Reply #21: Alternate reality dream--Orwellian

[MorningGlow]

Wow, I haven't had an Orwellian dream in ages. But last night I dreamt that I was in the near future, and it was very 1984-ish. Everyone was afraid to say what they thought in case someone was listening, and everyone was very much on their guard because they were afraid that others who seemed to be sincere could be government agents or informants who would turn them in for saying/thinking the wrong thing (anything critical of the government).

My dream bounced around in time (possibly going backward). In the first bit I was an IT kind of person helping set up a luncheon for government officials. However, some members of the IT team, including me and the boss, were activists/revolutionaries. We set everything up like we were supposed to, but at the last minute the boss sent everyone else out of the room and he had me sabotage these electronic devices that were beside each plate. They looked kind of like cell phones but weren't. I don't know what they were supposed to do. My boss had me break them all by twisting the tops. I'm also not sure what that was supposed to accomplish, but it was quite the daring thing to do.
Also in that same time frame, the news went out that our president was dead. The president was Palin. Interestingly enough, nobody seemed to care much, although everyone was suspicious about how suddenly yet casually it was announced. We seemed to take it as a matter of course that it was an inside job because she had outlived her usefulness and was becoming a pain. ("Becoming"?!) I also kind of "knew" the backstory, that someone else (a Republican) had been president, and she took over by shady means, so nobody liked her, not even her fellow Republicans. Later we (the activists) found out some secret information--that she wasn't dead, but instead was in suspended animation and scientists were working on cloning her and coming up with a "better" (more docile and obedient) version of her. It was kind of gratifying to think of her floating in a giant jar for all eternity, but of course that meant we were going to have to stop the cloning efforts.

Then it was earlier in time. I was a young college graduate who just got a government job. I got the impression that it wasn't my choice--I was informed that that was the career that was chosen for me. I was very "green"--kept talking to people openly about things and freaking them out. People couldn't get away from me fast enough in case I got in trouble and they were implicated as well, simply by being seen with me.

I was brought to a big office building with a bunch of cubicles. It looked almost like a warehouse. And the ceiling, which was dozens of feet up, was painted a midnight blue to offset the glaring fluorescent lights and because it had been found to be psychologically soothing. My orientation interview was going to be conducted by the high muckety muck of the division, who turned out to be Palin. (I have never dreamed of her before, BTW, and dreaming about her repeatedly last night was very annoying!) This was before she became president. She sat me down in a cubicle and interviewed me to find out my "suitability" and to inform me how wonderful the division was. Farther into the warehouse was a giant play area that extended up toward the ceiling--a daycare center for the employees with children right in the same place as the offices. She was very proud of that. It even extended to the spot right over our heads. (There was a giant net under the play area, which was like a massive plastic tree with bright yellow slides and ladders and ropes, and over our heads, so the kids didn't fall onto the office workers.)

Weird. Disturbing. I really don't like having dreams with such an Orwellian bent, because it reminds me of how close we came to actually achieving that. However, after spending that much time in a dream where people weren't allowed to speak freely, it helped me appreciate how much freedom we actually still have--something we tend to forget when we get crabby about our country.