So, if you follow me on GoodReads on the kindle, which you probably don't but might want to because I read a lot of books and write a lot of reviews, you would know that I have been reading a lot of Dystopian novels lately. We're talking the Divergent trilogy, The Girl With All The Gifts, and other stuff like that. Hunger Games-esque books. That may have been why I had the dream that I had last night.
I've also been writing a novel that is rather dystopian too, but I can't tell you much about it.
I had a dream last night, which was probably more like this morning if I'm honest about the time that it occurred in my brain, that was awesome. It took place in a dystopian society. The zombie apocalypse or something had happened and I was put (rather unwillingly) in this city thing that was supposed to be able to keep us safe and organized as we tried to rebuild order in society. We weren't allowed out of the "compound" or whatever you want to call it. And it was all inside this huge building. There were to trees or fences or anything, just this huge building that we weren't allowed out of. The architecture was really strange and thrown together. Like,there was a staircase with a rail on one side, but the other side was left open and you could just fall off if you were unlucky.
Anyway, everyone in this society was assigned a certain schedule that they were supposed to adhere to. They had to be certain places for certain activities at specific times of the day. Apparently, I lost my copy of my schedule or something, because during the whole dream I was unaware of where I should be and no one would tell me. This actually caused me to almost mess up and stand on a stage with a choir during their performance instead of sitting with the audience like I was supposed to. Either way, I didn't manage to get an actual seat in amongst the audience, who were all sitting on these seemingly endless rows of metal bleachers.
One of my best friends, Sarah, was in the dream. We were still best friends in the dream, but we didn't have much contact throughout the day since her schedule kept her doing other things. Apparently she was the dance teacher at the compound, and I got to see this whole dance number that she choreographed. I really have no idea why the compound was so worried about the arts, but they were supposedly using the talents that everyone had for the best purpose.
Since I was upset and I didn't want to be there, I was assigned a certain room that I could go to for five minutes a day in order to get away from everyone. My first thought was, Five minutes? This is crap! But, whatever. I couldn't really do anything else. Originally, I had this area, like a bed and a pile of my belongings, that was next to a bunch of other people that was considered mine and I could spend my free time there. But then the overhead leaders decided that we didn't really need the belongings, even though they were the only remnants of our life before the huge event that destroyed our homeland, and took them away by force. Really, they weren't sentimental things, but in the dream they were, things like ipods and books and miscellaneous stuff. And then they made us move to this other place that had smaller beds that were mushed closer together.
Everyone was really upset, and basically started this kind of a revolution that was, if the dream had been a book or something extensive, going to let them escape from the place and find civilization. Apparently, even though the US and surrounding areas were basically decimated from whatever this event was, places overseas were still thriving and going on with life as it used to be. Japan, Britain, and places like that were okay. But the people in the compound didn't want us to know that they were, and were kind of upset when we found out.
Lastly, there was this boy who was in my dream. In real life, I have never seen someone who looks or acts like he did, which saddens me. He was tall and had nice hair and actually kind of muscular. But he was kind and smart too. I wish I could say that he had a name, but I have always been really bad at naming things, even in my dreams, so he doesn't really have a name. For the sake of this blog post, I guess I could call him Tobias, because he reminds me of Tobias from the Divergent series and I think my brain might have loosely based him on that character since I liked the books so much. So, any overlap is purely the fault of my sleeping brain. Note, he does not look anything like the Tobias that is on the movie posters and such.
Anyway, Tobias was someone who I thought was attractive, but I didn't get to spend much time around. Somehow, we formed this relationship, and he kind of became someone that I could hang on to and know that he would be there when times go tough. And, to put it simply, he loved me. I was allowed, for once, to be the defenseless girl who was constantly saved by a guy, instead of sticking up for myself all of the time like I have to do in real life and like the heroine of my novel that I'm writing has to. I didn't have to be strong if I didn't want to.
In one part of the dream, Tobias was being beat up by a couple of guys who were higher up on the totem pole in the governing system of the compound. All I could do was sit there and watch helplessly because I knew the two other guys wouldn't listen to me and that they could beat me up too if they felt like it, because even in my dreams I am tiny and weak. When they went away, I went up to him to see if he was alright and found that he had sustained only minor injuries, like a bloody nose or something. He told me that he had been working his way up in the ranks of the government system and was now actually more powerful than those guys and that they were upset about it. While the government leaders hated me, they loved Tobias because he did what they wanted him to do.
The dream ended shortly after that. I knew that the rebels were going to eventually get what they wanted, freedom, because Tobias was in charge.
I know it sounds terrible that I met a guy in my dream that was the perfect one, because technically my brain made him up based on the stuff that I've read and seen. But I was genuinely sad when I woke up and realized that my dystopian prince charming didn't exist, and if he did, I had never met him and he might be completely different than what he was like in my dream.
I think it would be really cool if when you dreamed, the people who were in your dream dreamed their part as well, that way you would go to talk about it and they would be all like "Hey, I was there and I said this to you, didn't I?". And it would complete the story from all of the perspectives. And if there was a person in your dream that you had never met before, you might spend years searching for them, and when you found each other, both of you had like a mental flashback of the dream and you knew that you were supposed to be together forever. Too bad it doesn't work that way. And kind of a good thing that it doesn't work that way because I really don't want certain people to know that they've been in my dreams. Particularly the dreams that certain people were in. Yikes. That would be awkward.
-EW
