Dreaming of the first tree

I had a dream last night that Barack Obama was a singing fighter pilot -- who crashed his jet in the desert, no less -- and who tried to find out who all his political enemies were, a la Nixonian political scheming, by fingerprinting money, which would somehow lead him to understand who was voting against him.

There was also a farmer's market, and some kind of Cthulu-like squiddy stuffed animal, but the rest of the details escape me.

The night before last I dreamed about being taken hostage by what I can only assume was a Russian SWAT team, in a warehouse full of tourists that doubled as an amusement park ride, and there was a train and some railroad tracks, and a waterfall, or some wine glasses, and maybe Brad Pitt.

The railroad tracks I had seen before -- when I dreamed that I held up a bakery(?) with a purloined gun, only to immediately regret the decision and decide that I should cast the weapon into a reservoir, which had train tracks and a station inconveniently placed where the bottomless fathoms (perfect for swallowing guns) should have been.

I bring this up not because my dreams are particularly interesting -- although, I mean, they are fairly original -- but because they seem to stay with me more and more. And sleep, which has always dominated my waking life more than it probably should, seems to have commandeered yet more of my life of late.

And my dreams, which seemed to be nothing but a collection of anxieties and phobias, seem to be, for the first time, almost illuminating.

The other night, I had the most amazing dream ever -- about the First Tree.

I knew it was the First Tree as soon as I saw it, even though I can't remember ever having heard or seen of the First Tree before.

It wasn't particularly exciting looking.

It was just a tree -- stubby and sort of shabby and old, like one of those malnourished trees in an abandoned plot of land surrounded by parking lots and strip malls somewhere.

And it was, indeed, in a stark field, standing all alone.

But, I recognized it, and I was so excited to show my friends and family this magical tree -- it was a secret I didn't know existed until I saw it.

So I ran off to bring people to it, only to be distracted by dreamlike nuisances -- political activists I knew in a former life who selling meat products in the snow, etc.

When I got back, the tree was, of course, gone.

It hadn't been chopped down or defaced, it simply returned to the time from whence it came, being a time-traveling tree, that comes and goes from age to age, and thus, even more impressive than I had first imagined.

I think in my dream I assumed it was some sort of god, whose semi-consciousness dated back to the beginning of time.

Since waking up, I can't help but look for the first tree whenever I am alone in a field (which is actually kind of often these days).