Hi Hubski. I just woke from a nightmare, so I'd like to share it for comfort reasons.
Basically I'm at a house with some people. Friends, family, I don't really know who. I see a blinding flash, and instinctively drop into a duck and cover position in a little wall alcove or something. Others see me and they're like, "Is he serious....oh fuck. He's serious. Oh fuck!"
So a nuke has dropped, but apparently not close enough to vapourize us. Abrupt cut to me and maybe one other person walking through a ruined urban neighbourhood. Trees are all dying. Somehow I've got a Geiger counter and I'm measuring things as we walk. Metal objects in particular make it go berserk with that unmistakable noise it makes. I realize we're being exposed to radioactive fallout and we're going to die from radiation sickness.
Cut back to the house. Various families appear to have taken shelter. Tensions are high. We know we're dying but try to make the best of it. I think some guy asks me to take care of his little girl for a bit. I fill up a bathroom sink (my bathroom in my real home now) with water so she can wash up and maybe drink a bit (dream logic, I dunno). Measure the water. Geiger counter acts up a little. The tap water is poison. But I decide there's no choice since its either that or dying of thirst. Hair's falling out. I'm raging about who did this and why. Futile looping emergency broadcast system on the TV. No help is coming. I think the government and social order has been completely destroyed.
Sooooo yeah. That was fucking horrible.
Out of curiosity, how old are you? This is the sort of nightmare I would expect from someone who was born in time to experience the Cold War-era paranoia about the nuclear holocaust. Do you think it's possible that it was triggered by the recent nuclear deal with Iran?
Early thirties. I'd watched Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome before going to bed that night. The scene where he measures the water vendor's tank with a geiger counter stuck. Also, I'd done quite a lot of reading about nuclear war in the last month.