freud?

--Word to the wise - some of the imagery contained herein is somewhat disturbing to myself, but I feel the urge to write it all out anyway. Any viewers who would rather not peer into a strange mind at rest, feel free to pass on this one.--

This is an odd venue to get into dreams and shit, but sometimes I'm just struck by the things that the mind creates while the body rests.
I never really gave much thought to what it meant when I heard people say they woke up in a sweat. It happened the other night, and aside from being disgusting, and disruptive to any further sleep I would get, it was an interesting experience.
I remember when I had just woken up, before I had even given any thought to why I was so hot, one of the first things that came to my mind was hell. That's what it felt like in my mind just a short while ago. I don't know how other people's dreams work, but mine have a rather staccato, shifty quality of imagery to them, so to anyone who is still reading this, bear with me.
Imagine riding along a dark dirt road at night, surrounded by thin mats of shrubbery high enough to conceal a man standing. It must have been one of those open-top safari style jeeps, I don't know who was driving, but I was riding in the back, and it was a little bumpy. We came around a bend, and the brush cover got gradually thicker, growing into full on forest as you got further away from the road. There was a faint glow as of a campfire all around bordering the road and the GI Joe style army tents which were scattered into the distance. All of a sudden, I knew I was out of place, but I wasn't sure if they knew. There were people, disgruntled, beaten looking soldiers sitting on makeshift chairs outside of their tents. Then there was the clatter of automatic gunfire, in no particular direction, but coming from all around me the further we drove on the road. One got the sense of anger, hostility aimed at no particular place, just unabashed disdain. Enmity.
It looked like there was just as likely to be any number of wild carnivorous predators of the African bush-country on the receiving end of that fire than anything else, but any of God's creatures would have long since perished in the face of such incessant, hateful discharge of assault weaponry. Suddenly I had a gun myself. Something like an M-16, it felt almost weightless in my hands. The broken faces and tattooed necks of shaven female marines stared back at me with meaningless eyes, discerning if I was a foe. I don't think they were shooting each other, but I don't think they had any friends either. I figured as long as I held my weapon close as if I was ready to use it I was safe. Relatively. I had no idea what I was supposed to be shooting at. But I feared if I shot at nothing, they would know I wasn't one of them, and that certainly be bad. As if by some natural reaction to the rising tension, I remembered I could fly, or rather, slowly begin to rise from the back of the jeep like a hot air balloon, and head for the relative safety of one of the high tree tops. When I got a few feet off the ground I realized that my latest trick would surely blow my cover if spotted. One of the bald-headed, soul-less eyed lady marines glanced up at me with the deliberation of a hollywood zombie. Before she had a chance to raise her rifle I instinctively put one in her face from about 50 feet in the air, it felt less personal from that distance. I quickly glanced around my periphery to see if anyone had noticed the lone shot amongst the background cacophony that broke up the otherwise deafening silence of a vast unknown wilderness. I reached a perch in the trees where I thought I would be able to get a better view and discern what was happening. But I never managed to turn my glance from the body that barely moved as I dispatched the life it contained. The chaos continued.
Then suddenly, my safe perch in the tree became a safe perch up in a high window sill, in my 10th grade study hall room back at Gilman. The ceiling was much higher for some reason, and I was still in hiding, but the soldiers were now teachers and deans from my old school that I didn't recognize. I glanced to my left and up on the ledge with me was my dog Django. I shuffled to hide his presence behind a makeshift curtain that was clearly too small to conceal either of us. My sense of danger heightened as the activity in the room below increased. I sensed if they saw me, it would be curtains for both of us, why I don't know. But there was a writing. An assignment that I had turned in, perhaps that was what they were looking for. I knew it was brilliant. If only they would read it, they would spare me my torturous fate as they could now see my value. It worked. As if by magic they had read it, and they loved it. And I glided down from my perch like a bird of prey, not a single flap of my arms, just gliding. And there was peace.
But I woke up in a sweat, and terrified.