Chickens are being scammed out there: They work their whole lives paying into a pension fund, then, when they think they’re going off to a retirement village, most of them are killed and never get to collect. Their pension fund managers make out like bandits.
During a different part of the dream, I was struck by the sheer informality of our solar system: Everything is just falling, or, conversely, moving in a straight line in a curved spacetime. The only reason the Moon hasn’t fallen on our heads is that we don’t have the rockets to counteract its inertia.
I dreamed I was on a ship trying to repair submarine cables. We were trolling around with a grapple, trying to hook the cable, but for some reason the ship was going really fast. We managed to snag two cables at once where they crossed, and after spotting the cables pulled up to the surface, I tried (and failed) to tell someone to slow the ship down, since I knew if we kept going we’d snap the cables and leave a lot of unhappy people. The alarm went off before I found out what happened.
My job has nothing to do with submarine cables but I recently read a very long article on the subject by Neal Stephenson.
Last night I had a pretty awesome dream about a fictional movie. It’s about Bill Clinton hijacking a cruise ship and holding it for ransom or threatening to blow it up or something. Al Gore and GW Bush team up to try and stop him.
Somehow, I had managed to damage a redneck guy’s cars. I did it, I admitted it, and, instead of taking it to the police, the guy said he was gonna come over to my place, take my computers, make a little network out of them, and then beat the shit out of them with a tire-iron.
Except by the time he got there, it wasn’t computers, but pizza. He was gonna beat the shit outta my pizza with a tire-iron. And my french fries, too.
I rarely remember a dream for very long after I wake up. The one that has stuck with me was about having a lion chasing me. I was running away and he pounced, and killed me. I died in my dream. The lights went out, zip, nada, nothing. I woke up with a start, so I don’t think I was really dead, but it scared the shit out of me. I was, for a moment, dead!!!
A couple of months ago my father had a stroke. (He’s recovering quite nicely.) When I was visiting him in the ICU, he was in pretty bad shape. After about a week, he got well enough to be moved out of the ICU and up to a regular room on the 11th floor. It was a long day, but we were so relieved when it happened.
There was a lot of worrying, but there was also an awful lot of boredom. I took the opportunity to read a book that I’ve been wanting to read for a long time. It’s called The Secret Life of Lobsters. It’s full of awesome facts about lobsters that you never knew you wanted to know. How they mate, how they fight, how GWB got in a fight with Canada about how they’re caught. Really fascinating stuff.
Anyway, one morning I had a dream. It was about how to live my life better, in such a way that I’d be richer, happier, smarter, and could cure cancer and all of the other ills of the world. And it was so simple! And so inspiring that I woke myself up to write it down. Alas, by the time I found a piece of paper, it left me.
I got a piece of paper anyway, and went back to sleep to try to have the dream again. And I did – it was clear as a bell. I woke up and arote it down immediately.
And so, folks, I give you the answer to life. The cure-all panacea of it all:
My last dream was (the bit I remember) me lying across the seat of a London bus driven by a fat woman, on the upper deck as it went round a corner on two wheels, and hoping that it would fall on its side because it would be fun and I wouldn’t be hurt.
Of course I think that this is about the conflict I have with my father over his relationship with my mother, and unresolved issues involving being scared as a child by a clown who represents my genitalia or something.
I rarely remember dreams. A few weeks ago I had a dream where I was telling a family member “I rarely remember dreams” as I recounted a dream I’d actually had.
Not a full dream but I recently woke up with the phrase “Shi’ite G. I. Joe” in my mind and no context.
I met Barack Obama a few weeks ago. I was somehow involved in a study where the subjects were treated is if we were under an oppressive regime. It just took place for one morning in a classroom, but at the time it seemed real and terrifying. One guy in particular took a lot of abuse. I escaped anything nasty, but just the possibility of suffering was unnerving. Then it was lunch time and it was over. I was alone in the classroom when I realized that No. 44 was in the room, looking for something. I asked him a dumb question, something like, “Is this real?” or “Is that like it is?”. Without replying, he wrote on a piece of paper, handed it to me and left. It said, “Thanks.” And that was it.
