Dreams of Greece and Bus Rides
I had a fascinating dream.
The farthest back I remember was a separate dream. I was at this massive plaza in Greece, with some ancient architecture, including a pair of giant rectangular buildings called Hagia Sophia (don't @ me). The northern building, despite not being cordoned off in any way, was clearly unsafe: Two walls stood fully, the western wall was missing completely, and the southern wall was almost entirely missing on account of being taken up by an enormous archway that spanned the full face of the building from ground to roof despite this being a height of probably 75 feet or so. The problem is that the roof, though it had long collapsed in the middle, still existed in the form of its main structural members along three of the four walls (all but the western perimeter). So this enormous archway top on the south side, and the structural members above it, were free-hanging, supported only by the thin roof beam on the east side of the roof to their sure connection points at NE.
Extremely, extremely dangerous. To my knowledge this isn't even possible with stonework; the torque is much too high. Yet somehow it had survived through Antiquity clear to the present day, just long enough to make an appearance in my dream...where the unsupported south end of the roof promptly collapsed. It was a near miss for me, but I was fine. However, it quickly became apparent there were people trapped in the rubble. There was even a brief cutaway to President Biden, being read a list of individual names of known victims. He was, as in real life, empathetic about it and pretty upset. In his breathy Biden manner he asked, "Just give me a subtotal," to which the response was 859 deaths. And in this long-suffering voice that was almost comical were it not for the subject matter (think Gil from The Simpsons) he just said "859?!"
This is when the dream evolved to the next and final one. I boarded a bus with a bunch of the survivors, except gone were the brutal desert panoramas of Hagia Sophia (don't @ me), and in their place was a lush green, hilly landscape. The bus was in the livery of a school bus for some reason, perhaps simply because that's my most primordial memory for "bus." The bus driver was a real-life Otto (again from The Simpsons, right down to the hair, except older, fatter, not a Deadhead, and very Italian.
For some reason, he flew off like he was done with the world. The road was filled with dips and peaks, and he took them at such an enormous speed that it was for all intents and purposes a genuine roller coaster ride. We, the entire bus, even got airborne on a couple of these peaks, like in the chase scenes of the TV shows and movies. But there was no one chasing us; this driver was just on an absolute tear. I remember talking with Emily about her friend Satatma, but I think that was from a forgotten thread of the dream that I won't otherwise try to reincorporate into my narrative here.
At first I figured he was just being flamboyant with us, but then there was a parked bike on the side of the road, perched onto the guardrail such that one of its ends was sticking out into the road slightly. He didn't even try to avoid it: Bam! Destroyed. The bike was sent spinning away at whiplash speeds. That was when I realized the driver was a maniac.
We rounded a bend, and right into our path came an entire phalanx of bicyclists heading in the oncoming direction. They were in their lane, but this was a two-lane road (for most of my life I would've called it a "biway" until learning that the actual word is "byway" and not a reference to the number of lanes) and this bus driver was out of his mind. Not only did he make any effort to avoid them, but because it had been a right turn, he had drifted over into the oncoming lane. So he just plowed into all these cyclists, taking most of them and their bikes down.
He kept going at first, and their was some chatter with the still surprisingly unconcerned passengers (besides me) about whether we were going to stop. Well, he finally did stop, but only so slowly and so indifferently that by the time we were fully stopped, the crash site wasn't even in view anymore.
From there, we, the passengers, were shepherded into a mansion. I was a mostly unknown, slightly unliked quantity among my peers, who included nefarious figures from my past. I wasn't able to find a bedroom to sleep in because of these figures, so instead I did my customary take-charge thing that I often do when there is a clear power vacuum or dereliction of responsibilities: I became the self-appointed, completely unofficial foreperson of the group. I did so in a very subtle way, aware that my popularity was extremely tenuous: I mainly acted as an intermediary. Some of the passengers were thinking they were simply going to leave, so my first act was to confirm with the authorities that we were being formally held, which no one else had thought to ask. The lone policemate guarding us confirmed that indeed we were being formally held, as witnesses, which I relayed back to the group. And from there I began preparing my own inevitable witness statement. I'd been at the front of the bus for most of the ride, so I'd seen all of the things I relayed to you, and could still clearly remember many of the details, despite pulling off the difficult feat of recollection made even more difficult by the fact that I was trying to do this within a dream.
And then I woke up. A bit anticlimactic, I know, but I found this dream interesting mainly because it was an instance of me taking charge of a group of people who were neutral-to-slightly-negative on me, and doing so successfully by not exhibiting any of the traditional flashier behaviors of taking control. I thought that was fascinating, along with the absurdist surrealism of the bus ride, and the equally surreal Greek plaza incident.
