dream, MILAB

Was I me or someone else? I thought I was me. My hair was just as long, but light brown with waves (when I thought about it). I was in the navy. Or something like that. I worked on a submarine, a lowly type person, and we were at war with someone. You could hear gunshots outside, so that at the beginning of the dream I thought I was on a ship and not a submarine. The other sailors there told me, no, we were hearing the "land mines" and battle above us. What happened? I'm not sure. THe submarine was swimming through it, we were at some giant... structure? A dock but also a city? I don't know if we were fighting for this place, but there were indeed mines in the water. And we tried going around them. But somehow that didn't work and the sailors had to abandon ship. So I did with the rest. There were seals there, and I painted my entire body dark metallic blue, even under my fingernails, and I swam with the seals. There were other sailors who were in swimsuits. They told me I could never fool the seals, but I swam through the water poles of the dock around and around and the seals barked. I swam and underwater I barked and clapped my hands, and someone exclaimed that I was indeed a seal. So I ended up on the beach, and there were campsites there - they were from "my people," whomever that was. Natives, yes of course - probably a big deal because I NEVER dream of other reds unless its something important. Somehow I was chieftess, and somehow I was pregnant, and somehow I went into labor. The women clustered around me while I screamed and gave birth there on the sand - I can't remember if it was in a hut or somewhere else, all I knew was I was giving birth - but the baby was stillborn. It would have been a boy. A dark boy. I grieved, but did not show it as the small tribe (there were probably seven or nine or so of us) tried to cope with life on the seashore. Our huts were mere leanto's, and they wore only something around their waist and conch shells in their hair. Their faces were never clear; more background color than anything while I was still painted up like a mock-seal. I had to go back to battle, so I did and the seals there knew me. I can't recall what happened there, only that my "grandmother" appeared. She was brown and walked tall and had conch shells in her hair. She crossed the jetty to reach the tribe, and as soon as I saw her I left the water and was a brown haired human again. I flew into her arms, crying. She held me, and I told her my baby died. I cried about the boy over and over, thinking he was only 3 lbs when he was born. She said he was born too early, but I kept crying even though she told me to hush. The tribe looked down or away: my emotion made them uncomfortable. When I woke up, remembering that scene, I felt like the dream was telling me that I'd left my job behind to grieve and the people didn't like that - that I had a job to do, no time for feeling.