Dream Log: Difficulties in Communication on a University Campus

 Last night, as I have many times before, I dreamed I was wandering across a university campus. 

In this dream, I was trying to find my way somewhere. Where, wasn't exactly clear. Maybe back home, maybe to someone else's home, maybe just to somewhere familiar, where I had my bearings again. I was about to say that the university looked unrealistic. But I haven't spent much time on university campuses lately, so for all I know, many of them may have come to look this way, with most of the buildings glass-walled, 

 

with much space devoted to huge indoor lounges where students energetically socialized. I walked and walked, in and out of the buildings. Repeatedly I got too cold, then comfortable again, because, in real life, I was slipping out from underneath the covers, and then getting under them again.

Although I was lost, and there were throngs of students all around, I didn't ask anyone for directions. In fact, I didn't speak at all. I was concerned that my absolute muteness might make me seem even more strange to these young people than I already did. But I worried that if I said something, I might make things even worse. And I was finding it very hard to get a feel for how these young people thought. I was worried that they might be somewhat right-wing. I was worried that they might not wish me well.

At one end of one of these glass-walled buildings, a bank of monitors and consoles rose well over ten feet high. I couldn't figure out how to work any of it. And I looked at the videos playing silently on the many monitors, looking for a clue to the students' orientation, and/or the orientation of other people who might be trying to shape their minds. I couldn't tell whether there were ports somewhere, where the students could pay, or scan their ID's, for greater levels of access. 

After a while I turned away from this wall, about as clueless as when I had gotten there.

I saw that PC's were wired to tables throughout the building. There didn't seem to be any charge or ID verification to use them. I was almost broke, and didn't want to spend money on a computer session which I might soon need very badly for a sandwich. 

I sat at a table next to a PC and fumbled through some videos, uncomprehending. A cheerful-seeming young man leaned over me and pressed the lower Left hand corner of the screen of the computer I was using, several times. It seemed to work like changing channels on a TV. 

My first reaction was anger, taking the young man's action as aggressive and/or disrespectful. But then I noticed that I was suddenly much better able to understand the video content on my PC, and that it was politically progressive. I nodded in silent thanks to the young man. He certainly seemed to be progressive, and perhaps he wasn't alone in that. I suddenly felt much safer. I felt on the verge of speaking, and explaining my situation. It was around then that I woke up.

Dream Log: Coal Mining and Vaguely Progressive Action

I dreamed that my Mom was alive and was driving me cross-country through the rural Midwest. COVID didn't exist For some reason I decided to get out of the car and walk although it was raining and cold and I had no money on my person. I wasn't upset with Mom, that wasn't the reason I got out of the car. Very soon, because of the poor weather and having no cash, I felt rather silly for having gotten out of the car. 

 

After walking for a mile or so I came to a group of buildings. One of them had a very large open entrance with people streaming in and out, and I went in. The place was bustling with people dressed like me: work jackets, jeans, boots. It didn't seem to occur to anyone that I might not belong there.

There was a large, open-air underground area inside the entrance which looked like a mostly-empty warehouse. Crowds of people were engaged in some sort of meeting here. A passageway framed in timber led further down. Curious, I walked down, and soon it became clear that I was in a coal mine. Coal was everywhere. I walked through a large cavern dug through coal. The other people were more and more covered in coal, the further down I went.

I tried to get back out but I was lost, and it took me a long time to find the way back to above ground. People were quite friendly to me, obviously assuming I was just one more miner, and I wanted to get away from there before anyone figured out that I wasn't. At one point, ahead of me, a group of people mounted horses and rode away, throwing long, ominous shadows.

When I got back outside and back to the road, I saw a group of buildings on the other side. I approached them, hoping they were with another organization, not with the mine. 

They were part of a progressive Catholic organization which was protesting against the mine and trying to get miners to quit. Some of its members were former miners from the other side of the road.

So what we were doing there -- I was a part of it just about as soon as I arrived -- was successful. But it was vague. We worked together in groups of three or four to a dozen people each, working together on theories. Sort of like postmodern literary theories, except that they dealt with mining instead of literature. As soon as each project was completed, a small paperback volume appeared, and we got paid several dozen dollars each. So there was a modest capitalist motivation alongside the progressive one.