Aliens have taken over Earth! Or so it was in my dream last night, at any rate. :) I've been having some weird dreams lately, mostly little vignettes that I can't remember well; I think it's because I've been so busy and had so much on my mind that I don't rest very well and pop in and out of REM sleep. No, I don't really believe that God has literally spoken to me through dreams (not that He couldn't, but He has more effective ways), but sometimes I do think my dreams reflect what I've been subconsciously thinking about.
This morning I woke up around 5am from a really clear dream, so I immediately typed up as much as I could remember of it, before it all faded away. I used to do this sometimes on paper journals; typing on the laptop is much faster. I post it here in unedited honesty -- I think it does indicate some things I'm wrestling with!
(oh, and the photo above is from a trip to Seattle a couple years ago; I thought it might be a good illustration to accompany the dream.)
Earth has been taken over by aliens! They can take form to look and talk like people, and we are not totally sure if they're friendly or not; it's kind of like a benevolent dictatorship. Their technology is unfathomably beyond ours; there's no contest and no resistance. I and others I know are being rounded up; we're in a bus or something similar, in a major metropolitan area (Seattle?). It's cold but sunny outside as we pass the waterfront and see the sparkling modern buildings, reshaped and transformed somehow by alien technology....
As we pass a huge ice rink, two colours are playing; one is the Calgary Flames. Somebody on the bus comments, "Flames suck!" :) .... The general feeling is that the aliens don't want us to be unduly alarmed; life can still go on -- but they are definitely in control.
We're rounded up into a giant stadium, packed with maybe 20,000 people, maybe 200,000; I don't know. Human-form aliens are scattered amongst us, almost 1:1; they can talk with us and are generally friendly but a bit quiet. I still have this overriding anxiety about what's going on -- what do they want, what will happen to us -- but the aliens are efficient and in control: they have a plan, and they know what they're doing.... If they had wanted to kill us, they could easily have done so already, so maybe they really are friendly.
The alien sitting next to me is a girl; I'm with others I know and they seem to accept her readily. She's pretty and soft-spoken and doesn't seem to have much of a personal agenda when she talks with us -- if they have a nefarious hidden-agenda, she doesn't know it, and she's just following what is the accepted track.
I'm now wearing some sort of big, loose jacket, with a separable lining; it doesn't fit well and might be upside-down. There are a couple rows of snap-buttons to button it up, but the buttons protrude about 2in instead of the usual half-a-cm -- shaped like a metal cylindrical dowel, about a cm in diameter. Female end of the button is about the same as normal. There's some kind of magnetic locking, so that the tip of the dowel snaps in. [ definitely inspired by my trenchcoat's buttons in real life ] The buttons/dowels don't line up with the female ends in number or position. It was designed by the aliens for us. I'm waiting a bit to see what will happen; some announcements are being made but I'm not listening closely; they seem to be just general pleasantries. I'm snapping and unsnapping the buttons/dowels on my jacket. [ as I do in real life when I fidget! ]
The alien girl, though quiet, seems to have chosen or connected with me, and she seems reasonable enough. She's my new companion escorting me into this new world. I'm with other (humans) I know, but only a few of us amongst this huge crowd, and I'm not sure what's happened to everyone else I know. So although I'd be sad to leave them if I had to, if this girl will be the one to help me adjust to the new order, then I'd better get to know her. She tells me to snap one of the top button/dowels into a particular snap on my jacket. I do.
The crowd is starting to get up; the orientation ceremony is over and we're moving on to the next phase (whatever that is). Official-looking aliens are coming through the crowd rounding up people and aliens. (Note that all the aliens look and act completely human and speak intelligibly to us.) The alien girl next to me gets a bit nervous. I get the feeling that having me put the dowel in a particular snap means something important and will cost her something: she is making some kind of commitment to me. I think it also means I have made some kind of commitment to her, but I'm not sure what.
An alien official comes around to me and notices my dowel on my jacket. He asks both me and her, "You understand what this means, right? You're sure about this?". Yipes, no, I don't know what it means! But she's nice, and if as I suspect the alternative is to be killed or put in a concentration camp or cast out of society, I'd be okay with being with her.... I look at her anxiously, but she reassures me, "it just means you'll be brought into our society". Okay, I still don't know what that means; their society could mean almost anything -- I picture in my mind being plugged into some Matrix-style pods, my body used for energy harvesting, or being her house-servant for life, or something ... of course, I wouldn't mind living as her servant in this clean and technologically-advanced society, and again she seems nice.
The official is getting impatient; he expects an answer. The dowel is in the snap. My girl is looking expectantly but nervously at me. I realize that this is costing her as much as it will cost me. OK, I'll go for it.
And that's when I woke up! :) Well, I'll leave it to you to make your own Freudian interpretation -- who are the aliens in my life!