I Had A Dream Last Night

Well, truth be told, it was not so much a dream as a nightmare. I dreamed that I was somewhere that was supposed to be safe - a camp, or a holiday or something, but things felt a little bit tense. It was in a jungle tree-house log-cabin sort of setting, and there were lots of people there that I knew, either well or just as an acquaintance. There was a kind of tower with rooms in it, and a spiralled ramp that led to the top.

Before long, things slid from mildly tense to all-out violent. A number of the people at the camp place began to kill the others. They were targetting people depending on who they were (ethnically / religiously / politically) and what they believed in. The killers had got dressed up in camouflage gear and were rampaging through the place machine gunning down people who admitted to holding certain beliefs. I saw people killed before my eyes, and I was shocked by how specifically they were targetting individual people.

I was with a few other people and we just spent the whole time stealthily creeping around trying not to get shot, although most of us did. The people were running up and down the ramp in the tower trying to find people. Eventually - I don't know how - I got into a car and started to drive away very fast, but even then they were still shooting at the car.

I woke up absolutely terrified and it took me a while to relax enough to get back to sleep.

In my country, that nightmare has never be anything more than a nightmare. Probably if you're reading this in Australia, you are imagining some kind of video game! But when I thought about it, I realised that that EXACT scenario happens on a daily basis in so many countries in the world.

I know this all sounds rather obvious, but I have never had the idea of persecution rammed home to me quite so strongly as this. For me - for most Aussies - it's all so theoretical that it may as well be a fairy tale. But it's not! Innocent people find themselves in a situation where someone wants them to die simply because of who they are or what they believe in, and unfortunately, they can't be safe simply by waking up from their sleep. Man, I'm so lucky to be almost 24 years old and never have had to think about this before.