I had a dream last night that involved me trying to draw a world map. I had no trouble with North and South America, but got hung up somewhere between between Scandinavia and the Mediterranean Sea. After I finished the Western hemisphere, you see, the polar ice caps melted, dessimating the world’s coastlines as we know them. The dream ended with some clammers and fisherman off the southern coast of Europe (which was cold and arctic-like) lamenting the scarcity of food and the decline of the seafood industry.
The eerieness of the nightmare woke me up with a jolt, like no alarm clock or cup of tea has ever been able to do. But I wasn’t awake exactly. I vaguely remember using the bathroom and climbing back into bed to wait for sleep that didn’t come. In a delirious half-daze, I worked myself into a near panic attack as I lay there thinking about the coming apocalypse, pondering everything from the cataclysmic effect of global warming to what the hell will happen if and when a magnetic polar reversal occurs in my lifetime—if it wasn’t, in fact, happening at that very moment.
I can’t explain it, but every so often I get truly terrified in the middle of the night. Even more rarely, it results in me crying hysterically until I fully wake up and realize that my thought process makes no sense whatsoever, or until I shake Asa awake and he says something comforting like “Snoops, you’re being silly” and hugs me back to sleep.
Luckily, the compasses still pointed north when I woke up this morning. Nothing catastrophically out-of-the-ordinary was on Morning Edition (Yeltsin’s death was news, of course, as is everything that happens in Iraq, but nothing was entirely unpredictable). The bus arrived exactly when the Transit Tracker told me it would; the connecting bus only a minute after I stepped off the first. Portland still looked beautiful under the morning sun—which rose in the east, not the west—sitting confidently above the grain silos and barges that line the glimmering Willamette.
The world may have been in order, but I’ve felt a little off all day, like my personal North pole had gone south. It’s just a lack of sleep, I’m sure, but I’m really looking forward to tomorrow’s sunrise. Because one constant is certain: Tuesdays are always better than Mondays.
10 responses so far ↓
1 squiddichino // Apr 23, 2007 at 7:21 pm
I have these sorts of dreams, though not nearly as vivid or personal… just that the world is going to eat itself whole, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Meh.
2 TimsHead // Apr 23, 2007 at 7:39 pm
After all, The Boomtown Rats never recorded a song called “I Don’t Like Tuesdays.”
It’s probably a sign of your worldview that your anxieties involve global cataclysms. Most people’s anxiety dreams are more personal in nature. Tell your environmentalist nature, generally a good thing, to give it a rest while you rest.
ryc: Didn’t bring the camera to cleanup. Would have been a nice before-and-after. Photos showing how improved the trail is since we started the project would have been even better.
3 Boo // Apr 23, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Maybe you were feeling the real shift that has happened. It is disturbing when stripped to it’s bare bones implications. Gonzalez v. Carhart. This is the last comment I will make mentioning it until I can excerpt and write it out whole, but the poles switching is a great analogy for what has happened.
Mondays do blow, Here’s to better dreams for you.
ryc: I wrote two posts in a row where I talked of students reactions to the shooting. It kind of plays big in schools and infiltrates our hearts for some time. Hey, but it’s way different today.
4 Boo // Apr 23, 2007 at 10:01 pm
ryc: The US Supreme Court came down with a ruling on Saturday, the ramifications of which have no been discussed in depth to my knowledge by analysts yet. It is on their page in the latest slip opinions.
The gist: A medical procedure was banned for women because it was the safest one for women and causing them to have only riskier options might make them toe the moral line the court now seeks to set for Americans. They admit it too. That is new. That is a legal shift of gigantic proportions as it concerns women in this country. And the frightening part is not about abortion. That is still legal, even later term and even more painful for the fetus procedures are still legal. Just one procedure was banned. The safest for some women according to experts.
People don’t seem to care though. A subtle shift but really, an astounding one.
5 Boo // Apr 23, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Okay, that was the last one. Sorry.
6 Uncle Joe // Apr 24, 2007 at 3:06 am
Honey ,if you can’t sleep call Uncle Joe !Sounds
like you are suffering from a raised state of consciousness,your dreams are of globel concern. I think often about how the warming will effect you and Ali ,Marisa and Kieran and your kids. I have become fanatical about recycle ,turning off lights ,unplugging appliances and TV’s when I am away for a week or more.
Watch Planet Earth on the Discovery channel
it will give you a whole new appreciation for
this great ball we call home.
Make your reservation for Grandma’s party.
Hugs , Un Joe
7 the boss // Apr 24, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Hope you had a good sleep last night. I read your interests and crossword puzzles and glazed donuts are wonderful and add a good cuppa joe and my morning is made! I’ve never seen this kind of comment box. I came over via Boowasborn.
Good day!
8 Kathryn // Apr 24, 2007 at 3:00 pm
I woke up at 2:45 this morning in an absolute panic about switching all the light bulbs in my apartment to the ugly yet energy efficient and enviro friendly ones and sick about all the sea lions caught in the fish farm nets off the coast of Tofino. I really shouldn’t watch the news before going to bed.
9 Natalie B // Apr 24, 2007 at 8:55 pm
Tuesdays ARE better than Mondays! And you know what? In true government job style, Wednesdays are the best because they’re WIDE Wednesday, when yummy treats are brought in by a designated coworker. It means I don’t have to bring a snack to work, just lunch! yay! Actually, it means I don’t have to buy a snack, because I typically not organized enough to bring one. There’s my random input! Now have a good sleep tonight! Just think about the trees (they’ve lived through so much!)
10 whatever749 // Apr 25, 2007 at 7:32 pm
I hate those types of dreams, and I think we have awhile before the poles reverse.
I don’t wanna be around for that.