I am an extremely active sleepwalker and especially sleep-texter. Here is a record of my sleepwalking activities, transcriptions of my sleep text conversations, and narrations of my crazy dreams.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Dream: Paying the Toll

This dream was set sometime in the future. I dreamed that earth was imploding, and the inhabitants had an estimated seven years to evacuate. The logistics of this was a problem of unthinkable proportions. How do you evacuate so many people, in so little time. Where can they go if they do leave? The space stations could only support a very small number. Most of the worlds leaders had been sent there right away, and they were making decisions from afar.

There had been two planets in the galaxy next to ours that had been discovered to have earth-like atmospheric conditions. They had been cultivating these planets for the past decade, but it was not nearly ready for so many inhabitants.

The leaders decided, however, that it was the only viable option. They began to send large passenger ships to the new planets. The ships could each hold approximately ten thousand people each. It took about a month for a ship to reach either of the planets. Seven years was not nearly enough time to evacuate everyone. They were trying to build more ships as fast as possible, but it was looking futile.

It was a very controversial subject on Earth, of course. Americans and other rich countries were being evacuated first. It was a mandatory evacuation, but there were millions of people all over the world who refused to go because they did not believe that the Earth was in danger. How do you enforce a mandatory evacuation when there wasn't enough time to evacuate everyone anyway. Tragedy was inevitable.

Once in a while, for no reason that anyone was able to figure out, one of the ships would explode at the halfway point between Earth and the new planets. Ten thousand people would be lost in a huge, blue explosion. Engineers couldn't explain it. It was a terrible risk you had to take in the evacuation process.

I was very much like myself in this dream. I was a 20-something year old girl. (but I looked different, and had a different name. I can't remember what it was. Emily maybe.) I was being evacuated on one of the ships. I was terrified, and in deep mourning for what we were losing.So much history!
I had to fly to Italy to take a small craft to the larger passenger ship. (the larger ships never docked on Earth.)
There was a launching station just outside Rome. As I was taking off, I could see all the Roman buildings -the colosseum, the Vatican, all the museums etc. I started to cry for the loss of them. I thought about how my future children would not know Earth. I thought about how once our generations died out, Earth would be forgotten.

Once on the passenger ship, I was put into a sleep stasus for the journey.

In the dream, I woke, gasping. My entire body ached. I lay in my sleep pod shaking until I could breath properly. Where were we? Had we arrived?

I got up and wandered around. Other people were waking, gasping and sweating. There were others milling around, confused. There were supposed to be attendants helping us when we woke up from our stasus. I wandered until I came to an observation room. All I saw out the windows was blackness and stars. It looked like we had not yet reached the new planet, but that couldn't be possible.

The ship was crescent shaped. The room I was in was on the far right side. Through the windows, I could see the rest of the ship. As I watched, in the very center of the crescent there was a strange blue light, glowing, getting larger. It began to spread in all directions, engulfing the ship. I realized the ship was exploding.

I stood there frozen. There was nothing I could do. I was going to die. I was distantly aware of the people around me screaming as I was engulfed in blue fire.

...

Still dreaming, I awoke, gasping and shaking once more. It took a very long time before I gained control of my senses. My vision, which was bright white and blurry, began to clear. Slowly,

I sat up. I was sitting in the middle of what looked like a thousand bodies lying everywhere. I was in shock, and hardly registered the horror of this sight as I stared at them dully. My memories started to come back. Evacuation. Waking up on the ship. Blue fire. Explosion. Death.

I looked around more carefully. I was in a gigantic room. The distant walls seemed to be made of blue fire. I looked again at the bodies around me, and realized they were not dead after all. They were only unconscious, as presumably I had been moments ago. I saw that across the gigantic room were about 500 people walking around, talking, crying, arguing. I walked towards them.

When I had almost reached them, I heard a whimpering coming from my left. I looked and saw a man sitting by himself, rocking back and forth, crying:
"It wasn't supposed to be like this.... Mistake...They got the wrong ship... Mistake! ..I'm not supposed to be here! ...Not part of the plan!"
He turned to me, pale and wide eyed. He was in shock, and I listened to his ramblings. He told me how he was a government official, part of the very few who knew the full truth.

The government had been contacted by an alien race.
"Terrible beings. Just terrible," he kept saying.
The aliens had told the leaders that the people of Earth were unauthorized to cross the boundary between galexies, as it was Their territory. They would allow the Earth ships to pass through that part of space if the leaders would agree to pay a toll. One ship out of every 500 to cross the boundary would be taken, and those on board would then be the property of the aliens. The leaders, out of options, had agreed. No one knew what happened to those who were taken. The blue explosion was a transportation technology.

I looked around fearfully as he spoke. I realized we were in a gigantic cage.



Then I woke up in real life, gasping. There were so many awakenings in the dream itself, I had to take a moment to make sure I was really awake.
Very sci-fi, this dream. I never got to see the aliens. I wonder what they wanted humans for? It's too bad I never have follow-up dreams. Although, maybe it's best if I don't find out what happens in this one...

No comments:

Post a Comment