Lawrence and the Bedouin

Lawrence of Arabia, who looks like Peter O’Toole, and a Bedouin, both wearing full Arab robes and headgear, are in the hottest part of the desert in the middle of the day. It's a frying pan, like in that part of the film where they crossed a really hot part of the desert to attack the Ottoman settlement on the coast. My point of view is very close to Lawrence’s. It’s almost the case that I’m Lawrence, but it’s also like I’m a detached observer.

The Bedouin says to Lawrence, It’s hot, have you ever been this hot? To me, it’s obvious that the answer is no. Lawrence is from England, where the weather isn’t this hot. The Bedouin knows this but just wants to hear Lawrence say it. Lawrence agrees with him that he has never been this hot.

It’s later. Dusk, almost dark. They’re still in the desert, but the landscape has changed. The ground is covered in dust and gravel. Not quite gravel; chips of stone, like building rubble. There’s a tall chain-link fence coming in from the left, which ends abruptly. It’s not joined up to anything. You can just walk around it if you want. Behind the fence the ground rises up like a sand dune, and is covered in small rough stones. A large white dove, big enough for a meal, flies overhead and settles on the top of the mound. While Lawrence waits on the near side of the fence, close to (or maybe identical with) my point of view, the Bedouin circles around the back of the dune and kills the dove with a thrown stone. The stone is deflected by the impact with the dove, and arcs towards where Lawrence is crouched, but he raises his left hand and catches it easily, near his head. He laughs in a fake cinematic way, deliberately loud so that the Bedouin can hear, and raises the white stone for the Bedouin to see it in the half-light. The Bedouin appears over the top of the mound and comes over to where Lawrence is, and Lawrence is about to throw the stone away, but the Bedouin says, No, keep it, Lawrence, it’s your lucky stone.

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Trying to think what influenced this dream, there were a few things:
I listened to a few of James Joyce's stories on Audible yesterday morning, and in one of them, the protagonist says, "But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad." Another of the stories was called 'Araby'. Later in the day, I read a story that included the element of a small green jade stone used as a protective talisman. Before going to sleep, I was reading about 'dromomania', which is a compulsive need to walk aimlessly or take flight. There's also the weather; I've managed to grab an hour in the sun several times in the last week and get a bit of colour, including yesterday.