How nerds dream

Posted on May 22, 2013

So here’s an actual dream I had last night.

I’m in a garage or shed or other type of workshop-ey space. And outside is a mob of horrific alien monsters bent on breaking the doors down and disembowling me.

I frantically start looking around for something — anything — I can use as a weapon to defend myself. But the only thing I can find is a flashlight.

Damn! Completely useless.

Or is it?

A brainstorm strikes! I pick up the flashlight and turn to my left, where I find: George Lucas. (I guess now that he’s retired he has time to hang out in random peoples’ dreams.)

I show George the flashlight, and pose a question.

“George,” I ask, “is this a lightsaber?”

He seems mildly annoyed by the question, but he humors me. He briefly looks the flashlight up and down, then responds:

“Yes. Yes it is.”

And suddenly I feel safe. Because now my flashlight isn’t just a flashlight. It’s a lightsaber.

Why is it a lightsaber? Because George Lucas said it was, which means that this fact is now canon. It doesn’t matter anymore that the flashlight looks, sounds, and acts just as a normal flashlight does: George Lucas is the final arbiter of what is and isn’t a lightsaber, and he said my flashlight is a lightsaber, so presto! It’s a lightsaber.

Then the slavering alien hordes break down the doors, and I use the flashlight to slice them into a deli platter.

What does it all mean? I have no idea, except maybe that I need to get out more.