A Haunting Dream

I need to share a dream that I had.  Partly to get it down in writing but also because it had a haunting message behind it.

My boyfriend and I visited the beautiful city of Prague in late August, early September.  On our trip we visited the medieval town of Cesky Krumlov, Sound of Music land itself, Salzburg, the cute little hipster city of Graz, and where much music began, Vienna.  It is not a surprise to me that when I came home I had a dream that was influenced by this trip abroad.

 The dream goes like this:  

My boyfriend and I are in a resort like place, such as the ones most North Americans stay at when travelling to Mexico or the Caribbean.  It was gated and protected.  We were in Prague, but it was not the same Prague that I came to love in waking life.  We decided to go off and take an excursion to see the city.  We noticed that the city was really broken.  It was run down and decrepit and filled with thievery and corruption.  The people in the city seemed to all be "off" and had disabilities both physical and mental.  We were waiting at a bus stop to get back to the "resort" and of course we started getting bombarded with these short weird looking street people trying to steal our wallets.  They had a shtick about it, they would first pretend to steal your wallet and show you that they already had it but always show it to us (and others around us waiting) inside out.  So you would get upset and try to get a closer look at it or get it back.  Upon getting a closer look you realize that it is not even your wallet.  So most will go into their pockets or knapsacks to see if their wallets are still there.  Once they go to retrieve their belongings the thieves now will either snatch it from you or know where it is located to snatch it from there. So my boyfriend and I were standing with our backs against each other so that we can watch who was coming at us on all angles as well as to protect our belongings in our backpacks.  Sure enough this one little thief in particular shows me a red wallet inside out and I believe it to be mine.  So I grab it from him to take a look and realize that it is not mine.  During this commotion he manages to steal our wallets and passports and anything else of importance to be able to leave the country and get back home.

We finally get back to the resort crushed that our excursion put us in this predicament.  We are sitting with one of the social workers (or something like that) in the resort explaining what had happened.  She says to look around at all the others like us who had this happen to them as well.  We are all stranded here together now.  She also really emphasized that we need to have compassion for the thieves, that we do not know what they went through in life that brought them to this point of their only means of survival is to steal from the tourists.  I couldn't at that time feel any compassion for the thieves that put us in this mess.  I was angry.

Next we are on the "beach" at the resort when all of a sudden these dark figures on black horses start coming at us from the water.  They literally emerged from the waves and barged at everyone on the beach.  There were young white horses on the beach with us that were starting to run away and panic.  I grabbed one of the white horses and tried to ride it into the water instead of retreat backwards as the dark horsed things were shooting at us.  The beach had boundaries like a wave pool.  So I tried to ride this baby horse along the edge to try and not be seen by the attackers.  The white horse started shrinking to the point where it was smaller than me.  So I held it in my arms and took a deep breathe and went under water to not be seen by the black horsed attackers.  When I came up for air I could see my boyfriend looking frantically for me on the beach ahead.  I tried waving to him to show that I was still alive and another person noticed.  I motioned to tell him to tell my boyfriend that I was here and that he should come out this way. Next thing I look down and the baby white horse was bleeding so I brought it and myself back onto the beach to try and resuscitate him.  At this point I was more worried abut the white horse in my arms than about the attackers.  I held him in my arms on that beach and I cried as he died.  I was feeling so guilty that I had drowned him by bringing him under water with me, you can't explain to a horse to hold their breathe under water.  As it died in my arms the water on the beach receded and was gone, it was really a wave pool.  An illusion.  And underneath the water was like a hospital where we all got sent.


Anyone who wasn't murdered by the attackers were getting rushed into this hospital and being strapped down on beds.  This was not the type of hospital that helped people get better.  This was the type of place that did science experiments on you.  I knew I had to act quick to survive.  Myself and a few others were not strapped down and taken away just yet to the back room.  To the right was a window and who comes leaping into the room, the same thief that had stolen my identity and money.  Of course my first reaction was anger at him.  He leaped around the room as I shouted and threw things at him so he flew back out the window.  At that moment I realized, he is showing me the way out.  So I followed him out that window and leaped down behind some fences.  It was night time out there and I was hiding in the shadows trying to escape the barriers which I succeeded at.  Now I was penniless in the dangerous streets of "Prague" trying to figure out what to do next to survive.

I knew that I would have to "fit in" because standing out made you a target.  I learned that everyone on the streets were made this way because that place (that resort) had actually did experiments on their brains and bodies to make them this way.  Suddenly I understood why I was supposed to have compassion for them, because I was about to become one of them.  I would have been turned into them and thrown on the streets afterwards not knowing who I was or where I came from and the only way to survive would be to join them in stealing from the tourists.  It was full circle.  But I had escaped.

I had a necklace around my neck so I quickly ripped it off and hid it in my pocket.  Anything of value would stand out and be stolen.  I acted weird and slow and made sure my clothing was torn up.  My friend, who I escaped with, and I found a place to hide out in.  We went into this old abandoned building and tried to recuperate.  It turned out to not be abandoned and we had to once again flee through a window.  Eventually we are on the street at night just walking not knowing where to go but knowing we should just keep moving. Every person around has been experimented on and have that same messed up mentality.  Stealing and lying is their only moral code, whatever the experiments did to them, that was first and foremost.  Some people were more disfigured than others and some looked normal but who was to be trusted?  We meet a man who is pushing a shopping cart filled with all sorts of things (probably stolen things).  He seemed  pretty normal so we befriend him and we tell him we need help and a place to stay.  He says we can come stay with him and we start following him.  As we are following him the streets we are going down get darker and more desolate.  My gut instinct suddenly kicks in and I sense danger.  This guy could be trying to take advantage of us.  Wherever he is leading us could be even worse than the hospital.  I realize that even he should not be trusted and following him was probably a stupid move.  I look to my friend and I say, RUN!

I wake up.    

The message in this story is to have compassion for those who you think do not deserve it.  We do not know their stories and what got them to whatever desperate point they are at.  The thieves in the story started off just like me.  They got turned into what they became because of science experiments.  The one that put me into that mess also helped me to escape but I had to let go of my anger towards him to see the window leading out.  We can be blinded by our anger sometimes and cannot think objectively.  Anger makes us weak and stupid.

I just found this article online which is what inspired me to share my dream.  I saw the images of the deformed people and it was exactly what the people on the streets of my dream looked like.

Do not ever think for a second that there are not forces out there who are trying to control your mind, because they are there and they are sneaky.  They come in all shapes and sizes.  Think for yourself.  Occupy your own mind or someone else will.  

*All pictures taken during our stay in Prague.