The Better Aliens of Our Nature

I had a dream the other night and I can’t stop thinking about it. It was another one of my vivid movie-like dreams where I’m mostly watching in third person. I’m writing about it because it’s Sunday and I have nothing better to do, but more importantly, I woke up from it feeling that it’s relevant to the ecological crisis we’re experiencing today. Continue reading if you want to know how aliens, language and the ways in which we communicate with each other can save the world!

Part 1

It’s quite far into the future and things are only getting worse. In most parts of the world, the air has become so thick that even a sip of it makes you choke. I’m watching the news on an old CRT television and they’re flashing images of deer from around the world dropping dead due to poison, starvation and heat stroke.

I go outside for a bit to take a walk and realize over half of the people in my neighborhood are missing. By the stillness of the air, I intuitively know they’re dead. Suddenly, the planet feels like it’s in some sort of weird purgatory.

I go back inside to watch the news. By the images I’m seeing on the screen, I realize that over the years, governments across the world have been repeatedly reforming their structure. Over the last few decades, governing formats had changed more times than anyone can remember, as world leaders grew increasingly desperate to maintain hierarchy.

Part 2

**At this point in my dream, I’m merely watching the events unfold as a third person spectator.**

Two marine biologists hover over a magical glowing patch of amethyst-colored coral, from a silver egg-shaped scuba pod equipped with waterproof cameras and other gizmo-gadgets. In their desperate quest for hope, they find evidence in the depths of the ocean that despite the magnitude of global warming, a rare ecosystem of corals is thriving, but somehow they’re convinced that this life is alien.

Alien corals in the trenches.

After a few minutes more in the trenches, the corals start to rise. The scientists realize that it’s not just the sea levels that are rising due to global warming but the seabed itself. A sanctuary — an alien kingdom — emerges from the depths of the sea, and it could save us all.

They take off to tell the world leaders. 

Part 3

Somehow the two scientists convinced the world leaders of the existence of newly-surfaced sanctuaries in the “four corners of the Earth”. The whole human population then equally divide themselves into tribes and embark towards these sanctuaries.

After what seems to have been (just) weeks of travelling by foot, the humans arrive at the gates of the sanctuaries — pulsating cathedral-like electric blue force fields, guarded by 4-meter-tall alien guards who basically look like giant jellyfish.

The alien guards looked something like this. Jellyfish with long tentacles have always looked somewhat “human” to me.

Led by their leaders, the humans try to negotiate their immigration into the sanctuaries, but the aliens refuse, and it doesn’t help that the humans leading this quest are still very much like the stereotypical politicians we have today: stubborn, ignorant, white and male.

Part 4

The aliens then begin to tell a story about how they had been slowly infiltrating the Earth since before the last Ice Age, and, slowly but surely, planned to take over the planet through our own self-destruction.

**Note: at this point, the dialogue is inaccurate, but it’s more or less how I remember it from my dream**

“Let us in!,” demanded one of the humans, fueled by desperation.

The alien guard replied, “You’re speaking as if you have power and you do not. Not when you speak to us like that.”

“What on earth do you mean??” Frantic and entitled, the humans start losing their cool.

The alien continues:

“Did you know that your ancestors (Homo Erectus) were more physically robust than you are now? Do you realize how you managed to outlive them in the first place? It wasn’t because you were smarter or better at making tools. It’s because you were better than them at communicating with each other — at forming tribes and alliances. Still, though, your language separates “me”, “we” from “he”, “she”, “you”, “them”. And somewhere along the way your language gave way to selfishness, polarization, discrimination and lust for power. Perhaps it's in the very nature of your language that these dangers are possible, and we can’t risk that in our paradise.”

“Just tell us what we need to do and we’ll do it. Please,'' begged one scientist humbly.

The alien guard immediately sensed his sincerity and decided to give them one chance.

“Learn our language. When you’ve mastered it then you can join us in our paradise. You cannot live among us with your current way of thinking. It will only lead to destruction.”

The humans agreed. What choice did they have?

On top of that, the alien had a second condition: the alien must get to select new leaders among the human race; the current ones were to abdicate their authority to the humans of the alien’s choosing. These turned out to be the scientists, farmers and artists. It was them that the alien deemed capable of learning the language first and teaching it to the rest of the human race.

As it turns out, learning the alien language wasn’t just a matter of translation of verbal speech. It entailed a complete transformation of the mind.

The alien race was nothing like we’d imagined. They didn’t all look the same, like humans basically do. Instead, the alien race comprised of a conglomeration of millions of different species —  an entire ecosystem. The language was non-verbal; it was intuitive and biochemical, and their minds were synced through an invisible interconnected network. Their ecosystem was almost just like ours, if only we included the millions of plants, reptiles, mammals, birds and bacteria in it in what we call “the human race”.

Conclusion

I woke up from my dream feeling like it truly is possible for man and nature to live in harmony, but it would take an extraordinary upheaval of the very foundations of our relationship with nature, language especially, for real change to happen. As well as being a basis for how we experience the world, language has always been a fundamental tool for colonization, and if it can create a radical shift in our thinking, it might just be able to transform our separatist relationship with everything around us to one of connectedness.