I was on a large, modern aircraft filled with people. We were going on a long flight.

After takeoff, I was taken to the cockpit. It was airy and spacious. Windows showed the air around us but I could also see the planet below. It was a bright, beautiful day, with a few high clouds. Very cool.

I was told that I’d been selected to monitor the flight. Didn’t need to do anything; just be there.

Well, I could do that! It felt like some kind of honor. I settled into a chair and my role. The flight progressed…

Then, I was awakening on the flight deck. Klaxons were blaring. I could tell from perspective and angles, we were MUCH lower. I thought, oh my God, we’re going to crash. And I’m going to be in so much trouble.

Then I was irritated because, why didn’t someone already respond, come up, and take over. Then I thought about pulling on the controls and trying to take us to a higher flight level.

I thought, ARE YOU NUTS? Don’t touch the controls. You might make it worse.

Then, in a weird dream shift, I was on the ground at the airport, in the working part of the airport, waiting for the plane to craft, fretting about the trouble I was going to be in. I ran into a friend who was on the flight; he was worried about being in trouble, too.

We had to keep moving to stay out of the airport workers’ way. My friends explained that there were five of us in positions like me, people who were supposed to be watching things, so there was trouble to go around. At the same time, the people who were supposed to be on the job were not, so they would also be in trouble.

Exactly, I agreed.

Meanwhile, a young female set up equipment on a table not far from us. She was going to monitor the aircraft’s progress from there because they might need to blow it up. She was busy and couldn’t explain more about this process.

Then I heard others saying, “Look, what’s that?”

I went out. They were pointing up. The sky was blue but a bright white fireball was going across it.

That’s the jet, I thought. Then I thought, but that could be a meteor. Or a comet or asteroid.

Then I thought, wait: how am I on the ground, waiting for the plane to crash? That didn’t make sense.

I then went back in and decided to change clothes so I could walk around more. Then I thought, how do I have my clothes on the ground with me if we’re waiting for the aircraft to crash? How did we all get off the aircraft, if it’s still flying?

That didn’t make any sense.

Dream end.

NOTE: When I wrote up this dream this morning, I saw how much of it paralleled what I was going through with writing. I set aside “Unfocused” after several drafts to let it cool, get some distance. Then I began working on “A Tribe Called Death”. As I hit page 70, I was frantic because that novel took some weird turns and left me flailing about where to go, what to do.

I calmed myself: hey, this is the first draft, nimrod. Just write. And by the end of the day, a character had taken a position and showed me the way. I think the dream reflected that whole process, in its own way.