Although I'm conscious of the fact that dreams mean next to nothing, I imagine it might have something to do with my recent near-miss. Or maybe it's symbolic of something else -- fear, powerlessness, the unknown. Who knows? (It's very telling that in the dreams I'm not standing my ground and kicking their asses.)
What's odd is that I live in relative safety. (Other than having my home broken into, of course.) But my neighborhood, and most of the neighborhoods I go to, are fairly harmless. They have their share of crime, sure, but everywhere does.
By relative I mean versus where I lived in DC when I got out of college. Two different apartments in the same 'hood which was, at the time, frontierland. Increasingly gentrified, yes. But full of peril at the same time. You'd have a nice block of renovated townhouses meticulously maintained by gay men (and almost everyone there was gay, hoodlums or me) right next to a major open-air drug market.
The previous tenant in my first place was mugged twice outside his door. Out my second-floor window I'd often see prostitutes in the church parking lot across the street fighting over money with their johns. One night I leapt out of bed to the sound of what seemed like a gunshot. Looking out, I saw nothing. Later on that day, they found a young kid's body in some weeds on the other side of the lot. He was shot in the head in an apparent mugging.
In my second place, there was a houseful of drug dealers on my block. Around the corner, four people were found dead in their house, shot, execution style in the back of the heads. Sure, lots of "regular" people lived there, too. But I was constantly, constantly looking over my shoulder, always vigilant, crossing the street even when I saw suspicious people congregating.
I've probably become complacent here. Maybe these dreams are telling me to step it up a little.
Then again, they quite possibly mean nothing at all. Either way, I'd like them to stop.
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