Wild Weather

Dream

I’m watching a newscast. The first part I can remember is a weather story with a team of storm chasers in the field. They're tracking some phenomenon and broadcasting live, but it hasn’t shown up yet so they switch over to another story. Some footage about a revolution in Eastern Europe starts. It shows a crowd gathered in a public square and there is a bunch of people standing on top of a bus holding a banner written in a language I don’t understand. The news mentions that they overthrew the tyrannical government and received aid from some of the neighboring democratic countries. I think to myself that revolutions like this have been happening a lot lately and that maybe this is a result of our global technology level. Something like how the ease of communication is making democracy the natural form of government. They switch back to the storm chasers because the strange weather system has finally arrived. The storm chasers are in a kind of tricked out van and are parked in a residential neighborhood looking at some shale bluffs. There is some excited talk as they say the phenomenon is coming over the hill and the camera shows a small but very intense cyclone moving down the bluff. The commentary states that this sort of thing has only ever been seen in the upper atmosphere before. The cyclone moves into the back yard of a house and picks up a child’s toy. Now a big pink and yellow cloth flower thing is spinning in the center, giving the storm a more defined shape (and also making it look kind of silly). Readings from the various instruments on the van are being rattled off, with wind speeds of a couple hundred miles an hour and a temperature of 5000° F in the core. This temperature sounds ridiculous and one of the storm chasers says that they are “checking the physics” on that temperature. The cyclone continues to move around the van, and they come back to say that a temperature of 5000° isn’t physically possible and the measurement must be a bad reading. Next it shows a mailman standing in shocked surprise as the cyclone moves within about 20 feet of him. As the storm moves past the side of his body facing it is terribly burned. He collapses to the ground with singed clothes and all the hair on one side of his face is burnt away and blister instantly appear (this is my brain telling me it’s a third degree burn). I’m shocked and the guys in the van talk about how the temperature reading is apparently correct. The camera only stays on the mailman for a moment before continuing to follow the storm. I start getting mad that nobody helps the mailman because he was sort of reaching towards the van as the camera pulled away. The new people comment that he's getting up and walking away and I feel a little better knowing that he can walk but still think that maybe they should have tried to help him rather than just continue to watch the weather, no matter how scientifically important it is. Then a doorbell starts ringing, because it’s actually 2:30 and I’m taking a nap and they guy is here to put salt in the water softener.

Analysis

This is one of my dreams that exists somewhere between lucid dreaming and hallucination. It happened after I had woken up from sleeping and stayed lying in bed. I was still drowsy and let my thoughts and imaginations ramp up into a full dream-like state while I was still semi-conscious. These dreams are usually third person and my thoughts and emotions will influence the action in uncertain ways. An example is how in this dream, when I got mad that they didn’t help the mailman they talk about him walking away instead of actually doing what I wanted and helping him.

The fact that I’m watching the news in this dream is a little odd since I don’t watch the news (not having cable makes it hard). I do get little highlights whenever I hear people mention missing airplanes and what not, but I never really follow these up. This explains my thoughts about recent revolutions since those are something that I often hear about. so from my perspective it seems like they're happening all the time. I assume that there haven’t been any more revolutions that normal recently, but my thoughts about increased communications encouraging the creation of democracies is a real thing.

Weather reports are something I definitely don’t watch since I believe that looking out the window is all the weather information I typically need. It’s not like I change how I dress depending on the forecast or anything. If anything real crazy is on the way I usually hear about it through the grapevine anyway. That’s how I learned about our blizzard last week, which is probably what got me thinking about intense weather phenomena.

It's also apparent that I support decent ethics in the face of scientific discovery, so that's cool.

Auguries

If you see a giant spinning flower coming at you, RUN. It could melt your face.

