The Bad Guy

At the climax of “Falling Down,” William Foster, the main character, comes to shocking realization.

“I’m the bad guy?” he asks. “How'd that happen?”

Foster, portrayed by Michael Douglas, is a defense worker in the 1993 film who is having an extremely bad day.

After losing his job, he abandons his car in a traffic jam and hikes across Los Angeles so he can reach his ex-wife’s house in time for his daughter’s birthday.

His fury escalates as the film progresses until he is committing murder and firing off a rocket launcher. And despite all this destruction, Foster believes he is the injured party.

I haven’t seen the movie since it first came out, but I remember finding it a bit heavy-handed in depicting this angry man’s story.

And some critics complained that many of Foster’s targets included Asians, Latinos, and African-Americans.

Shooting Star

The film comes to mind now after I had a kind “falling down” experience of my own last week, though, this was only a dream—but that was bad enough.

In this nightmare I was involved in a mass shooting.

I can't say that this is hardly surprising in America, since we seem to have them have them every other week and we are destined to have many more thanks to shameless inaction by our so-called political leaders.

This wasn’t the first time I dreamed I was in the middle of a gun battle. Several years ago, I had a particularly frightening nightmare about being trapped in a mass shooting.

The dream had followed a series of real-world mass murders so it’s not surprising that the fear would surface in my sleep.

However, this most recent nightmare differed from the earlier one in a very significant—and very disturbing-way.

I was the shooter.

Details of this dream are slim, thank God. All I remember is that I was gunning people down. When I woke up, I lay in bed for what seemed like several very long minutes convinced that I was going to prison.

The terror finally changed to relief when I realized I hadn’t shot anybody. But I’m still shaken by what had gone on in my head.

I was the bad guy? How did that happen?

I’m not sure. Usually, I can nail down the cause of a dream pretty quickly, but this one is eluding me.

On the Right Track?

There haven’t been any mass shootings in America…lately.

I don’t recall being particularly angry with anyone and I hadn’t seen any violent movies or TV shows. And yet there I was, blazing away in my own William Foster moment.

I have to be honest. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to write about this dream since it is so upsetting. But I wanted to face this side of myself.

I did some googling and found an article that discussed the possible reasons for dreaming about shooting people.

These include being upset with someone or something; feeling uneasy or discontent; feeling betrayed; dealing with a big change in your life, or interestingly, you could dream about shooting people after successfully taking control of a situation.

“While the dream may seem about killing, it could actually just be telling you that you’re on the right track,” the article said.

None of these interpretations seem satisfying, though feeling uneasy or discontent seems to be the most logical. I amazed sometimes at how much tension I’m lugging around without even knowing it.

I’m going to take this dream as a warning. I’m going to do a better job of watching the anger and the anxiety.

I don’t want to be the bad guy.