Monday, November 04, 2019

Strange Dream of Being a Lawyer

Sometimes I have dreams that could be movies, or novels, or such - that have a really interesting logic to them, that could end up being used as the basis of a more-fully-developed story. Last night, with a chest cold keeping me semi-awake last night, presumably in a hypnagogic state - half-asleep, half-awake, and dreaming, but with a bit of "authorial input" from my semiconscious brain - I came up with a kind of great one...

...in the dream, I'm some sort of lawyer or such with an interest in human rights, righting wrongs, and so forth. I live pretty comfortably, and believe myself to be a good man, deserving of what I have. One day, though, I discover I am the target of a malign figure, who starts to stalk me; I get upsetting phone calls, have my home violated - I don't recall the details of that part of the narrative. The person who is doing this to me seems to be testing me, challenging me, putting me through ordeals less about punishing me than they are about setting a high bar that I have to jump over. That's how I interpret it, anyhow. While struggling to survive the series of ordeals, I try to figure out who is doing this to me and why. 

I am having, near the end of my dream, dinner with clients or such, and start getting text messages from the person who is stalking me, and things start to fall together - that this person is enacting a non-specific revenge on "the system," taking out on me sufferings that they themselves went through. I figure out that they've been badly wronged in some way, and start approaching the person from that point of view. What they've put me through over the last few days is monstrous - but it is also, I realize, a "cry for help."

It happens, though, that I'm a lawyer, and I am in a position to possibly help them. I get up and go to the men's room next to the restaurant I'm at, because I have a brainstorm that my stalker is there. They are! And we talk. I learn that they were the victim of government sponsored medical or mind-control experiments, years ago; that they are still suffering the effects of these experiments; and that they have tried to talk about them many times previously. No one has been interested.

I reassure them that I am interested, that I know about these sorts of experiments, and that it sounds like they have the stuff of a winning case, and that I do occasionally take on pro-bono work - especially when I think there can be a payout at the end, which is my feeling in this case. "So I could help you."

They object - but what I've been doing to you is horrible, they say. "Yeah, it is, but lucky for you, you've been doing it to someone who kind of gets it, and better, is in a position to do something about it..." 

Suddenly my stalker/ tormentor becomes my client, as I set out to do justice for them. It's a happy ending...!

That's all I recall, but it's kind of structurally neat. Could be a good thriller, sort of. But life, work, tired, yadda yadda. Wanted to make a note of it, though.  Crappy sleep, but a good dream.

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