I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

Last night, I had the most awful dream. It started like a really beautifully wrought film, so it was ok at the beginning. We are on some island in the Pacific, and following a lone warrior, who appears to be Japanese, and old dynasty by his costume. I wonder why we are following him around this tropical paradise, and why he seems to be alone. My filmmaker's eye is noting a number of details and shot locations. Then we see him in a window of a home, or this fort or whatever he's guarding. And I realize this is his post, this island. He is guarding it by himself. And I am not in this dream as a participant. I am a voyeur.

OK.

So I am watching him look through this window, and I see on the glass of the window a reflection of extremely tall mountains that are in the distance - on this island or a mainland close by. I am thinking, wow, what a way to frame the shot - in the glass with him looking through it so we see the reflection of what he sees.

But something's wrong. I see that those mountains are covered in pink and red haze, and it appears strangely beautiful to me, but I realize it is also deadly. I don't know what's in the haze, but his eyes widen and his mouth drops open and I wonder....how shall he protect his island against this threat? Why post one lonely samurai type out here? And what has happened on his mainland?

Well the cloud of red haze, enormous, drifts and comes to the island within a matter of hours, and as it does, the man begins to suffer. His skin begins to burn. He wets cloth and keeps it over himself, immerses himself in a cool stream, but the particles in the haze are some form of radiation, apparently, and they do terrible things to his skin....I see his agony and his screams, but I know he survives somehow.

It's important that he does.

As I am watching this, and sickening within myself, I realize that I have never been particularly interested in the Pacific theater of WWII. I never have taken the time to really learn that much about radiation and what it does to people. My interest in WWII was huge, but in the European theater. I attribute this to my father being a little boy when it happened, and having his house and school blown to bits by the Germans. It set him up for a life in chcmistry and explosives as a career. I was also drawn to the the stories of the Jewish peoples during this time, and must admit, that all my attentions on this subject were focused on Europe.

So, why this dream?

I do have a bit of lucidity in dreams, and sometimes start analysis work on them while I am still dreaming! So of course I am asking myself, why are you thinking about nuclear bombs and radiation, if that's what this is, and not a meteor striking the earth or something, why now?

I remember the headline yesterday about Russia escalating the arms race again. Seems a bit like old times, eh? So that probably triggered this first scene....ok. But why a Japanese soldier on a remote outpost? Why should that be the way my unconscious frames whatever issue is being addressed here? Is this past life stuff breaking free? Or something else?

My dream continued....now it is modern day, and I am on a beach with my daughter. This is not a familiar place, but is mountainous and lush - somewhat tropical. The sky starts blackening over, and I see the same dreaded red haze on the mountains. My heart sinks. Somewhere, I know, the fighting has gone horribly wrong and a bomb has gone off. I realize men have failed to settle anything here, and now we shall all pay. The bomb has undoubtedly decimated whatever it was dropped on, but the haze is coming this way. My daughter is happily playing in the ocean, completely oblivious to whatever is coming. People around me seem to know something bad is happening, but they don't really know what it is.

But I remember the Japanese warrior, and I know it's about to be bloody awful.

I am gathering our things, thinking of heading to the....where are we? The hotel? I suppose so....this doesn't feel like California. It feels like another country. But I have no time to think. I am telling other people they must get inside, must get under wet towels, protect themselves. Where did I get this idea? I am racking my brain for everything I know about radiation poisoning, which is, come to think of it, damned little. I am thinking, damn it to hell, we have not even a chemical suit, never mind radiation suits. How will we survive?????

I see a man and his son. He is fair, reminds me of a Dutch guy I was into at one time. I am urging him to get his son to safety. I see in his eyes that he knows something awful is about to happen. His name is Ian, he tells me, and they are here on holiday. Like us....

Then he says (he is a Brit) give us a hug then, for safekeeping. And I do. And I FEEL his arms, and his lips kiss my cheek. Normally in dreams, I don't have physical sensation, but I did in this one. I realize I would like to stay with him and talk to him, but I have to get us to safety. He lets go of me and says, "We're working on a kiss for next time." And I smile and agree.

I don't think I will ever see him again. I think he and his son will perish. Why we won't, I don't know, but I have a feeling we will make it somehow.

Then I collect my child, thinking, how to explain the red haze, working frantically in my mind the way you do when you are a parent, how to tell her than when the red dust gets here, it's going to burn, and hurt very badly, and that I won't be able to do anything to stop the pain. I am not even sure if her little body will withstand the poisoning we are about to get. I am choking back tears because for the first time, I am not sure we will actually make it, or that we would even want to live in the aftermath of what is coming. My skin was already starting to feel hot little needle pricks on it - again this sensation of feeling in the dream - how odd....and I began to panic....

I awoke with a start. The sun was shining, barely, and the house was quiet.

What a dreadful dream....

Must get out some books and start working on it when I return from class. Please let this be from the personal unconscious, rather than the collective....please let me be picking up the warnings of some terrible shakedown in my own life, rather than on a national or global front....