Strange Daze

I normally don't record my dreams in the blog, but this one was so vivid and strange, I just have to. In my dream, I was doing tequila shots with my best friend. Right away, I should have known it was a dream because tequila makes me ill unless it's disguised in mixes, crushed ice, and fluffiness. Straight shots of tequila just aren't something I can handle.

Then again, in the dream, we were back to living in Tahlequah, OK.  I always get a kind of fuzzy happiness about Tahlequah because it was a place where, for the most part, I felt safe and good. Of course, when I lived there, it was my late teens/early twenties and I was accomplishing college. We weren't back in college though. We were our proper ages and everything, though I suppose I was in better shape than I am now because I decided to walk home.

When my best friend and I drink, we're happy drunks. We're loud drunks. We laugh and grin and tell stories. This time was no exception. We were laughing about something and listening to really loud music. We even sang for a while, probably not very well. Eventually, she told me she needed to rest so I  told her bye and left.

I staggered out of her apartment (because I was really drunk by this point), and hundreds of people were standing outside.  Possibly even thousands. Each of them wore an expression of shock, that kind of devastated shock that only happens when something completely horrible has occurred. They stood in small groups, whispering, murmuring. Some of them were even crying.

So here I am in the middle of this crowd, completely confused about what is going on. I'd gone from total joy inside the apartment to this place of fear and dread. It quickly sobered me up.  I searched the crowd for people I knew and located some. I made my way to them and asked what had happened.

It turns out that some high level scam artist (like Madoff level) was very close to everything blowing up in his face. Instead of facing the fallout for his crimes, he somehow convinced everyone he'd taken money from to kill themselves. While I was laughing with my best friend, all of these people took a poison and died.

Even in small numbers, this would have been tragic, but a lot of people were connected to this man. Hundreds of thousands of people were dead.  All within the last couple of hours. Some left notes. Some called loved ones as they were dying. Many didn't though.  This man had convinced them that losing all of this money was something they should be so ashamed of that they should just end everything. They listened to him.

As people were telling me this, a panic rose in the crowd. People started frantically calling everyone they knew. They were trying to confirm who was still living and then trying to see if they'd heard from others. What made it more confusing was that everyone who was trying to call kept getting incoming calls as well.

In the dream, I talked to several people to make sure they were okay. I knew they probably would be as almost everyone I know is too suspicious, paranoid, or poor to be a part of that kind of scam. Still, it was a relief to know they were okay.

It was also a relief to know they'd call to find out if I was alright as well.

Like I said, I usually don't use the blog to talk about my dreams. This one was so vivid though, and so sinister. It also had that strange vertigo of being in one emotional state to suddenly finding yourself in the exact opposite place. I wanted to write it down so I would have a record of it. I think it's going to stick with me anyway though. It makes me uncomfortable even now.