The beginning of the dream is not clear, but I ended up in a job where I had to monitor the loading of people onto a train. The people were non-resident aliens, and they were being transported for execution. But in this job, I was able to divert about half of the aliens onto another train so they would not be executed. Some other organization selected a number of the people who I should save and gave me profiles of each with photographs so I could pick them out of the line. I could use my own judgement to save some others, based on a quick first impression as the people walked by. I would point at people and direct them to another train platform. At first I felt good that I was able to save about half the people, but then I suddenly wondered at the morality of my ability to arbitrarily pick people out of a crowd, and save them while letting the others die.

A man was standing off to the side, making comments about the people and laughing. I told him to shut up. He said I couldn’t tell him what to do. I said, “Have you no soul? These are human beings!” He said, “They’re just non-resident aliens, what’s the big deal?” I told him he’d better shut up and get the hell out of the area. He told me I didn’t have the authority to order him around. I told him I did. I called to the gaurd, and I said, “If I tell you to stab this man in the neck, or to move him out of the area, you would do it wouldn’t you?” Her answer was to walk up to the guy and plunge her knife into his neck. He grabbed at his neck with a look of surprise as blood spurted out, then fell to the ground dead. I wished I had asked the guard that question without using neck stabbing as an example action.