This was a nightmare. I was in "The Happening", you know, the latest thriller from director Sham-a-lam-a-ding-dong. No, I have not seen it. But I was in it. I recall a scene in an underground parking garage. There were no cars around because I was in one of those extended turn-arounds without cars--underground. A lady in a car drove by me, and I got her attention. She stopped, and I asked her if she'd seen any of those freaky zombie people walking around. She said, "Yeah, and you were just now one of them!" "I was?", I exclaimed. "Yeah! You were walking down here all freaky and zombied out, and then you snapped out of it when you came up to my car."
This came as a big surprise, along with a healthy dose of mortification and some serious personal concerns for my own well-being. I was feeling fine, having a cogent conversation. How could I have just been a zombie?
And now the wonderful power of the dreamscape comes in. At this point in the dream, I decided--in some meta-subconscious way--that I would experience myself in this zombie state. And so I did. Just as the lady in the car said, I was wandering around in this extended turn-around in this underground parking garage--a zombie. I could see my surroundings in all the detail that my conscious mind is accustomed to; however, my body was moving of its own accord. I had no control. I was walking (sort of) as if in a mindless stupor, yet my mind was clear--it was along for the ride. Indeed! Even my motivations, my desires, anything that compels any of us to locomote and seek things out were out of my control. My mind, observing and understanding, was unable to influence my trajectories in any way. I was along for the ride!
It was then that I realized that these somnambulistic tendencies could prove quite harmful, even fatal. I felt my body walking along a path of doom. Now, enter fear. Now nightmare. Where would my mind go without its carriage? Even a listless, self-destructive body was better than no body at all. At least that's how it seemed at the time.
"Well, that was interesting," I thought in a different meta-subconscious channel. If Sham-a-lam-a had placed his audience inside the waking mind of an out-of-control zombie, he'd have really had something there. A truly horrifying film! I doubt very much that he did so. For now, I'll take my dream over that flick any day!
