PEACE INVISIBLE

Last night, I dreamt that the plane I was in had split in half during mid-flight and crashed instantly. To most this would be alarming. Some say that it could be a bad omen: that I should not fly for a while, that I should be more cautious about travel or spending money. For me, this dream was a ride. It was so visually stimulating that the dream characterized my brain’s points of view as if it were stolen straight from crash scenes like CAST AWAY or LOST. So here’s how I died…this time.

I’m about to start talking to a beautiful woman sitting in the seat next to me. We exchange flirtatious, yet innocent glances that is so disgustingly perfect that of course only my subconscious could fathom. The woman seems to be a traveling business professional. She is well dressed, well groomed, and well…a little older than myself. Usually, I keep to myself during plane rides, but for some reason, things were set up so well that I seemed to have no trouble ahead in making a new acquaintance.

Suddenly, there begins a sharp sequence of turbulence and all indicators of a mid-air catastrophe are in play. Things settle after a moment and I smile at the now frightened woman sitting next to me. With one hand, she grips the armrest closest to me. The other, gripping her Bloody Mary. The captain comes on the speaker stating that the turbulence was normal and that we’ll be landing shortly. Not short enough.

At the very moment that the captain finished and I had found comfort in calming the woman next to me, a loud cracking explosion shreds at me from all sides. In an instant, the engines have become engulfed in flames and we begin to spin with no hope in sight. The plane breaks in half right in front of me and I can only watch the row in front of me lose it’s foundation and sail off with it’s passengers still strapped in. I look to my left at the woman next to me and I notice that her seat is hanging on by a thread. She is screaming out for anyone and anything to save her. I am remarkably calm throughout the whole ordeal as the ground begins to get bigger below, spinning-left to right-right to left. Doomed. Wake up. WAKE UP. WAKE UP! I’m not waking up…

The woman’s seat suddenly breaks free from the spinning cabin and somehow I become her point of view, as she is strapped to her seat, screaming and looking up at the sinking plane, where she was…where I still am, looking back down at her, alone, and sinking faster. The sound of the plane’s roaring engines, howling winds, and apocalyptic screams increase as she watches me in the plane shooting face first into the ground from her own free-falling seat. All goes silent as she watches the ground get bigger, wider, more detailed, more apparent that she will be joining it shortly.

I wake up.

Now, like I said, sounds like a Class-A nightmare for holiday travels right? The thing is, I wasn’t scared at all. Not when I was in the plane or watching myself explode in the crash from above, not when I woke up. I just thought it was a really well shot sequence in my head. Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll have the money to actually shoot a sequence like that. It sure would be thrilling to watch something that close inside a scene of paramount disaster, but beyond all of it I found that this was not a dream that means I am stressed about travel or money. This was not some sick omen. It was all about the woman riding next to me. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not shy, unless there’s a girl involved. I’ve never had a girlfriend that wasn’t directly related to my close circle of friends. I’m not that guy that approaches the random hot chick at the bar. I’m not smooth at all. So the dream means exactly this: If I were actually put into a situation where I was strapped in for hours next to a beautiful woman, my brain says that I would rather have the plane crash than have the opportunity to talk to her.

But why was it all in her point of view after her seat broke off from the plane? Why have me looking at me, plunging face first to my demise? Because my brain is saying, “Wake up you fuckin’ idiot. Look what you just let get away from you. idiot…Bang, you’re dead.”

So I’m not afraid to fly the friendly skies, but I need to learn how to ground myself in the friendly roads of life. Hopefully I’ll meet that woman again some day, and maybe I’ll talk to her without blowing it (hahaha). Despite how dumb it all may be…Truth be told, my dreams are right.