Dream Log: Time-Traveling Espionage

 COVID did not exist in last night's dream. It was the present day, for the most part, and I was my real age, 59 years old. Most of the dream took place in and around some of those extremely enormous buildings which exist in many of my dreams but not in reality. These buildings, a half dozen of them covering as much area as a medium sized city, had previously been what Americans call a public school, and Brits call a state school. Concrete, dirty windows, dingy floor tiles, very small scraps of lawn and shrubbery between the unrealistically-huge buildings.

At the beginning of the dream I had the ability to travel through time back into the past. Only into the past. I went back and forth between the present day, and selected points in the past. I did not do this by means of technology. Rather, it was a talent I had, like juggling or playing tennis exceptionally well. 

At first I was not aware of any other time travelers, and I was being coached by a time of what I assumed to be good people, government agents, about how to do the most good for mankind with my ability. But then I met another time traveler, who asked me how I could be certain that these advisors were who and what what they said they were. And then I kept seeing more and more time travelers, and it became clear to me that there were many different factions among them, representing conflicting interests. Furthermore, the groups to which the individual time travelers belonged were composed to a very great extent according to personal likes and dislikes among their members. And individuals were constantly moving from one group to another, and they were spying on each other, often belonging to one group only so that they could report on that group to another, hostile group. In short, the whole city-sized former school buildings were swarming with thousands of ruthless, cut-throat time traveling spies. Some worked for governments, some worked for corporations, some worked only for themselves. If there actually was a faction among them dedicated to helping the world in general, they were very greatly outnumbered. And a great many of them were double or triple agents. All in all, it was pretty depressing, apart from the great fascination -- for me at least -- of the huge imaginary architecture.

I only saw people planning trips to and from the past, never into the future.

I was still in the process of looking for a group I thought I might be able to trust, a group which appeared to be things I thought worth doing, when I woke up.

A Time Machine Brings Beethoven to the 21st Century, and "Dance (pt 1)" by the Rolling Stones is Playing

"What is that -- Oh! I was about to say, 'What is that noise?!' and then, a couple of seconds later I realized it's meant to be music, and now a few seconds after that I'm starting to like it! Who are these musicians?! What is this music?!"

"This is a piece composed and performed by a group who call themselves the Rolling Stones, Herr Beethoven."

"Ha! A clever name! Their music is coming at us like stones in an avalanche! It's so loud that it's shaking my bones! It makes me want to dance and leap about! The feeling is overpowering."

"Please, Herr Beethoven, feel free -- dance!"

"But I don't know the steps!"

"Ah, yes. Well, you see, with this sort of music, often people dance without having any steps planned beforehand. They just move to the music in a fully improvised way. You're already swaying to and fro and moving your arms to the beat."

"As are you. Where are they, where are the Rollling Stones? I don't see them anywhere. Well done, Rolling Stones! This is such fun!"

"The Rolling Stones aren't here, Sir. We're listening to a recording. An electronic recording."

"Great God. Electricity! And I suppose some of those instruments are guitars, but with the sound manipulated electrically?"

"Exactly right, Herr Beethoven! Good ear!"

"And the voices and the drums and the brass are manipulated somewhat less, or not at all. Show me how you dance to this!"

"Alright... There's no need to copy me. Let the music move you. The main point is to enjoy yourself. Let go! ...There you go!"

"What glorious hedonism! I'm reminded of sex!"

"Sex is a major theme in many of the Rolling Stones' songs."

"I don't understand the lyrics. 'Get up, get out," that's plain enough, but what does he mean by 'get down'?"

"Oh, that's, uh, that's slang, it can be understood in various ways, which I think is intentional with many of their lyrics. Getting down can be having fun, so you're certainly doing it right. It can also mean to dance in an enthusiastic way, so, again... And it can also mean to have sex. So, I'd have to say that you understand this music very well indeed, even without knowing the slang in the lyrics."

"Oh, it's glorious!"

