Dream Log: Ultimate Fighting Against Ben Affleck on "Reality" TV

I dreamed I was on a "reality" TV show. I write it like that because I can think of few things which have less authenticity than these types of shows, made by penny-pinching morons who save money by not hiring any people who are actually qualified to make good entertainment: actors, directors, writers, cinematographers, editors -- artists in general. Tim Robbins' character in The Player was already making fun of these kinds of shows in 1992, years before they began to exist.

As I say, actors appear relatively rarely on such shows. Especially actors whose careers are going well. And so I was very surprised to see Ben Affleck as a contestant on this show. Ben seemed to be in a very bad mood all through this dream -- maybe because of some long series of unfortunate events in his life which had resulted in him appearing on a reality show.

It was also surprising that I was on the show. Firstly because I really sincerely would prefer not to. And strike two, I'm not at all famous.

I didn't recognize anyone in the entire dream except Mr Affleck and myself.

This was one of those "reality" shows which are also competitions. We contestants had been divided into about a half dozen teams, and there were about a half dozen members on each team. Just coincidentally, or so it seemed to me, I happened to be sitting next to Ben Affleck as the show's host explained the next round of the competition: ultimate fighting. We would all engage in mixed-martial arts fighting, each one of us versus one person from another team.

Ben Affleck had broken some rule, and was fined $20. He seemed quite annoyed, but promptly fished a $20 bill out of his pocket and handed it to the host. The host seemed to think for a minute, and then he handed the $20 bill to me.

I didn't want to annoy Ben Affleck, but I put the $20 bill in my pocket, because I didn't know what else to do.

It was a strange looking $20 bill: it wasn't green at all. It was white. Perhaps that's actually not strange. I haven't been keeping up to the minute with the changing appearance of US currency.

After a while I fished the $20 bill out of my pocket and handed it to Ben Affleck. This seemed to make him even more angry than he already had been. I didn't know why. But I suspect that if I tried to reach out to him and communicate about the incident, tried to reassure him that I meant neither to cheat not to insult him, I would only make him angrier. This sort of situation -- unintentionally angering someone and not knowing what to do to make things right, is very familiar to me, because I am autistic and have great difficulty reading non-verbal communication.

I didn't know whether the show's host had intended all along to stir things up between me and Ben Affleck, or if he noticed the tension between us and changed plans on the spot because of that. Whatever the reason, he announced that Ben Affleck and I would face each other in the first round of ultimate fighting.

In waking life, I've been working out for the past 2 months with a 100-pound dead ball, and I have found it to be a great conditioning tool, and I feel very strong. In the dream I also felt very strong. As we all started getting physically, and, above all, it seemed to me, mentally ready to engage in this combat, there was a lot of talk among the contestants about the match between me and Ben Affleck. Many people remarked that I outweighed Ben Affleck, which would give me an edge, but that he was younger and seemed to be in much better condition.

Although in many situations, as I've said, I'm very unskilled in reading non-verbal communication, in this situation, before the ultimate fights were to begin, it seemed very clear to me that almost all of the contestants, male and female alike, were 1) terrified, because they were utterly unprepared for this sort of fighting; 2) in denial about being afraid; and 3) exhibiting great amounts of machismo in order to try to convince themselves and their opponents that they were very well-prepared.

I thought that trying to convince myself or anyone else that I wasn't afraid would be a waste of the short time I had to prepare. I ignored the macho displays as much as I could, and tried to prepared mentally for the match. I had very little in terms of ideas of what to do. I never watch ultimate fighting. I came up with a 3-part plan: 1) pretend to be interested in punching and kicking right from the start, when in reality I would be waiting for Ben Affleck to over-extend himself with a punch or kick; and 2) try to grab his arm or leg which he had exposed by the overly-aggressive punch or kick; and 3) hold that limb under under one arm while beating him with the other fist.

It worked: Ben Affleck made a huge roundhouse kick, I was able to grab his leg and hold it fast under one arm, then I charged until he fell on his back, never letting go of the leg, and with him on his back and me above I punched him in the face over and over until the referee stopped the fight and declared me to be the winner.

As we both stood up on very wobbly legs, the host announced that the bout -- he used the word "bout" -- had lasted 12 seconds. Blood was streaming from Ben Affleck's nose. I looked at him and spread my arms in an offer of a post-fight hug, because I've seen boxers hug often after fights. He accepted the hug. I still said nothing, because I was still didn't know why he was angry, and I still was worried about making him more angry.

Then I woke up.

Dream Log: "Reality" Show In Western Canada

I dreamed I was homeless in Western Canada. I walked through a small town and then saw, up a long and steep slope, a cabin with a lot of lights on. I climbed up to the cabin and a saw that it was a "reality" TV show, with the contestants living in the cabin. Just as I arrived, one of the contestants had been kicked off of the show and was leaving, so I decided to slip into the cabin and see whether I could take his place. I was tired and wanted to see if I could rest some place warm for a while.

The other contestants were mostly pretty thin and wiry. The host, who looked somewhat like Jon Voigt, started poking my in the sides and saying he thought I was too flabby to succeed on the show. I struggled with him, at first just to get him to stop poking me, but then, in order to counter his suggestion that I was physically too weak to compete in the show, I managed to pick him up off of the ground, and for a moment I even held him in the air over my head with one hand. He did not make any sign that he was impressed, but he also didn't tell me to leave. I began to wonder whether his disparaging remarks, and his lack of comment on my show of physical strength, had been some attempt to psychologically manipulate me.

I never figured out just exactly what the competition was on the show, what contests we had to go through to decide who stayed on the show and who had to leave. Did the contestants vote each other off of the show? Did they go through long grueling treks through the cold mountains? Some of them seemed to be very absorbed in some books about wildlife. Whether this was a practical interest directly related to the competition on the show, or if it just happened to be an interest of some, not all, of the contestants, and their preferred reading material during down-time, I couldn't tell. I had no idea what was awaiting me here. But quickly, I began to feel like a prisoner. I noticed that there was a high fence surrounding a large area around the cabin, an area extending almost all the way down the slope to the little town I'd just walked through.

Looking at the other contestants, I began to wonder whether all of them really were athletically lean, or if they were malnourished. Talking with them, I learned that all they were given to eat was dog food, which was waiting for them in a small shack partway down the slope toward the town whenever one of them got hungry enough to choke some of it down.

I didn't dispute that I could stand to lose a few pounds, but dog food was not my idea of a good dietary plan. Also, I reflected upon what little else I know about "reality" shows, and most of that didn't seem healthy for the contestants either. I decided to try to get out of there. I was worried that at this point I might be locked inside the fence, held there against my will. I left the cabin and started down the long steep slope back toward the town. Snowed covered everything, it was packed on the path I was following. The light outside was dim, verging on dark. Many lights were on in the town below, white lights with an orange-ish tint. I didn't know whether it was dim outside because dusk was approaching, or because it was winter, or because it was cloudy, or from some combination of the above.

When I got to the gate in the fence closest to the town, I saw with relief that it didn't appear to be locked or guarded. But I woke up before I actually got out.