Dreams of the Future?

Horrified, absolutely astounded, I imagined my chin on my chest and my eyebrows lost in my hairline as I watched the 'designer' come toward me with a corset and girdle in hand. The night before, I sang my heart out on stage, and having dressed myself then, I'd enjoy my sudden success dressing myself again. Oh, but that was not to be. Yelling my distaste and disgust with words heard only in truckstops and roadhouses, I turned and ran out the nearest door. Don't they understand that a voice comes from uncompressed lungs and a diaphragm free and unrestricted? Calming down, I headed back, determined to explain, only to find myself blocked on all sides. I was pointed to a celebrity entrance that took riding a strange elevator made of an old truck on a mechanic's lift. They brushed my hair smooth, caked on makeup and stuffed my body into that torturous corset. Looking in the mirror, I saw bulges pouring out of the thing in every direction...

And that's when I woke up. Another dream that didn't fade fast as usual. It was the horror of why 'they' would insist that my voice be as restricted as possible when I finally reached the point in my singing career that could be called success. What does it mean?

I've been thinking about what it could mean since waking up. Well, 'thinking' is a relative term this morning; the startled wake-up of the nasty dream bringing on a good and mean headache. What ran through my mind was the memory of spinal surgery to remove a ruptured disk in my low back. Afterward, while still quite hunched over, they fitted me with a corset-like thing with three 2" flat metal trusses running up the back. Even if I wanted to straighten up, I couldn't while wearing that thing. I never wore it. Was this dream just a weird way of remembering all that?

Then, I thought maybe this dream has something to do with the future more than anything else. Maybe it's telling me not to become so restrictive with myself that I squeeze the creativity out of me. I have been taking off with writing, photography, web design and blogging and enjoying a moderate amount of success. Should I keep my eye out for approaching corsets? Or maybe it's a warning not to let others put the squeeze on me and not to submit to anyone who tries.

There may be something to this 'future' thing. Scanning this morning's headlines, I see that Wired has particularly prophetic topics such as "Truck Stops of the Future" and "Wall Street 2013" and "Products to Help Us Forget 2008." Yes, it's a tech magazine and usually forward looking, but not usually this much. Have they picked up on the same thought stream as I have with all these way-in-the-future articles?

Could it be time to rethink our beliefs? Is the future crashing down around us? Is it time to reexamine our priorities?

What have your dreams been lately?