Today's dream: A school dictatorship & one subway connected China, Japan and Venezuela, and I did some tourism.

I was in that very sleep-seducing moment of sleeplessness joined by a colossal dreamlike creativity. I went to lie down on my bed trying to solve a programming problem in my mind. I woke up an hour later and remembered I hadn't brushed my teeth, but the programming problem was still there, mixed now with the image of yellow Chinese-style dragons with black and red stripes flying everywhere.

I really wanted to sleep and dream, so I ran to brush my teeth and went back to bed.

^{Image taken from Pixabay}

A sports field

The dream started in a sports field where a group of ~45 youngsters were being in the dictatorship's equivalent to physical education. There was a group of what I now assume to be professors "harassing" the students and having small groups do things like jog and stand firm in military-like platoons. I personally felt that I didn't belong there and was trapped in the situation.

I was looking around thinking of ways to evade these people's eyes. They seemed to me like a dystopic dictatorship's police officers imposing their madness upon us. The sky was slightly grey and everything looked rainy. To the north was an avenue and then the city. To the west, a southward hallway to enter a gigantic shopping centre. Many people were coming in and out.

I was sitting against a wall to the south of the field, watching the teams running, the people coming and out on my left side, and I saw that next to the wall I was resting against, there was another wall made of plants. There was a small passage between that wall and the concrete wall.

A path to freedom

A little boy ran behind the green wall and I saw him come out next to the hallway and run into the shopping centre. I looked to my right and saw that none of the instructors had seen him. I felt inspired and got up. Right at that moment, however, I heard a group of beeps that sounded like the series of whistles used by scouts to call their teams to formation. I saw that everyone was running, but when I was reaching the green wall, everyone was standing and looking at me, as I was the only one without a group.

I looked around and didn't see anything that fit me. I just walked to a line of little kids and stood behind them. I obviously didn't fit there, but nobody said anything. My things were still next to the wall. A brown jacket, a camera and my bag full of stuff. Orders came to move and I just ran to the wall and escaped into the shopping centre.

I was walking a bit disoriented when I found the first kid that had escaped. He approached me and started talking to me. I don't know what we talked about, but I spent all that time worried that I had left my things behind but I couldn't go back. All around me was the shopping centre. There were many tables, lots of people and shops with strange name signs.

Walking around in the city

I don't know if it was at this point when I started walking through the shops or if it was another dream, but I felt that I had taken the subway into Japan. In front of me, I saw a small grassy hill where a highway crossed east to west. South of the highway was a river, then more grass and then another west-east street, then to both sides, east and west, were houses and small office buildings, and I was standing in the middle of this south-north street. It looked particularly like an area of Caracas called Chuao.

I walked forward to the east-west street and tried to find my way. I found myself walking by a street with shops. All the shop's signs were in Japanese. I needed to find the subway to go back to Caracas. I started running until I found a crossing from Japan into China. It was like a commercial street that changed from Japan-styled shops and straight into China-styled shops. The Japan side was all blue, white and light purple, and the China side was more green and yellow. The air was heavier and a bit warmer. I didn't go in at once because I stopped to think that China is a dictatorship and that by walking in, I would be more at risk than if I stayed there in Japan.

Taking the subway

In the end, I stepped forward and kept running. I finally found a subway (with an entrance very much like the Caracas subway entrances) and ran inside. Inside, the stairs were in chaos, the subway was in chaos. In dreams, simple pathways become labyrinths. Instead of a common-sense stair, I found myself in intersections after intersections, going down, then up, running across long hallways, finding myself in front of tables of employees selling products or giving out information.

I then got to the subway and it was the same thing. It was not like the usual two railways, one going east, the other going west. Instead, there were two railways that turned into 4 railways on the western side, or 4 railways that met into 2 railways going east. I somehow managed to get into a train and get down in a part of China that was closer to Caracas.

I went out and found a tropical exit with lots of trees and plants. The air was damp and the light was yellow. I looked to my right while walking out and saw that on a small grassy hill, there were a lot of people sitting. When I paid attention, I saw that some of those people were my cousins. There is a communist side in my family. They were all there together (between Caracas and China, no less), happy and chatting. I was really excited, as I always am when I meet members of my lovely family, even if they are communists.

I ran to them, hugged a few and sat next to them to chat. I don't remember anything else after this.

My interpretation of the dream

The little boy in the mall reminds me a lot of the little boy that welcomed Sabrina to the "School of Unseen Arts" in the new series I was watching yesterday called Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. The physical education class obviously takes me back to my own physical education classes, and the scouts' whistles and rows to my own time with the scouts.

In the broad sense of things, I've been struggling lately with the idea of leaving the country and our dictatorship behind. I've had recent trouble with it and I feel a lot of pressure from this extra-absurd side of my life. On the other hand, I need to prepare a lot in order to leave. I can compare this to the first part of the dream where I was annoyed with the absurd instructors telling people to do things and keeping us in line, then looking around for ways to escape.

I was also thinking last night that if I left the country, I don't know if I'd be allowed to take the home DSLR (I've been the one to use it the most during our trips abroad). I imagine that from this side comes the worry of having left "my" camera behind in the field of the dictatorship minions. I would also have to leave my computer, most of my clothes and the trinkets that have taken me years to collect. I would leave my friends as well, though I don't have many left in the country anymore (they have left to many countries all around the world, never to be reunited again).

I also see now that by leaving, I cut off all possible interaction with those that were left. When I leave, there are fewer people to hide amongst, so those that are left are more obvious and it's harder for them to leave if they want to. I am also one helping hand here all the time. I'm always helping the people around me, but if I leave, they'll be left with one less helping hand. Can I blame myself for running away?

I can only compare this somehow to an abusive relationship. I love the country and the people in it, but I've gotten nothing other than beatings and words of patriotism. How can I stay here for love and risk my safety? Should I stay with my equivalent of an alcoholic husband who says he loves me but punches me in the guts every time he gets the chance? I know it's different people who do that (the ones that treat me well and the ones that treat me badly), but it's too much for me to handle anymore.