The Fourth Factor

It’s sometimes disappointing to wake up with only fragmented memories of dreams—but sometimes, trying to image what the context might have been is almost worth it.

In the beginning of the dream, I’m walking into a building. Many people are already there—it seems like some event is taking place, possibly multiple events. A couple men are entering at the same time as I am. One of them seems to be able to see me—although he doesn’t say anything to me—and the other doesn’t. I’m keeping track of the people who are able to see me since I’m really not supposed to be here, and I’m trying to keep a low profile.

The space I’m entering is basically a circular building with a separate central area, although the specifics kept changing throughout the dream. The first area I walk through, going clockwise, seems to be a restaurant. I pass people sitting at tables, including one that’s occupied by dreadlocked guys dressed in Jamaican colors who seem to be having a lot of fun.

[Note: today, the day after the dream, I was given a story to work on about reggae becoming a UNESCO intangible cultural heritage—so maybe that’s what they were so happy about.]

There was a lot that happened after that, most of which I can’t remember very clearly. But, towards the end, the space was like an auditorium, with a lecture area in the center and areas for students to sit all around it and higher up. I had put the table I had surreptitiously borrowed from Nancy Pelosi among the tables in the student area while I went and did some other stuff, but in the meantime, students had come in, including my friend Dirk. And somebody, noticing that the table is more wheelchair-friendly than the standard tables there, which have metal bars crisscrossed underneath them, has set him up with it.

Now, I had totally been intending to give Nancy Pelosi her table back. It’s what I came back here to do. But Dirk is clearly getting some good out of it. Also, Nancy Pelosi was more of a jerk than I had expected. I figure she can just buy a new table or something.

1.12.18

In this dream, I seem to have been selected to contribute to some collaborative project that has to do with “Game of Thrones” and a couple of prominent political figures, including Trump. I think there are 25 of us in all, but I don’t actually meet with the others—I just have an interview with someone, and that’s it. It’s in a large, modern building, and I recall being in an elevator at some point, deciding that I’ll go to join the others and see the complete work. It seems a little strange to me that I should be playing a part in this—I haven’t watched or read “Game of Thrones,” and I don’t seem to be personally involved in these matters the way everybody else is. But I’m curious enough to go anyway.

I join the others in a room with a large screen on one wall. It’s divided up into smaller rectangles of various sizes and proportions on which video loops are being played. I can see my own contribution among them, in the upper central area, showing the collapse of a temple-like building with hundreds of statues in front of it, among other images.

Then it starts playing, and my part comes first. In the narration, I recognize what I had said in the interview, now in a more polished form. It’s now clear that what I provided was the prologue, tracing out the historical background of the story told in all the subsequent parts, setting the stage for it. That makes a lot of sense, actually—now I can see how it’s relevant, even though it doesn’t directly concern the characters that the story is focused on.

(30.8.18)