Dream Me.

I've always had vivid dreams. Lots and lots of them. Things that would have been a nightmare as a child are now (mostly) fascinating voyages, although I do still have dreams that leave me breathless and trembling and afraid to get out of bed to pee.

It takes a few minutes for me to be coherent after one of those.

If you visit this post My dream girl you may wonder about my sanity. Then you might go here... and be certain that I've totally lost it.

Or maybe here
Then you might really start to wonder about me! Although as I was looking those posts up, I stopped to read them. I am not bad as a writer!

And reading back over those posts brought all the emotions and fear and thoughts of strength/protectiveness back to me. Strange how dreams can affect you.

It's interesting to me that in many of the more... deep dreams I have, I am cast in the role of the protector of children. Keeping them safe, willing to do whatever I must to guard them. I have surprised myself with the anger and capability to be violent in their defense. I have hacked and stabbed and hit and bit and screamed and torn people apart with bare hands. And when it was over, and I stood covered with gore and sweaty and still flushed with anger, I've felt triumphant and vindicated and willing to do it all over again if needed.

It doesn't take a psychiatrist to figure out why I'm protecting kids in my dreams, of course.

I've always had a love for fantasy and science fiction, although I'm really particular about what I read. Often I've heard that this book or that is wonderful. I go and get the book. I read it.
And I'm left disappointed.
Ender's Game is one of those.
Lots of hype over the movie will mean that the author will undoubtedly sell more copies of the story.
And I can't figure out why.
But that's me.
Digressing.
Surprise.

So between 6 and 9 this morning, I had a long, detailed dream. It's odd. There are some dreams that stay in a place I can recall them (EVERY detail, nuance, smell...) forever.

This was one of those.

I was the guardian of four little boys of royal descent. One was an infant about four months old, the oldest maybe five years. There was a battle going on, and I had to take them to a safe place. It was left to me to decide where that safe place would be. I sat in on the council meeting, and it somehow ended up that the only person who knew where the boys would go was me. I packed them in the cargo container myself. They were sleeping and wouldn't wake up until their arrival.
So strange.

I was also there to receive the container, so evidently I left the original planet well ahead of the boys.

We ended up at a sort of far-out commune sort of thing. Not far out in the hippie sense... but on an outlying planet that was part of the system.
Enclosed in a building. Four stories above ground and at least 20 below. I did not have occasion to go to the lowest levels during the dream.
When the cargo ship carrying the boys arrived, I was at the docks to meet it. The container wasn't addressed to me personally, but to the science department.

The bored steward handed me the cargo manifest to sign. I looked at all the shipping containers (here it is!!) for approximately the same amount of time (counting in my head one, two, three, four, five) and pretended to care if they were all accounted for, scrawled an illegible signature and made a comment about the weather. Endeavored to be forgettable. It seemed to work. He paid no attention to me at all.

I unpacked my boys. Hugs all around. We settled into life as part of the collective, eating group meals, participating in work for the collective. I wasn't assigned to child care, instead working in a lab, analyzing parasitic life forms and trying to help keep everyone healthy on a planet that wasn't meant for human life. (No, I don't know anything about that stuff. It was a dream! Don't you know that in my regular life I would be assigned to child care?? I have no doubt I could come up with a craft project made from space garbage as easily as I do from regular trash.)

By the time 'they' came looking for the boys, they were.. assimilated. Part of the group of kids. Their hair had grown out, they were dressed like all the other children, they all ran and played and learned and were cared for. I wore the baby until he learned to walk, then he went to care every day with the rest of the children.

There was an entire subterranean level devoted to gardening/farming. Lights that looked like natural sunlight. A playground. A place of learning, although it wasn't school. It was more like a place to exercise their minds. A lot of toys, building tools, sewing supplies, a room with paint and canvas and space to paint. Places for them to run. To swim. To climb.
The refugee status of more than a third of the population made it difficult for the questioners who were wandering all through the colony...everyone knew new people, and more than 200 had arrived the same day as my boys. We'd been there for several months, not sure how long.

We were producing some sort of war machines, but they were bright yellow. Nope, no subterfuge here. Everyone inspecting thought the parts we were shipping were farm equipment. We were under constant scrutiny and being rebellious anyway.

There's more, equally... derivative. My brain has obviously kept a great deal of the sci fi I used to devour constantly. It was a fascinating dream though because I was in it. Part of the story. Sometimes when I dream, I realize I'm dreaming and can direct things a bit. This one was completely out of my control. I didn't even know it was a dream. It just... was.

I woke up twice. Both times I got up to pee and blow my nose, and when I got back in my warm bed, I was instantly asleep again. And right back where I left off.

Unfortunately I eventually woke all the way up and wasn't able to get back to it, so I don't know what happened to my kids.

But I've worried over them all day long as if it were real.

And no. I have not consumed any cold medicine. Perhaps I should!