Dream of New York cop angry at state of the world, with alien spores causing apocalypse, told at Surrealisms 2021 conference, 13th November 2021

Dream told at Surrealisms 2021, the conference of the International Society for the Study of Surrealism.

I’m in a busy wide street in New York City. A woman of colour is being arrested for eating popcorn because she has no mask. I am also eating popcorn, outside a restaurant, and a cop who’s next to me leans on the plate glass and says to me ‘you know what’s wrong with the world?’ She continues, ‘like why are we still using Xerox, so far into the pandemic?’ I reply that maybe the problem with the world is a lack of personal responsibility. The cop has a hat with a visor and cannot arrest me because I am eating the popcorn out of a plastic mesh basket, which is within the regulations. The cop is angry and keeps talking to me but is also confiding in me. I look up and see lights in the sky, sparkling purple and green, in rings that are like aeroplanes or alien spaceships. There is also a water fountain which is orange and green. The fountain pops out a single alien spore that drifts and falls on a windowsill. The building collapses due to the spore and there is a botanical explosion with alien plants all over the building, coloured green and tan and beige, unlike the colours of plants on earth. More spores drift from the fountain: fist-size, with a round bottom which is pale off-white, and with two leaves sprouted from the top, like a helicopter spore. I know that the spores can destroy everything and I feel a heavy dread that all will soon be gone.

 
In the discussion the dream sharer told of reading a lot on social media and online discussions about fears for the climate crisis and the collapse of civilization.
 
The pages that Julia used to paint on were chosen by her when she heard the dream on the basis of having a triangle of white which could be used for the perspective in the street scene. The dreamer and police officer are shown in the foreground, on the pavement/sidewalk; the woman of colour, with popcorn, and the arresting officer, are on the right; the street stretches into the distance; and the spores are at the top with the collapsing building at the top right.  
 
During the painting process Julia found words of Freud that were appropriate to the dream. These objet trouvé include the following:

In the middle of the painting, referring to the apocalypse, the words:
in danger
we
ignored these
 
In the police officer’s visor, the words:
attention in the
verbal expression
confronted
 
During the discussion the relationship of the cop and apocalypse to the current Cop-26 conference was noted and for this there are the words at the top of the right-hand page:
the number  
regarding this as a matter of course
we proceeded from this to
dream-content,
following up this clue