This morning, I dreamt I was Superman. Actually, it was a lot more complex than that. It was one of those dreams which occurred in many individual stages which somehow fit into a larger context. A lot of the segments in it are difficult to explain looking back. But as far as I remember, it started out that I was with a small group of people in some kind of historical park, or something along those lines. In one section of it was a prison. It was more than just a historical re-creation though, as there were actual prisoners living there. It was a complex built into the ground. At it’s entrance were two horses. One was just the decaying carcass of a horse. The other was still alive, but uncared for and extremely sick and feral. It was tied to a fence post and tried to bite those who came near it. But when I came near it, it came untied, and its coat turned healthy again and it was friendly and nice.

Some other things happened inside this underground prison which I can’t quite piece together anymore. The rest of the dream revolved around fleeing from the weird park which contained this prison. We were running up these woodland trails at one point. At another, we were driving a bus as our escape vehicle. I remember park workers pointing guns at us, and me pointing guns back at them. Once we were back in the normal world again (this park strikes me as having been in some kind of valley, apart from the world), the people from the park continued to chase us through the city. We took refuge in an antique shop run by Asians. They disguised our vehicle and gave us costumes to wear. But the bad guys found us regardless, so we fled again.

This continued through several iterations of chase scenes, with lots of hiding and jumping out of windows to escape people. In any event, at the end there was a big climax scene. I and my friends had been captured by these people who were now holding court to decide what to do with us. It was revealed that they weren’t actually bad guys, but were something similar to Tolkien’s elves. Dwellers in the forest, connected to the elements and nature. Even though we were in the city, when they held court, nature sheltered us. Trees gathered around us on all sides, growing extremely high. While the proceedings continued and they chastised us for thinking they were evil, I spotted what I would describe as a malicious tree spirit off in the canopy hacking away at and corrupting the other trees. It was then that I knew that these elves weren’t evil, but had an evil faction within them which was corrupting and draining life from the rest.

I pointed to the tree spirit, cried out and jumped into the air - at which point I assumed the identity of Superman. And I found an immense sword in my right hand. As I soared into the air, the trees parted and a giant root as tall as a building twisted up out of the earth. I might describe it as a cross between a sandworm from Dune and an ent from Tolkien. I dropped down towards it and swung my sword into it full-force with a mighty thud. Only a little bark, leaves and twigs fell off. I flew up into the air again and blasted it with my heat vision, then descended for another blow of the sword. Again and again I did this as the root reached up towards me to crush me. Also during this encounter, I discovered I had the power to blast freezing cold wind from my mouth. This wasn’t classically a power of Superman’s, was it? I can’t remember. But in any event, I used it combined with the heat vision and the sword to battle this thing.

Another strange event occurred during this fight: the huge root was replaced by an enormous video screen with an image of my enemy, which I then battled ferociously with the same techniques, alternate blasts of heat and cold and sword strokes. Toward the end of the fight, the screen opened up and out of it marched an army of the corrupted elves. They had light green flags each with a thick black circular “O” in their center. The army was lead by a group of 24 elves (although they weren’t really elves, I’m just using that word) who has entered into a secret pact with one another to overthrow the old order and dominate the world.

It was at that point I woke up. There’s a lot of different things to look at here, obviously. But after I woke up this morning, I finished up reading the gnostic Gospel of Thomas which I started last night. And I was surprised to find mention of a struggle against an evil root:

For so long as the root of wickedness is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized, it is dissolved. When it is revealed, it perishes. That is why the Word says, “Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees” (Mt 3:10). It will not merely cut - what is cut sprouts again - but the ax penetrates deeply, until it brings up the root. Jesus pulled out the root of the whole place, while others did it only partially. As for ourselves, let each one of us dig down after the root of evil which is within one, and let one pluck it out of one’s heart from the root. It will be plucked out if we recognize it. But if we are ignorant of it, it takes root in us and produces its fruit in our heart. It masters us. We are its slaves. It takes us captive, to make us do what we do not want; and what we do want, we do not do. It is powerful because we have not recognized it.

Seeing as I didn’t read this until after the dream, I’d hesitate to say it’s a formal connection. But certainly synchronicity strikes and perhaps it’s a useful mythological amplification for the contents of my dream. A lot of the imagery seems connected to a dream I had back in June about trees and evil consuming roots. Anybody know other good mythological stories about roots?