Last night, I dreamt of zombies. Not the zombies of "Thriller" with their orchestrated dance moves. Not the zombies of "Night of the Living Dead" or "Dawn of the Dead" by George Romero. Not even the zombies of "Shaun of the Dead", a brilliant meld of intelligent humor and bloody horror.
These zombies were...organizing.Humans have been trying to interpret and analyze what dreams really means since the dawn of time. Some cultures believe understanding dreams allow you to more fully understand the meaning of life. Thought to be messages from the gods, profound and significant dreams were submitted to the Roman Senate for analysis and interpretation.
Dream interpretation is certainly not an exact science. Read enough books or web pages and you will find that zombies in dreams have several theoretical meanings, such as the mindless acceptance of ideas, an unquestioning nature, a tired listless state.
Organizing Zombies...try interpreting that.
Typically is it the survivors that are organizing after a catastrophic event. Survivors come together as a group, a de facto leader emerges and a plan developed, changed and altered again and again to fit the circumstances. Even the best documented survival plan is only good for a while, then you need to work out the details on your own. I can only imagine the same would apply to a zombie apocalypse.
I wish more details of the dream were still available to me. Within five minutes of the end of a dream about half the content is forgotten, and by the ten minute mark about 90% is gone. If the content of dreams reflects aspects of memory consolidation taking place during the different stages of sleep, what memories was I consolidating that lead to organizing zombies? What were the purposes of their organizing? Don't zombies live in the here and now? If so, why were they planning for future opportunities?
I tried to go back to sleep to recover more zombies-related thoughts, hoping for dream recurrence, but no more walking dead entered my sleep. I did dream of cake, which carries a much simpler interpretation: I want cake. Today, I will have cake. And avoid organizing zombies, just in case.
Okay. I take some exception to zombies living in the here and now, and I'm not sure if I object more to the thought of them "living" or of them actually being present. But I have a theory about organizing zombies: you work in management - you may be overwhelmed or at least annoyed by listless anal retentives. Maybe not. But it still seems to have the flavor of herding cats, doesn't it?
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