Too Much TV

I'm taking Mefloquine, an antimilarial drug, and one of the side effects is "nightmares" or "night terrors". I rarely ever dream, but recently I'm kept up at night by vivid scenarios of doom. It may not be related to Mefloquine at all, but regardless they're vivid and awesomely amusing and clear signs of an idle mind not grounded in reality.

I'll recall three of my favorite doom scenarios here.

Tents and Lions - I'm walking alone in the Serengti and the sun sets before I get to where I'm going. In the trip reports I'm reading, it's fairly routine for animals (including lions) to prowl around in the camp sites at night and approach (but not enter) the tents. My uncle Aldo heard lions roaring nearby while camping in Kenya, and even once had a hyena come into his tent. Apparently tenting is a safe practice so long as you don't bring food into the tent, aren't alone in the tent, and have a big canvas tent. I have none of these luxuries, so I decide to set up my tent in a tree (don't ask how). Lions don't climb trees anywhere on earth except in Uganda. Just my luck. The dream ends with a lion balanced on a branch clawing its way through the side of my tent. Shit. Sleep tight!

Machete Family - The next night I'm kept up by a scenario in which I'm walking through Johannesburg. People on motorbikes will apparently come along with machetes and cut your pack off your back if you walk too close to the street. In my dream, a motorbike with seven men balanced on it come and slash my pack. The machete gets stuck, and I punch the dude in the face, then steal the machete from him. The mob gets off the bike, each of them wielding machetes. Needless to say, a fierce machete battle unfolds on the sidewalk. I easily take down a couple more screaming and weilding two machetes, but eventually I'm forced to run away. The dream ends with me running through the streets of Joburg with an 80 lbs pack on, wielding dual machetes, with a large mob of Africans casing me. Shit.

Accidentally Drowning a Child - My most recent scenario is an African variation (and extrapolation) of something which actually happened to me in Venezuala. I'm taking a picture while I'm on a long pier overlooking the ocean. A child pushes me from behind in an attempt to knock me off the pier so he can take the bag at my feet. I catch my balance and end up pushing the kid into the water - yay! Things turn south when the kid can't swim and drowns. The kid's family turns out to be the same machete wielding family from the motorbike scenario. They charge at me and my only recourse is to jump off the pier to get away. I've been reading about Shark diving in South Africa so of course my dream takes place in Shark Alley. I swim up and down the shore trying to get back on land, but the family just follows me up and down the coast screaming with their machetes over their heads. The dream ends with me choosing between death by machete, shark, or drowning. Shit.