Image by Midjourney
DREAMS
After driving for a while, a woman who's an officer tells us we need to be extra quiet along this stretch of the trip. (We're passing a Walmart and I assume we need to be quiet because it's respectful.) The guy hanging out the back was causing the most noise with his struggles to stay on the truck! Now he has to stay silent on top of it. His feet morph into metal frog feet that attach securely to the bar on the back.
We switch vehicles. Now we're in an open jeep with a large truck bed. We sit in there. We go into a tunnel. After a while, I see some bullets spraying from further back in the tunnel. A group of rebel hooligans has broken into the troops' transport system with guns.
The guy who was hanging out of the back of the truck has a gun, and he fires beside me at the advancing group of rebels, but I don't have a weapon. One of the hooligans is clearly targeting me. My guy fires at him, but green, holographic armor blocks each shot. The hooligan shoots me repeatedly in the stomach. I know I won't survive.
There's a nice funeral for me at the house I used to live in before I became a soldier. It's fall, and there are leaves drifting in the yard. There are friends and neighbors visiting inside. It was very cozy and comfortable living the life I did, but I didn't have the finances to stay there forever. I see how I would have paper doll outfits that I would wear, like trout-patterned dresses. I see how I would have grumpily cared for five german shepherds had I survived into old age in that lifestyle.
Then I wake up. I pee and I give the cat a 3 a.m. snackie.
Then I'm squatting next to a pond. The person in charge of the pond explains that they're going to solve all of their problems with this: a small tube full of tiny snails. I have a good feeling about this.
Time passes, and I'm attending a church service. And the guest speaker is talking about how the greatest danger of our time is the snail. According to her, we think we're solving all our problems with food by breeding these giant snails for meat, but they completely take over ecosystems and destroy all other aquatic life. I have a feeling of correctness about what she's saying.
But I think back to when I was at the pond. I had the same feeling about what they were doing too. And the current warning here at church doesn't make me think the owner of the pond was doing anything bad. They were doing what they had to to survive. But both can be true at the same time: the pond owner needed the meat, and the snails take over aquatic ecosystems.
INTERPRETATIONS
The first dream is a metaphor for how I feel like I can't afford to live the life I would prefer to live: staying at home cooking and entertaining guests. Wearing my cute little outfits. But instead, I have to prepare for battle with a ruthless world. And I know good people with struggles of their own will try to help me, but the lifestyle will kill me anyway.
(I'm sure that this metaphor is an exaggeration of my fears.)
In the second dream, it seems to me like that's just the scenario we're constantly finding ourselves in as we navigate social media and even traditional, legacy media like newspapers. One group of people tries to profit off of the message that there's an awesome new technology and it has the power to revolutionize all of our lives. Another group tries to profit off the the message that we must beware this new technology that "they" are all trying to get us to adopt, because there are consequences that "they" aren't talking about.
Well, isn't the truth almost always somewhere in the middle? We adopt new technology like new medication because we had a problem that needed solving, but there are usually risks, side effects and possible unforeseen consequences.
There are too many algorithms that reward hyperbolic, grandiose stories instead of thorough, neutral, accurate teaching.
