I had a dream recently that disturbed me far more than most dreams.
Not because I believe dreams are always literal.
They aren’t.
Some dreams are simply the brain’s overnight housekeeping. Others seem symbolic. A few, at least in my own experience, have carried insights that later proved meaningful in ways I could not have anticipated.
This dream was different.
It wasn’t really about the people in it.
It was about a principle.
A moral principle.
One that will stay with me.
The Dream
I found myself in what appeared to be a large metropolitan area. My mind identified it as Los Angeles, although I have no reason to believe it was literally Los Angeles. Dreams often use familiar places as stand-ins for something much larger.
A trusted friend brought me to an old motel that had been converted into a facility.
I was given the unmistakable impression that I was only being allowed inside because someone trusted had vouched for me.
The rooms were filled with children.
Most were very young.
Some appeared mentally disabled.
Many seemed to have come from foreign countries.
There were attendants moving among them, administering injections that kept the children in a twilight state—neither fully awake nor fully unconscious.
One room was filled almost entirely with little girls whose identical haircuts suggested they had all come from the same institution.
The dream conveyed the horrifying impression that some of these children were destined for organ harvesting.
A wealthy, powerful public figure also appeared.
My mind substituted someone instantly recognizable—a placeholder rather than the actual person. Dreams often do this. The individual himself wasn’t the point.
Power was.
Money was.
The figure conveyed something chilling:
He wasn’t enthusiastic about participating.
But the enterprise was so profitable that he remained involved.
At the end of the dream, my friend led me away from the facility.
Instead of trying to rescue everyone myself, I found myself trying to record the location using my phone so I could later direct the authorities back to it.
Then I woke up.
Was the Dream About Child Trafficking?
I don’t think that’s the right question.
The easier path would be to assume the dream was exposing some hidden criminal enterprise.
Perhaps it was.
Perhaps it wasn’t.
That isn’t where my attention settled.
What remained with me was something much older.
Something far more universal.
When Human Beings Become Commodities
Before going to sleep, I had been reflecting on history.
For thousands of years, countless women have lived lives marked by conquest, slavery, forced marriage, sexual violence, and exploitation.
Not everywhere.
Not in every culture.
Not at every moment in history.
But often enough that entire civilizations were shaped by it.
When another human being ceases to be viewed as a person...
and instead becomes a possession...
or a source of labor...
or sexual gratification...
or economic value...
something essential has already been lost.
The dream simply extended that principle to its most horrifying conclusion.
Children.
Reduced to inventory.
Not because I believe such scenes literally exist exactly as my dream portrayed them.
But because dreams have an extraordinary way of exaggerating a principle until its moral essence becomes impossible to ignore.
Civilization Is Measured by One Question
Every society eventually confronts the same question.
Do we see people...
or do we see utility?
History has answered that question repeatedly.
Slavery.
Human trafficking.
Forced labor.
Child exploitation.
The buying and selling of human beings.
These are not isolated historical accidents.
They are what happens whenever profit becomes more valuable than personhood.
The details change.
The principle never does.
The Hidden Continuum
Most people imagine exploitation as something that belongs exclusively to history or organized crime.
I don’t think it is that simple.
The same underlying principle exists on a continuum.
At one end are atrocities that rightly horrify us.
At the other are the quieter ways people sometimes relate to one another.
When we value someone primarily for what they can produce...
what they can provide...
how they can advance our interests...
or how they make us feel...
rather than for who they are...
we have already taken the first step down that continuum.
The magnitude differs enormously.
The moral direction does not.
The opposite of exploitation is not merely kindness.
It is recognizing the intrinsic worth of another human being.
The End of the Dream
The ending fascinated me.
I didn’t become a vigilante.
I didn’t try to fight everyone in the building.
Instead, I wanted to remember where I had been.
I wanted evidence.
I wanted to be able to lead others back to the truth.
That struck me as profoundly symbolic.
Whether in medicine or in life, exposing what is hidden begins with seeing clearly.
A Question Worth Asking
Perhaps the dream wasn’t about Los Angeles.
Perhaps it wasn’t about child trafficking.
Perhaps it wasn’t about any particular place or any particular organization.
Perhaps it was asking a far older question.
What happens to a civilization when human beings cease to be ends in themselves...
and become means to someone else’s ends?
The answer, history tells us, is never good.
Every generation believes it would have recognized the great evils of the past.
Yet every generation creates new ways of convincing itself that certain people matter a little less than others.
The names change.
The technologies change.
The justifications change.
The principle never does.
The moment we stop seeing another human being as possessing inherent dignity...
we begin walking a road that history has traveled many times before.
The destination is always the same.
A civilization that gradually loses its own humanity.
The only question is whether we recognize it before it is too late.
The greatest atrocities in history have never begun with murder. They have begun with objectification.