Wierd Dream, Bad Night Sleep, and a Rude Awakening

Last night I taught an AVID editing workshop on campus, and three students had RSVP'd. Only one showed. So we had a nice one-on-one session and I taught her all the basics. After the workshop, my friends and I went to Cold Stone Creamery for some ice cream. I got Cake Batter and Mint Ice cream mixed, with oreos. YUM!

Then I went home and worked on a DVD of the Uppereast.com videos. I finally finished it and went to bed at about 4am.

Four hours later, I was awoken with some cramps. Probably due to eating a big bowl of that rich ice cream. Needless to say, after some time in the bathroom, I was finally able to go back to bed. But by this time, it was very difficult to fall back asleep.

I finally fell into a fitful sleep, and had a very strange dream. Some of you might be familiar with my Earthquake in Boston post from this summer, and this was a similar dream. I was living in a city, perhaps some sort of bizarre combination of Detroit, Boston, and New Haven. It was a big city, and it was rocked by an earthquake. The damage wasn't that bad--few buildings came down completely, but parking structures and other buildings were very weakened. The odd part came in the aftermath.

Everyone started to die.

I'm hazy on exactly what caused this in the dream, but I remember that, like Detroit, people started disappearing and the city emptied. No one came to help, and I knew that no one would... the death was not going to stop because it was undoubtedly greater then just the city.

It was summer, and if I remember correctly, I was living with my wife or maybe some other people, and that the death skipped our apartment. We didn't go out and lived off what food we had in the apartment. As the days passed and more people died, I would look out from the windows (our apartment was on the fifth or sixth floor) and watch as gangs of boys, without parents, would wander the street, breaking windows and eating what food they could find.

Law enforcement was obviously gone, and I was afraid--but not so much for myself, but for the safety of those around me. I was enveloped with the magnitude of what was happening around me.

The gangs became more violent, because they began to starve. The supermarkets were empty, and no trucks came to replenish them--everyone was gone. Boys staggered in the street, crying and calling the names of dead mothers into abandoned buildings. They would fight over the remaining cans of food until someone was hurt or killed.

I carelessly started eating a sandwich--presumably we had some source for supplies, either our own pantry and rooftop garden, perhaps a generator,though I don't remember where it came from--near a window that faced the street.

I was spotted by a group of boys.

They screeched and screamed. "He's got flour and dough, he's got sugar, he's got..." they began to scream. I ducked and closed with windows and the blinds, and told my wife/the female in the dream to get down and bolt the doors. Only, I couldn't remember if the door was locked, and so I ran and turned the bolt--it was locked, and I had just unlocked it--which allowed the door to be pushed open at that very moment.

But instead of a wave of starving boys, it was just one, and he begged for help as he pushed his way inside. Either because he was already inside or because of the sadness of sorrow that I felt for him, we took him in. He started to live with us.

I don't remember much after this point in the dream. Within the dream, I was thinking like it was actually happening, and trying to get out of the city. I remember some how risking driving a car out of a parking garage (damaged by the earthquake) and drove around the city, and almost getting cornered by a gang in a dead end street.

That's my dream, and I wish I could remember more. It's really fascinating to see what dreams I can remember vividly, and what dreams dissipate like smoke when I open my eyes. Not wanting to get over analytical, I think there is a reason that I keep dreaming about disasters and helping people. Maybe that's what I'm supposed to do, help other when the world falls apart. My father had visions of that sort of thing when he was my age, and maybe I'm seeing the same things.

At the same time, who doesn't think about the demise of civilization from time to time?

When I finally got up around noon, it was involuntary as well. There was a black man on the street corner yelling something incomprehensable, but very loud. It sounded like either "Satan Savior" or "Save me Satan" or "Savior Save Me"--honestly I have no idea. The police took him away. It's my hypothesis that he was on drugs of some kind because he was shaking violently at some points.

After that initial excitement, I went to lunch, and have been cleaning, organizing, editing, and doing other work all day. Hope all is well, and that your enjoying the renewed vigor with which I am updating my weblog.