Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Randy and I were going to the library. Randy is a friend who died of colon cancer five years ago. He was a few months older than me.
In the dream, he was the Randy I always knew, although he was driving a black Mustang GT, which is unlike Randy. When, in the dream, we got out of the car, I said, “I like that car. I’ve rented one three times now, although they were the next generation. All of them were white. One was a convertible.”
Randy said, “I know, you told me.”
We went into the library. It was a modern brick and glass building. They’d called me to fix something there. Randy was just giving me a ride. Then he and I were going off to have a beer.
In the library, I sought the head librarian. She gave me blueprints. They were highlighted by supports that I needed to fix. She went off immediately. As I studied the blueprints, Randy asked, “Why are they having you do this?”
I replied, “I’ve done it before, and they know that, I guess.”
Studying the prints and the building, I found where the supports were to be fixed. But as I studied the situation, I decided that what they intended wouldn’t work.
Off I went to find the head librarian.
She was in another section with a man, working on fixing something else. Seeing me, the man said, “Oh, just fix it.”
Showing them the blueprints, I explained to them what I thought was wanted and why I didn’t think they’d work.
The head librarian said, “Well, you’ll have to take it up with him. He’s the one that sent the plans down. I’m just a messenger.”
I’m like, “Who is him? How do I get old of him?”
But the librarian was ignoring me.
I went off again to reconsider the supports and the fix. I remained convinced that they wouldn’t work.
People started entering the library. Some event was going on. Randy and I found books and then sat down to read, along with dozens of others. Most were men.
A woman introduced a man. The man, small and dark, began speaking. I stopped reading to listen to him but he was speaking so softly, I couldn’t hear and understand him.
Randy kept reading. Seeing that, the man walked over and handed Randy a card, and then walked away. He was still talking but I couldn’t hear him.
Holding up the card, Randy said, “What’s this? Let me take my glasses off.” He couldn’t do that because he had a book in his hand. He handed me the card. I read, “See what you’re missing when you don’t listen?” on it. Randy took his glasses off, handed them to me, and took the card. As he read the card and I held his glasses, I realized that my palms were sweating and his glass lenses were getting wet and smudged.
I apologized to Randy as I handed his glasses back. That’s where the dream ended.
I felt wonderfully happy. I parked my black car, a little sports vehicle in an unpaved space and went in to talk to my wife. I had to go up steps. Speaking with her about tickets and time, I had the impression that we were getting ready to leave. Then, stepping out of our place onto an breezeway, I looked across the land.
Our place reminded me of the building where we lived on Okinawa, Japan, for a few years. Built in a new style in the sixties, it overlooked an old gray stone building, matching wall, and an unpaved parking lot. The similarity ended there; Okinawa’s paved streets were asphalt. The narrow, curving streets I saw in my dream were light gray cobblestones. As my eyes swept the vista, they were drawn toward the sea in the west. It wasn’t too far off. Changing my vantage and looking north, I saw sea there, too. For a moment, I thought we were on an island, but then I knew we were in a city on a ship.
Turning in another direction, I could see much more of it. The city on the ship reminded me of an old English village. The talk about tickets and time was about getting ready to dock and arrive, not to leave. That realization pleased and excited me.
Dream shift. My wife and I had come down to some shops. Now she went off to do something. Left alone in a large, crowded business, I found a place and sat down to eat.
While eating fries, I played with a game, something made to amuse young children. It was just on a table. A woman came up and teased me about playing with her game. She then ate chips out of my hair. I was surprised because I didn’t know I had fries in my hair. I teased her about eating them without asking for permission. She introduced me to her mother. As her mother went off, she sat down to chat with me at the table.
I enjoyed her company. I was young in the dream and she was my age. White, with short brown hair, she impressed me with her self-confidence and humorous outlook. We ended up running into one another and spending a lot of time together. She seemed always happy to see me. I had the impression that she looked for me.
Then, once when we were looking out a window, I saw my wife. Out on her knees by the sidewalk, she was planting small bushes. I realized that she’d volunteer to help with a beautification project, and she’d done it all on a whim.
I said as much to my companion. This seemed to change her demeanor, as she left the table after a few minutes and disappeared into the throngs.
In another shift, I was preparing to leave. I was driving somewhere.
I decided to eat first and entered a bustling business. It was both auto-repair and food. The man behind the counter was a large, swarthy, jovial person. He was separating the customers in line between auto-needs and food. When he asked me what I wanted, I replied, “I’m hungry, I’m looking for food.”
Pretending to be aghast, he asked, “And you came here? Then you made a mistake.” Then he winked and pointed. “Go forward, the lady up there will help you.”
I wanted rice with food in a bowl but decided to leave without it. Then a friend joined me. I was giving him a ride. I told him we’d leave in a minute, I wanted to get food. Then I saw the toys like the one I’d been playing with when I met the woman. I looked for her there. After not seeing her, I told my friend, “Lets’s go.”
