|
|
7/1/2002 : Last night, I dreamed I watched a plane crash. It was dusk. The plane began to smoke before it went into the ground. I didn't actually see it hit the ground, and it was headed towards the airport, so I was hoping they would make it. I watched and waited, and then I saw a plume of smoke go up and I knew that they hadn't.
By that time, it was almost dark. As it grew darker, I kept hearing these zipping noises going over my head. Finally, I realized they were bullets, but I couldn't hear anyone actually shooting. Then I saw a ground launched missile go up from somewhere. It went up, up, then exploded, and silouetted in the flash of the explosion was a commercial airliner. In minutes, the night sky was full of military jets, and they were strafing the ground and also shooting down other airliners. It was rather bizarre. I never felt in danger, though there were bullets zipping just over my head the entire time.
6/24/2002 : This morning, I lay in bed in that half dream state between hits of the snooze button. Earlier in the night, I dreamed that I met Poppy Bush at a cerebral palsy benefit (don't ask me where that came from) and I was pondering the symbolism of my dream. Lots of random dream thoughts and visions wer firing in my head when two things happened.
First, I saw the place where they will find that little girl - behind a guard rail on an interstate highway.
Second, I heard something not unlike a conversation between two people. In the conversation, one of the people said, "They took him into custody on September 10th, and that's when the warnings went out."
The 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, was taken into custody in August, we are told, after he expressed a desire to learn how to fly a commercial jet, but not land one.
Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't August a little late to begin learning how to pilot the aircraft you intend to hijack in September?
What if Zacarias Moussaoui isn't the 20th hijacker? What if it was someone else, someone arrested on September 10th? Wouldn't that explain a great many things?
Wouldn't it explain why FEMA arrived in New York on Monday night? Wouldn't it explain why the plane with only four hijackers was the last to be hijacked? Maybe the four on that plane waited longer and decided later to go ahead with their plan, because they weren't sure why the fifth member of their team hadn't shown up and they wanted to wait and see if their cover had been blown before acting.
Wouldn't it explain why George Bush said that if he had known hijackers would use the planes as weapons, he would have done whatever it took to stop them? If he knew there was going to be hijackings, but the 20th hijacker had told them that they were planning conventional hijackings, wouldn't that convince him that there was no need to overreact? Wouldn't that explain why he sat in that classroom for 20 more minutes, because he knew there were still two hijackings to go and his people were scrambling around trying to figure out what went wrong?
Wouldn't that explain the administration's need for total secrecy in regard to all prisoners, and its desire for military tribunals and the elimination of judicial review? Public knowledge about the prisoners might reveal that someone was arrested on September 10th, a public trial would reveal that he warned the government before the hijackings began. Wouldn't this explain why the administration is willing to trample the Constitution in its desire for total secrecy? Wouldn't this explain why the administration is utterly against any kind of independent investigation? Wouldn't this explain why the administration wants to use torture and indefinite detentions?
Wouldn't this explain why they are so keen to prosecute and execute Zacarias Moussaoui?
When you read and watch the news in the next few weeks, remember to ask yourself, what if there is another 20th hijacker?
6/21/2002 : Last night, I had a very specific dream about the man who kidnapped that little girl in Utah. If you are involved in the investigation, or know anyone who is, please pass this information along.
The kidnapper lives on the same street, in a corner house. Evidence of his crime is in two places. The first can be identified by a small section of carpet that has recently been shampooed. I got the impression that this was in a bedroom, next to a bed. Underneath this carpet is evidence of the crime, possibly a blood stain. The second piece of evidence is hidden in a grandfather clock in the hall.
5/12/2002 : Two significant dreams on the same night. Hmm.
Not much to report from the first dream other than I dreamed my wife was pregnant. Wait and see.
The second dream was about a terrorist attack. It was summer, and I couldn't tell where this took place - either the Caribbean or the Mediterranean. The target was a cruise ship full of Western tourists. The attack took place at sea, well away from the shore. Several (three, I think) high-performance speed boats like you used to see on Miami Vice, were loaded down with explosives and used as suicide torpedoes. After the first hit, the captain of the ship tried to avoid the others, but it was useless. I kept thinking (I was in a news helicopter), if only this ship had a couple of decent guns on board, it could defend itself. But the ship didn't stand a chance and went down quickly, rolling onto its port side before sinking. However, one of the suicide bombers survived and we picked him out of the water. He was Algerian, and he said that his two brothers had been killed by American soldiers in Afganistan.
4/16/2002 : Last night, I had another odd dream.
In this dream, I was at a sporting event - a football or soccer game - at a park near some tall buildings. As I was watching the game, I noticed an airplane coming in very low. In the dream, I had the knowledge that an airport was beyond the tall buildings, but the plane was far too low. I did not recognize the markings on the plane, but I recall there being the color gold or yellow or brown in its markings. I recall that there was a large cathedral nearby, and it had a golden dome on top.
I watched in horror as the plane came in low and slow over the ball field, then flew smack into a building across the street. It hit at about the third or fourth floor and penetrated to the tail. The tail of the aircraft remained sticking out of the building. A good deal of rubble fell to the ground immediately below it.
I stood in shock for a few moments, waiting for it to explode, but it never did. Gradually, the idea came over me and the others at the game that there might be survivors, and they would need aid. So everyone began to run toward the building. I was farther away than most, so I reached the scene after quite a few people were already there and scrambling up the rubble pile to reach the plane. I ran inside and found a staircase.
