Burninating the countryside...

Disturbing dreams last night. They are getting harder to remember - as I become more awake the details slip from me. Essentially, we were nuked. (Twice - for good measure - of course, as any city over 100,000 should be. Especially one with a large military base and the seat of government). But it wasn't just Edmonton in the dreams, Canada was nuked, and then invaded, by Muslims. I only knew they were Muslims because of conversations I had with the men in my dreams. I was pregnant (twin girls) and made to justify the lives of my children, including the unborn ones (that religious study degree came in handy then!). I spent most of the time in the dreams making sure my family survived the blasts and then was able to find safety afterwards.

I suspect the actual details themselves may be meaningless, but I can't shake the feeling like my brain is trying to tell me something and I am just not getting the message.

I am a child of the Cold War Era. When I was a pre teen, I often had nightmares of Nuclear War. In those dreams I was always the only survivor. There were times in my childhood where I went to bed, or woke up, thinking "Will this be the day?" It seemed so inevitatable at times. The geo political scene appeared so unstable, even to me as a child. I spent hours in the library learning more about how to survive that which haunted my dreams. 'Know your enemy,' I thought, and you can be successful. My study did offer me confidence, but it also entrenched within my mind an external enemy, and an enemy that in a way wasn't really "my" enemy.

In the Army we trained against an enemy that was nuclear capable and ready, an enemy understood to be "Communism." Eventually, with the end of the Cold War, this was changed to the "Fantasia Army" as our "enemies" became our "allies," but in my mind Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare training was still a result of the realities of the Cold War, created by the two super powers.

When the Cold War ended, the americans lost their enemy. Years upon years of foriegn policy was based on harrassing and containing this enemy, but with this enemy suddenly no longer a threat, what were they to do? With no purpose and no focus what would a huge force like the US do with themselves? It only took them a little while to look around and find their new target.

Islam.

The transition was almost flawless in my mind. Exit communism, enter Islam. One enemy replaced with another.

My dreams last night reflect this new reality, but perhaps even something more. In a world culture based on fear, somehow it is being managed that I (and by I, I mean We) am to believe Islam is my enemy, and if I fear that I will fight that, or support that which fights that. It's how psycholgical propaganda works. We are being brainwashed.

Or maybe I am just playing too much Civ III.