had a whopping 4 nightmares of this type: apocalyptic war doom/backward slide into fascism/scares the fucking shit out of you for days.

And given what’s going on in the world right now…maybe I’m not too far off. You know, I don’t understand all of foreign policy, and I don’t understand everything about politics, and I certainly am not an expert on all things Middle East. But I know this:

• Terrorism works both ways. You don’t need to have a stick of dynamite strapped to your chest in order to be a terrorist. You can be one just as easily while wearing a suit and sitting behind a desk.
  
  
• Violence begets violence, begets violence, begets violence…Violence is not the answer. Ever.

The G8 summit is going on right now, and as much as I feel as though there’s a chance for a lot of change, my cynical and worried side doesn’t believe the opportunity will be seized.

I am very confused. I am very worried, also.