Before 9-11, I used to have strange dreams, but they never really involved anything on a catastrophic level.
But since then, I’ve had several dreams that were apocalyptic in nature: bombings, warfare, mass death. Is it just psychological, a reflection of latent paranoia, or is my brain reacting to what I’ve observed about current violent events by taking the content and images and replaying them during dreams?
Here’s just one example. I’m in bed, trying to get to sleep. Opposite to my bed is a window. The shades are up. In waking life, planes fly over all the time. I’ve lived here most of my life so I’m used to the noise. I can even see the planes through that window sometimes. In the dream, I’m looking out the window when I see a plane approaching. It looks like it’s on a direct course to my window, and as it comes closer and closer I scream because it’s going to crash into the house. But at the last second, the plane flies off. But before I draw a sigh of relief, I see lights in the distance moving steadily towards me. I freak out, because they’re going to crash into the house or drop a bomb on us.
I run downstairs, as if I won’t be hurt if I’m not in my bedroom. After a while downstairs, panicking with the rest of my family, there is a huge explosion. I run upstairs to my room to see what’s happened. My window and part of the wall is completely blown off. Other than that, the damage is minimal. But the explosion has set a fire, which starts to spread rapidly. I grab some of my things and run out.
The rest of my family has already gathered outside. We’re going to get in our car and drive somewhere safe. Our neighbors have already started packing their things and loading them into vehicles.