The origin of the people’s resentment of elites was the establishment of monotheism. Before then the gods belonged to the people. There were no intermediaries like bishops or priests, no one to pass down laws.

We were on some kind of bus tour of quaint little towns, perhaps upstate. We all got off to visit a sort of souvenir tchotchke shop. S. knew of it, knew the owner for some reason. Signs and messages on the building indicated that their political views might differ from ours and I hesitated, but S. said it’s OK, let’s go. After I stepped off the bus I realized I’d left my flip flops behind. Rather than going back to get them I wondered whether I could buy some at the shop, or perhaps there was a shoe store nearby. The ground did seem gravelly. There was a delay for some reason, a period during which we couldn’t enter and had to pass the time wandering the streets. My dad appeared, as though he’d been with us all along. “I took the opportunity to buy some alcoholic beverages,” he said quite uncharacteristically, with a wink. He turned to reveal that his backpack was full of ice-cold Corona Light. Not my favorite beer, I thought. But fuck it. “Great, Dad!” I said and took one. It tasted bland but refreshing. Exactly how you’d expect. We walked together, beers in hand. I held mine close to my body, knowing you couldn’t drink in public. Dad held his normally, unconcerned. “Conceal it, Dad!” I warned. Sure enough we approached some cops, a checkpoint of some kind. I was sure they’d stop us but we managed to walk straight through.

I was walking home. The Grateful Dead were playing in my head, as though I had earbuds on but I didn’t. It was one of those antic shows where they don’t play the usual tunes but transition from one weird cover to another, possibly with guest musicians onstage. They followed a calypso number with Bob Weir singing a tentative take on “Blue Christmas.” Must have been festive season, I thought. I walked up the wrong street and realized I had to go over one more. There was a steel bridge over a river, the Gowanus I guess, though that’s not near our house. In my dream it was familiar and correct. I was unable to use the sidewalk and found myself in a strange, maze-like structure adjacent to the bridge. There had to be a way out, I thought. Surely this was designed for human beings. I walked down a little ramp and saw that it gave way to nothingness, and I’d have to clamber over the railing and jump to the floor to escape. I imagined being trapped here. There’d be a viral news story, “Man gets lost and dies in weird industrial space.”

There was speculation the 2024 election had been lost due to Republican plants at the Democratic Convention. Somehow they’d muddled the messaging and fucked up the proceedings.

I was squeezed into the back of a small car, sitting in the middle. S’s cousin M. was driving. We were all going somewhere we’d gone before, with him driving before. The surroundings grew bizarre. People sat in the middle of the street and you had to zigzag to get by them. It was territory occupied by the politically hostile. They were clamoring, taunting. I worried we might not get through. M. understeered a slow corner and crashed into a pylon or abutment, but he was able to back out and keep going. 

A family had sent a letter to President Obama offering their dog, and the dog then became the Obamas’ dog. Curiously emotional dream.

Dreadful dreams. I was watching a car race, and I was in it too. It was in the past, part of some underground, semi-legal racing culture, like maybe what stock car racing used to be. Different kinds of cars raced pell-mell; open-wheel, GT. A maniacal driver chased down another and crashed into him from behind, somehow pinning the driver’s body against the rear bumper. Blood and gore emerged and covered the tail of the car, which kept racing in a zigzag. There was real malice in what the attacking driver did, a bloodlust. It seemed related to current politics.

We were hosting a party. It was our home but it didn’t resemble our real home.. I was in a hurry pouring margaritas into little glasses before the guests arrived. When they did some were people I recognized, others not. J. L. commented on the large quantity of mites and mite dust. There were two people with guns I didn’t know. I sensed that they had some kind of extremist political views. They went out on the balcony to smoke. It reassured me to see them sitting out there, facing away, not an immediate threat to anyone.

A dissident free-thinker from some dark Middle Eastern place and his wife were about to have a child. They entered a kind of medical complex run by their native country, though it was in the U.S. She was allowed to give birth but they were separated and he was detained in more and more horrible circumstances. He knew he was to move to a floor where he’d be tortured and kept indefinitely. There were different areas of the facility—a floor for the privileged and a floor for those like him. Now this all was a documentary I was watching on TV. When the man was moved to the torture floor I wanted to stop watching. I had a powerful sense that all civilization was reverting to barbarism.

A rich political operative was being investigated for corruption. He went on the run. We saw him surveilled from above, from a spy drone, as he enjoyed undeserved luxury. He bathed in the shallow surf of a pristine beach at dusk. The Saudi government had provided his towels. They were visible in a motorboat parked in the sand, big, soft, blue towels folded and lined up on their sides.

Somehow I was contemplating a career as a racecar driver. I was my real age or close to it—too old—but I thought that if I could borrow some money from my dad I might make a go of it. I had to get into shape, I realized. That would be tough. But not impossible. I’d eat right, train. I’d also have to get out on the track. I’d have to learn how to go flat out everywhere you were supposed to go flat out. Like on the Mulsanne Straight. I’d have to be brave. But I thought there was no reason I couldn’t do it.

We were in a building where Jackie was going to summer camp, probably a big school, with a gym. There was a sign advertising one of the activities: The Circus of the Hope and the Hix and the Dry Flour. “Oh, that kind of flour,” I thought to myself. In the dream I must have thought I’d heard it before and assumed “flower.” Some time after I woke up it occurred to me that Hope Hicks is an actual person, a Trump aide—his PR person, in fact.

We took a trip from somewhere in the Gulf States to Syria to Paris. We realized we couldn’t take Syrian Airways because “Bashar Al-Assad runs the country.” Sara was wearing a headdress and her face was painted light blue.

Later I took a psychedelic drug, and as has happened in other dreams I felt it coming on very, very strong. I was tripping like crazy.

The media had broken down as result of Trump’s election. Click-bait fake news had taken over and traditional news outlets were vilified and harassed into the margins. Anyone who stood up for the truth or for thoughtful debate could expect a targeted campaign of online vitriol and humiliation. I just remember somehow trying to navigate this new world.

I played a soccer game. I was on a team of guys my age playing a team of teenagers. They kicked our asses 4-0. Later, I recounted the game to someone. I emphasized how soundly we were beaten, making it a story of the old being inexorably eclipsed by the young. "The game started at 2 am and lasted for two and a half hours," I said, as though this made the kids' feat all the more remarkable. Then I relived the game in my head. I cursed myself for not taking more chances. I recalled making some successful passes but I wished I'd launched the ball at the goal a time or two. Then I was playing the game, but the circumstances shifted. Barack Obama was playing. So was George W. Bush. I imagined how terrible it would be if Bush were still president. He took a free kick. His personal assistant was assigned to play goalie.