I'm excited to do the coding for an assault rifle. (dream)

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Based on the two dreams I had last night, I think I'm having some kind of crisis about what to do with the remaining 20-30 years of my life. 

Last night, I dreamed that I was at work (not at my real life job and not with my real life coworkers). In this dream, I worked in a windowless bunker. My boss handed me a large, automatic rifle. It looked a little used--a little beat up. The handle looked like it had a rubber grip on it with nicks and scuffs. He said, "I need you to program this. All of this needs to happen..." He hands me a piece of laminated paper. On it is a table that has the descriptive names of various settings for the gun on it. 

I reflexively say, "Sure!" because I'm so excited to be useful to my boss. But I'm even more excited that I'm going to be programming something.

He says, "No one can see you working on it." I nod.

I take the rifle home and I draw the blinds. I start coding right away, excited for the challenge. It's only now, in the quiet and privacy of my own home, that I start to wonder more deeply about why I'm doing this. What's being planned for this rifle?

I woke up, peed, and went back to sleep.

I'm drawing a picture of some love birds with Prismacolor (artist quality) colored pencils. I've been working on two different poses for the love birds, which are green with a light blush of peachy pink and a spot of coral/maroon. Then I realize I've been working on the wrong piece of paper. I have another, larger piece of drawing paper where I've started two other poses for the love birds, with white flowers. 

"That's okay. I'll combine the two so the piece is tall, and there are four love birds instead of two. It'll be twice as nice." If there's one thing the arts will teach you, it's how to put in extra effort without necessarily seeing a payoff.

I'm combing a fringe of yarn in various, neutral shades with my fingers when a man comes up to me, looks at what I'm doing and says, "Oh! Well, you have to do that, don't you!"

Something about the way he said it implies that he doesn't know why someone would waste their time crafting and drawing. But maybe some people just have to be artists, and so... if this is just fun for the artist, it doesn't make sense to pay them to do what they do naturally. 

I'm annoyed, and I say, "No, I don't have to do this!" There are plenty of other things I could do with my time, and I wish someone would be grateful for the time I take to make art.

The dream ended there. 

The thing is, I've always said to myself and others that I do have to be an artist. That I have to write. That I have to express myself creatively. And I do think that in my life, this artistic side is a core component of who I am. I need to balance fun, creative projects with the stuff that actually pays my bills. At this point in my life, it is very clear that my creative work is not the thing that will take care of me, materially. 

But I think the love bird dream highlights two things: I can spend my time doing things other than creating art. The bulk of my time is spent doing non-creative things right now, and I'm surprisingly okay with that. I'm trying to address other parts of my life, like exercise, nutrition, education, and career. 

I think the first dream with the rifle is urging me to take a critical look at the direction my actual bill-paying career is taking me, and not allow myself to unconsciously, reflexively end up somewhere I don't want to be. In the dream, what I was doing was taking me down a path of hurting people. In real life, "the wrong path" could mean a lot of different things. 

And I am trying to avoid hurting people. I had to put aside my ego this week to avoid getting unpleasant with a frustrated coworker in another department. But I felt mad. I've dropped any claim to getting emotionally compensated for that, which is how someone once described forgiveness to me. I like that description, because when I get mad, I often feel like the situation is a power and dominance struggle, there's a winner and a loser, and someone needs to compensate me for the suffering they caused me with suffering of their own.

I've been doing a yoga teaching certificate which started off as a way to get more knowledge about a Satyr Plays story I wanted to write, but has ended up being really good for me in a variety of ways. One of my favorite things about this certificate program is the section and live Zoom meetings on the philosophy of yoga. There's something in the yogic lifestyle called "Ahimsa" or non-violence, which means avoiding hurting people with either words or actions. This is something I want to put into practice in my own day-to-day life. And I think that the less you involve your ego in frustrating situations, the easier it is to avoid reactively harming people. But for me, I think it's something I need to practice again and again to train the nervous system to stay calm in the face of injury. So I had the opportunity to practice this week. ☺

I think the gun part of the dream might also be cautioning me against agreeing to things without thinking more deeply about them.

Spending a whole day at work not knowing what to do. (dream)

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Last night, I dreamed that I was a brand-new receptionist. This is a very basic, entry-level job. I'm dressed well for it in a cheetah print blouse with a nice skirt. I believed that dressing nice like this was a way for me to express my enthusiasm about this job. I look the part! 

Then, right when I get behind the desk, the phone rings. I answer. A customer asks a very, very simple question, but I can't answer it. In fact, I'm pretty sure that I couldn't answer any question that would come across my path. I don't think they trained me to do this, and I'm scared. I'm all by myself at the front desk. There's no one who can help me.

