Cepheus Engine Nightmare

 

It's a recurring dream - I'm on board a ship which is exploring the furthest reaches of the universe. I have been having this dream since before Stargate: Universe was even a concept.

This dream uses the familiar imagery of SGU, however, in that I'm a civilian on board a crew which comprises primarily military personnel. And in this dream, I'm waiting in line in the Mess Hall to get my daily ration of protein soup. I'm behind this tall, physically well-built brunette in fatigues. I've got my metal cup in hand, for my soup.

Suddenly, the brunette is looming over me, screaming about how, if I don't stop ogling her from behind right now, she is going to ram that cup up me, so hard ...

So I just put my cup down, turned, and walked away without so much as a word.

In previous dreams, that brunette had appeared in an adversarial role. I'd found a spot in the mess, as far from people as I could manage, seated in a corner with my back to the wall. My quarters were in a distant, empty part of the ship - I virtually had the whole deck to myself.

In this dream, I later returned to the mess hall after everybody had left, but the food server was rude. The mess was closed. No more food. 'I'm hungry,' I said. He responds with 'You should not have left the hall. This is not a holiday camp. If you can't buck up - if you can't pull your own weight - you don't get to eat.'

I was actually, physically, hungry for real at this point. I crawled into my bunk in this dream and felt the real hunger.

Next thing, I'm in the infirmary, with a drip, being fed intravenous glucose, electrolytes and vitamins, and someone is being berated. The brunette, and the mess hall server. I get snatches of the berating - "Does this look like someone who can buck up? Does he look like somebody who can pull his own weight?" All I could think to say was "Let me go," over and over.

And that was it. I woke up, and it was today. The dream just reminded me that, in the long term scheme of things, I don't seem to have any measurably useful marketable or transferrable skills for the labour market. Certainly no remotely useful skills for attracting a mate. I'm cold in the streets - colder in the sheets. Colder still, in space.