Dream Big, or Don't Dream at All

I read somewhere that the one thing, above all else, that is a sure-fire conversation killer is to start talking about dreams. Apparently, it’s one of the few topics where the listener has zero input. I think of this whenever someone shares one of their dreams, and the result usually involves my eyes glazing over as I’m deep in thought wondering why that is and how I use to like hearing the strangeness of others’ dreams. Ultimately, it’s become something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

That being said, I had a dream last night. It woke me at 1:40 in the morning with my heart pounding and a sharp pain in my ribs, and it kept me up most of the night after that. Similar to most dreams, some details were fluid and didn’t make much sense, but I’ll do my best to convey the basics of one of the greatest dream of all time.

It starts out with me being the President of the United States. I don’t remember most of my dreams, but I like to think that I carry some weighty title like that in the vast majority of them. I had my beautiful wife next to me and we were talking to a pilot of sorts through a hatch in the ceiling. He asked a question and gave a demonic smile when my wife agreed to go explore the moon with him. I think it was actually the sun, but that makes even less sense.

Either way, I felt like I had been stabbed in the back by my own wife as she scurried up through the hole in the ceiling. Decisions were being made without me, the President, and I knew that I was no longer safe where I was. My reactions were slow; I remember thinking that I should have jumped up and closed the hatch denying my wife the chance to go explore the moon (or sun), sealed it with a spin of the wheel, and hightailed it out of there.

I knew that safety existed through a blue door somewhere in the distance.

I should have followed my instincts, but something held me back. This is where it gets kind of murky, as I’m not sure why I didn’t immediately seek refuge behind the blue door. When I found the blue door though, I turned the other way, for there was work to be done. Some sort of mysterious mission had to be accomplished first.

I went down a hallway looking for answers. The hallway turned to the left and then there was a door to a closet. Behind that door was a man, who I guess didn’t have the right answers, because I killed him. I killed him with my bare hands.

This is a first for me. I’m not a killer, in real life or in dreams, so I was little freaked out by it. I also knew that this only heightened the danger I was in and further jeopardized my mysterious mission, so I had to hide the body. To do this, I went back down the hallway and turned out the lights. Brilliant, eh? No one would suspect to look down a dark hallway.

There was a group of important people walking by just as I was switching off the lights and they asked me what I was up to. The biggest of the bunch, a guy who must have been at least 7 feet tall, was suspicious and I had to turn him away from going down the hall.

I went on my way searching for whatever I was searching for when there was commotion from the group as they had turned back to search the dark hallway. I knew that I didn’t have much time. I sprinted towards the sanctuary of the blue door. I ran past the 7-foot man. I was impressed with myself for how fast I was running. As the door was quickly approaching, I heard a gunshot.

That’s when I woke up, at 1:40 in the morning, with my heart racing and a sharp pain in my ribs. I think I dreamt that I got shot and the pain is what woke me up. As I tried to calm down, and sort through this dream, I kept thinking that I should have killed the 7-foot tall man as I ran by; if I had jumped up and grabbed his head, it wouldn’t have slowed me down too much and I would have made it to the blue door.

Now, after thinking about my violent dream through the rest of the night - yep, I couldn't fall back asleep -and most of the day, I’m a little worried about myself. I mean, who would want to be President of the United States?