Nightmare On Our Street

This morning I had a very disturbing dream. I know it was the morning because it woke me up and it was around 4:30 am.
Usually, I can forget it and go right back to sleep but this one stayed with me and I couldn’t rest.
In the dream, I was with my sisters and my mom in a hotel. I don’t know why we were there but it seemed like we were out of town for something.
My mom was telling us about something she just saw on TV. It’s hard to remember, you know how fuzzy dreams are, but it was like the US was under attack or had been invaded.
The bottom line was that we were in trouble. It was almost like our government was not doing enough to protect us and we, as citizens, were on our own.
One of my sisters who is EXTREMELY organized started making a plan for us. I don’t know what it was but she got out notecards and started writing – I know why I dreamed this; yesterday she sent a detailed itinerary for our trip to Dallas in May with scheduled stops for gas and bathroom breaks at precisely 12:00pm.
Suddenly, I realized that I was working and my office was right across the hall. As we were walking over, one of my sisters was telling the other about all these prophecies about Obama that were coming true.
When we got to my office I noticed that it wasn’t just a hotel and my place of work, but we were in a giant mall too.
As we were all standing around making plans, I remembered that Dash was still in my office and I needed to go find him. I became panicked when I didn’t see him at first so I started calling him and he crawled out from under a chair and came to me.
I started packing up everything he might need for an evacuation and got him all prepared. I was worried about what would happen to him more than me.
Suddenly, we felt a dull thud under our feet. We looked down the mall and through a huge floor to ceiling window and saw a fireball rise from the ground and bullets ricocheting off of cars.
I was concerned but had this strange feeling of detachment, as if I were watching this all on TV.
As my family and I were standing there, I realized that life was going to change. The world was going to change and it wasn’t going to be for the better. We were under attack and we may not survive…..and I was worried about my dog.

That’s about the time I woke up.

Usually when you wake up from a bad dream and realize that you’re safe in your bed, you have this overwhelming sense of relief. But this time I didn’t.
I had this sick feeling of dread and it didn’t go away.

Ok, so why am I dreaming things like this? Am I predicting the future or are my dreams a product of my environment?
I don’t believe in people predicting the future through their dreams so that leaves my environment.
When I tell you that I just finished a book about Helen of Troy and the Trojan War, you’ll probably understand why I dreamed about an attack on our country.
But I think the sick feeling that stayed with me after the dream has more to do with what is going on with our country now.
We are inundated with worries about the future. Who’s going to pay for these bank and automotive bailouts? Is Obama a Muslim and will he sell us out to his Muslim cronies? Where was this dude born?
Will we all die from this scary ass healthcare plan they are trying to force on us? Is the world going to end in 2012? Who the hell are these Mayans anyway and if they predicted the end of the world, why couldn’t they predict and prevent the end of their race? Is Brad and Angelina breaking up? Oh my God, how can Simon leave American Idol? Does Iran really have substantial nuclear weapons and should we be afraid? Holy crap, global warming, really??

There is no joy in looking to the future right now. I don’t really think Obama is evil and a Muslim but I think he’s got bad advisers and bad ideas.
I didn’t know I was scared about any of this but maybe I am and my dreams are trying to tell me.