Existentialist Nightmare in anticlimatic

Last night I dreamt I accepted a mission into outer space for reasons unknown in the near future. The mission was simple- rocket into space, away from earth, and just stay the course until finding something- or more likely, dying somewhere far out there in the dark. Accident, resource depletion, etc. The usual hazards one might face rocketing blindly into the vast, but not wholly unoccupied void. I remember the craft was dark and sterile. Neat squared lines of cool metal, with not much for lights or instrumentation. Somewhat clumsy, technologically speaking. To me it felt very bleak and foreboding.

Before leaving, my girlfriend volunteered to accompany me. I was grateful for her company, but I lamented my decision to embark on the mission. Again, I don’t recall why I ever thought it appealing enough to volunteer for to begin with, but that was neither here nor there.

Somehow the rocket left without me, but I had some means with which I could catch up to it and board- however, I had no means of contacting that ship other than chasing after it. My girlfriend was on it, now out of my reach and not coming back, while I lingered just a few moments longer on earth. It was night, and I could see the stars.

Two women I don’t actually know, but seemed to know me in the dream, stood talking to me about everything I’ve just described. I mentioned to them that I didn’t know why I thought it might be a good idea to throw my life away rocketing into space with my girlfriend, rather than spend our years living here on earth together. Suddenly I thought of her alone out there in the dark, brave and capable, but unfamiliar with the controls of the ship. What if something happened to her? What if something went wrong with the ship and she didn’t know what to do?

Thinking of her catapulting out there alone filled me with sorrow and anxiety, which at bottom betrayed all the warmest and most tender thoughts I have for her.

Last updated February 21, 2021