We went out and entered my convertible sports car. We were turning left onto a four lane road. I said, “Hold on, because I’ll need to accelerate hard to get across to where I want to go.” As he said okay, the light changed.
We rounded the corners. Stepping on the accelerator, I downshifted to a lower gear. I missed the shift. My car stalled.
I was shocked. Fortunately, traffic was light and the car was pulled to the left, by a median strip of dry brown grass.
After realizing what I’d done, I went to start the car and saw the keys were missing from the ignition. As I processed that, I realized that there was a second ignition on the floorboard to the left, and that’s where the key was. Reaching down, I turned the key, started the engine, and engaged a car. The dream ended as I began driving away.
Here we sit, on the first day of 2020.
Memes about the roaring twenties abound, but others are attracted to the vision aspect of 20/20. That’s funny when you think of it; people often think of 20/20 vision as perfect vision.
It’s not.
“A person with 20/20 vision can see what an average individual can see on an eye chart when they are standing 20 feet away,” says Dr. McKinney, an ophthalmologist and glaucoma specialist at Eye Health Northwest in Oregon City, Ore.
An eye chart measures visual acuity, which is the clarity or sharpness of vision. The top number refers to your distance in feet from the chart. The bottom number indicates the distance at which a person with normal eyesight can read the same line.
For example, if you have 20/30 vision, it means your vision is worse than average. When you are standing 20 feet from the chart, you can read letters that most people see when they are 30 feet away.
h/t to American Academy of Ophthalmology.
You can argue that 20/20 means clear vision to you. That’s fine; we’re not here to nitpick.
Whatever it means and whatever you do, when you create your vision for this day, week, month, project, or year, make it your vision for you to see where you’re going, and give yourself some ways to measure your progress.
If you’re serious about wanting to achieve that vision, you should write it down. Studies have shown that doing so helps you become more likely to achieve your dreams (h/t to Huffpost). Evidence exists that the path to success becomes stronger if you share your dreams and ambitions with a friend who believes in your ability to succeed.
So, don’t wait for success and achievement to fall into your lap. Pursue it. Write it down. Put it out there. Find someone who believes in your ability to succeed.
Create your vision and pursue your dreams.
Cheers
The dream began in my high school library. My tenth grade English teacher told us that we were to draw a scene from the library. I announced that I was going to draw something with the Daleks.
That really pleased her. With others watching, I quickly sketched a scene of one of the tables surrounded by book cases, and then drew in two Daleks. The teacher disliked the empty table. She wanted me to put a student in it. I finally relented and drew in one of my classmates. She was embarrassed to be selected, but I shrugged that off.
I added more details, shadows, and textures. The other students watched. The teacher had to leave. I stayed there, with others watching. Other students sat down and drew beside me. Some wanted to copy my drawing. Others wanted me to change my drawing. I wouldn’t.
I was stymied, though; I couldn’t think of a punchline.
That’s how the dream ended.
I’ve endured a surfeit of dreams this past week. Many stayed with me. I can’t say they all did. I don’t know if that’s true.
One particularly striking dream dominated. The dream setting was simple. Basically, um, me. Not the whole me, either, but head, neck, a bit of torso, and shoulders, the traditional bust sculptor. I knew I was sitting, and dressed in a light blue Oxford shirt, like the sort I favor. I don’t know where I was. The background was a favoring blue sky rich with sunshine over a calm ocean. Green hills sloped down to the ocean. Some of this strikes me as Mediterranean in retrospect.
Others were there, never seen, but sometimes heard, males and females. They could have been one of each, or more. I never saw them. They were commentators, commenting on me, and my activities. On my part, I was looking into the future. In the first stages of this, it troubled me, because I wasn’t correctly seeing the future. The commentators, in their dry, pithy way, said, “Okay, that’s fine, you’re just starting. Take your time. Try again.” Sometimes they spoke of me in the third person, “He’s fine, let him try again.”
Arms crossed against that background, all I did was sat, look, and listen. A soft breeze tousled my hair as the future was fed to me. As that happened, I assimilated it and explained what I saw. Part of this, my dream-self knew, was to make it my own, but I was also explaining to gain feedback and improve my comprehension.
It went thus for a while, with the commentators speaking more often as my visions clarified and my confidence waxed. Like teachers, they would sometimes say, “That’s right.” A female more often told me that. The dream ended with me happy, with a male commentator saying, “Okay, he’s got it. He knows how to see the future.”
Naturally, awakening, the dream pleased me. But I was also dissatisfied, because I couldn’t remember any of the future I was purported to see. That fits better with my personal philosophy; I think the future is wholly malleable. There’s probably more than one future in my future. I may skate between them, but chances are, I’ll mostly travel through one.
Even if I’m wrong, it was such a pleasant, powerful, and affirming dream.
Michael Seidel, writer 