Ignoring NASA

Dream

My immediate family and I all work for NASA and my mother and sister are about to leave on a mission. They will be travelling around at relativistic speeds, so for an observer on Earth they won’t be back for at least 100 years. We are discussing the mission with some random crew member as the ship is being loaded, but the conversation somehow pertains to a book about our current actions. I haven’t read this far in the book yet so I’m trying to follow along. They inform me that I’m going to stow away on the ship against the wishes of NASA. The crew will be in stasis for most of the trip so my presence won’t cause a supply problem (I got worried about this mid-dream). I also have my own stasis chamber that I personally built. We learn that NASA is threatening further missions if I join this one. They will delay the next mission for five years and will institute even harsher punishments for future stowaways. We don’t really care and now my dad has decided to join the mission as well. NASA threatens to take away the electron from our family crest (pictured below) if we proceed with the plan, and we all think that they are being completely unreasonable about trying to split up our family.

Analysis

I’ve always wanted to work for NASA, but I hope they aren’t such jerks in real life. All their threats were pretty hollow though, since it’s hard to punish someone who won’t be around for the next 100 years.

The part where my own future was being told to me from a book was pretty bizarre. I was being informed of decisions like I had already made them and I just followed along. I guess this is somewhat similar to many of my dealings with my family. When we gets together I’m just informed of it and go along. I don’t make any real decision to participate and just do what's expected of me. I’m not saying that I don’t like seeing my family, but it does bother me a little how passive I am about it.

Auguries

NASA threatened to take away our electron, which is something that represents negativity. My family or I might lose something negative, possibly through science.

Criminals and Car Washes

Dream

Mark ‘Marky  Mark’ Wahlberg is a criminal, and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is a law enforcement officer. The dream starts just after they've had a battle of some sort and have now both retreated to their respective bases to recover. Jeremy ‘Doesn’t have a Nickname” Piven is Wahlberg’s senior accomplice, or crime mentor, or whatever. Anyway, he was captured and Wahlberg is worried that further pursuit is coming for him. Then he remembers that it's the day when the fire department washes there vehicles, so he doesn’t have to worry (the firefighters enforce the law in a sort of Fahrenheit 451 sort of way). Cut to the fire station were a raucous bikini carwash is in progress. It would seem that the fireman take there wash day very seriously and invite all the local attractive/exhibitionist women over to help (or maybe they were hookers, it’s not really clear). There is plenty of water getting thrown around, but most of it is getting on the women and not the fire engine.  The chief and some other senior officers are in a hot tub and their women are topless, or possibly even naked. You don’t see anything explicit though since two of the women are low enough in the water that it obscures their chests and the third is sitting in a guy’s lap and he is cupping her breasts (still probably enough for a PG-13 though). While this is going on an agent from internal affairs arrives with a troll enforcer (as in a full on fantasy troll: massive ugly dude with a large club). When the chief notices that internal affairs has arrived he starts to make a fuss, but the agent coolly informs him that he doesn’t have to worry, implying that he has already lost his job. The agent starts talking to one of the senior fire fighters about Mark Wahlberg. Apparently Wahlberg and Piven are ID Forgers. The ID’s are meant to allow them to pass at a younger age so that they can compete in the Hunger Games (what their motive is I couldn’t tell you). All young people are required to report to the fire station for volunteer duty, and a good way to check the validity of an ID is to see if it shows up in the fire departments records. Piven was caught this way, but two weeks ago Wahlberg had gotten into the records somehow. The agent accuses the firemen of registering him without sufficiently checking his ID, and orders the troll to attack. Suddenly the troll is at least two stories tall and is attempting to smash the firemen with its club while they scramble to avoid the blows. The firemen try to hide from the enormous troll and that is where the dream ends.

Analysis

As a movie idea, I see a lot of problems with this idea. For one, there is a startling lack of focus. Where was Johnson during all this? What was being done to Piven? What is a troll doing in a dystopian future movie? I guess the car wash scene is showing that the firefighters are incompetent, but I don’t see how that justifies the internal affairs agent killing them. Is the agent our true antagonist in the movie, and if so, are Wahlberg and Johnson eventually going to team up to take him down? I just can’t tell where this is going.

Auguries

Bikini car washes seem like fun, but they will end in tragedy.   

