Tag: communications

Three Dreams, No Waiting

I call the first dream the 6¢ Dream. The other two were flash-dreams.

The 6¢ Dream

It’s called the 6¢ dream because I was looking — wait. I’ll begin at the start. It ends a little ghoulish.

I’m living with my in-laws. Two SIL, brother-in-law, MIL. My wife isn’t there. The house is a long building. Tall for a house. Off-white, with many narrow, vertical windows. Built in a straight line going up a small grade in the middle of a dirt road. The road’s dirt is ochre-colored.

After being presented with an outside shot of the house, like the opening of a sitcom, I find myself in the house. I’m looking at its floor plans. Each room is labeled. The room that I’m in is priced at 6¢. Others are priced at 3¢ and 4¢. I tell the others about my find. There’s a door going out the side toward the house’s rear. I decide I can build a little wing off that. I fumble about what I want there. Then, voilà, the wing is completed. I have a small conference room and an office where I can work. The result pleases me.

My BIL and I take a walk up the dirt road. The ochre soil becomes ankle deep. Soft as talc. We chat and laugh about it. I return to work.

Then he approaches all of us in the kitchen. Apparently rent is due. We’re supposed to be paying regularly on every room used. We didn’t know. Maybe it was presented to us and we forgot. I’m concerned about the new rooms I’ve added and what that will do to the rent. It’s not mentioned, though. The required payment is announced: my late father-in-law’s head.

I’m horrified but the others are matter-of-fact. Give it to him. They joke, he’s not using it any more. This shocks me. Per instructions, they toss my FIL’s head out. It looks nothing like him. Looks like an old, misshapen volleyball. It bounces around after landing, then rolls around, like it has its own will.

Dream end.

The Found Money

This dream came on the interstice between consciousness and sleeping. I was cleaning up. A pile of U.S. coins were on a credenza. Pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters. I’m sorting and stacking them when I look up and see a twenty-dollar bill folded behind a monitor. I exclaim, “There it is. I’ve been looking for that money. Thought I lost it.” Dream ends as I pick the twenty up and look at it.

The Mustang Crash Dream

I was outside between two buildings with other people. One was a tall red brick building. The other building — where I had been — was a shorter, white stucco and silver metal building with a glass-in lobby. I don’t know what I was doing in there. Don’t know any of the other people. We were milling, like we were on a break. The area was a cement walk bordered by grass and bushes. General, brief chatting was underway.

Sound draws attention. Sounds like an aircraft. Seconds later, we see a dark blue aircraft with yellow stripes flying around overhead. I identify it as a P51 Mustang. D Model. My second-favorite WW II aircraft. I call all that out to people. The aircraft is getting lower. We all realize, he’s going to crash. I realize more sharply, “He’s going to crash here.” As the aircraft crashes, I throw myself down and ball up, trying to minimize what happens to me, while others try to run.

There is no explosion. I get up. The others creep back.

The plane has crashed. Blue and yellow, it is a Mustang. Caught vertically in the space with the nose pointing toward the sky, the plane appears unscathed. The cockpit faces us. The canopy is gone. Someone else begins running toward it as they say, “We need to help the pilot.” I turn and shout to another, “Call 911.” In a bang-bang moment, we all realize that there’s no pilot in it. Must have ejected, we guess. We say, “We should go find him.” But when we turn to leave, we discover guards have arrived. Light blue uniform shirts. Dark pants. White helmets. Carrying rifles. We go to leave. They shake their heads. One says, “No one is leaving.”

I go into the building. Bunch of noisy teenagers are in one room. Looks like a smallish living room. They’re shouting, talking, and laughing in cliques. I try to yell to get their attention. They scarcely notice. I yell again, louder, “Hey.” Some impact. Third time, I form my hands into a megaphone. “Hey.” That gets almost all of their attention. A woman in charge of them says, “Everyone be quiet. Michael is trying to tell us something.”

With everyone looking at me, I announce, “An aircraft crashed outside. There are guards out there but I think someone should call 9-1-1. It’s a Mustang.”

Dream end. Took a lot longer to type it than to experience it.

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The Problem

Issuing a hard squawk, a jay glided into the backyard, settling among the crispy brown weeds after a few hops. Cool mountain air stirred the firs and cherry tree bordering the yard.

A ginger and white cat shading herself on the patio flipped over onto her belly and watched the bird. Green eyes grew big. Watchful. She chittered.

The bird snapped off a chirp. Cat and bird glanced around. Six AM on Saturday, a fenced yard. No humans were about.

The cat strolled into the weeds. Bird hopped to her. Exchanges were issued. Then, business.

“What you got?” the cat asked.

“Not much. Neighbors across the street have gone camping. Will be back Friday. Fran, two doors down, fell. Bruised herself but broke nothing. Sissy was sunning herself on her roof yesterday, started taking selfies and almost fell off.”

The cat chuckled. “People.”

“You?”

“Not much. Bear visited the Miltons. Drained their hummingbird feeder. Flipped over a trash can.”

“Heard that. You pass this stuff on to your people?”

“Try. I tell them but they don’t seem to grasp it.”

“Well, keep trying, sister.”

“You, too, brother.”

“Keep cool.”

“Stay safe.”

They parted ways. A while later, the man entered the backyard. Chuckled the cat’s way. “Heard you and that bird going at it.”

The cat meowed several times back, trying to convey the information learned.

“What is it? What are you telling me? You hungry? Want water? A treat? What is it?”

The cat repeated the stories the bird had shared.

The man shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.” He went on to water the garden.

The cat sat down with a sigh. That all summed up the problem. People could hear but couldn’t understand.

