I had a very strange and somewhat traumatic dream last night. This morning I had forgotten it, but 14 hours later, it comes back to haunt me.

In my dream I am with my family in the foyer of a luxurious hotel. It looks very grand, like something from the British Raj. The clothing, too, is Raj-like, pith helmets and 20's women's wear. Potted palm trees, a ceiling of white girder-like beams.

Suddenly, the hotel is under attack by Burmese soldiers. It's quite clear they are Burmese, in dark green uniforms, barking orders. One officer shouts, "We have invaded your country. All of you are now under threat of instant conscription at any time. We will now pick some of you, randomly, to join the Burmese army."

They start dragging people out of the crowd of hotel guests. There's a little girl, barely pubescent. They throw her roughly by the front steps of the hotel which is shaded with more palm trees and a cloth awning.

Suddenly they seize my father from the throng. "You can't take him!" I scream. "He is seventy years old!" (In real life, my father is 85.) Still, they drag him (he is wearing the white jacket of a Thai government official) and make him stand among the recruits, who are all the unlikeliest army recruits I've ever seen — children and old people — chosen precisely because a war would make them suffer.

A general, wielding a cane, walks up and down, inspecting them. He starts to beat the little girl savagely. At this I can't contain myself any longer and I go down the front steps and grab the cane from him. "You are not going to beat any of these people, let alone my father," I say and I begin whipping the general savagely.

Curiously none of his aides rush to arrest me. They all watch me beating up their boss with a mixture of shock and bemusement. And I wake up.

What I want to say is that this dream, like so many of my dreams that seem to be set in alternate but completely self-consistent realities, appeared so vivid both in sound and color, it was more like a memory than a dream.