The farthest back I remember was a separate dream. I was at this massive plaza in Greece, with some ancient architecture, including a pair of giant rectangular buildings called Hagia Sophia (don't @ me). The northern building, despite not being cordoned off in any way, was clearly unsafe: Two walls stood fully, the western wall was missing completely, and the southern wall was almost entirely missing on account of being taken up by an enormous archway that spanned the full face of the building from ground to roof despite this being a height of probably 75 feet or so. The problem is that the roof, though it had long collapsed in the middle, still existed in the form of its main structural members along three of the four walls (all but the western perimeter). So this enormous archway top on the south side, and the structural members above it, were free-hanging, supported only by the thin roof beam on the east side of the roof to their sure connection points at NE.
Extremely, extremely dangerous. To my knowledge this isn't even possible with stonework; the torque is much too high. Yet somehow it had survived through Antiquity clear to the present day, just long enough to make an appearance in my dream...where the unsupported south end of the roof promptly collapsed. It was a near miss for me, but I was fine. However, it quickly became apparent there were people trapped in the rubble. There was even a brief cutaway to President Biden, being read a list of individual names of known victims. He was, as in real life, empathetic about it and pretty upset. In his breathy Biden manner he asked, "Just give me a subtotal," to which the response was 859 deaths. And in this long-suffering voice that was almost comical were it not for the subject matter (think Gil from The Simpsons) he just said "859?!"
This is when the dream evolved to the next and final one. I boarded a bus with a bunch of the survivors, except gone were the brutal desert panoramas of Hagia Sophia (don't @ me), and in their place was a lush green, hilly landscape. The bus was in the livery of a school bus for some reason, perhaps simply because that's my most primordial memory for "bus." The bus driver was a real-life Otto (again from The Simpsons, right down to the hair, except older, fatter, not a Deadhead, and very Italian.
For some reason, he flew off like he was done with the world. The road was filled with dips and peaks, and he took them at such an enormous speed that it was for all intents and purposes a genuine roller coaster ride. We, the entire bus, even got airborne on a couple of these peaks, like in the chase scenes of the TV shows and movies. But there was no one chasing us; this driver was just on an absolute tear. I remember talking with Emily about her friend Satatma, but I think that was from a forgotten thread of the dream that I won't otherwise try to reincorporate into my narrative here.
At first I figured he was just being flamboyant with us, but then there was a parked bike on the side of the road, perched onto the guardrail such that one of its ends was sticking out into the road slightly. He didn't even try to avoid it: Bam! Destroyed. The bike was sent spinning away at whiplash speeds. That was when I realized the driver was a maniac.
We rounded a bend, and right into our path came an entire phalanx of bicyclists heading in the oncoming direction. They were in their lane, but this was a two-lane road (for most of my life I would've called it a "biway" until learning that the actual word is "byway" and not a reference to the number of lanes) and this bus driver was out of his mind. Not only did he make any effort to avoid them, but because it had been a right turn, he had drifted over into the oncoming lane. So he just plowed into all these cyclists, taking most of them and their bikes down.
He kept going at first, and their was some chatter with the still surprisingly unconcerned passengers (besides me) about whether we were going to stop. Well, he finally did stop, but only so slowly and so indifferently that by the time we were fully stopped, the crash site wasn't even in view anymore.
From there, we, the passengers, were shepherded into a mansion. I was a mostly unknown, slightly unliked quantity among my peers, who included nefarious figures from my past. I wasn't able to find a bedroom to sleep in because of these figures, so instead I did my customary take-charge thing that I often do when there is a clear power vacuum or dereliction of responsibilities: I became the self-appointed, completely unofficial foreperson of the group. I did so in a very subtle way, aware that my popularity was extremely tenuous: I mainly acted as an intermediary. Some of the passengers were thinking they were simply going to leave, so my first act was to confirm with the authorities that we were being formally held, which no one else had thought to ask. The lone policemate guarding us confirmed that indeed we were being formally held, as witnesses, which I relayed back to the group. And from there I began preparing my own inevitable witness statement. I'd been at the front of the bus for most of the ride, so I'd seen all of the things I relayed to you, and could still clearly remember many of the details, despite pulling off the difficult feat of recollection made even more difficult by the fact that I was trying to do this within a dream.
And then I woke up. A bit anticlimactic, I know, but I found this dream interesting mainly because it was an instance of me taking charge of a group of people who were neutral-to-slightly-negative on me, and doing so successfully by not exhibiting any of the traditional flashier behaviors of taking control. I thought that was fascinating, along with the absurdist surrealism of the bus ride, and the equally surreal Greek plaza incident.