I know that every time someone tells you about a dream they've had, it always sounds stranger than expected because you don't normally get the visualizations, but I have to try to tell you all about the dream I was having until my alarm sounded this morning.
It started with me in a forest of huge bigger-than-redwood trees that were spaced unusually far apart. Almost like a prairie with the occasional giant fucking tree. Among these giants, one old fallen trunk was semi-uprooted and leaning at about 85 degrees. The trunk was maybe twenty feet in diameter and all the branches were long gone- just a tree trunk and exposed root base holding the incline. I went to the tree and climbed up the jagged and knotty root base and walked the top side of the trunk to near the end and was surprised that my weight didn't even make the tree wiggle or sway.
So then the environment changes (as is the case with dreams) to the tree trunk being at Cannon Beach, Oregon and the weather is beautiful. I'm sitting there and it's breezy and nice, and I see a small jet coming in from the sea about five feet above the water. My first thought was that it was a drug runner, but then the jet turned toward me (rather than hitting some buildings) and it's not a normal jet. It's a strangely shaped plane whose shape is like what you'd get if you pushed opposite corners of a square piece of paper a little together and away from one of the other corners. Like a wrinkle in a carpet that tapers. I'm sure I'm not going to be able to explain this very well. Suffice it to say, it's an unusual shape that is decidedly un-airplane-like. It flies around like a spaceship or something- it can fly at about any speed, and can stop and change direction in perplexing ways, but doesn't seem to be able to hover. I'm watching this crazy thing move in all these improbable ways, and I see "U. S. Air Force" written on it, and am impressed with the technology. I'm looking at it all over for signs of jetwash, jet vectoring, heat distortion- anything, and I'm seeing none of it. I have no idea what is propelling this thing. Then a conventional F-16 shows up and they proceed to dogfight.
At this point, the dream changes from a first-person experience to a movie, where my minds eye is a camera that follows the action. The two planes cat-and-mouse through a canyon environment and after a few minutes, the pilots salute each other and they exit the canyon- the F-16 banking left, and the weird plane to the right.
Toward the left is some kind of large alien looking structure that is involved in carnage. Now, this thing is unclear, but it has four "guns" that are shooting some kind of energy or plasma beam. The gun turrets are openings with top-hinged metal plate covers that swing up to expose the guns. Like the cannon port covers on an old battleship, or in my parlance, like some Star Wars At-At kind of thing. Observe:
Now, in this case, the guns are not covered by the "doors" or "lids", but rather the windows are. But in my dream, the guns of this thing pop up from under covers like the headlights of a Corvette (you know, the old ones with pop-up headlights. Why they got rid of that feature is beyond me- I think that was the only reason why I liked Corvettes as a kid.)
So, there is this alien plasma-death-ray shooter thing with four "guns"- two by two. All hell is breaking loose, and the death ray dealy doesn't cause explosions or fire or anything- it quickly dissolves matter, leaving empty space. There isn't much sound with it either. The F-16 engages this thing and is dissolved in short order, but the weird plane with it's unpredictable flight path is bobbing and weaving around the periphery of the death ray range. Unable to get close to the source, the weird plane pilot is becoming frustrated and flies behind the cover of a building, and while behind it, one of the death ray guns shoots a hole in the foundation of the building, exposing daylight. The pilot of the weird plane flies into this new hole the building and behind that a new empty space is formed by a following death ray (or whatever I'm calling it) plasma shot, and the pilot flies to that point. The alien weapon is shooting in a path, and the pilot of the weird jet is following this path of not-destruction, but vacant space, closer and closer to the source. The alien gunners it turns out can't see through their own weapons beam, so the guy gets closer and closer as the aliens continue the firing. Then, as the aliens finally turn to shoot somewhere else, the weird plane emerges right up in their grill, so to speak, and shoots them with whatever he has, and it makes a "pyew pyew" sound and the gun turret blows up, but the explosion is too close, and the weird plane is damaged. The pilot ejects, but his inertia carries him toward the alien turret he's just blown up, and as the heavy metal lid closes over the smoking detritus that was once a death/plasma gun, he strikes the outside of the alien vessel and his ankle is trapped by the closing metal lid. He's held there in agony like a bear in a trap, as the scene changes.
Cut to what I think is the United Nations building, or maybe an underground bunker somewhere- perhaps the Pentagon. Someplace important, with dramatic lighting and cherry wood paneling. This scene is very Dr. Strangelove-esque, or maybe a little like the Henry Fonda movie Fail-Safe. The setting is a wood paneled room with an unnatural red-orange tint, like color movies from the 50's had, and it begins with a close up of Lee Majors on the telephone.
He sets the phone down and does his best satisfied squint (flexing his dramatic range) and says to either Katie Segal
or Mercedes Ruehl
"Get me Eisenhower!"
As she leaves the room, she passes a seated Peter Sellers
who has a strange grin on his face, and she says to him "Is that a problem?", and he replies "That depends- do we have enough cocktail spoons?" and then the camera zooms in on his smile featuring terrible Austin Powers teeth.
At that moment my alarm clock went off, and so I have no idea what the possible meaning or consequence of the cocktails spoons might have been. This may help explain why I'm so often tired, even after sleeping...
Labels: Mental floss