I recently woke up at 2am right after a very vivid dream.
I dreamed that I was in the audience of an experimental theatre. The play being performed involved selecting four audience members at random who would then become part of the cast. I was selected with three other audience members.
The plot of the play involved the day-to-day activities of a group of people being held hostage by belligerent forces. The hostages were all of the audience cast members plus some of the professional actors. The audience members selected at random appeared to have some sort of arts or theatre training. Soon it was impossible to differentiate the professional actors from the selected audience cast members. A sort of homeostasis seemed to set in by the second act. The play ended abruptly when a rival group of belligerents appeared. The two groups of belligerents engaged in a firefight on stage, killing all of the characters Shakespeare style.
At this point, I woke up from the dream. I was processing the dream when I realized that the dream was merely a metaphor. I wrote down the metaphor on a blue 3x5 card:
Life is being forced to participate in a drama and role not of your choosing which ends abruptly and badly.
I went back to sleep. When I woke up it was morning, so I went to work. Being at work seemed less vivid than the dream. Or was it?
A few days later, I wrote this account and posted it to facebook and as an editorial on my web site.
I also added the metaphor to the quotes page on my web site next to these quotes:
Life is like stepping onto a boat that is about to sail out to sea and sink. - Shunryu Suzuki
Life is being forced to participate in a drama and role not of your choosing which ends abruptly and badly. - Jeffrey Sward
The play's the thing - William Shakespeare
This is a true story.
Have a nice day.
Jeffrey Sward April 2020