This is exactly how I feel in waking life about my new job. I just want to be able to figure it out, and I'm very scared of the scenario in this dream (not knowing what I'm doing and being left alone to fend for myself). I'm scared about other scenarios related to work too, but this one is my main one. 

I can't let this happen. I haven't exhausted my options yet. 

*Update: it's week two, and I'm having even more dreams about picking up the phone and being unable to answer people's questions. And I think I had an even weirder dream about my boss sitting in a maze.

Feeding cats to snakes. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm responsible for helping some ladies exit an artistic/spiritual retreat safely. There's one gray haired lady who, before leaving, dumps out her duffel bags with cats into the terrariums of some large snakes. I am shocked and horrified at this. 

Then I look at the cats. They're undernourished. They're too small, even though I know they're adults. They are dirty. They probably won't be adopted. 

And I think to myself, they're part of the food chain just like other animals. If it wasn't these animals who aren't wanted or given a good life, it would be other animals we'd kill. But my gut is telling me that there is more to this situation than what I'm consciously taking into account, and that this is somehow worse than what one would ordinarily feed to a large, pet snake. 

INTERPRETATION

I used to have a lot more nightmares related to vegetarianism than I do now. I think this dream could relate to my concerns about not being a vegetarian or a vegan, but I think it also highlights those times that you have a mismatch between your gut feeling and what your head is telling you. In the dream, I think I was a lot more aware of this divide between head and gut than I am when I'm awake. 

In my opinion, my gut is like an emergency warning system that can put on the breaks or give me the go-ahead before my brain has had a chance to catch up. Because when I woke up, I could think of other reasons why it's worse to feed a cat to a snake. That's an animal that does have a chance at a good life in someone's home. There's probably not a future good life for a chicken or a rabbit bred for food. And we've domesticated cats and dogs to be tame and dependent on us as pets. It's a betrayal of trust to kill an animal that was promised a stable, comfortable life by our society for reasons other than offering them a kind exit from their suffering. It's a betrayal of our stewardship. It may not be a betrayal on an individual, one-on-one contract type of level, but it's a betrayal on a societal contract kind of level. It's true of chickens and cows too (that they're bred by us to be tame and dependent on us), but it's not so common to share as close a bond as the one we develop with cats and dogs. 

On the other hand, shouldn't the bond we've achieved with cats and dogs tell us that we could achieve that kind of a bond with nearly any other kind of animal to some extent--especially tame, domesticated animals like chickens and cows? And even with wild animals, we might not be able to bring them into our lives on a close basis, but we can relate, emotionally, to the experiences of nearly any kind of animal. 

It's just not good that we kill any animals for food. We have a lot in common with animals--similar senses, similar emotions, similar pains and joys. I'm all for lab-grown meat in the future. With some animals that are true carnivores, like snakes, we might not be able to give them nutritionally complete meals without feeding them whole animals with organ meat and skeletons and all. But humans? Humans are omnivores. Humans can probably live on plant-based diets with occasional supplementation. 

So why am I not a vegetarian or a vegan? It's just too inconvenient not to eat meat. I've already got a lot to worry about with my diet as far as chronic disease goes without worrying about how to get all my nutrients in and how to cook special meals to accommodate a special meat-free diet. But I do think it's more morally correct to not kill animals for human food. And eating meat does contribute to that system. 

I've heard some people decrying the use of lab meats because it's "unnatural" and will likely have toxins in it. But we don't know that. It could be perfectly safe. We'd have to run tests over time. We wouldn't know if it's toxic or not just based on the fact that it's lab grown. I do hope they succeed at mass producing safe, lab grown meats in the future and that the skeptics end up in the minority. 

About to be killed in a base on an alien planet. (dream)

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DREAM

I live in a base of Earthlings on an alien planet. The base is in a secluded forest. We're being invaded by aliens that remind me of the Predators from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. We have invisibility cloaks, but they have way better ones. And they can detect ours with only a little bit of effort. But we're still sending out men on assignments to try to counter this invasion.

They're aggressive, but I don't know if they're cruel. I do know that we will all die. There's no way we're going to be able to ward off this invasion. 

I watch the base from afar. It's being bombarded with laser like energy attacks. There's no way the base can keep withstanding all of that. The shields are failing. I go inside the base (it doesn't even occur to me that I could survive for any length of time in the forest) and I grab a cage that looks like a suet feeder with three birds lined up in a row in it. They're spray painted in different glittering, metallic colors. I release the sky-blue raven and say, "It's a raven." It replies, "I'm a raven." I'm hoping this raven will survive without us. 

I leave the metallic brown parrot and the myna bird in the cage. Someone might need them. And they're not as likely to survive without us. 

I run around the base trying to figure out what other last-minute tasks I need to do now that I'm at the very end of my life. The other colonists are running around in a panic as well. I wonder if the aliens will make us suffer before we die, but I try to put that out of my mind and focus on what needs to happen before any of that.



