Dream: Multi-ethnic Steampunk
One of the pleasures of my medication is the ability to dream – and remember my dreams – with the added benefit that few of them are nightmares (this is very different from my usual sleep pattern, which is dreamless, except when I have nightmares about animals dying).
On celexa, I have dreams that aren't nightmares. Often fairly complicated ones. Last night I had another and it was unusual for me.
Most unusual, I think, was the fact that the majority of the people in my dream were not white. It was also interesting because it was a Steampunk-ish setting dream and the combination is intriguing.
Like most white people, I imagine, PoC don’t often populate my dreamscape – I live in a very white state, and most of my media is fairly white as well. In this dream, there were only a few white people, most everyone else was psudo-South American/Mexican. A few were black, a couple of people where white – I think I was. In fact, I think I was Jude Law's Watson … I should be so lucky.
My dream opened up in a rather skeevy looking town of the marshy, swampy, jungle-y sort: something between imaginary South America and New Orleans. It was a port city, mainly old wooden warehouses, muddy streets and poor neighborhoods – I knew a major river ran to this city and the port was the source of the city's weath (and crime). I was looking for the local authority figure (in this case, I think he was a criminal mastermind), who was also either a contact or a friend – or both. The Doctor, as he was known, had been essentially running this port town for years and I worked with him periodically. However, something had changed recently and I was trying to see him. The Doctor was, I think, some version of Professor Xavier in that he was an old man in a wheelchair (resembling Ben Kingsly playing Ghandi).
I get hold of Richter, the Doctor's assitant/ward/something of the sort (and, yes, he was the Marvel superhero minus any powers). He took me to the Doctor's secret hideaway, which turned out to be the second story of an old warehouse. Except the Doctor wasn't there – he'd been betrayed by Richter and replaced by a big guy with one of those huge black beards, a cross between Blackbeard and one of those big-bellied steryotypical Mexican bandits in spagetti westerns. He'd been pretending to be the Doctor for weeks and supported by his gang. I blew a gasket at Richter for his betrayal and managed to get to a window and call for help. Evidently, the Doctor was so well known and liked that just leaning my head out the window and yelling that he was missing galvanized the random people on the street to action.
Even in my dream, yelling 'The Doctor is missing, we have to find him!' Reminded me of Dr. Who.
The folks in the courtyard below were an interesting mix of types; everything from bedoins in indigo robes and veils to some kind of non-humans (tall, gray, skinny, androgynous). Everyone was pretty poor, clearly.
I manage to escape from the warehouse, though I'm unable to find the Doctor (his wheelchair, yes, him no) and I make my way stealthily thorugh the city to the wide, muddy, hot river where I take a barge back up to 'London'. This is where I live and work.
The city is walled, and there's a bueracratic big-brotherish paperwork/passport wrangle to get back in – I sign the big book of 'reasons' and am told I need to seem my superior immediately. I work for the Metropolitan Police and my boss is a middle-aged black man, solid, grim and irritated with me for haring off to go to a city that, technically, we have no authority in.
My partner and I are sent to make an arrest at the University. This is the first place that looks classically 'steampunk'. The wood is waxed and polished, there are books lining the walls, the hallways are dark and quiet. The man we've come to arrest is young, slender, south american dark and a professor. He's being turned over to us for crossdressing; illegal and morally repugnant. Now, for some reason, I'm not nearly so revolted by this guy. I'm actually kind of pissed off at having to arrest him (waste of my time, victimless crime).
He's waiting for us in the library and I and my partner (also a white guy, I think) start the process of asking him what's going on. Now, evidently, this city has vanity laws – what kinds of clothes you can and can't wear and it's a crime for men to wear more than a certain percentage of women's clothes. I'm trying to find a way not to arrest the guy and ask him about his clothes – how much is female – I'm hoping he is under the percentage.
Clearly, he's angry at the whole process and tells me that all his clothing is women's clothing. He says, if you look, you can find women's trousers, bloses, shoes and so on. I look closer and he's right. Everything he's wearing is women's clothes of the tailored look. I'm going to have to arrest him.
My boss is disgusted by the guy. I remind him, rather cruelly, that not so long ago, a black man wouldn't have been allowed to set foot in the University and he'd do well to remember what it used to be like.
The dream sort of petered out about then. I think there was something going on about the two cities, and the Doctor, and my oddity of social beliefs but I don't know what it was.
The fact that no one, except possibly myself, was white was startling to me. It's particularly interesting because the dream was otherwise set in a Victorian/Steampunk era and there's been critique about Steampunk because the historical era it's interested in was a highly colonial/racist one. None of the places in my dream were, in fact, London or New Orleans or anything of the sort – rather some fantasy world with a mish-mash of trappings. The setting was a kind of goth/grunge/steampunk – old wood and muggy air, not polished brass and fine leather.
It also reminded me that I wrote a story for 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' that touched on historical homosexuality and the vanity laws. I quite liked that story. (http://community.livejournal.com/skycaptainslash/19537.html) You can see how my style and skills have changed over the ... almost six years since I wrote this.
