What the frak did I eat to cause this dream?

Last night saw one of the most bizarre experiences ever to befall my subconscious.

In the words of Lionel Richie: "I had a dream, I had an awesome dream."  Yet it was only "awesome" in the sense of its weirdness.
I was in New York City.  Mind you, I have never been there in my life, despite my yearning to visit.  Anyway, I was roaming about the city for reasons that I sensed related to my day job, something to do with a medical center or some such.  I was lost.  I had no sense of where I was going.  As I went through the city in my dream, the innumerable highrise buildings gave way to an open expanse.  Exasperated, I let out a cry of "where the hell am I?"

That's when I realized it.  I was where the World Trade Center once was.  It is impossible to convey the birr I felt in the air, the somber, eerie energy.  It was as if I could almost sense the human remains beneath the ground that were never discovered and forced to remain entombed in obscurity.
I got out of there.  I descended a massive concrete stairway that truly looked like it did not belong in the landscape.  Down I went to a shoreline vista that looked out at Ellis Island and the waterways to the Atlantic.  I noticed the water growing dark and sludgy, garbage sluiced out of drainage culverts and then floated downstream.  An open air eatery lay ahead of me.  Quite a crowd there, too.  I smelled deep fried delicacies.
In this crowd, consuming various victuals, were so many people that I knew.  Family members, distant friends, Tweeps even.  They all moved in and out of the scene at a great pace.  I was asked what I wanted to drink.  I ordered a beer.
"You can't drink beer anymore!" they all gasped, holding their colas.  "The government doesn't allow it!"
 I could feel my transgression.  At that point, arc lightning of the most spectacular blue crackled in the air.  Massive machines descended from the sky.  There was a flash and everything turned red.  I just knew a nuclear explosion had taken place.  The next thing I knew, all around me was transformed into a surreal, post-apocalyptic wasteland.  I'm talking a Mad Max meets Kandinsky.  I was separated from everyone I knew.  I was alone.

I had the sense that they were all deeper in the city...or what was left of it.  The center of Manhattan was now sealed off by castle-like walls.  I hefted up what was left of a signpost and carried it with me.  For protection.  As I approached the wall, I found myself in a field of mushrooms and in this field sat a container that was the size and shape of a casket.  For whatever reason, probably the same reason that causes people to unwisely open doors in horror films, I approached the coffin-like, oblong box.  When I was next to it, the lid opened.  Out popped...well, suffice to say someone that I don't like very much.  Except they were more skeletal now in form.  And they could shoot laser beams from their eyes.
I was pretty sure I was toast.  I kept hopping around.  They kept shooting.  Nevertheless, I knew I needed to get back to the people who mattered to me.  I took cover behind a fragment of shiny metal.  This caused the laser beams to reflect back to their origin...destroying this person.  As they died, they handed me a key that went to the gate of the wall.

And then I woke up.

Psychologists, armchair or professional, the ball is now in your court.


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