THAT EVENING

Science fiction (with the emphasis on fiction) on TV.

Doctor Who: Time and the Rani. A stony world where people are greenish, with yellow feather-scaly heads. There are four-eyed vampire-bat people too, and the Rani, the cutest little Hitler in history.

Star Trek: Shore Leave. A surreal romp (scripted by Theodore Sturgeon) about an Eden where, alarmingly, whatever you imagine soon appears--samurai, giant rabbits, chorus girls, tigers. Safe or not, sane or not...

THAT NIGHT

World War Two is over, and Nazis like the Rani get paraded through the streets, sometimes in color, sometimes in newsreel black & white. The Rani is clueless, seems to think it's a rally in the early Nazi days and these are admirers, not war-weary civilians cheering her capture!

I walk alongside and spell it out. "This is the end. YOU are all the Nazis left in the world. You managed to turn everyone in the world against you--or got them killed, along with millions of others. You're the last one who hasn't learned that Nazis destroy themselves."

Other prisoners are hustled off--by guards or mobs--till she's alone. We wrestle and fight... I'd much rather kiss her than fight her--she's cute. If she'd just quit trying to be the Essence of Evil. But she's stuck on power. Just no fun. What a waste!

A long, pointless struggle...

Whoops! Now I'm back in her heyday, trapped in a hospital/prison. The guards are scary--especially that a tiger with the laser gun.

Can't tell if it's an old folks home or an insane asylum. Most inmates are both old and senile--but were they ever sane? And there are a few younger crazies too. Or so they seem, but they're on drugs; are they nuts or just overdosed to shut them up?

I spot some co-workers from my day job. Know they're not senile or crazy. Drugs, then...

And then the director struts by, and I know. The Rani! It's all a scheme to farm us--kill us and use our bodies to make some product. Soap, or lampshades, I suppose. Something to fund the rise of her next Reich.

A friend of mine plots escape after escape. Quite imaginative. But the Rani's more so. He's always stopped by a deadly trap. Monsters, bombs.. that tiger.

Really, my friend's doing well just to have survived the barrage.

At last I test an escape plan way less logical than his careful plots. Just climb the stone boundary wall, sit, and visualize a laser gun. It appears in my hand--glassy and light at first, but soon as solid as the wall. Now I'm even with her guards, even the tiger.

Next I materialize a jetpack on my back. It settles on me out of nowhere but... expectation.

Now I can fly short distances. Of course, I could just try flying without it...

You know, these guards harass me daily, but I've noticed they never dare attack all-out. For the first time, I think I know why. An open fight just might push me to develop these materialization powers!

Even without a big face-off, I'm learning to fly, I'm armed, and I bet I can do more--now that I'm challenging the limits of what's possible, as a shaman should.

IN THE MORNING

This isn't a lucid dream in the classic sense--I don't deduce I'm dreaming. Yet the shamanic assumption that all worlds are somewhat dreamlike seems to give me much the same power as lucidity!

I think that's the dream's point. Classic lucidity seems hard for most dreamers; but a shamanic attitude doesn't require that. Just assume the world is mysterious, rules are negotiable and weird stuff happens. Whatever world you're in.

So try the impossible--you might just do it. After all, the Grand Poobahs who decree what can and can't be done are always wrong, always too narrow. That's the only law of physics I'm really sure of.

Bigger and weirder. It always is.

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