Armageddon down under

I woke up in a sweat from the most intense dream on Sunday morning. The fear and anxiety that it provoked was so strong that I felt weak from exertion.

Some sort of apocalyptic event had occurred. As often happens with dreams, I quickly forgot a lot of the more general details upon waking, so I’m not sure whether earthquake, explosion or some other calamity had brought about the mass destruction I observed. I found myself trapped in the ruins of a burning city with no way of escape. The city in this dream did not seem to be my home city, Melbourne, rather it was a massive, never-ending sprawl of broken and crumbling buildings that did not seem to hold any recognizable features.

As if the mass destruction, loss of power, amenities and communications were not enough to have me worried, terrible acts of violence - riots, upheavals, loot and slaughter - appeared to be occurring in every direction that I looked. At one stage a massive flood of screaming people ran past me, pursued by machete wielding brigands intent upon murdering them all.

Not long after that, I somehow found the company of two friends, Glenn & Timmy, which provided some consolation. We had but one focus: to get the hell out of the city and into the rural areas; which would hopefully find us in safer surrounds and allow us to figure out what had happened. Unfortunately our efforts to leave the city were thwarted when we discovered that individual races had segregated and formed their own militias, which were patrolling the city and shooting anyone that was not of their race on sight. I remember distinctly a bunch of oversized, Neo-Nazi skinheads glaring at us menacingly.

By this time people were no longer baring such crude weapons as machetes and bats for they had somehow acquired machine guns en-masse, and the chilling stutter of shots progressively became a regular backdrop to our horrifying environment. Bodies were piled up on the streets, rubbish was strewn about everywhere, and every alley we tried finished with a dead end of broken concrete.

We had to get out!

Abruptly, and in a bizarre twist that can only occur in the unreal landscape of dreams, Timmy decided that becoming a busker would help him out of this crisis. Glenn concurred, and they both made the decision to leave me wandering the city alone while they departed to undertake this new venture. I remember feeling very vulnerable; so vulnerable in fact that I climbed into the ventilation duct of a nearby building. The rest of the dream is a blur, however I do remember that towards the end I spotted a friend, Alicia, in a shop front window. I ran over to the window and banged on the glass for her to let me in - but she was having none of it. She refused me entry and even ‘shooed’ me away.

Not long after this I awoke from my dream, panting like a racehorse having just run the Melbourne cup, with brow beaded in sweat and shivering. I wonder what it all means? Some sort of insecurities? A latent distrust of my friends? Some sort of clairvoyant insight into the happenings of the future?