Dream Log: Jazz Against Dinosaurs and Dinosaur Hunters

I dreamed that a Jurassic Park-type situation had occurred: huge carnivorous dinosaurs had been cloned, had escaped confinement and were now rampaging all over the world, eating not just humans but also every other type of modern animal, up to and including elephants and whales. Governments of some countries had taken a very drastic step, sending military, mercenaries and hunters, who all together became known as dinosaur hunters, or just hunters for short, to eradicate the dinosaurs by eradicating their environment, leaving nothing but scorched earth over large area of the Earth. Environmentalists protested that this solution was worse than the problem it was designed to solve, but these countries were going ahead with it.

And so there was a counter-plan: jazz musicians would be sent in to capture both the dinosaurs and the dinosaur hunters. The reasoning was: jazz musicians are much more sophisticated, as musicians, than rock and pop musicians, and the hunters were the latter; therefore, it was reasoned, the jazz musicians would easily be able to round up all of the dinosaurs and all of the hunters with a minimum of casualties, using large vehicles typically used in construction, mining and earth-moving.

I thought this was a bad idea, because I didn't believe that the jazz musicians' higher level of sophistication in music would automatically lead to a high level of skill in operating heavy machinery. I then I was put in the position of leading the charge in a huge excavation vehicle. I thought this was a doubly bad idea, as I was both totally inexperienced in operating heavy machinery, and not a jazz musician at all. I'm barely a pop musician, I could understand if pop musicians felt insulted if I were counted as one of them. I protested to the young woman in a business suit carrying a clipboard who was overseeing the operation that I was the wrong man for this job. I told her there was no particular reason to assume that I was more musically sophisticated than most of the hunters. She did not seem worried in the least, and told me that I was being overly modestly, and to go climb into my vehicle and start it up. After a while it seemed clear that I was not going to make my point with her about my lack of musical skill -- let alone getting to my doubts that actual jazz musicianship would qualify anyone for this mission -- and I thought that maybe, in view of the extreme emergency of the situation, and what seemed to be severely limited choices, I would do the least damage by just going along and hoping for the best.

And so, a long column of heavy machinery rolled out, with me in the earth-mover up front, and we headed to the area where the hunters were battling the dinosaurs. We could see that many hunters and many dinosaurs were being killed. I prepared to launch a net over some of the dinosaurs. I continued to be very pessimistic about accomplishing anything, but I kept going, telling myself that if I at least tried, there was a chance that I would get something done. The landscape was filled with red flames and black smoke. And then I woke up, with my fists clenched, my heart pounding, soaked in sweat.