I arrived at the correct floor, finding it engulfed in flames. But there were people moving around, moving rubble and wreckage, looking for survivors. There were two - an infant and a toddler, both boys; the infant was African-American, the toddler was white. I took the infant and escaped the burning building.
The dream went on for some time, during which I carried around this injured baby. Gradually, I nursed him back to health. He was an orphan, and I wondered if it were possible to adopt him. Then I woke up.
This is the second time I've dreamed of finding an orphaned boy in the midst of tragedy, and of trying to find a way to adopt him.
I told my dream to a friend - Tally Briggs. In return, she sent me these disturbing pictures.
4/15/2002 - Last night, I dreamed my wife and I were in California, in the country to the southeast of San Francisco. At the beginning of the dream, I was worried about the possibility of an earthquake. I was sure there was going to be an earthquake.
We were driving to a hotel where we were supposed to meet people from where I work. It was dark and raining. We found a hotel, and I went inside to see if it was the right one. I found people from work inside, sitting at the bar, talking to characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation (don't ask me). In particular, both Data and Lore were there.
As it was already late and we hadn't eaten, I hurried back to the car. We had reservations at a nearby restaurant. We left the hotel, but as we reached the highway, I realized that I had forgotten to check in at the hotel. We turned around to go back, but I turned on the wrong road.
We ended up driving along a gravel road beside a rain-swollen river. Upslope from the river, we could see the hotel. The gravel road turned up towards the hotel, but the slope was too steep for the car. So I backed down.
As I tried to turn the car around on the dark, rainy gravel road, I backed into the river. Immediately, water flooded the car up to the windows, and we were sinking. We rolled down the windows to escape, but the current rolled the car over on my side, and that's when I woke up.
As I lay in bed trying to come to terms with this dream, my first thought was that, if the baby had been in the backseat, there is no way we could have escaped with him. As fast as we sank, there is no way we could have freed him from his car seat in time.
Lesson from this dream - never back towards a river you can't see.
4/4/02 - Last night, I had another dream about Israel. Only this time, the dream took place behind the church where I was married.
In the dream, Israeli troops were in place on the hill by the church, while Palestinian militia were holding a small creek which runs behind the church. I happened into the middle ground, the no man's land between them, just as the battle erupted. Strangely, both groups were shooting at me. I managed to escape, but many other innocent bystanders did not.
After the fighting stopped, I happened upon a friend whose infant grandaughter had been killed by a Palestinian mortar. Seeing that small, shattered body lying in his lap as he sat on the ground filled me with an anger that I have never before known. I wanted revenge in the worst way, I wanted the Israelis to renew the battle, and I offered to join them.
Then, other refugees began to wander through the area, and I came upon a small boy crying for his mother. I picked him up and tried to help him find her, but both his parents had been killed in the fighting. He was alone, an orphan, and I didn't know what to do. I wondered if I could take him home.
And that's when it occured to me - if I wanted revenge for the dead girl, then I would have to leave that orphaned boy to wander alone on a battlefield, searching for a mother who would never again answer his cries. If I wanted to help the boy, then I would have to give up my desire for revenge.
As a world, as a nation, as a people and as a species, we are faced with this same choice. We can revenge the dead, or we can take care of the living - but we can't do both. When we avenge the dead, no matter how justifiable our actions, we abandon our children to a future of violence and revenge. Violence begets violence, blood cries for blood.
But the children weep as well. Whose cries will we answer - the ghosts of a dead world, or the children of our future?
3/5/02 - Last night, I dreamed that I had lunch with Ehud Barak in the palace of King David. We sat on a portico that faced the setting sun, and the hills of Judea were gold and green.
We discussed peace. We tried to decide how best to bring peace to Israel, and this is what we learned:
As long as the terrorists who won Israel's independence from Great Britain are the ones still in power, as long as the ones who fought for Israel's survival in the sixties and seventies are in power, and as long as the ones who hijacked planes and Olympics in the seventies are in power, there will be no peace.
There can be no peace with Arafat. There can be no peace with Sharon. There can be no peace in a divided Israel and Palestine. There can be no peace as long as Israel conducts war against its own people. There can be no peace in a West Bank and Gaza connected by a fenced highway. There can be no peace as long as Israelis and Palestinians are separate but equal.
Peace depends on the rule of law. But there can be no rule of law in a divided Palestine with Palestinians as second-class citizens. Israel must be one nation, with a participatory government created by all its citizens. That means Israelis and Palestinians equally involved in the creation of government, that means the Israelis must be willing to lose an election to a Palestinian, it means Israelis must be willing to have a Palestinian president or prime minister, if that is how the election shakes out.
It means that the rule of law must be established and fairly administered. It means that Palestinians must trust in the rule of Israeli law, and that the Israelis must give them a reason to trust. It means that Israelis must trust in the rule of Palestinian law, and that Palestinians must give them a reason to trust.
The first step is to stop talking about a divided Palestine. The first step is to tear down the walls and the check points and extend to every Palestinian Israeli citizenship. Once this is done, terrorism becomes a crime and not an act of war. As the crime of an individual or group of individuals, it can be prosecuted individually and punished individually and the innocent bystander of today will not become the terrorist of tomorrow. Justice replaces retaliation. Peace eventually replaces chaos.
This was my dream, and likely it will remain a dream. Because none of this can happen so long as religion serves as the excuse for racism.
I'm one to talk, though, with America adopting the failed Israeli model of dealing with terrorism.
