Rising Son: Weird Dreams

Weird Dreams

Here I am up at 4:45am after a bad dream, and blogging away at 5:30am.

While often times, I dream about things that happened in real life, or of people I know. But then there are times I dream about things that never happened, or just strange to be real.

Like just now.

By now, I can't remember all the details. But it was a case where I got into an organization, Arizona State University for some strange reason (I was never involved with them), and someone in the upper echelon of management saw me and decided to use me for some utilitarian purpose. They put into place a system that would exclude me from the normal path that all newcomers would go through, and fast-track me into position of great power.

In this organization, dubbed "AZSU", there was great turmoil in the form of power struggle, between the traditionalists who wanted to preserve the greatness of the institution, and the pragmatists who wanted to rebuild the organization into something completely beyond its original intent. Both the traditionalists and pragmatists occupied similar positions within the organization, and everyone had their duties. But the pragmatists could not move forward on their plans because everything had to have to approval of the "Board", and this Board had to allocate funds.

The Board, was the supreme decision maker, led by a person who acted as its foreman, though each board member shared equal power. I was being fast-tracked into this Board, but I didn't realize it until I found myself on its doorstep, almost like an abandoned newborn.

But membership to the Board was not easy. There were several checks and balances in place to ensure that Board members came from all walks of life, had the blessings of several positions of management, and could retain the delicate balance of power between the traditionalists and the pragmatists.

Except someone wanted me in this Board to upset that balance of power, and shift it towards the traditionalists.

In the dream, I can remember myself as a neophyte, practically naive about how political everyone was in the organization, and how everyone questioned every single piece of news. I was almost like a marionette on a set of strings. In the back of my mind, I had come to realize that I was being manipulated. However, I didn't care and accepted this fate as my calling in life.

And it was when I was meeting someone from the pragmatists, that I woke up. But just before I woke up, I was explaining to her the history of how I came into the position I was in, and before I could explain everything, she would jump to conclusions and make presumptions. I kept having to correct her by continuing on with my story. But I woke up before I could recite the whole story.

I suppose I may have lived out this dream in real life, with my employment at CompReview. Just prior to when CompReview sold out to HNC Software, there was a definite division in the ranks between those who held on to the company's traditional foundings and those who wanted to adapt to the changing times. I was just a low-level manager, but one who happened to report directly to the majority stockholder of the company, one of the two guys who started the company.

My role as the manager of Research & Development put me in charge of developing and maintaining the company's core competency. I was the one that everyone wanted to manipulate, but could not because my boss kept me "untouchable". My boss was actually among those who wanted to adapt to the changing times. I was indifferent to the struggles between these two groups, and only set my sights on improving the company's core competency. In that sense, I was still pure. My boss saw to it that I stayed that way.

But once CompReview sold out to HNC Software, my boss was out, and I reported through the same chain of command that everyone else did. I was now vulnerable to attack, and I didn't really know how to react after all those years of being protected. I simply wanted to focus on improving the company's core competency. But instead, I had higher-level managers tugging at me, and at the same time, stabbing me as a scape goat. I quit that place, and went to work for one of its competitors.

I guess, had I continued sleeping, my dream probably would have evolved that way.