Section 15: Dreams of Collapse and Authoritarian Dystopia

Of the dreams collected on Twitter between December 2017 and April 2018, thirty-one of them were dreams of the fall of the nation and images of the Trump administration gutting free-speech, implementing forced labor and martial law:

trump is a litteral child... last night i had a dream that he teamed up with the catholic church to take down free speech, it was a dystopia [i]‍ ‍

Last night I had a dream that Donald trump banned all songs that had the words “national anthem” in the song or title because it was unpatriotic and all the songs were removed from peoples music libraries. And I cried because of that pierce the veil song lmaooooo [ii]‍ ‍‍ ‍‍ ‍

Had a dream the other night. Trump suspends the Constitution and declares Marshal Law. Boy was I relieved to wake up and find out that hasn’t yet. But the voice at the end said, “Done Deal” [iii]‍ ‍

Last night before work I had a dystopian dream where all the states were building walls to emulate the Trump wall. Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri had new walls. Even Colorado had a chicken wire wall to keep out Jeff Sessions [iv]‍ ‍

Had a dream that Jon Huntsman was working for Trump in charge of labor dept and literally was telling us that working for free would set us free.[v]

There was a handful of dreams about dangerous and degrading dictatorial rule:

I had a dream that the Hunger Games was real. And also Trump was executing kids. I have no idea. [vi]

I had a dystopian nightmare that involved women being forced to participate in beauty pageants if they wanted to survive. 45 was the judge. I can't take enough showers after that one. [vii]‍ ‍‍ ‍

Several dreams circled around common mythological tropes of decaying rulers and their entanglement with dying nations:

There’s a decaying corpse as a character in my next novel. Last night I had a dream that we’d convinced critics the corpse’s story was an allegory for America under the Trump administration. It was a big hit. [viii]‍ ‍

I had a dream that Trump stayed our president for more than 12 years and our country became so shitty and no one could get in or get out and ppl kept trying to kill/bomb him and he found a way to escape but left us there to rot.[ix]‍ ‍

I had a dream last night that trump admitted his cognitive ability was declining and he needed to move into a memory care unit.[x]‍ ‍

last night i had a dream that trump’s budgeting had degraded the usa’s infrastructure to a post-apocalyptic wasteland so i made a soup to hex him [xi]

Dreams of Trump leading us into collapse, crashes, fires and general disaster were frequent themes: ‍ ‍

I had a dream the other night, a nightmare really. There was a long, high wall & a lot of Media & people protesting. Mr. Trump appeared, with some people with large bibles. He was taking photo-op by the wall, when the entire structure collapsed on him. I woke up screaming!!![xii]‍ ‍

Took a nap. Dreamed I was strapped to a drone that Trump was controlling and crashing me into power lines[xiii]‍ ‍

Several envisioned him at the helm of an airplane in free-fall:

Not even joking I had a dream last night i witnessed a plane crash and explode with massive flames and then on the smoke appeared a picture of trump saying to "vote for me" [xiv]‍ ‍

I had a terrible dream last night. I was on a commercial flight and learned from another passenger that Donald Trump was the airline's CEO, Donald Trump Jr. was in charge of aircraft maintenance, and Eric Trump was the pilot.[xv]‍ ‍

I had a dream about 3-4 nights ago that I was in a small, very cramped airplane. I looked over at my sister and panicked when I realized the trumps were in charge of maintenance. Dark dream.[xvi]‍ ‍

No lie, I had a dream last night that I was in a plane that was going down, and Trump was there, punched out a kid, took their parachute, and if that doesn’t describe this administration I don’t know what does.[xvii]

Or captaining a sinking ship: ‍

‍Had a dream Trump was captaining our houseboat this year and he made it capsize and he drowned... [xviii]‍ ‍‍ ‍

Some identified Trump Tower as the epicenter of the national disaster.

I had a dream that Trump tower malfunctioned and turned into a giant tornado that was destroying the United States and heading for South America... Talk about drawing from reality [xix]‍ ‍

I had a dream last night where the race I’m running this weekend got moved to Manhattan and we had to run through Trump Tower while it was on fire before the last stretch [xx]‍ ‍

No matter the symbol, a looming danger that would actually grip the nation in Trump’s second term moved through many of our nighttime and daytime predictions:

He (Trump) was clearly not well in my dream, like you could see a deadness growing behind his eyes. When someone finally asked me what I said to him, I just should my head and said "He's very sick."

‍ ‍[i] @jetsetgemini_ [ii] @apriludgatesdog [iii] @numinousstone [iv] @oParasiteSingle [v] @carolynholzman [vi]   @Vorchitect [vii] @TMarieHarris [viii] @DavidJoy_Author [ix] @hippiegaldani [x] @SoozleMcDoozle [xi] @22ndStreetFrog [xii]@139rich ‍ ‍[xiii]@LynneGuire ‍ ‍[xiv] @CDidaskalou ‍ ‍[xv] @KnottMencken [xvi] @GartnerE1111 [xvii] @Rocharzard [xviii] @lilzelish [xix] @Olivia_Lowry [xx] @TheDukeZip