Dreaming of Mattresses

I have just woken up from a vivid and detailed dream and feel compelled to write it down as it is still fresh in my mind. The dream this time takes place in New York city in the 1800's. I am the owner of a feather mattress company. The company is small, but it turns out a lot of product every month, we create feather mattresses that are all hand crafted. I have a few lady seamstresses and a big group of orphan boys working for me.

We all work hard together to make quality mattresses at a good price. The boys help make the mattresses. They go door-to-door to sell, deliver and take orders for mattresses. They have become unbelievably good salesmen! I even send them out to various supply vendors to get us good deals on raw materials like cloth, feathers and thread. The boys grasp, that the more mattresses we sell, the better we all eat and survive.

I am tough on the boys, but I don't abuse them, I keep them motivated and I am both a father figure and a boss to them. They all grow up to be fine successful men. They acquire skills that stand them well later in life.

Eventually, the company does fail in the end, we had a good run for our time but the industrial revolution brings on factory produced mattresses made at a fraction of the cost. Our company made a quality product, but it just could not compete with the new mass produced mattress that companies were churning out at the hundreds and thousands every month.

This dream has the feel of a past life. I see the events of that life stream by as if it were a movie. It might be interesting to do some research on mattress making and see where the clues might lead me. The industrial revolution had a profound transformative effect on American society. It really changed the nation and the world practically over night.

Everything in our lives is mass produced today from the food we eat to the clothes we wear. It is rare to see anything original and hand produced any more. I have long questioned how this affects our collective unconscious and individual psyche's. People never seem to question this, it is something we have all lived with all our lives, and never wonder how it is effecting us or what it is doing to us as human beings. We accept the comforts of modern society, but have lost the will to question the effect it is having on us or the environment. Has it made us or have we made it? Something to ponder about.