Nuclear Winter

The dream today is of a type I have not had in probably 20 some years. I was born a child of the 1960's and the Cold War. Today's generation has no understanding of how this planet once faced total nuclear annihilation. The young people of today have no comprehension of how the older generation lived. I was a soldier during this time and I remember the daily threat of the Soviet Union, and the deadly terror they posed for life and liberty.  Any student of history or someone who has lived it can tell how close we came, on many occasions, to being "game over" for humanity, and the end life on this world.

My dream  today is one of those post-apocalyptic scenarios. Nuclear winter has set in in the aftermath of a nuclear war. I have not had one of these dreams in many, many years. These are utterly depressing dreams of the worst sort. They never have happy endings. They are tales of devastation and woe, and kill, or be killed brute survival. I had hoped with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union that I would never again have such dreams, and that all the sacrifices made by American and NATO soldiers would have assured we would never have to live in fear of ever revisiting these old nightmares ever again. A new nuclear arms threat has come into the world with Iran, and the recent "Peace Offensive" made by the Obama administration does not give me warm and fuzzy feelings, but just, the opposite. I have also been following the events of the Fukushima power plant disaster with keen interest and have seen the alarming maps of the spread of the radiation across the Pacific. Radiation detectors in the western U.S. are reading high levels of radiation. The Western states are getting cooked and no one seems concerned or is taking any notice. I have heard reports of babies out west being born with thyroid problems as a symptom of radiation poisoning. Frankly, the whole picture is very grave and depressing for anyone who is paying attention and precious few are.

In my dream I see the white hot flash of a city being destroyed over the horizon. Nuclear winter has come. I am alone in tattered dirty clothes trying to survive as best I can. I see scattered survivors wandering the country side scouring for food. I come to a corn field that my father planted that summer before the war. It is a small half acre plot of dry field corn. Dad was growing this as fuel for his pellet stove. This sort of corn is generally what farmers feed to animals. I am gathering up every ear left on the stalks, as quickly as I can, using both hands before anyone can discover what I am doing and take it from me. My dad grew up poor. I learned from my dad that this stuff can be eaten, as he ate it, as a kid himself. At this moment, I am so grateful for what he did, and taught me. My old man, the marine, knows a thing or two about survival.

Next, I see a black four wheel drive truck and a station wagon drive by. Somehow some vehicles have survived the war and some people are driving them as they escape from the devastated cities down south. I suddenly find myself watching two large men in hand to hand combat. The men are fighting over a teen age girl. The girl is short, fat and unattractive, but it is not her looks that they have come to blows for, but her skills. The young girl knows how to cook, clean, sow and grow food. Her skills are in great demand. The pampered pretty young woman of yesterday has suddenly become obsolete. A woman of substance is what is now prized! I walk away. I do not want to risk losing my corn to these people. This is when I wake up.

I have lost any confidence that we will survive as a society. I know in my gut that it will one day all collapse, as all great societies have done through out history, it is only a matter of time. The dream reflects all my primal fears for the future. I know there are enough idiots and socio-paths running this world to undo all the great progress and hard work that built our once great nation and civilization. We are at the edge of the whirlpool and looking down the toilet drain as they are about to flush our collective reality with their stupidity and evil actions.

My hope is that this complete collapse happens after I am long dead and I don't get to experience it with these buffoons, as an old man, because it is not going to be pretty, and I'm going to be one pissed off, depressed old dude.

I like the comforts of this current life. I remember what it was like to go to bed cold and hungry at night when I was a kid. The memory and fear of it happening again haunts me. The nuclear winter scenario is this on steroids.

There is a theory that our thoughts manifest our reality. Bad thoughts lead to suffering, and happy thoughts lead to abundance, and just how true this actually is I am uncertain. Sometimes it is self evident. other times it is not. Bad things happen to good people and good things can happen to evil or stupid people. You either must believe karma will balance the scale or that life sometimes defies reason and I'm still open to either possibility.

Well, my time is up today. I must dress now for work and proceed as if this dream never happened and get on with living. I don't have the luxury of trying to find the deeper meaning in it right now. I need to work to survive. It is kind of ironic isn't it? Both the dream and my waking reality put me in a position of survival mode. I can't seem to get a break! I actually savour those times when I can escape the tyrannies of work and life, and from peering into the dark territory of my unconscious. Life and dreaming experienced with no brief moments of joy and comfort is just plain hell.