In the Virtual Bank Line

Saturday night's dream:

I was at work and my boss called me into his office. And now, he had a real office with an actual door. And not just one door. He had a back door, which he opened to reveal a sort of back yard, full of piglets.
"Hey, you know what?" he said in that bright, enthusiastic tone that he always has when he's trying to sell me on doing some project. "Could you train these pigs? Like to sit, and fetch and stuff?"

"Jon, I don't know how to train pigs. I mean, are they like dogs? Can you clicker train them with treats and stuff?"

"Exactly! See, you know how to do this! Great. So, go ahead and go to a pet store and get everything you need. Can you have them all sitting by the end of the week?"

I told my boss about this dream and he laughed a lot. I told him that I feel pretty confident in telling him that training pigs is well outside my skill set, and I like it that way.

On Sunday night, I had this cool dream.

The seven who went on the Nano retreat were working on a tandem story. Each one of us had a sort of journal that we could look at and see the progress being made by others. We all knew that, when we got to critical points in the narrative, we would all be magically whisked away to some place where we would all meet and resolve the story problem. I was sitting in a class at a large univerity with Mike when I happened to look at my copy of the book and notice that we were coming to a critical point. I leaned over and said to him "If you're working on anything critical, you'd better wrap it up. We're about to leave." Seconds later the seven of us were running through a field in a big park, laughing together and generally being pleased to see each other.

Yeah. The retreat was sort of like that.

And I have no idea where last night's dream came from.

I was standing on a rocky hill. There is a large group of men doing battle drills because they are just about to fight some enemy. They're all really nervous because they know they are going to lose. Everyone who faces this enemy does. Little is known about this enemy, and at the time the dream takes place (let me place the time for you - everyone is wearing wool tunics under leather and metal armor, and sandals) there is no reason to expect that the opposing army has some superior technology. The best they can do is have some amazing new strategy that allows them to cut down their opponents like wheat, so this army feels that their time is best spent drilling.

I hear a noise and look behind me, but there is nothing to see. I look back, and suddenly the battle has already started. The enemy had materialized out of nowhere - but they are not ordinary men. They have the same uniforms (white tunics with black metal and leather armor) but they also have giant wings coming from their backs. Huge, glossy black wings that they beat in the faces of the opposing soldiers, terrifying them. There are winged men with swords and winged men with a sort of thing that looks like an eagle with its beak raised and its wings outstretched. They are goring people with the sharp beak tip, stabbing them with the razor-sharp wings, or bludgeoning them with the whole thing, which looks to be made of silver or steel and looks very heavy and lethal.

The non-winged fighters are frightened, confused and losing. They have no idea where these men could have come from or how they just appeared out of nowhere right in their midst. I look behind me where I heard the original noise and I see the answer. They are phased. Another column of the warriors is materializing, already in formation, all ready to relieve the winged men who show no signs of fatigue, but who allow the new group to take over anyway. Wave upon wave of the winged men is materializing and I see something odd. There are two kinds of men in each column. There are men with two swords crossed over their heads as they march, and there are men with the giant eagles held over their heads as they march. But now I see a third kind.

This man has the head of a dog (he looks very Anubis-like) and holds no weapons, but both hands are raised in clenched fists. As the column of winged warriors passes me, Anubis looks at me and winks, giving me the sign for "I love you" and keeps marching by. None of the warriors notice me, and I know that after the other army has been completely decimated, they will just leave.

And that dream had a bitchin' soundtrack too!