# Nobody wants to hear about your dreams, OR, Dancing with Archimedes **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 24, 2003, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nobody-wants-to-hear-about-your-dreams-or-dancing-with-archimedes/214934 "2003-11-24T03:31:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![wolfstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d6d6ee/32.png) [@wolfstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfstu)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nobody-wants-to-hear-about-your-dreams-or-dancing-with-archimedes/214934/1 "2003-11-24T03:31:22Z")
It’s funny how a vivid dream can be so compelling to the dreamer, and so thouroughly uninteresting to his audience. It’s strange, but for all the times I’ve heard people describe their dreams, I don’t think I’ve ever seen their listeners look interested. So a description of a dream I just had is obviously a great idea for a thread 😃 Just a couple of hours ago, I turned on the radio to listen to the news, and laid down on my bed. I woke up an hour and a half later, in the middle of a program that reviews classical music. While I lay there, hugging my pillow, I had an unusually vivid dream. It was set in one of the classrooms at school, with one of my classmates (with whom I’ve never spoken) acting as professor. When I woke up, I couldn’t help but write it down… don’t be too harsh, if you can help it. I’m no poet. (But I try.) > [@](#): > > Dancing with Archimedes > > Archimedes’ statements are written on glass, > Squeaky violin and a keyboard for chalk. > The man with the earring petitions the class, > “How is it possible?”, in the language of Bach. > > The first of eighteen lists, without square division, > The number called _i_ as the elegant root > And obvious base of a true counting system, > Whose consistence and ease make assumptions all moot. > > The glow of projection, the matte of the walls, > Hold our minds like the gracenotes produced by his hands. > His pupils stare back him, silence through all, > But I sway in time with it: I understand. > > How could the ancient Greeks know this, he asks, > When comforting modern-day sense disagrees? > For all of the rest of these tenets hold fast > But this first recommends that our worldview we weed! > > For our common perception is over-contrived > If we start as we still, and have always, begun. > It cannot be fathomed how they could have arrived > At the knowledge that theta, our _i_, usurps One! > > Even more basic than integer maths, > Without the dimension the Complex requires, > Simpler than integrals, topologists’ paths: > The atom of counting is _i_, and no higher! > > The look from his eyes and the sounds from his chalk > Writing red, indirectly, on ceramic held firm > Flow through me, entice me, excite me to waltz, > To move through the class at this thing that I’ve learned! > > I never had questioned, I’d always believed, > That counting and thinking began as they’d told. > What else must be false, what else must I heave? > Proven wrong by ideas both true and quite old? > > Sweater pushed up on his arms for convenience, > He declares that this truth simply has to be false; > For it greatly distresses the learned elite, > Who worship ideas that long lost their pulse. > > As I’m shifting my hips to the beat of the truth, > He stares over his shoulder with clear diaspproval > At this heretic’s foxtrot, this heathenized youth, > But contentment propels me, at dogma’s removal. > > Alone in acceptance of new revelation > I survey the room and my classmates within. > They’re unsure which to side with: Their math-priest’s dictation, > Or the simple symphonics that flow through their skin. > > They can make up their minds on their own, I decide, > For I cannot convince them they’re faithful to lies. > But the wind blows, and mirrors my two-step, outside, > As the sun, the projector that’s opened my eyes. So, uh, yeah. It kinda started out in a different beat than it ended… and I didn’t expect it to be that long. It could probably use some editing for tempo and possibly vocabulary. But that’s the dream. Anybody else driven to verse after sleep? Anybody get this far before having enough of listing to me talk about my dreams? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SanguineSpider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SanguineSpider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanguineSpider)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2003, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nobody-wants-to-hear-about-your-dreams-or-dancing-with-archimedes/214934/2 "2003-11-24T03:42:38Z")
I’m unusually strong… I can take it.