Stealing Statues

Dream

My family and I are at a rebuilt coliseum watching some mock-gladiatorial games. My Aunt Libby points out one of the nearby statues and says she doesn’t like it. The statue is a Roman style bust, but the head has a partially collapsed wall built around it and the plinth is extra broad to accommodate this. My “Uncle” (he wasn’t actually married into the family) Rob steps up to refute her and says that the statue is well built, strong, defensible, and hard to see into. As he speaks you can hear his increasing regard and I realize that he sees this statue as a sort of ideal man. Later, I’m in a cave near where the family is staying. While I’m in the cave my mother’s cat Oprah arrives. There's a rabbit behind her and the rabbit is towing the statue from earlier. This is done without rope or anything, so the statue is just sliding along behind the rabbit as if by magic. Then another cat and rabbit pair comes into the cave and stash another artifact. I don’t recognize the other cat but it starts facing off against Oprah. Oprah is able to scare it off but as it leaves it takes the statue with it (or it’s rabbit does?), and I don’t see which direction they escape to. My family shows up and Rob asks where his statue is. I tell him that another cat came and stole it. I’m see the cat in question skulking in some nearby bushes and point it out. My Uncle Boone says that he'll follow the cat and track it to where it hid our statue.

Analysis

The statue, and my uncle’s description of it, is what my culture seems to believes the ideal man to be. Men should be strong, unemotional, and capable of defending themselves. Basically, we are supposed to build a wall around ourselves, and the fact that the one on the statue is partially collapsed implies that we’re under attack. The whole idea of Roman busts implies heroic achievements, which is another ideal we're supposed to meet. I have mixed feelings about these standards. The strength and self-sufficiency is something that I admire, but I don’t support the denial of emotions or focus on accomplishments. Being in control of your emotions is okay, but pretending they don’t exist, especially around other people, doesn’t seem healthy. Achieving hero status and settling for nothing short of unanimous approval from our peers seems like an unrealistic goal. 

Auguries

Cats are a lot smarter than we know and rabbits are magical. We should all be worried if they ever team up.   

Educational Videos

So, I took a break from writing these but we're back now. These posts take more time to do than I would like, but I still have a desire to blog my dreams for whatever reason. I guess I'll just going to pick and choose the "good" ones and only do write-ups on them for a while. It seems like a biased approach, but I just don't want these to feel like a chore. Anyway, on with the show.

Dream

I’m in a Geotechnical Engineering class being taught by Captain Sisko (of Star Trek DS9). We have a guest speaker in who is showing us some videos. The first video is supposed to have something to do with hydraulic pressure (which isn’t very Geotech, but whatever), and we lead up to it with some discussion about what would happen if the dam in Pierre (the town that I live in) broke. I do some thinking about if my apartment was about to get washed away and what I would take with me if I evacuated. We watch the video and it consists of the two Jedi from Star Wars Episode One riding a raft through a huge pipe. They are basically falling straight down and they mention that they are already going faster than the speed of sound (apparently the pipe is pressured in a way to get around terminal velocity). An enormous Crow T. Robot head is drifting through the water underneath the raft and when the pipe narrows it gets jammed behind them and blocks the flow of water. The water builds up pressure behind Crow’s head and this is supposed to be analogous to a dam somehow(?). The water eventually burst explosively past the blockage, but the Jedi have fallen so far ahead that it will never catch them, and I fail to understand the point of the video. I want to make a witty comment about how crazy it was so I turn to the people sitting behind me. I don’t know them very well so I’m kind of nervous about talking with them. When I start to make my comment someone else starts talking so I stop halfway though. A little later I get a change to tell it again but the joke doesn’t land. I feel like a jerk for putting so much effort into a bad joke and I hope no one realizes it’s the same thing I was trying to say earlier. Nick (a friend from college) starts passing out engineering paper to everyone (engineering paper is great, just FYI). Earlier the teacher had asked him to retrieve a few reams from the storage room so that everyone could get five or ten sheets. While I’m paying attention to Nick and feeling guilty about bad jokes, Rueben (who isn’t mugging me) asks a question pertaining to the specific way that we need to be formatting our notes on the videos. I realize that we are supposed to be taking notes to turn in at the end of class for a grade, but I have no idea how to do them. Luckily I have a copy of Nick’s notes that he put on my desk as he was passing out the paper, so I start to copy his formatting. The guest speaker notices me furiously copying. She seems mostly concerned and assures me that we have plenty of time and that I don’t need to rush. I thank her and tell her that it’s fine. Then Sisko notices me copying and thinks that I’m cheating. I tell him that I just need to copy the formatting and that I can take my own notes. He says that I should have just asked him how to format them. I agree that this idea probably would have been a better solution. The next video we are going to watch will be about Liquid Limit (LL), Plastic Limits (PL), and Plasticity Index (PI) for soil classification. For some reason this video is going to be projected on the opposite wall of the room as the last video. Before we start watching, the guest speaker asks if we know what LL, PL, and PI mean. I have a good answer ready but she picks someone else. Their answer is terrible and you can tell that they really don’t know what the terms mean and are just trying to bluff their way through it. I get mad because I can’t understand why you would try to answer a question when you didn’t really know the answer and imagine that they're making us all look dumb in front of the guest speaker. Sadly, the dream ends before I get to watch the second video.

