I had an interesting dream this morning. I started out in an office building at some kind of luncheon. I got some coffee and then headed out into the hallway. I ran into my boyfriend, who also worked in that building, and we took the elevator together. We started to make out in the elevator, which was fine, but he didn’t stop when the elevator stopped and the doors opened. I was embarrassed because there were other people out there that could see us. I finally broke away from him and hurried down the hall. This had startled me enough to make me question things in society, because things were very different in this world. Here, men were seen almost as gods; they were much more important and respected in society than women. There were laws governing how many women could be together versus how many men–there had to be a certain percentage of men in any gathering.

I came back to the elevators and eventually got in one again. This time, there was an Asian man having sex with some woman; he didn’t stop when I got in, and when the elevator stopped, he threw her off him so that she landed on her back on the floor, her head bouncing against the elevator doors. Horrified, I got off the elevator.

I stopped a few women in the hall and started to talk to them about had they ever noticed anything strange going on in the elevators. One lady started talking about how a woman could be half-pregnant, half-not simply because she thought she was pregnant. This wasn’t what I was asking about, but as I started to correct her, I noticed a few men off to the side, so I encouraged the topic she was on and acted interested in it; it would have been against the rules to talk about the societal norms in a negative light. One societal norm was that women could be used for sex anywhere. After my own experience in the elevator, this upset me.

Time skipped to that afternoon and I was in the city’s library, which was located down a very steep hill that was covered in rocks; there was no road down there. In the library, I had been talking with other women about what had happened that morning and asking how they felt about it. There seemed to be a lot of anger in all the women I talked to, and we decided to stand up against it; I was joining some underground movement to change how women were viewed and treated in society. It was apparently time to say something publicly about the treatment of women. English wasn’t spoken in this society, but some other strange language.

In the library, we all stood together and started shouting the word “corazon,” the Spanish word for ‘heart’, in unison. In that world’s language, it meant ‘freedom’, or something like it. We also yelled out about what kind of world we lived in, and what we wanted to change about it. We got people’s attention and they all stared at us, shocked. One tall, slim Chinese woman was our leader; her name was Pinot Noir. Authorities eventually came and herded us outside, saying that we couldn’t say such things, that we would be punished to the full extent of the law.

When we got outside, they had us kneel on the rocky soil. The authorities, all men, stood in a line in front of us, while lots and lots of regular people stood in masses behind them as well as off on the top of the hill to our right. For a while, we were silent, listening as the authorities spoke to us. Then someone started yelling again, and we all joined in. I was leaning forward, screaming ‘corazon’ with the rest of the women in my group. Eventually, women from the masses joined us. Everyone was looking around shocked, not believing there were so many crazies among them.

The authorities got us quiet again with threats. They then began discussing what to do with us. They didn’t want to kill us outright, so they decided to send us back up the hill into the city by way of the woods along the hillside. They couldn’t just let a bunch of women be alone, because of the laws, so they had to send a certain number of men with us. They were chuckling because the men, should they wish, were going to be allowed to kill us out in the woods. We understood this, and I began to shout about what the authorities were going to allow to happen, and about how it was wrong. Others cheered and we took up yelling ‘corazon’ again.

Another part of society was that hair color mattered. Dark haired people were more respected than light haired. Pinot Noir stood up in front of us and took our photo to remember the time we all came together. As we were all screaming in unison, one woman from the masses behind the authorities shouted over all of us. She had long blonde hair and looked to be in her thirties. She was shouting about how things had gone on as they were long enough, and crying as she spoke. She talked of how women were seen as weak; she then took a big knife from somewhere and started to slice horizontally along her forehead. There were gasps from the crowds and from us. As she cut and cried, she asked if her actions were those of someone weak or without conviction. We were all quiet for a minute, then we started yelling again with even more spirit.

This display sparked something in the crowd on the hill, and a few people started charging down toward us. I didn’t pay much attention to them except for one woman, an older blonde who looked very tough, and who was carrying a serrated blade. She was yelling that if we didn’t stop this right now, she was going to chop our heads off. Lots of us stopped shouting, including myself. The view changed and I was watching it all from third person; I could see myself. I had short black hair and looked like Trinity in The Matrix. I watched the blonde approach the other blonde, the one who was sawing the top of her head off. The tough blonde from the hilltop said something about helping her finish the job, and I saw my own self cringe away as the crying blonde was beheaded.

My Interpretation of It

The whole thing reminded me of when women in the United States first got the right to vote. Some women were fighting to get more rights, a lot of men and women didn’t approve, and things got violent. Maybe my subconscious was influenced by Iron Jawed Angels, a movie about the suffrage movement. Pinot Noir looked exactly like Sandra Oh and, while I don’t watch Grey’s Anatomy, I certainly enjoyed Under the Tuscan Sun. On a side note, I have no idea why she was named that. Of course, in one of my dreams, I was named Gita, which was short for Bhagavad Gita. Obviously my subconscious likes casting me in roles named after ancient Sanskrit texts and movie stars.