I had this odd dream last night that doubled as an
epiphany of sorts, I guess. I was flying out of
Logan Airport, as I have done many times before, and for some reason I was taking an airplane to
Saudi Arabia. I remember being on the plane with my friend, but she never spoke to me, she just went up ahead to first class, leaving me pretty much alone. I was in the middle of seven consecutive empty rows. There were people behind me and people in front of me, but no one close to me. And for some reason they were showing
Conan O'Brien on the televisions and the foldout trays were made of this mesh like metal. Anyways, I think I fell asleep during my dream, only to be woken up by an American
flight attendant who told me that I was in the wrong seat and that I would be arrested as soon as I reached the ground. She said I should consider contacting the American
embassy.
I'm not one for dream interpretation, I just think dreams are random stuff from your day mixed up together, but I think it provided me with something that I've seen in dreams before: a humanization of whatever subject I was studying. I've been reading up on the House of Saud lately, and I attribute the fruition of my dream to this, and the fact that, thanks to my mass consumption of violent culture, I've become immune to the reports of human rights violations there. Stories of arms being cut off and schoolgirls burned alive in buildings didn’t really have an effect on me anymore. But me being arrested for moving up to first class on an airplane and being thrown into jail, that appealed to my materialistic mind right away. Whether this was a message or a slap in the face from my benevolent God, urging me to see the humanity in my research or just a psychological happenstance that amounts to little more than brain indigestion, I don’t know. But I did wake up in a cold sweat, if that counts for anything.