I have no idea why everyone was PoC in this dream, possibly because the majority of my childhood friends were black, but I was sort of pleased by that. I like the idea that my subconscious has some ethnic diversity, though women seem to be far and few between.
On celexa, I have dreams that aren't nightmares. Often fairly complicated ones. Last night I had another and it was unusual for me.
Most unusual, I think, was the fact that the majority of the people in my dream were not white. It was also interesting because it was a Steampunk-ish setting dream and the combination is intriguing.
Like most white people, I imagine, PoC don’t often populate my dreamscape – I live in a very white state, and most of my media is fairly white as well. In this dream, there were only a few white people, most everyone else was psudo-South American/Mexican. A few were black, a couple of people where white – I think I was. In fact, I think I was Jude Law's Watson … I should be so lucky.
My dream opened up in a rather skeevy looking town of the marshy, swampy, jungle-y sort: something between imaginary South America and New Orleans. It was a port city, mainly old wooden warehouses, muddy streets and poor neighborhoods – I knew a major river ran to this city and the port was the source of the city's weath (and crime). I was looking for the local authority figure (in this case, I think he was a criminal mastermind), who was also either a contact or a friend – or both. The Doctor, as he was known, had been essentially running this port town for years and I worked with him periodically. However, something had changed recently and I was trying to see him. The Doctor was, I think, some version of Professor Xavier in that he was an old man in a wheelchair (resembling Ben Kingsly playing Ghandi).
I get hold of Richter, the Doctor's assitant/ward/something of the sort (and, yes, he was the Marvel superhero minus any powers). He took me to the Doctor's secret hideaway, which turned out to be the second story of an old warehouse. Except the Doctor wasn't there – he'd been betrayed by Richter and replaced by a big guy with one of those huge black beards, a cross between Blackbeard and one of those big-bellied steryotypical Mexican bandits in spagetti westerns. He'd been pretending to be the Doctor for weeks and supported by his gang. I blew a gasket at Richter for his betrayal and managed to get to a window and call for help. Evidently, the Doctor was so well known and liked that just leaning my head out the window and yelling that he was missing galvanized the random people on the street to action.
Even in my dream, yelling 'The Doctor is missing, we have to find him!' Reminded me of Dr. Who.
The folks in the courtyard below were an interesting mix of types; everything from bedoins in indigo robes and veils to some kind of non-humans (tall, gray, skinny, androgynous). Everyone was pretty poor, clearly.
I manage to escape from the warehouse, though I'm unable to find the Doctor (his wheelchair, yes, him no) and I make my way stealthily thorugh the city to the wide, muddy, hot river where I take a barge back up to 'London'. This is where I live and work.
The city is walled, and there's a bueracratic big-brotherish paperwork/passport wrangle to get back in – I sign the big book of 'reasons' and am told I need to seem my superior immediately. I work for the Metropolitan Police and my boss is a middle-aged black man, solid, grim and irritated with me for haring off to go to a city that, technically, we have no authority in.
My partner and I are sent to make an arrest at the University. This is the first place that looks classically 'steampunk'. The wood is waxed and polished, there are books lining the walls, the hallways are dark and quiet. The man we've come to arrest is young, slender, south american dark and a professor. He's being turned over to us for crossdressing; illegal and morally repugnant. Now, for some reason, I'm not nearly so revolted by this guy. I'm actually kind of pissed off at having to arrest him (waste of my time, victimless crime).
He's waiting for us in the library and I and my partner (also a white guy, I think) start the process of asking him what's going on. Now, evidently, this city has vanity laws – what kinds of clothes you can and can't wear and it's a crime for men to wear more than a certain percentage of women's clothes. I'm trying to find a way not to arrest the guy and ask him about his clothes – how much is female – I'm hoping he is under the percentage.
Clearly, he's angry at the whole process and tells me that all his clothing is women's clothing. He says, if you look, you can find women's trousers, bloses, shoes and so on. I look closer and he's right. Everything he's wearing is women's clothes of the tailored look. I'm going to have to arrest him.
My boss is disgusted by the guy. I remind him, rather cruelly, that not so long ago, a black man wouldn't have been allowed to set foot in the University and he'd do well to remember what it used to be like.
The dream sort of petered out about then. I think there was something going on about the two cities, and the Doctor, and my oddity of social beliefs but I don't know what it was.
The fact that no one, except possibly myself, was white was startling to me. It's particularly interesting because the dream was otherwise set in a Victorian/Steampunk era and there's been critique about Steampunk because the historical era it's interested in was a highly colonial/racist one. None of the places in my dream were, in fact, London or New Orleans or anything of the sort – rather some fantasy world with a mish-mash of trappings. The setting was a kind of goth/grunge/steampunk – old wood and muggy air, not polished brass and fine leather.
It also reminded me that I wrote a story for 'Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow' that touched on historical homosexuality and the vanity laws. I quite liked that story. (http://community.livejournal.com/skycaptainslash/19537.html) You can see how my style and skills have changed over the ... almost six years since I wrote this.
I have no idea why everyone was PoC in this dream, possibly because the majority of my childhood friends were black, but I was sort of pleased by that. I like the idea that my subconscious has some ethnic diversity, though women seem to be far and few between.