AUGUST 28, 2021 – “Stay off the MSG,” our son Byron texted in response to a synopsis of my dream Thursday night. Years ago he would have been right. Whenever I ate lunch at the Nanking a block from my office tower in downtown Minneapolis, I experienced hallucinogenic dreams the following night—after my hands tingled for the entire afternoon of the “MSG-powered” lunch.
Unless Eggroll Queen—our local, go-to Hmong restaurant where we’d ordered take-out Thursday—now loads up on MSG, I’m pretty sure Thursday night’s dream was powered by MSG-free brain chemistry.
The brain chemistry, however, was doubtless stirred by over-exposure to our country’s political divide.
The dream went down like this . . .
I was at a bar somewhere—odd, since I don’t frequent such establishments and didn’t prior to the pandemic. Several well-behaved people sat at the sweeping curve of its oaken edge.
From nowhere appeared an old friend of mine, a die-hard Republican (in real life), and with whom I haven’t communicated in eons. He looked much younger than I, even though we’re the same age. Grinning, he said something which set me off like a pack of dynamite with a split-second fuse.
I tore into him verbally, hitting on climate change, covid-19, and The Big Lie and its link to the January 6 assault on the Capitol. He offered no reply as I dropped a series of 500-pound F-bombs in my apoplexy. The quiet people at the bar edged away from me as I attempted to explain my outrage.
My “friend” said nothing as he slipped into the background. He reappeared with an automatic rifle, and I saw immediately the irony: he who opposed gun control, controlled a gun, while I who oppose guns had no control over my defense. I was about to be dead.
In the scene that followed, I was alone, hiding in a large storeroom of an old, local warehouse. A woman rabbi dressed in vestments handed me a scroll. I opened it and found it covered with cursive writing. By simply viewing it, not actually reading, I absorbed its grace and meaning. The words promised reconciliation between my “friend” and me and otherwise imparted overwhelming peace and beauty.
I felt compelled to write a response, but an emissary of the rabbi told me that nothing I wrote could please the rabbi more than actual reconciliation with the “friend.” This gave me pause.
I don’t know how rapprochement was achieved—the dream provided no details—but in the next sequence the “friend” and I were seated at ease across from each other. He no longer brandished a gun. My own anger had dissipated, and I contemplated the contrast between my previous outrage and the rabbi’s calming eloquence. I apologized, and the “friend” did likewise.
Upon waking I stayed my impulse to check the latest news. There’d be ample opportunity for that as the day wore on.
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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson
