sanity is relative

I was a man, one of the prisoners, and one of the masterminds of the excape plan. I'd worked hard on it, but the first part of the dream I actually remember was when the tunnel was ready to use and we had to move fast. It was night time, and I was right near the beginning of the tunnel in a dark shed or unused back room of some sort. The exit was out in fields beyond the enclosure, near the forest. (Definitely inspired by the movie The Great Escape even though I haven't seen or thought about it in quite a while.)

I think we had to move fast because we were afraid the alarm would be sounded early. The first person waiting to go through thought I'd want to go through first, but I whispered to them and the following people, "Go. Go!" They went, dropping the few feet into the shallow hole and scrambling along through the tunnel. More people in the line now, go, go, go! Adrenaline rush hit bigtime as the alarm sounded, but I kept telling them to go even though the people in line now were sure I'd want to leave at this point. GO!

By this point it was probably futile to get into the tunnel anyways, but there was a break in the line and I took the opening, dropping down and crawling along as fast as I could. I felt slight claustrophobia, but what I was most worried about was the last few people not making it through, and maybe not some of the people who'd gone just before me. But well, there was one way to find out, and I wasn't stopping now. The guy up ahead exited the tunnel upwards, and it seemed like he was pulled up. Had someone stayed behind to help move people out faster? It was nice to think someone else was endangering their own escape for the others.

But as I approached the hole up into the field, booted, uniformed legs and feet landed in the hole. Damn it. They belonged to a Nazi soldier, and he barked orders at me (or well, whoever was still coming out of the tunnel) to continue out. I obeyed, and my aquiescence was rewarded with not being hurt right away. The soldier pulled me up and someone else above the hole pulled me out fast, and I found myself shoved into an odd holding vehicle. I realized it must be some sort of super-economic troop transport, as I was pushed into a narrow slot created by barely-padded puke-green dividers that were quite solid, and another divider slid into place through the opening I'd been pushed through, thoroughly trapping me in somewhat tight quarters. I was fine standing, but the whole experience was rather odd.

There was the slight feeling of claustrophobia again, but it wasn't bad. I realized there were others here, at least one or two of my fellow prisoners who apparently hadn't made it either. We called to each other softly, checking up to be sure we were alright. Everyone was, beyond being disappointed and unsure of our futures, and before long the transport moved back towards the camp. I guess I was the last one out of the tunnel, or they did something else with any further escapees.

Now the transport morphed into something more like a cross between an ARMY SUV and a jeep. The backseat area had seats facing backwards behind the driver, and forwards in the back of the vehicle, so we could all face each other (as the prisoners were in the back, four of us, and two soldiers or guards were in the front). I don't think we were restrained at all, besides knowing the doors were locked. There wasn't any thought that we could escape now, at least, not from the car, and probably not from the camp again as they'd surely be watching us. And suddenly, the dream decided it was daytime and we were actually quite a ways away from the camp, returning to it.

We were talking about stuff, in English, mostly shooting the breeze as we really had no idea what we were headed for back at the camp. One of the guards said a few things as well, and I noted how good his English was. He sounded American, and when he spoke German (dream-German, lol what a mess that sounded like, mostly cuz I sure don't speak it) he seemed to stumble over it. I had just said, "I guess now we'll just have to wait for our boys in blue to come rescue us," and then I wondered... were these two guards really our guys? I think I said something like, "Hey, you wouldn't happen to be..." but then the guard who'd spoken the most English started doing the German thing again, and after stumbling a little more sounded more confident in it, and the other guard, the driver, spoke back to him in the same language.

We settled back and didn't say anything else until the ride was over back in the camp. Now the vehicle had two rows of back seats facing forward more like one would expect (dream logic was failing badly by this point, and continued to). I was in one of the middle section seats, and turned to help unbuckle "Tiny" who was (instantly) one of the main group of escapees and had also failed at actually escaping. He was child-sized, and then suddenly baby-sized, and actually a baby, and I was a woman, now sitting with him on my lap in the front passenger seat.

The baby was mine, and I was so happy to spend a little time with him but was sad because he was a boy, and he had to go back to the men's side of the camp because he wasn't allowed on the women's side. I begged the driver (who was formerly the guy in the passenger seat, the one who spoke good English) to let me take my baby with me, and I said, "He looks just like a girl if I put him in a dress. I bet when you were little, your sisters dressed you like a girl or something." (I'm not sure if that half-taunt was supposed to buy me brownie points with this guy or what. I was taking chances, trying desperately to keep my son with me.)

The baby had a diaper bag of some sort, and I had him in a dress shortly thereafter and said, "See, he looks just like a girl. Please let me keep him." The driver ascented, though I could see in his eyes he wasn't sure it would really work, and wasn't looking forward to possibly getting in trouble. But at the moment he was the one calling the shots, and it seemed like nobody else was close enough to notice the mixup. I was so happy, even though it might be difficult to keep pulling off the sham if someone squealed on me or whatever, but hey, I had my baby back!

Then I woke up.