INTERPRETATION

I asked AI about different herbs and supplements that can enhance dreaming, and it said that there is scientific evidence that B6 enhances dream recall. I've been taking a pretty high dose of it, and I think it actually works! I've been remembering more dreams lately. They're often uninteresting or jumbled, so I haven't shared all of them. But this one almost had a story arc.

I think this dream describes how I've felt for the past several months. I'm really worried about a catastrophic future, but I need to focus on the very next thing I need to do. Am I and are the people around me ill equipped to survive the current environment? Yes. Will I suffer before I die? Probably. But that doesn't change the fact that there are things I have to do right now.

The massive fruit. (dream)

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I'm out in the back yard and I'm so excited about the plants I've grown. I've just watered these huge, spring green plants with broad leaves and massive, red fruits hanging off of them. 

There are creative writing friends in the room with a window to the yard, and I climb through the window to greet them. I can't wait to show them this plant.

Then I look a little closer at my yard, and I realize that there's a giant hole in the middle of it. I peer down into the hole. There's an enormous drop to another, floating island. I wonder how I could have let the guys working on our yard dig that deep! It was careless of me not to monitor the digging more carefully! It's scary hiring people to work on your house. Or did the dog dig the hole? And how did they get through a couple feet of rock? Then again, are we ever safe if the only thing preventing us from plunging to our death is a couple feet of rock and soil? 

This is my problem now, however it got started. What do I do? 

INTERPRETATION

This dream makes me want to cry, because it's clear what it means to me. I really, really want to get this project done for a writing contest, and I can't wait to show off the fruits of my efforts (the fruit from the plant I've grown in the dream). In the dream, I wanted to show off what I'd patiently grown and nurtured to writing friends, and in real life, it's the same thing. 

Oh, and that hole. Well, it just seems like there's no end to the number of problems around the house. Chores to be done. Things to be repaired. I don't always know what to do. Sometimes, I just let a problem sit there forever. 

There's also no end to the problems I have to face with my creative writing project. I get this helpless feeling staring at the screen sometimes.

Emperor Palpatine orders Darth Vader to kiss his toes. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm watching Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine interact in a large, open room. The emperor asks Darth Vader to do or say increasingly humiliating things. I can feel what Darth Vader feels. He's uncomfortable, but eager to show his loyalty. 

But after a couple of these minor requests for signs of compliance, the emperor takes his shoe off and asks Darth Vader, "Shouldn't you be willing to kiss my toes?" 

I can feel how embarrassed Vader is, but he gets down on the floor and kisses that stockinged foot anyway out of fear. 

Then the Emperor says, "A truly loyal servant would let me take one of his fingers." He eyes Darth Vader's fingers greedily and smiles, like he might bite one of them off. (These are Anakin's real, flesh fingers, not robotic ones.) 

Now, I feel that the emperor may have crossed a line. Vader might feel compelled to rebel now. I can feel that Vader is still afraid, but he's getting outraged now. 

Then, I find myself living in a dorm-like room with a public shower next to it. I take my shower in the only available stall. When my roommate comes back, I ask her how a lesbian takes a shower, as though that might give me insight into myself.

I wake up and go back to bed, and I'm in a restaurant with exclusively black women. Every single table is taken. I go into another section of the restaurant, and I see one, single open table. I squeeze by a young white girl's chair and she asks me, "Do you have to sit there?"

I say with relative calm, "You want every single table, don't you?"

Then there was a whole sequence about making dumplings and pasta. I had a pasta machine, flour and oil, and I was trying to make dough for dumplings, but there was obviously way too much oil, and I watched myself think that there wasn't enough oil. 

Then I was cuddling with my husband in a warm, red sweater with a cup of tea. We were both young, but inside, I felt middle aged. 

INTERPRETATION

I kinda feel as though labeling the antagonist in a piece of fiction "the dark side" is cheating. In real life, the dark side manifests subtly (unless we're talking about an extreme, like a serial killer). "The dark side" is usually more like "the gray area." It's someone who loves you making inappropriate demands that aren't in your best interest. It's someone asking for test after test of someone's affection and never being satisfied. It's an increasing need for power and control in a relationship. Stuff like that. Stuff that one person feels they need but causes the other person pain or fear.

With the restaurant dream, I talked a lot with someone yesterday about how some people have an insane amount of money. I took numbers given to me by Google Gemini and calculated that an annual, 2% wealth tax on the top 1% of wealthiest Americans would pay for all of the annual expenses of SNAP, Medicare, and Medicaid. That's insane. Think of how much money they would still have after a 2% annual tax. "You want every single table, don't you?" I think the racial divide in the dream reflects how you hear about the privileges some people have. In the dream, the privileges are associated with race. In real life, the privileges are associated with money.

