I Had A Dream - State Of The Sheep

I had trouble getting to sleep one night, so I started counting sheep. Not real sheep, but the imaginary sheep some of us were taught to count when we were little and had trouble getting to sleep. In my imagination, the sheep would slowly be led walk to a fence and then jump over. I counted them as they jumped. Even though they were orderly and lined up, they were difficult to count. After a while, I began counting to something like a cadence in my dream:

One, two, three, four -
Over the fence, trying to snore;
What I really wanted to know,
After jumping where they would go?

As I slowly began to drift off to sleep, the sheep began getting impatient. The sheep began to form multiple lines as they moved forward, forming up to go over the fence four at a time. The sheep began passing through a little bit faster, and the cadence changed as I began to dream.

Four, eight, twelve, sixteen
Jumping faster and looking lean.
What I really wanted to know
After jumping where they would go?

As I dreamed, I slowly zoomed outward. My dream was no longer totally focused on the fence, but had expanded to look around at the greater scheme. When I looked back from whence they came, I noted the sheep were in a calm green pasture. Some were grazing peacefully, others were looking toward the commotion. Many had left their peaceful grazing so they could get closer to see what all the commotion was about. Slowly, the entire herd of sheep had gathered and begun to move towards the fence. They had followed and moved toward the noise, where someone appeared to be speaking to the small crowd of sheep gathered around. The speaker was chanting:

My fellow sheep, gather around me,
Don’t you all just want to be free?
The grass is greener where the others went,
So give up your grazing and jump the fence.

The sheep farthest from the speaker had no clue what the speaker was saying, so they crowded in, trying to get closer. From a distance the sheep seemed motivated; after all, what sheep does not want greener pastures? Watching the sheep gather and push toward the fence, it seemed they had a common purpose, and it seemingly showed as they gathered. They were chanting the message they thought was coming from their speaker.

Hope  - hope - hope and change
We are sheep, who graze the range.
But what we really want to know,
Is after jumping where will we go?

As they moved forward and toward the leader, and toward the fence, the chant changed a bit. It sounded vaguely like those movies you may have watched where trainees are learning disciplined marching. It was also the sort of chant whose message described the path to change that they would follow.

Hep two three four
Over the fence we will graze some more.
Where the gates go we do not know,
We will jump to see where they go.

The sheep moved as one, for they thought they must be moving in the right direction.

If you are a good organizer, and a good teacher, and perhaps a dreamer, then the only limit to what you can teach sheep is your own imagination.

Note at about 1:10 into the video, the teachers begin playing with the sheep.

I continued to look over the entire scene as I dreamed, still not understanding the full scene. My attention was drawn to the other side of the fence that the sheep were jumping over. The fence they jumped over led them into another fenced area, seemingly wide open and next to the pasture, but with the fence on the far side narrowing down to four narrow passages to gates. The passages were narrow, and tunneled through a large covered area that I could not see into. Upon exiting the large covered area, they entered another passage, similar to the one that had led into the building. The last was a really long passage that led in a wide circle back to the far side of the original pasture. As I looked closer though, I noted the sheep somehow now looked different, and much more quiet and complacent.

Most notably, they no longer bleated to a rhythmic chant.

They had been fleeced.

As my dream continued on, the sheep returned to grazing peacefully in their pasture. Before returning, they did gather around one last time to hear a few final words from the leader who had convinced them to jump the fence. His message was now much clearer, for the sheep had been led to understanding, and they understood where their actions had led them. Many now shivered in the cold, facing a future with no warmth. And they chanted:

	Hope – hope – we hoped for change

	But we were fleeced, and now we’re shamed.

	They called it a tax, how could we know

	We’d be so sick where we would go?