You Know You're Watching Too Much Sci-Fi When...

This is not intended to convey any great meaning, though I sincerely believe that all dreams do that to some extent. I think that the universe and our subconsciousnesses (that word probably doesn't exist) work in tandem to tell us profound truths. The following is more than likely not one of those instances...

Lately I've been experiencing more and more lucid dreams - meaning I've become aware of the fact I was dreaming and my conscious mind took over, enabling me to 'take control'. Usually when this happens I try to fly, sometimes I try to walk through walls; with varying levels of success.

A few weeks ago I dreamed I was walking along with Amanda Tapping (Samantha Carter of the Stargate franchise and Hellen Magnus of Sanctuary) ...It wasn't necessarily either of these characters, or even the actress herself - she was more like a 'guide' in this dream, as if her choice to appear as 'Amanda' was for familiarity - so that I would like her or trust her etc...

Too late to make a long story short; the end of the dream stands out the most, when I noticed that things just weren't quite right. It was as if the whole setting was under construction, everything on the street was in a state of half-readiness.

So I turned to Amanda and said "What's with all these piles of bricks in the road? What the hell is going on here?" and "Wait a second, I'm dreaming aren't I?", which would be a rather amusing thing to hear from someone who wasn't. All I can remember after that was her reaction, which was to look at me with a wide-eyed smile:



She neither confirmed, nor denied it - saying nothing. What I read from her expression was along the lines of Morpheus' statement to Neo in the Matrix: "I can only show you the door - You're the one that has to walk through it."

Of course, I can imagine just about anyone reacting the same way if I were to say that to them in the middle of a conversation while not dreaming.



So, last night I dreamed I was at SGC (Stargate Command, for any non-dorks reading this) and General Jack O'Neill (Richard Dean Anderson ; MacGyver) showed up. The purpose of our meeting was so that I could tell him about a project that I'm currently working on in my waking hours. This dream did not become a lucid one, and this guy was supposed to be the character from the TV franchise (played by Kurt Russell in the 1994 movie). The only thing I found anomalous was that he'd darkened his hair, which is pretty inconsistent with the character, and I think the actor himself too.

Anyway he says, "Let's take a walk" and we go walking around the base. I have no expectations of seeing the "Gate Room", knowing I don't have clearance, and I don't mention it. I go into a long-winded run-down of the story I'm working on, and he seems to feign interest. We walk along hallways for a good 20 minutes, myself rattling on about how my story basically rips off a bunch of existing sci-fi classics, but wraps it up into a nice package that explains how all of it is based on truth. Like if MAD Magazine featured the works of Robert Anton Wilson scripted by Joss Whedon. And Mel Brooks.

This seems to grab his attention, and for the first time he actually seems to be intrigued by what I'm saying. He asks me a question about it, but before I can answer, a woman gets right in front of me and stands between us and asks him something. We're both visibly annoyed, and this is certainly not the way one would approach an Air Force General on the base. I look at him as if to say "Is that proper Air Force protocol?" and he shoots a look at me in a way that seems to say, "Are you gonna just stand there and let this chick interrupt you like that?"



So I just shuffle myself back in front of her, reinstating my position. Before I can answer his question though, I hear a loud THUD and the sound of wood hitting the floor. I turn around and for the first time notice that this woman is severely handicapped and only has one leg (which is deformed) and was walking on crutches. O'Neill just stands there sort of rolling his eyes, but makes no attempt to help me pick her up from the face-down-on-the-hard-cold-cement-floor position she ended up in.

I begin to apologize profusely and tell her I didn't see that she was on crutches and I'm feeling really terrible and also really afraid that I'm in big trouble. She's saying "it's alright, I'm ok," and the last thing I remember is Jack saying "It's not alright. It was totally rude of you to interrupt our conversation. Obviously we're in the middle of something important. Get the hell out of here!"

This dream stood out from others I usually have - the setting and details were consistent the whole time (other than how I didn't notice she was on crutches until after I had nocked her over), and it lasted quite a while. My prior use of the term 'long-winded' was due to the fact that I went into great detail telling him the elements of my story that I thought he'd find interesting. These elements were consistent with the real thing, which I have been working on for quite a while.