Last night, I dreamed I was in a plane that had flown into a box canyon. I looked out the window on my side and saw the rocky canyon walls slowly passing by, just a few feet from the wing tip. I looked across the aisle through the window on the other side and saw the same thing.

I marveled at the skill of the pilot, being able to keep a straight course through this narrow canyon but of course worried because just the slightest error would mean disaster.

Somehow, I also knew that this was a box canyon and the question was whether the plane would be able to get up over the top.

We neared the end of the canyon and the plane started to ascend. I could hear the engines whining, straining to lift the plane high enough. We just barely achieved enough altitude, and I could see the rocky plateau just a few feet below.

The dream kind of ended there as I woke up, but in that halfway house between sleep and being awake, I also visualized one last little rise over which the plane would not be able to go. I envisioned the pilot trying to land the plane on its belly before it hit that rise, but I didn’t know if she (the pilot was a woman) would be able to.

This dream was actually based on an actual news article I read some 30 years ago about a plane crash in South America that happened in exactly that way. A plane flew into a box canyon, was unable to turn around and unable to get over the canyon walls. So, the minute it entered the canyon, it and all its occupants were doomed, despite the fact that everything seemed perfectly normal at first. That story has always stuck with me.

Back to my dream: After I woke up the first thing that flashed into my mind was Donald Trump and global warming.

So, my question is: Was it a dream, or was it reality?

Something I just remembered is this: As I watched the rocky sides of the canyon slowly pass by, I wondered why they seemed to be passing so slowly. Then I realized that I was looking at them from a great distance, so it was like when you watch a plane way up in the sky and it seems to be moving so slowly. It was as if I were watching from a similar distance while at the same time being right there in the plane.