Analysis

Science fiction references a plenty! I got Star Trek, Star Wars, and Mystery Science Theater 3000 all in the same dream. I was starting to feel guilty that TNG had made a few appearances in my dreams but DS9 hadn’t made any (since I’ve come to regard DS9 as a better show), but now I feel better. It’s funny that I put some Phantom Menace in. Especially a reference from the scene where they take a sub through the center of the earth. That is one of my least favorite scenes in a movie that has a lot of competition for least favorite scenes. I haven’t watched that movie in a while but seriously. A watery planet core makes no sense geologically; and how could that possibly be the fastest way to travel on a planet that is capable of space flight? If the Gungan (SP? but I don’t care) city was on the opposite side of the planet from the human capital then how did they get their (terrible) army there so fast when none of the vehicles moved faster than walking pace. At least Crow (or his head anyway) made an appearance to redeem things. He is my favorite character on my favorite show, so maybe the Jedi were just there for contrast.

There is some good example of my social awkwardness on display. The deal with the witty comment getting interrupted and then not working out has happened to me before. This is why I often have trouble approaching new people. My jokes generally have a high level of intellectual depth and often require the hearers to understand my personality so they can tell when I’m being facetious. It's terrible when I say something ridiculous and people take it seriously and don’t see the joke. You can’t really blame them when this is coming from someone who they may have never heard speak about anything but math problems before. The note copying event also matches past events of mine. I’ll often take a rougher path to get information that I could just ask someone for. I feel bad about asking for something that I could have gotten had I just paid attention. I don’t what to bother anyone for a problem that is totally my responsibility. The situation also carries some of that classic fear of an assignment that you didn't know what due until it's too late.

I was a real jerk about answering questions in school. People probably learn better if they get a chance to try to answer questions themselves, even if they aren’t right. Having me answer everything for them really doesn’t help anyone.

Auguries

I sure hope the dam isn’t going to break.

Garbage Run

Dream

My mother and I are going to throw away my old football gear. We each grab an armful and start out at a jog for the nearest dumpster. By nearest, I mean a few blocks away. We go past the junior high and decide to cut through the grounds to save time. The football teams are having practice but we just run past like we didn’t notice. The practices are all arranged like they were in real life, with the two seventh grade teams practicing on the upper field and the eighth and ninth grade teams practicing on the game field. It is the point in the season where they've just started to wear pads. The seventh grade kids haven’t had enough practices yet, but eighth grade is getting them for the first time and ninth has had them for a few days (you had to attend something like ten practices before you could wear pads and the higher grades always started practice sooner). When we get to the ninth grade team I notice that Taylor is now the coach (he was on my football team and his dad used to be the coach). He recognizes me and calls for another classmate of ours to come over, but my mom and I just jog right past him. We vault the fence that runs around the field area and start heading for the dumpster that is apparently next to the school. After dropping down a small retaining wall we come to a second higher wall. Along the one are standing sheets of plywood arranged like a line of dominoes. I put my hands on either side of a sheet and slide down it. At this point I notice that Leonard Nimoy is narrating. He’s talking about the nature of human beings or something. Suddenly I’m being attacked (possibly by my mother) and I get knocked through one of the plywood sheets. My body is lying mangled on the broken plywood with my stomach arched and my four limbs tucked underneath. Leonard says something about how the human body is like that of a scorpion.

