Nocturnal Visions: Dreaming Alternatives to Capitalism

Can we conjure fresh frameworks as we sleep?

Eleni Stephanides
5 min readOct 7, 2024

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Photo by author

I’m driving Lyft passengers, and my Toyota Corolla keeps getting longer.

Even though the number of ‘Lyft Line’ riders isn’t supposed to exceed three, in this dream, passengers continue to get added. In response, my car grows miraculously to accommodate for all of them.

A roommate from a writing camp I attended 20 years ago gets in, followed by a woman headed to a “crossword puzzle class.”

A Spanish-speaking mother and her five-year-old daughter join soon after. So do Amy Schumer and a boy I knew from preschool.

Quite the motley crew — but my dreaming brain doesn’t think much of it.

This added length turns driving into a… let’s just say highly stressful task. The additions feel like an unruly tail, whipping at every vehicle in close proximity. My car struggles to stay in a straight line.

Irate drivers honk. Bulky trucks crash. A fire erupts.

I text my boss, but he wants me to continue accepting more passengers.

“Good for business,” he reiterates.

Before the situation escalates further, my alarm jolts me awake, pulling me from the brink of disaster.

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Eleni Stephanides

LGBTQ+ writer and Spanish interpreter who enjoys wandering through nature, reading fiction and mental health content, speaking Spanish, and petting cats.