Satan Never Sleeps

I felt tired all day today at work, so upon arriving home at 5:30, I took a little nap. And I'm not the kind of person that's always having interesting dreams I want to share with others. In fact, I'm usually bored by discussions of dreams. I think overall people tend to place too much importance on them, imagining that buried somewhere in their dreams is the secret to happiness or meaning in life or something, when really it's just your subconscious' warped, messed up re-enactment of the shit that was on your mind that day.

But today, I had a really weird dream. So weird, I felt the need to share.

When the dream begins, I'm on an airplane headed for Jerusalem. No one actually says anything about going to the Middle East, but I just know that's the destination. This is odd for two reasons:

(1) I have never been to Israel, nor do I have any desire to go. (2) In my dreams, at least the ones I remember, I'm almost always traveling somewhere. I never ever have dreams where I'm at home, in LA, doing familiar activities. Usually, I'm on vacation in Las Vegas or New York in my dreams. I have no idea why. I've been to both of these cities within the past few years, so perhaps they just made a strong impression on me.

Okay, back to the dream. We land in the Holy Land, and the first person I see is my friend Tim. Tim currently lives in Chicago, and I haven't seen him face-to-face in well over a year, but in the dream I don't think it's odd that he's meeting me at an airport terminal in Jerusalem. I guess we'd made pre-arrangements to meet there.

Tim and I then get into his car, and I'm suddenly aware of what I'm doing in Jerusalem. I'd like to here stress that I have not doctored this dream or embellished it for dramatic/comic effect. I really did just dream this stuff just now before typing these words. I realize (or, in the reality of the dream, remember) that Tim and I have flown to Jerusalem in order to end worldwide Christianity.

Yeah. For real. I'm trying to destroy a major world religion in the dream.

Tim and I arrive at a massive stone cross in the middle of the desert. (Again, I swear, this is going to sound made up and bizarre, but it's not. Well, it totally is made up, but while I was sleeping, which confers on it a kind of shadowy, peculiar mystery that we don't afford waking fiction.)

We start to beat upon and destroy the cross. I can visualize an image of my stabbing it with something sharp (maybe another stone). Eventually, it spurts blood (honest!) at Tim and I, but that only increases our focus and anger. Soon enough, the thing is decimated, I'm covered in blood, and then I woke up feeling kind of nauseated.

Okay. Wow. So, if you read the blog, you're probably aware that I'm not massive fan of organized religion. Particularly the overwhelmingly self-righteous, narrow brand of organized religion that's, like, so totally hot right now. But I'm not really a bad guy. I don't want to destroy people's fragile systems of belief. I don't hate Christianity or Christians, I just object to its encroachment on my civil liberties.

I think. Judging from this dream, I'm actually enraged by Christianity, such that I want to bludgeon its major iconic symbol into dust.

You know what thought did occur to me? If this were a movie, and I'm just an ordinary guy who is suddenly having dreams where I destroy crosses whilst covered in blood, the conclusion would be obvious: I'm possessed by a demon. A demon that plans to use my human body to undermine God's design.

I don't think I'm actually possessed. My head hasn't spun around and, though I feel a bit nauseated, as I said, I have yet to projectile vomit pea soup across the room. Maybe I was, for whatever reason, thinking about Satanism before going to sleep, so that demonic thoughts kind of worked themselves into my dream narrative. I'm not sure. But if I start speaking Carpathian or developing a passionate interest in Santeria, I'll be sure to let you all know.