tag:dreamwidth.org,2016-07-20:2533644a mundane clump of dirt; much beloved by god, like any othera dream journalvictoryarch2016-08-11T03:06:09Ztag:dreamwidth.org,2016-07-20:2533644:5848/6/16 - Unending Terrorism2016-08-09T01:36:16Z2016-08-11T03:06:09Zpublic0I dreamed I was going to a really preppy boarding school in London instead of my current high school. At this school's orientation, I met a little boy (around 10yo) who asked me to help him settle into his new dorm room. We went up to his room, and he began searching for a suitable school uniform & jacket among an entire wall of different-sized uniforms. It occurred to me that I should go up to my own room so I could select my own uniform. At that moment a butler came in and told me I wasn't supposed to be in the boy's room.<br /><br />That night, the little boy and I went to a nearby park in London. At this moment in the park, I subconsciously realized that I was having a reoccurring dream- that I'd had some semblance of the same dream <i>over</i> and <i>over</i> and <i>over</i> again that night. In every single dream, I was out at night time on <i>that</i> Street outside <i>that</i> park in London, and in every single dream I was nearly trampled by moving horse-drawn carriages on one side of the Street. In every dream, the Street's power went down, the horses went crazy, a terrorist bomb detonated, and my dream-self barely survived to live the same dream over again.<br /><br />So, then the Street's power went down in thiS dream, I filled with dread because I <i>thought</i> I knew what was about to happen. Sure enough, the horses went berserk. I grabbed the boys hand, directed him away from the horse carriage lane, and told him we needed to get back to the boarding school. Everyone on the street had pulled out their phone flashlights; I pulled mine out too, and we started jogging towards the Intersection at the end of the Street where the power was still on. Surely if we got that far, we'd be out of the bomb's radius.<br /><br />But when we reached the Intersection, Syndrome (from Pixar's <i>The Incredibles</i>) suddenly descended from the sky right above me. I realized Syndrome was the one responsible for all of the terror that had occurred in my reoccurring dreams that night. And I said to myself, '<i>of fucking course we're not out of the woods. Of course the Source of all my nightmares is gonna arrive exactly where we are.</i>' I knew that running would draw Syndrome's attention to myself, so instead I dove under a bush next to the crosswalk. <br /><br />Syndrome began a menacing speech directed at everyone at the Intersection- everyone within earshot. All the while he directed some sort of hovering Weapon down from the sky. It was getting close to me, too close. I huddled further under the bush. Suddenly the weapon burst into action and in <i>seconds</i> it grabbed a human from the street and slit his body into several chunks in midair. I had a clearer view of the body than anyone else at the Intersection- I could see his internal organs.<br /><br />We got up and ran. The little boy and I ran to a white food cart that was sitting in the Intersection. We knew Syndrome would chase us if he saw us running down a street, so we hopped into the food cart.<br /><br />Inside the food cart (which was very big on the inside), there was one adult lady and several kids between 9 and 19 years old. They were quickly putting food displays away to make it look like the cart wasn't open for business, so that Syndrome would ignore it. I saw the chance to grab several glazed pretzels and stuffed them into my mouth before lying down flat on the ground. Everyone followed suit, lying down on the ground, planning to stay out of sight and out of mind on the floor of the cart until Syndrome abandoned the Intersection.<br /><br />But I s2g Syndrome could <i>sense</i> that we were hiding from him. Or that <i>I</i> was hiding from him. Because immediately he ceased his menacing speech, he extended a large mechanic arm with which he PICKED UP the food cart, and he chucked it.<br /><br />I remember realizing that I was going to die, but I don't remember it happening. I don't remember the food cart hitting the ground. Instead, the little boy and I were suddenly back in the boy's room. 'Surely we're out of the woods now,' I thought to myself. But we were still scared, and we ran to a little cubicle room extension that stuck out the side of the dormitory building from the boy's room (did that make sense? i don't know how else to briefly explain it). The cubicle had windows, and through the windows I could see Syndrome- now a giant- stomping through the streets of London looking for people to terrorize. He was looking for us.<br /><br />At this point in my dream, I knew I was dreaming. I KNEW I was dreaming, but I couldn't wake up. Or, rather, I knew I had the <i>option</i> to wake up but I didn't want to wake up until I knew my dream-self was permenantly safe from Syndrome.<br /><br />"Let's go back into the room!" I said to the boy. We were surely more vulnerable in a cubicle outside the building than we would be if we took cover deep inside the building. But when we hopped out of the cubicle, we were not in the boy's room.<br /><br />We were on the roof.<br /><br />We were suddenly in the most vulnerable place we possible could of been in. There was no escape. I could see Syndrome one street over from us. He was turning, turning towards us-<br /><br />That's when I finally forced myself to wake up. I finally realized that I'd been living through nonstop terrorism all night, and it was never going to stop until I woke up. There wasn't a happy ending.<br /><br />---<br /><br />Dream Meaning<br /><br />The day before I had this dream, I'd briefly read about Donald Trump's nuclear weapon talk, and I was very scared. It was just one of those moments when I realized that my world can turn completely upside down in one second- mainly by people in positions power- and there's nothing I can do to stop it. That feeling of vulnerability and helplessness manifested itself in this dream where I was constantly under attack and had no way to fight back. <br /><br />On a more domestic(?) note, I've felt really powerless when it comes to living the type of life I <i>want</i> to live. My priorities just do not align with my Baptist parents' or my Baptist school's, and I hate pretending to share beliefs that once made me so anxious and depressed. I hate having to go on mission trips or being forced to take a mission project class every single day, because I don't want to have to represent a type of religion that's so hateful and exclusionary and performative. But I don't know how to distance myself from it without making myself very vulnerable to people who won't hesitate to belittle and disregard everything that is important to me. Again, this dream carried that vulnerability and stress, as well as the perpetual nature of my experiences in the Baptist church.<br /><br />I'm not sure what the little boy represented. Why was he with me the entire dream? According to dreammoods.com, 'To save a child in your dream signifies your attempts to save a part of yourself from being destroyed.' haha. dream websites. Uhh but I <i>would</i> tend to interpret the boy as a more vulnerable and cherished part of myself. Because, over the past 5 years I've had to unlearn all of the abusive doctrines and self-hatred I was taught in the IFB cult and the Baptist church. And I've had to completely rewrite a new set of values for myself, simply to keep from falling headlong into the anxiety and depression I was falling into when I was 12, 13, & 14 years old. I'm so proud of myself for being brave enough to reject those toxic teachings. So proud, dude. My self-chosen values are unspeakably important and revolutionary in the context of my own life. But I know that none of these Baptist teachers at my church and school, nor my parents, can fathom how life-saving these values are to me. And never hesitated to belittle and disregard beliefs that contradict their personal interpretations of the Bible. So I feel very afraid to be honest about my feelings and my priorities, because being honest has NEVER ended well for me. And I hate how honesty makes me so vulnerable to such hateful and self-righteous people. So yeah, the boy probably represents my Values, and my attempts to save that part of myself from being attacked.<br /><br />---<br /><br />TLDR: I had repetitive dreams of being unable to escape a superhuman terrorist. My dream represented my feelings of vulnerablity and helplessness<br /><br /><img src="https://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=victoriarch&ditemid=584" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> comments