I find myself sitting upon the top step of tall bleachers in a gymnasium. It is an old gymnasium built of old discolored brick and the top bench I am on is against the wall in a corner. Just beneath me, beneath the top bench but within my reach, is a buttress constructed of the same old brick. It is not very thick for holding up this wall and the mortar that holds against the wall is cracking. I can see and touch the crack. I can feel it separating from the wall, very slightly, but the separation is increasing.
I am alarmed by this. I am in danger and the gymnasium is in danger as well. People are coming in and beginning to sit on the bleachers. They don’t know about the structural flaw and the danger. I can’t leave my seat. Something is holding me there. There is some force of will that I am exerting with my mind on the buttress to keep it in place. If I leave it could collapse. And the bleachers are filling up with people.
I now realize that I am not myself in this dream. I recognize myself as President Obama. No one else recognizes me as that so the dream metaphor is beginning to become clear to me while I am dreaming. I feel I must go along with the dream and solve the dilemma that I and all these others are now in. I must pass information along to those near me and ask them to pass the information along to others near them. The information is complicated, urgent and delicate to communicate without giving rise to panic.
It takes countless attempts, persistence and careful wording. At last the message begins to get through and the crowd begins to move off of the bleachers. Many are angry and upset at losing their good seats just before the game is about to begin.
Finally the bleachers are cleared, and workers appear around the bleachers and begin to roll them away from the wall and the precarious buttress. As it quickly clears the area I sense that I can release my will and let the buttress fall harmlessly at the base of my tall perch on the top bench.
A larger crowd of worker appear bringing more bricks and removing the old ones. The new and thicker stronger buttress is swiftly built up against the corner of the gymnasium’s walls and the whole building is saved. But my own attention for the dream has gone and it disappears without knowing any more about the situation. I wake up.
Later that day, President Obama speaks at a town not far from my home (http://cs.pn/Ps8sRw) and that evening Paul Ryan accepts the nomination as Mitt Romney’s running mate.