I Am Superman, And I Know What’s Happening

Sometimes I have dreams where I do heroic things. I wonder if maybe it’s because I don’t feel much like a hero in waking life?

I think that to some degree, everybody wants to be seen as a savior, one who does great things for the common good, or at least to have the courage to try. And some people want to be superheroes, taking it to the next level.

I dreamed last night that someone broke into my house. I was downstairs and heard a noise on the front porch. I opened the door and heard someone on the porch roof, and saw a wire that they’d attached to the ground and used (somehow) to get up on to the roof.

I had a broom in my hand and was yelling at the person to get off the roof, and trying to swipe at the wire with the broom, but I didn’t step outside because I thought it might be dangerous. The situation didn’t really feel dangerous, though, but I yelled upstairs for Doc to call 911. Then the noise stopped and I knew that the person had gotten inside the house.

I heard noises in the backyard and ran through the house. Our backyard was large and grassy, and someone I didn’t know had tackled the robber down to the ground. I ran out and took over, ordering him to turn over onto his stomach, and then I jammed my knee into the small of his back and cranked his hands up behind his back to hold him in place. My broom had shrunk to a small stick, but the end was nice and pointed and so I stuck this against his back so he wouldn’t try to get away.

He had stolen a Walkman cassette player from my office, and it was lying next to him on the grass. I sat there holding him down to the ground, although he wasn’t struggling at all. Then he started telling me his life story, the hardships he’d gone through, and I didn’t know what else to do but listen. It was actually somewhat interesting.

A bit later, I saw that two police cars had pulled up in front of our house, and then a police officer walked through the back door and took over from me, very casually, like there was no actual danger from this guy. She handcuffed him, and for some reason I started making snide comments about things that he had told me about his life, like “Oh, the poor baby had a rough life, that must have been SO AWFUL.” I was saying these incredibly mean things that this person had told me in confidence; he thought I was being sympathetic but I was just waiting until help arrived so I could make fun of him.

The strange thing about this dream was that Doc wasn’t in it at all, except that he must have called 911 for me. In real life, of course, he would have been on the front lines in a robbery situation. I wonder what it means that I was the main player in this dream, that I was the one who knew what to do and got the guy secured on the ground and held him until help came. I don’t know that I would have the courage to do that in reality.