Naming the 12 religions you believe in. (dream)

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DREAM

I'm driving and I see one of the characters from my Lost Atlantis series, Matt. He's on a road trip. He's driving a vehicle, and there's a separate car with a vinyl-covered, cardboard shell in which a fluffy, orange kitten is driven independently in traffic with a remote and a self-driving system. The kitten's vehicle is quiet, like a bicycle, but it's big enough and fast enough to be on the main road. I watch the kitten's car make a pretty sharp turn. I'm impressed. I'm convinced that the kitten will be safe, despite my initial fears. The kitten and Matt will meet up at a certain point later on, but the road is longer and gentler for the kitten's vehicle.

Matt parks at a rest stop. There's a hospital painted the color of adobe there, keeping sick patients captive inside the way a mental hospital would. But this is mainly a hospital for physical health. Matt decides to investigate. After a little exploration into the condition of the patients, a nurse in a cliched "sexy nurse" miniskirt uniform gets up on a ledge and goes a dance in the corner of the room. She moves her hips in a serpentine fashion, indicating to another nurse that she recognizes Matt from his legs. They try to nab Matt for spying, but he jumps out the bathroom window. 

They don't follow him outside and he isn't worried about it. 

As he sits out there, my best friend is sitting beside him and says Matt needs to name the 12 religions he has. Matt ponders what that could mean. Could that mean the religions he practices? What if he only believes part of a religion? He considers naming several theories in math, but a passing child does it first. 

Matt is close to achieving his goal with this road trip. Sandi (the main character from the Lost Atlantis series) is getting sloppy and leaving clues, like her scent. I feel as though I am the narrator and must come up with the best ideas I can for why Sandi is betraying herself. 

Matt gets back on the road. He finds Sandi. 

We see inside the lodge at the remote location where he finds her. A circle of people holding various appetizers and meals walks around that circle like it's a cake walk or musical chairs. In practice, it's like a human sushi bar--anyone seated in an outer circle can grab and eat what's on the marching, inner circle's plates. 

INTERPRETATION

There are a lot of odd things about this dream. I'd like to think about what each could mean. 

The kitten in the self-driving vehicle. I haven't really started trusting the idea of a self-driving vehicle until recently. It sounds like it's gaining popularity in Los Angeles and Phoenix, which boggles my mind. Maybe it really could happen one day, in spite of the fading of the painted lines and the confusing placement of traffic lights that don't go all the way across every lane of traffic. Where I live, it often looks like a lane in which people are supposed to go straight ahead at 55 MPH has a traffic light over it which says left turn only. Is a self-driving car going to get that right when it's really hard for a human to get that right? Hey--maybe one day. I've been driving a lot recently, and to not have to drive and to not have to deal with a human at all to get somewhere sounds like a utopian dream.

Restraining people for physical health problems. I guess I've been thinking about some of the unfairness with which society treats people facing mental health challenges. We definitely don't think of pain in your leg as the same as pain in your mind. It's crazy to think of a hospital forcing you to stay for a broken leg. I just finished a memoir in which a woman is treated horribly for reaching out for help with her mental suffering, and she couldn't leave the mental hospital even though she checked herself in (I think this was in the 1950s). I'm doing some training in the mental health field, and it's very interesting to contrast the official, theoretical attitude to which mental health professionals hold themselves for thinking about the mentally ill versus the reality of lay people and even some of these same professionals once they get into an actual work position. I'm really not sure what the solution is for the mistreatment of vulnerable adults. I've been listening to the YouTuber Asmongold, recently, and he did a video on Chris Chan. I have exactly the same perspective as he does about people treating that poor soul badly--humans are animals and you can't be too shocked about them being uncivil. That's just their animal nature. But I think that once we notice a pattern of behavior, we can put up systematic rules to counter that pattern.

12 religions and most of them are math. I've been thinking about my spiritual beliefs in recent years, and I was telling a friend that I had checked the Bhagavad Gita out from the library. I think I said something about not being Hindu, and she replied, "Why label your beliefs?" Indeed--why do I bother with that? That's a question I've been wrestling with lately. I believe many different things from many different sources. And I recently read about half of a book about the origins of math, and I was really surprised at how faith-based some of my beliefs about math were. (I had kind of bought into the idea of Platonic ideals.)

Sandi leaving her scent. Why does Sandi, the main character, betray herself by leaving behind clues about where she is? I often feel as though I betray myself by posting on the internet. It would be so much more safe and secure to say nothing online, and to do as little as possible. But then the quality of my life goes down if I can't say the things I want to or do the things I want to. So there's always that ambivalence.

A human sushi bar. I guess I think a lot these days about how we have spent millennia using people like machines, and perhaps that time in human history is ending. We're starting to get a little more serious about merging robots with AI with the creation of tools like the Optimus robot.