David's Dreams: In the Hands of the Devil

I don't really plan for this to be a dream journal, but hell, it's my blog, I can write about whatever I want.

So last night I dreamt that I was in Russia, for some reason, at night, sort of encouraging friends to resist the authoritarian government, when a gathering I was in was raided. Several of us escaped, and at some point it was me on the run with sisters Lena and Olga, two real-life former pupils of mine, both (in the dream) in their early-20s.

At some point, through the magical power of dreams, we were captured by Putin and one of his flunkies, being driven somewhere by Putin at the wheel of a rather cramped four-door sedan. He stopped, and let Olga go, suggesting only, with a sneer, that they could find her again if and when they needed. But then he turned to me, in the front passenger seat, and told me to buckle up snugly, and sit up stiff, with vague consequences for any resistance.

I was terrified — sitting up straight, in a seat with no escape, with him clearly planning some terrible act of violence on me. Lena, from the back seat, held my head steady in her hands, both holding me still and also trying to impart ... comfort and reassurance. And Putin (who, by the way, did not, in the dream, look anything like the current Russian President), leaned over, said, maliciously, "people do not know that I am ... the world's best tickler!" and ... tickled me, in the stomach. 

I laughed, more out of an attempt to placate him than anything else, and begged him to stop. I said, "is that what the punishment is going to be?" And he said, "oh, there'll be something else, but it's not a big deal," and tickled me again.

I was, in fact, terrified of the "something else," and wasn't sure if it was going to b a karate chop in my Adam's apple or a wicked punch in the stomach, and didn't know how to brace myself for what was going to be incredibly painful — Lena's hands still holding me still from behind — when Putin ... whipped out a long tube attached to a funnel, placed it on my stomach, dropped something in it, and then leaned into it and blew, violently.

"что это такое?!" ("shto eto takoi," or "what is that!??"), I screamed, and the man in back laughed and said "look, he picked words at random in Russian," and I turned to him and screamed "oh, you think?!" (not, it must be said, the best comeback ever). Putin said, "Knives. I have just placed many, many tiny knives into your bloodstream."

In terror, at that point I woke up. 

According to this site, "to dream of being tortured denotes that you will undergo disappointment and grief through the machination of false friends." But the site also says that "dreaming about being tortured indicates that you are feeling victimized or helpless in some relationship or situation." 

Hmm.