I dreamed that it was a COVID-free present time and that I was working on the set of a hugely ambitious movie project: 24 movies were going to be directed by 24 prominent directors, and it was intended that they would be connected, in the following manner: the movies would be filmed one by one, the director of each succeeding movie would watch the previous one before starting filming, and -- that was about as thoroughly as it was explained to me, a coffee-fetching flunkie. If this flappodoodle was actually any better organized than that, I didn't see the organizing principle.
There was a reception attended by the 24 illustrious directors as well as many of us who were going to work on all 24 movies. Along a wall were 24 posters, one for each movie, each with a director's name and a description of the screenplay from which his or her movie would be made. The 2nd movie would be directed by Ridley Scott, and the screenplay was based on Richard Adams' novel Watership Down, whose protagonists are wild rabbits.
The plot of the novel has to do with a small group of rabbits in England who must find a new home. They fight their way cross-country until they come to a hill known to humans, although not to them, as Watership Down. In my memory of the novel, although perhaps not in the novel itself, the rabbits rarely see humans, until at Watership Down they see a small boy who often sits by himself on the hillside. Although they distrust the boy, it turns out that he never does them any harm, and he grows up to be a novelist named Richard Adams.
I read Watership Down 47 years ago, and from what I remembered of it, I thought that Ridley Scott might make a very interesting movie of it. And I said so, out loud, at this reception. Ridley Scott heard me, and seemed annoyed. I didn't know whether he was annoyed because he'd read or heard about some of the things I've written about him, things which are by no means all flattering, or if it was just that he considered himself to be film making royalty, and I to be a peasant who was to hold his tongue among his betters, or what.
Someone raised the question of when, exactly, the next director in line was going to see the previous film. If he or she was to see it when the public did, then there would be a wait of as long as a year, or perhaps much longer than that, between each film. If, however, the next director could see a rough cut as soon as shooting was finished, that might reduce the time between movies from years to three weeks or so.
I thought this was a very good point. If the next director was going to wait until the previous film was completely edited, scored, re-shot and so forth, before starting the next film, this project could take 24 years, or much longer than that. If the next director saw a rough cut after three weeks' worth of principal photography, as it's known, that would bring the total time for the project down to a couple of years.
I had two thoughts: one, that letting the next director see the rough cut was a very good idea, and two, that this entire project, as a whole, might be a very, very bad idea. I wondered whether it might be best to bail out right away.
From this point in the dream, the setting, the year and my age all changed several times. First, I became the boy Richard Adams in early 20th century rural England, observing rabbits and dodging adult humans. For the rest of the dream, I felt somewhat like a rabbit, especially inasmuch as I felt danger to be coming from most of the humans I met.
Then I was a somewhat older Richard Adams, about 18 years old and a new student at a university. I was bullied by other students and by faculty.
Then the time changed to the 1970's. I was Steven Bollinger again, but I was a young adult, slightly older than I was in the real 1970's. I was at the same university somewhere inside a large city in England. My status -- student, faculty, or something else -- was uncertain. I took a break from the unpleasant and mysterious rituals of the humans to go outside and observe some wild rabbits.
One of the rabbits approached me, neither timid not hostile. Quite unusual behavior for a wild rabbit, to say the least. The rabbit attempted to speak to me in a human voice, but what came out was unintelligible squeaking to me. After a while the rabbit had to go. It seemed disappointed that it had not been able to convey whatever message it had. I nodded and gestured in a way I hoped the rabbit would understand as friendly. It nodded back. Clearly, we were expressing and understanding goodwill, if nothing else. The rabbit hopped away.
Then I was in Detroit in the present time (COVID-free again), although I was much younger than in waking life. I was at another unspecified university. It was distinct from the English university, although not drastically different in appearance: the interiors in both places had a lot of hardwood and tile, old and a little worn but still looking very sturdy. The students in both places seemed more working- than middle class: somewhat serious, not assured that they were going to be able to just coast through life if they so chose. Again, my status, student, faculty or something else, was uncertain.
I ended up at a counter, doing some paperwork together with some young people behind the counter. It was clear that they were both students and university employees. The paperwork took on the quality of a board game or a card game. The mood was lightened because the students clearly understood that there was an element of the absurd in this clerical task which had to be done before I could get on with things. These students made a sharp contrast to the stereotypical, but sometimes also real embittered employees of large organizations who seem determined not to make one damned thing one damned bit easier for anybody unless there's something in it for them. These students actually seemed to care about me and to want to make this paperwork process as enjoyable, or at last as painless, as possible. Not only were they a sharp contrast to some other workers in similar situations, they were also a sharp contrast to the other people in the dream, most of whom up until then had been somewhere between indifferent and hostile to me. Then I woke up.
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