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A Sharply Focused Dream

Only recall one dream from last night, but it was bold, sharp, and clear. Back in the military (again), I was trying to help a younger person, who was also in the military. This involved helping three young kittens while the airman was simultaneously trying to organize assistance and travel for a group of her peers. Located outside the U.S., she’d come to me for help contacting the powers-that-be back in the U.S. for some authorizations. I was generally/usually the correct contact for these matters in a unit, but this time, I’d not been given that authorization for some reason. I explained that to the airman. She kept pressing. We took it up the chain as I explained to the wing commander and unit commanders that I couldn’t help her because I’d not been given the authority in this instance.

(Meanwhile, the kittens kept disappearing (often in bed clothes and blankets), but I always recovered them, keeping them protected, and feeding them until I handed them off to someone who could foster them full time.)

The commanders all agreed, that was a temporary oversight and didn’t matter, dismissing it, certain that it was going to be rectified right away. While I couldn’t believe that they were so dismissive, the airman exuded a ‘told you’ air.

The dream ended.

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The Fingerprints Dream

I was working for a company whose mission seemed to be tracking fingerprints on the Internet. A young and brilliant bearded guy was our leader. Many young people worked there.

I’m not certain of my responsibilities with this company. I also had a second job with the NSA. When I came into work at the company, they told me, “We can’t find any traces of you on the Internet. Your fingerprints are completely missing.” They took some time to explain that was very unusual.

I resumed working but kept thinking about what they were saying. I knew that the NSA was always covering my tracks and hiding my fingerprints. I suspected something they were doing was spreading to other activities.

I took my suspicions to the CEO and engineering time. They didn’t know I was working for the NSA but thought that what I was suggesting was possible.

It was time to party. The company was celebrating a milestone. As part of that, they were re-creating early scenes from the company. Everyone but me was involved. I hadn’t been there, so I stayed back to watch. It mostly involved people singing, dancing, and laughing.

The CEO visited with me. “Do you want some tea?”

“Sure,” I said.

We were both lying down, which is how we worked there. He turned. Behind his back was a small white tray with two tiny white cups and a small and delicate teapot and creamer.

He handed me a thimble-sized cup. I reached for the pot to fill it but discovered it already full.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Wheatberry.”

I drank it down. It scalded my throat but tasted fantastic.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s amazing. I feel like it’s a shot of energy.”

Nodding, the CEO answered, I”It is,” and walked away.

The dream ended.

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Comfloofications

Comfloofications (floofinitions) – Ability among animals to pass messages to one another through one or more channels, such as smell, sound, or touch. Note: When done by cats via whiskers, sniffing, and rubbing, comfloofications is often referred to as catmunications. 

In use: “People approaching the bush upset the bird guarding her nest. Her comfloofications about an approaching threat caused a digesting deer to stand up and pay close attention.”

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The Watery Dream

I’ll not include all the dream’s tedious details, instead focusing on the few scenes, person, and essence that cling to my memory. 

Roger/Ronnie was there. Twins, they were my wife’s cousins. Born in Ohio, they adopted Georgia as their home, shooting as their mantra, and Fox News as their information source. They loved playing at being good ol’ boys.

Since I couldn’t tell them apart, one of them was in the dream. In the dream, there was trench full of muddy, milky water flowing through the middle of the house. We all accepted it as normal that it was there. The house itself was busy with people and activities but nothing that seemed significant. I could be wrong.

I went down to lower level in the house. It stank down there. I traced the smell to another body of water coming in through a trench in a wall. After more investigation, I figured that the upstairs water was emptying in such a way that it was sloshing back up this trench and into the house, where it pooled and stagnated.

Once I understood the cause, I went back upstairs. I knew something needed to be done about it and that I couldn’t do it alone. I needed help.

Here, I pause. I explained and showed people, mostly men, the stagnant water. I think I explained it to my late father-in-law. Mostly, though, I explained it to strangers, and Roger or Ronnie.

With Roger/Ronnie, they came in, took a deep breath and said, “Something stinks.” I told them about the water, and then showed it to them. They said, “You’re right.” I said, “We need to so something about that.” They said, “You’re right,” with a big grin, “but I can’t. I don’t have the time.” Feeling exasperated by that point, I decided that I was the only one that understood and cared, and that I would need to do something about it.

The dream ended.

I feel like my dream is addressing my restlessness and frustration. It’s bothering me multiple levels, and I understand exactly what it is.

 

2

Taken for Granted

As I showered today, enjoying fresh hot water, I thought about all the moments leading to that one. I looked back toward Ashland becoming a town and the settlers coming together with a decision to establish a water system. They created dams and cisterns, and channeled water to pipes for homes to tap off them.

Imagine all of that, the thinking and conversations that were held about the idea, and the decisions that had to be made. Someone paid for it, someone oversaw the work, and others did the work.

Then expand, look at our modern areas with their drainage, sewage, and water supplies. The trails, paths, sidewalks, streets, and roads that were built, expanding into higheways, and then augmented with interstate expressways. Look at the driveways, parking spots, parking garages, and gas stations. Look at the new charging stations for electric cars. Look beyond to the communication lines, from telegraphs and telephones to antennas, and cable television and Internet connections to satellite feeds and cell towers.

It is amazing stuff that I take for granted, this infrastructure that I use with little thought, and it’s such a small, small fragment of the entire development that we call civilization. Shame that we have the potential to destroy all of this thought and work by careless thought and activity.

Especially when you consider the more amazing planet upon which all of this is built.

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History

You ever wish everything that you said and heard was being recorded, and that you could access those recordings to see what was said because the other person(s) involved have a completely different take on the situation?

Not me. No, sir. Nope.

Never….

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