Big Game

I've had it pointed out to me over the years that my brain doesn't work the way that most other peoples' do. Whatever. Who cares. But I can't begin to deny that strange things tend to happen in my head, particularly while I'm unconscious. Like I've mentioned before, I used to have incredibly painful, disturbing dreams, leading to extended periods of insomnia. Also like I've mentioned before, I figured out the problem that was leading to those, and they stopped happening. Which, of course, was an evolutionary process, rather than a totally new paradigm.

Over the period of my night-terror years, I tried every conceivable method and theory of dream manipulation. Attempts at lucid dreaming, conscious dream keys, self-hypnosis, dream logs, binaural tones for relaxation or meditation, you name it. I can give you a colorful commentary on any or all of them, including their effectiveness (and recreational value) when undertaken in conjunction with alcohol, and/or pharmaceuticals. In the end, what finally worked was change in philosophy, rather than a change in technique. Which, in retrospect, is not surprising at all, but it seemed pretty revolutionary when it happened over a decade ago.

In any rate, my dreams are still occasionally disturbing, but now in a much more pro-active fashion. For example, I remember a recent dream where I was sitting in my truck in a parking lot, and two guys with shotguns simply climbed into the back seat. They announced their intention to steal my truck and kidnap my fiance. Once upon a time, this would have been just the preamble of a truly disturbing dream sequence that might have gone on for hours (subjective time), and subsequently kept me from sleeping again for a week or three. Instead of that, the dream reached a conclusion that remained a bit disturbing, but included the end of the dream in short order, and me suffering only a few hours of subsequent tossing and turning. Specifically: After those guys climbed into my back seat and announced their intentions, I killed them. Both. By ambush, and with me never giving either of them them a chance, much less a warning. I shot one of them five times and his buddy three times, at essentially point blank range. It wasn't easy, since the mechanics had me shooting lefty, twisting my body from the driver's seat and firing between the front seats at guys in the back seat from under my right armpit. I didn't have a lot of confidence in my accuracy, so I opted for overwhelming application of force. It seemed to work under the circumstances.

I remember another fairly recent dream, when Freddy Kruger made an actual appearance, attempting to chase me and my brothers around the school we went to as kids. I grew up with the original Elm Street movies, and remember being terrified of that character. But Freddy's most recent appearance in my subconscious wasn't bad at all. A scrawny 5-foot-8 burned guy with some knives? Come on. Bring that weak shit the playground, and you end up in a dumpster, bleeding, trying to pick up your teeth with broken fingers. So yeah. Me and my brothers beat the hell out of him with steel pipes and a baseball bat. Turns out that there's not a whole lot to worry about, so long as you stay calm, control your fear, and consider yourself as the party with initiative.

I got to thinking about all this after last night night saw a dream that I had literally never had before. One that caught me completely unprepared. DINOSAURS. I didn't appreciate the novelty of it at the time, and it really could have been a lot worse, since we had the luxury of defending a semi-prepared elevated position (the upper floor of a house). Not to say that it was easy, since - in retrospect - I came light. I was in my Zombie-Apocalypse loadout (AR, Glock 19, tire-iron). Turns out that dinosaurs call for at least the Big Bad Wolf package (automatic shotgun, 1911, and a boar-spear) even if all you're dealing with is velociraptors (or Utahraptors, if you want to get picky about the genus of that type of lizard standing about human-height). But even though I started out under-equipped and made things worse by braking my carbine, the real problem I kept having with the dinosaurs was that I had no idea how to fight them. Zombies? Sure. Plenty of ways to deal with them, whether your talking about the truly undead, or just the masses of fucking morons we have to face down every day.  Likewise, there are any number of ways to deal with movie monsters, villains, natural disasters, or even being trapped in a city that is slowing being stomped down to ground level by Godzilla. (Yes, I've had that dream.) Again, all you have to do is stay calm, and consider yourself the party with initiative.

That having been said, it always helps to think ahead, and I hadn't, and it wasn't a lot of fun dealing with dinosaurs on the fly. Interestingly, the ones that were theoretically the most versatile, cunning, and deadly (the raptors) were easiest to deal with, simply because of transferable skills and plans. Raptors were lot like hunting werewolves, although the raptors were less agile, and MUCH better jumpers. But how do you deal with a T-Rex? Regardless of the fact that I was raised on Jurassic Park just a much as I was raised on Elm Street, I had never really considered how to go about putting down a bus-sized predatory dinosaur.

Next time I face dinosaurs, I'll make sure I've got the Big Bad Wolf loadout with me, and I'll have to think of something specialized for T-Rex/Dragon applications. (Thermite, possibly.) Might be important some day.