I had a dream I was back in the Army when suddenly we were all caught up in a Civil War, and different Regiments were taking different sides. My Unit was decided to stay loyal to the Government, and I really had no doubt but that the Government Forces would soon have the Rebellion under control. My Platoon was deploying and I was riding in the back of the truck, and I took my mind and attention off of things for a moment and when I looked up, some of the Rebels had pulled up behind and had their rifles pointed into my vehicle and at myself, and my gun was not at the ready. I felt really demoralized. If I had been doing my job right then I would have seen them coming and would had been able to lay down enough fire to either destroy them or at least enough to keep them back. Instead, well, they had the drop on us and the only sensible thing to do was to surrender. Indeed, we were sort of lucky. In the usual ambush, the tactic is to simply lay down a blanket of fire, and to consider taking prisoners only afterward, as those who managed to dive into a hole here and there would poke white flags up out of their cover. So, taking my platoon's surrender was something of a curtesy... though probably not unheard of in such Civil Conflicts where one is not anxious to provoke drastic responses.
But my next thoughts and reactions surprised me. I thought that perhaps being taken prisoner was at least preferrable to what the alternative would have been, that is, having to have killed those other soldiers. I was thinking that the feeling of demoralized defeat was better than feeling the anguish of having blood on my hands. I know, earlier in my life, I would not have thought of that. This reluctance to violence is of relatively recent development.
Later in the dream, our captures put us in the charge of Atomic Powered Automatons -- little robots with weapons attached. It seems the Rebels needed to go off and be about their business and needed to leave us with these machines. When I asked about having to get up to get and prepare food or going to the latrine, the Rebels told me that the machines would not allow me to move. But when they left, I found that the Robots were much more accomodating, and that the Rebels had lied to me... probably just for the enjoyment of seeing my anxiety. But the Atomic Automatons allowed a great deal of freedom as long as they could ascertain that we were not in the process of attempting to escape.
And at no time did I doubt that the Government Forces would eventually resolve this Rebellion and that this confinement would come to an end.