The Dream

Yesterday just before I woke up, I had a dream. I dreamt I was having a conversation with the Taoiseach across a chess board. I was explaining to him how the brain engages as you map out all the possible moves and permutations there were between this point in the game and the eventual victory. Then I woke up.

I went into the kitchen where my wife was at the table. I joked, "I've just had a nightmare". I dreamt I was playing Leo Varadkar in a game of chess. She smiled and that was the end of it. Now a day later I've come back to the dream and try and work out what it means? All the experts on dream analysis pontificate on the fact that its subconscious metaphor. So what did I have?

I had Leo Varadkar, the prime minister who I would be a critic of and I had chess which was the de facto game of strategy and in itself a pursuit symbolic of war and disagreement. I realise I’m a very important figure at the family table but in the grand scheme of national politics, I didn’t really rate. Certainly, I had political opinions but they just irritate my peers when I bring them up.

On social media, It annoys me when political figures post something, which in turn is met with a barrage of forgettable insults. All it does is go to prove that the politician doesn’t read anything political on social media, because they continue to post, oblivious to failures their policies are drawing out of the conversation. The more base and populist the politician is, the more the freedom of speech descends into a meaningless rant.

The oxymoron of all of this, though is that social media now decides elections. Either nefariously or by the math of the numbers, the political arenas of the western world hinge on 280 characters at a time. That, and imagery and videograms of one’s opponent’s hypocrisy. This would be a primary electioneering tool of Leo’s anyway. So why has he come to me for a game of chess? On Christmas night?

I couldn’t see any of the pieces on the board in the dream, just the sense that the playing field was there between us. Maybe that was the dream’s way of saying the issues of national importance on which we disagree are not the crux of the dispute between me and Leo. This would be concurred by the fact that Leo wasn’t talking, so he doesn’t see me as part of the discussion. Now that I think of it, he was just there but he wasn’t playing chess. Just like twitter, not only was I talking at him, I was also playing chess at him.

Often I would use the analogy of “Chess with the pigeon” when describing a dispute where one side is astute and the other belligerent and ignorant, but here Leo was taking it further. This was “Chess with an owl”. Here the owl was winning the game by not saying or doing anything, just sitting on a perch with big eyes, staring at me.

This was the true meaning of politics. Politics is not about decisions and governance. It’s not about leadership and benevolence. It’s a staring competition! Don’t say anything, just look at the problem long enough for everyone to get bored and go and look at a different problem to keep things fresh. The original problem doesn’t go away, but only the people it affects now care, so in the broader picture, it’s not a problem.

Maybe the archangel Leo was appearing to me to say he has acknowledged some of my more recent criticism of his party, but I was equally critical of others in the political sphere so you would think I would be sitting opposite some form of sleeveen Hydra. Though if the Hydra’s qualifications in chess lived up to it’s general reputation, I would be in for a few sly moves and possibly the odd kick under the table. The dream might only have been a few seconds in my final minutes of slumber and Christmas night is one of the more popular nights on the calendar to be visited in your dreams.,However, when an angel visits you in your dreams, usually they say something, so I can only conclude that either Leo is not a celestial angel or that it was indeed a nightmare and I was being stalked by him.

My children fared better that Christmas night however as Santa came to them in their sleep bearing electronics.