The brain, twiddling its thumbs

I mentioned once before that I kept a dream journal for a time.

Sometimes I think it’d be fun to do it again, and other times—like sitting straight up in bed last night at 12:45 with the first real nightmare I can remember having in years—I think I’d be fighting windmills.  (Thanks to a blogging bud for sticking that phrase in ready space in my head.)  Do I really want to go looking for deep meaning in what I believe is basically the brain twiddling its thumbs?

So last night I didn’t get back to sleep for more than 20 minutes, and it was so stupid.  I don’t ever dream about anything stereotypically scary (that I can remember, anyway).

I am driving a school bus full of adults in a severe thunderstorm.  We’ve been traveling a long time without food, and we’re hungry.  I stop at the end of a long, dimly lit breezeway, and check off handwritten names on a list in my shirt pocket as everyone gets off.  Uniformed guards emerge from the breezeway and escort different people this way and that.  Doesn’t feel forced; it’s just the way it’s going.

So I get in a line with a few of my fellow passengers, and the guards hand us polystyrene cups to collect food from a makeshift cafeteria line.  I remember gathering some mashed potatoes and a few shrimp.  Then, I’m in a room with two guards.  One of them takes my cup from me and dumps it in a trash can, and starts scooping some homogeneous whitish goop in the cup instead, saying “here, you’re going to try this new food.”  I begin violently resisting.

That’s it.  That’s the scary part.  I sat straight up right then, with a gasp and a rapid heartbeat.  Not monsters; not falling; not drowning; not being naked in a public place.  Nope, it’s a coffee cup full of white stuff.

Now just what the hell is that?  Do I even want to know?  How could I ever tell whether I found the right answer?  Isn’t that the problem of the criterion?

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7 thoughts on “The brain, twiddling its thumbs”

  1. ‘seester: Yeah, but that’s more like weary resignation. This was rubber room behavior. 🙂

    Good to “see” you here, BamaDan! Welcome. See, you’re on what I’m talking about. If I may quote the great Nigel Tufnel: “Best leave it…unsolved.”

    Reply
  2. That sounds like some novels I’ve read. And it also reminds me of Soylent Green ration wafers. At least you were on to their scheme and refused the white stuff. Maybe the school bus you were driving was destined for some Obama Youth Community Service project. You were terrified of having to “engage” and having to “shed your cynicism,” weren’t you?

    Reply
  3. It’s simple really (if you went to the same elementary school I did). You’re just re-enacting the lunchroom lady dumping those icky made from the box mashed potatos and english peas on your tray!

    Reply
  4. Fighting: Now see, you say that, and it is melodious, because it is sarcastic. Sheesh, where the hell are all of the rest of us?

    Scott: The typical school cafeteria is indeed a special kind of gross. (Hey, wasn’t that a Phil Collins song?)

    Reply

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