Dream Journal: No one expects...

[hrj]

It started out with me getting caught up in some sort of massive police detainment of people for an unknown purpose. I was following wise principles and not answering any questions except with “am I under arrest?” And “am I free to go?” Which never got a straight answer. The police were making all sorts of vaguely threatening remarks like “you know, you’re a long way from home and any of your friends” which made me laugh because dream-me had been picked up only a couple blocks from home.

We kept getting herded in large random groups from one area to another in a massive convention center type space. (The dream gave one nod to COVID anxiety at one point when my group got moved into some sort of makeshift isolation tent and I pointed out that we’d all been breathing the same air before and were still breathing together there so what was the point?)

Somewhere in there, dream-me dropped the “don’t say anything” rule and started coaching other detainees on what and what not to say.

They hadn’t taken away our cell phones but were jamming them in some way so no one could get a signal. When you tried, your phone showed some sort of police propaganda video which was a cover for them hacking your phone and downloading it’s contents.

And that was when things got weird. Because they downloaded a bunch of research notes and images I’d collected for the Alpennia series, and the next thing I knew, a group of priests were grilling me on my theology, hoping to catch me in an error.

I told them, “if this is going to be an inquisition, then I want my lawyer *and* my bishop!” But dream-me was just yanking their chain because dream-me was still an atheist. Anyway the inquisitors were no more successful than the police had been in getting me to say anything useful. (I still had no idea what the purpose of the whole exercise was, though there were some suggestions that it involved a murder.)

They’d been projecting the research images from my phone on the wall of the convention center as they grilled me and that attracted a crowd from the other detainees that included a bunch of SCA folk (though no one I knew or who knew me). They started loudly discussing the context and meaning of the images to the bewilderment of the police.

Somehow I was suddenly dressed in an elaborate set of purple robes, including a drapey hood-like hat. And that’s when pearls started dropping out of my mouth as I tried to shout, “Am I under arrest? Am I free to go? I want to see my lawyer!” But my voice was getting raspy and no one could hear me.

And that’s when I woke up.

Analysis: the only part of this I can ascribe any meaning to is that the “pearls in the mouth, raspy voice” is probably when I started breathing through my mouth instead of the cpap mask and my mouth got all dry and it woke me up. But it’s nice to know that even dream me remembers proper police detention protocols.

Comments

[katerit]

I like the imagery of the pearls in your dream. I also approve of requesting your bishop - that's good, depending on the bishop.

It sounds overall like a stressful dream.

[hrj]

It was stressful mostly because of the bit about "we aren't going to tell you what this is all about" aspect. Though I haven't had a relationship with the police that would lead to it being a serious trigger. By the time we got to "I demand to speak to my bishop" I was feeling almost playfully in charge of the situation because it was clear that everyone else was incompetent.

[klwilliams]

You have much better dreams than I do.

[hrj]

I rarely have dreams I remember this vividly and coherently. I think one of the reasons I remembered this one is that dawn has shifted early enough that I've switched from the daylight-alarmclock to leaving my curtains open to wake with the natural light. It allows me a softer transition from sleep. The more constant interference with remembering dreams is that I'm still dependent on running low-volume audiobooks while I sleep to combat insomnia. So when I wake up, often any dream memories are over-written by the audiobook. (The audiobooks serve two purposes: as "white noise" to mask my tinnitus, and as a way of distracting my conscious brain to enter/return to a sleep state more easily.)

[cellio]

This. :-)