Penguins And Parachutes And Bears, Oh My!

I had a particularly strange dream last night. I’ll relate:

[some bits at an airport that I don’t remember]. Claire and I boarded an aeroplane. It was somewhat unusual as a ‘plane in that it seemed to be carrying cars, a bit like short-run passenger ferries or the channel tunnel. In addition, each car’s “space” had tall hospital-like curtains that could be pulled around it in a square to isolate it from those around it, providing some kind of privacy.

After having looked around the rest of the ‘plane, I returned to Claire’s car and looked out of the window, and saw that this lead on to what initially looked like more storage for cars (like the segment we were in), but later appeared to be hung under the wing (yes, out in the open). No cars on it, though. Thinking this was strange, I tried to open the window. It turned out we’d already taken off, and the air pressure difference, coupled with several hundred mph speeds, pulled Claire and I from the aircraft and started us plummeting.

A few moments of lucidity (which isn’t at all uncommon in my dreams) later I was able to deploy a parachute, as was Claire, and we sailed through the clouds and circled while we attempted to work out where we were. As it turns out, we were over the edges of Antarctica, and with some effort, we were able to maneuver our ‘chutes such that we landed (roughly, in high winds) on the shores, rather than in the water!

For some reason this dream had been influenced more by Disney than by actual geography or biology, because Antarctica was populated not only by several varieties of penguin, but also by polar bears. Some of these polar bears were able to talk… through the medium of visible “subtitles” and sign language… and one of them was kind enough to tell us about a research station nearby that he was “able to get in to”, and we were relieved that we would not have to freeze to death. At the research station, the friendly polar bear demonstrated how to climb up to a window, and helped me to do so too. I prized open the window and climbed inside while a huge crowd of the animals (mostly penguins) stood and watched.

As I was doing this and Claire was beginning to climb up, too, three humans with guns appeared on the horizon and began shooting at us. Claire hid among the penguins and I took refuge in the research station, but it turned out that the shooters had keys and they came in and found me, and, soon after, found Claire. They originally planned to kill and eat us, but I persuaded them not to by offering them my services as a landmine disposal expert (landmines, it seems, are a significant problem in the Antarctica). I’d lied – I wasn’t by any stretch an “expert”, but this didn’t seem to be such a problem as, while I was scavenging the supplies at the station for tools to use in finding and disarming landmines, my alarm clock went off and I woke up.

Just thought I’d share it with you all on account of it being so weird. Right: now I need to step out of the office to deliver Claire’s cashcard to her, which seems to have been left in my wallet, and then I can get on with some work!