"You're definitely dancing correctly to this recording. Just dance as if no-one were watching."

"If someone's watching and they don't like the way I'm dancing, I don't give a damn!"

"That means you're doing it perfectly."

"Ha ha ha ha! What is the name of this glorious tune?"

"Well, coincidentally, it's called 'Dance, Part One.'"

"Is there a Part Two? Can we obtain it and listen to it as well some time?"

"We can hear it the moment Part One is Over."

"Ha! Oh, I see some people down the street have seen us dancing, and they're dancing along with us! Come over here and dance with us, my lovely dancing friends! 'Get down' with us! Oh dear!"

"It's alright, Herr Beethoven, it was a perfectly appropriate remark for the moment"

"Ha!"

Dream Log: Time-Machine Secret Agents

Last night I dreamed that I was in the future, and there were time machines, but time travel was much more problematic than many had thought. Specifically, it was much more difficult than many had thought to change the past. The more significant the results of the intended change would be, the harder it was to make the change. It was as if 1) history wanted to remain the same, and 2) it knew your intentions. Let's take everyone's favorite example, going back in time to kill Hitler. If you went to Vienna in 1910 with the intent of killing the young Hitler, chances are that a falling piano would kill you within seconds of your exiting the time machine.

It was a drab and dilapidated future, generally speaking. Most of my dream took place within a huge mall, the size of a major international airport. Most of it was empty space between the stores. Most of the stores resembled half-deserted warehouses which were themselves mostly empty. There was a lot of dingy linoleum and tacky fake-woodgrain wall paneling.

I was a secret agent, with most of my assignments relating to the time machines, which governments and large corporations were still trying to keep secret. I don't know what government or other entity I was working for. I was waiting in the mall to meet another agent. It was going to be our first meeting, and we were going to make some repairs on a time machine hidden in an actual warehouse in back of one of the stores.

Just before I met this agent, I received a phone call telling me that she was a double agent working for our enemy. My assignment was to send her on a time-travel trip somewhere far into the past. Like Stone Age-far. It wasn't yet known what her mission was, so I should be prepared to fight for my life.

She was short and pudgy, she had short hair, one of her eyes seemed to be permanently crossed. Right away I felt more sorry for her than concerned for my own safety. I reminded myself that some extremely dangerous agents deliberately cultivated such a harmless appearance, the better to catch their enemies unawares.

We walked about a mile through the mall. To my great surprise, and, it appeared, also to hers, the time machine was not in the warehouse. I called HQ -- they, too, seemed very surprised. I was instructed to try to keep the double agent from leaving, and await further instructions.

I treated us to lattes at a coffee stand outside the mall. We were downtown in a big city, but the place was not crowded, and there were tall weeds everywhere.

I thought to myself that if her sad-sack routine was just an act, then she was a very good actor. I was tempted to tell her that I knew she was a double-agent, and to go ahead and beat it. But a limousine pulled up, one of my superiors, who looked a little bit like Dean Norris,

opened the back door and motioned for me, just me, to get in. So I said goodbye to the double agent with the crossed eye and got into the limousine.

My superior apologized, I asked what he was apologizing for, and he said, "She's one of their top killers. We didn't know that, or we would've pulled you sooner. Her assignment was to pump you for information and then kill you. Did you give her any intel?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Other than where the time machine was supposed to be."

"No, that was part of their story. Maybe they hoped to get you talking in a dark corner of the warehouse, so the killing would be better hidden. Good thinking, getting the coffee."

"No, not good thinking. I was just jonesing for coffee."

"You're sure you didn't tell her anything."

"Positive. I was tempted to tell her I knew she was a double agent, and she should call it a day. I didn't realize she was the dangerous one. That eye..."

"Looked like a crossed eye?"

"Yeah."

"It's a lens, for long range shooting, made to look like a crossed eye to get sympathy."

"Wow. Almost worked."

"Yeah," my boss said. "Like I said, she's one of their best ones."

And then I woke up.