Last night, I had a very vivid, strange, and oddly realistic dream.

I was a photographer doing a shoot in South America.  I can't remember what I was shooting, but it wasn't anything major (girls on the beach, guys with palm trees... that kind of stuff).

For some reason, I needed to get out of the country without anyone knowing.  I managed to sneak onto a ship with another photographer.  He was a journalist--he was reporting on government corruption, human rights violations, deplorable living conditions; the kinds of things that dictatorial governments don't like publicized.

He'd run this game before.  The ship we were on was a smuggler ship, and everyone there knew him.  And he knew the rules of the ship--and the smuggler sub-culture.

We hid in boxes to get past customs.  That was the easy part.  The smuggler ships were old WWII naval vessels; destroyers, cutters, and other battle-ready ships.  After leaving the harbor, our captain had to fight his way past other smuggler ships intent on capturing his cargo.

Once underway, I was allowed a degree of freedom in the ship.  But every minor social transaction required a bribe.  A candy bar was the typical payment.

The majority of the dream dealt with the minor interactions between myself and the crew.   I was in an ancient--and poorly-maintained--war vessel, in the open seas, with a crew of outlaws who had created their own culture.  The intricacies were fascinating.  The details were precise.  If I had the resources, this could be the basis for an intense movie.

As it is...  it's just another world created and forgotten by my mind.