Happy Earth Day! Today is April 22.

My dreams have reached an entirely new level of creepy and disturbing. I need to get this off my chest, so bear with me. The dream starts in a wealthy manor in North Korea where President Donald Trump is hosting a dinner party. My whole family is there. He asks me to dance, so I begin to spin around wearing an elegant, green Victorian-era ball gown. Apparently my dancing is not up to his expectations (to no surprise), so he banishes me from the party.

The scene changes, and now I’m in the storage room in my house (which is somehow simultaneously still in North Korea). President Trump is holding me prisoner along with my aunt Anita and older cousin Phil. The president is coming to kill me, or maybe send his soldiers to kill me, so my relatives help me escape. This is an elaborate process that follows the nonsensical logic of dreams and ended up involving peanut butter ice cream, a magic wand and a ventilation shaft. I think it’s better not to question how the specifics of my escape work, but somehow I managed to free myself from my own house.

The next part of the dream I remember is set in America after I’ve fled from captivity in North Korea. President Trump’s soldiers have captured me and sent me to a building where they put me on a giant conveyor belt. The machine is moving endlessly forward in some sort of infinite loop. There are large, circular holes on the conveyor belt, and I am forced into one of them. I quickly realize the holes actually have complex, deadly metal blades in them (imagine gigantic garbage disposals) that are designed for a gruesome purpose: removing human body parts. This is where the disgusting aspect of the dream really kicks into play.

Following the same confusing dream logic as my escape, I manage to free myself from the contraption by pouring obscene amounts of baby carrots into it. Once I’m free, I race to an exit and open the door. On the other side, I find a ticket booth, much like ones at an airport, where I need to show a worker my ticket to leave. I hand her the ticket I’m suddenly holding, and when she looks at it, she tells me I can’t leave yet because the machines haven’t finished harvesting the proper parts from my body. 

I begin to panic, shouting at the worker and the people in the surrounding lines that this is madness. I try in vain to explain to them what is happening in the conveyor belt room. I am appalled by the horrendous nature of this “harvesting” and try to get them to flee. Then, with a completely neutral expression, a person next to me turns and tells me that everything is fine and this is just what happens.

All of a sudden, I’m back in the conveyor belt room in one of the holes. I am immobilized, but the machine isn’t on yet. I look around and see another person in the room, also inside one of the holes. I call out to him, but he simply looks my way. He explains that he is a marathon runner who has competed in at least 21 races (don’t ask me why that is an important part of the dream, but my subconscious held on to it).

As I hear the machine beginning to turn on, the runner stands up and gets out of the hole. His legs are missing the kneecaps and ankles. The flesh is pulled back, showing blood and muscles, but he somehow walks out of the room. The metal of the machine begins to move against my legs, and I start to scream out again. I can feel it against my knees. That’s when I realize why the government wants human body parts and flesh. It’s to help support agriculture by providing an additional source of sustenance. And apparently the whole country knows what’s happening. 

I wake up in a panic.

I was so repulsed and frightened, I wasn’t able to go back to sleep. I left my room looking for one of my parents because I couldn’t get the dream out of my head. I was terrified. Normally my dreams are fun, light and adventurous. This is the first truly gut-wrenching nightmare I can recall having in recent memory. Let’s just say, I wasn’t a fan. When I told my parents, they both compared it to the 1973 film Soylent Green, which is about an investigation on a topic similar to what I dreamed about.

To help ease my anxiety, I spent the morning baking chocolate chip cookies. I didn’t want to even think about meat or meat-related foods, so I focused on sweets and happy thoughts instead. The dream stuck with me all day, and I struggled to think about anything except the repulsive nature of what my subconscious dredged up. Even during dinner I went completely vegetarian. 

On a far brighter note, today is the 50th anniversary of Earth Day. To celebrate this, I’ve been creating a series celebrating nature and discussing important environmental issues through Bearing News’ Instagram. Today I’m finishing out the week of installments with a gallery of nature photos from various newspaper staff members. I am also including information on the topic of Earth Day and describing what people can do to protect and preserve Earth’s natural environments. 

I hope that through my work, I can at least make a small, positive difference in how people treat the world. While I’m not looking forward to going to sleep tonight, I’m doubtful I’ll have another dream as sickening as last night’s. If I do, I may need to consult my Advanced Placement Psychology textbook to figure out what exactly my mind is trying to tell me. Maybe if I try reading, watching and thinking about only happy topics I’ll be able to repel any negative thoughts.

“It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live.” ― Dalai Lama

How did you spend your 36th day of social distancing? Let us know in the comments below.