Analysis

I was recently reminiscing about the first practice with pads during my waking hours, so that probably inspired this dream. It was always the first practice were everything we did wasn’t just physical conditioning which was nice, but we also spent the entire day doing the most hard hitting drills we had which was always fun. It was also the practice were whatever girl had joined the football team that year stopped showing up.

Leonard Nimoy is stupendous and I wish he would narrate all my dreams. I don’t even mind if it’s really bizarre.

I’ve been doing some research into yoga, so that is probably the source of the weird body position.  

Auguries

Never throw away perfectly good football pads when you could turn them into sweet dystopian future armor. Also be on your guard whenever near a wall that is convenient for someone to kick you through.  

Risqué Research

Dream

I travel down to a spring break, or Mardi Gras, or whatever to perform some research on sexual suggestibility. My hypothesis is that you can easily get women to perform sexual displays (get topless, make out with each other, etc.) if you point a camera at them. Basically, the Girls Gone Wild Theory. I start out as a stage show where some woman is performing nude. Instead of filming her I spend the whole time zooming in on children in the crowd. They all appear to be in various forms of distress. The distress is more often than not caused by their parents or the people around them than what is happening on the stage. Later, I find some women and invite them to a party at my parent’s house (my parents are away at the time). Two women show up and they bring two guys with them (I’m going to assume they brought some beer or something as well). We all hang out for a while but everyone is quickly bored. My study is completely forgotten at this point as I’m in over my head and have lost control of the situation. They decide that we should get some cocaine. The term used was something like “special cough drops” which I recognized to mean cocaine, but pretended that I didn’t actually know what it is. I’m given the number of a drug dealer, and when I talk to him on the phone he gives me convoluted directions on where to go to pick up the “special cough drops”. I have no intention of going to get the drugs and I figure that I can use the confusing directions to claim that I got lost trying to find them. As a good host, I set everyone up to watch some TV shows with my Netflix account while I’m gone. I also give explicit instruction not to invite anyone else over while I’m out of the house, but I really don’t trust these to be followed. As I leave I get a pang of guilt that they are seeing the next episode on my Netflix queue before I will and wish I could stay.

Analysis

The primary inspiration at work here is my real life confusion with why girls put on sexual displays. I never really partied in school (if that wasn’t obvious), but I always heard stories of girls making out with each other or flashing their breasts. There is also the whole phenomenon of Girls Gone Wild, Wet T-Shirt Contests, and such that is fairly established. The only explanation I can think of is that these displays are done to get attention, but the kind of attention that they draw don’t seem all that desirable. Any consideration you gain will probably just be exploitative and shallow. Developing a sense of humor or an interesting intellect seems like a much better means of getting attention. That my personal opinion anyway.

The distressed children might be a comment on how trying to shelter children from all things sexual can do more harm than good. Setting something up as forbidden often just encourages its pursuit, and trying to keep anyone ignorant, regardless of the subject, is not something that I can really support.

Other stuff going on in this dream is me feigning ignorance of drugs and exploiting my poor ability to navigate complex urban environments to protect myself from drug use. This has never actually happened, but it's very plausible I would behave this way in a real situation. As someone who doesn’t even like the way alcohol effects people’s behavior, cocaine is way beyond what I’m willing to try or want to be around. I’m also truly covetous of my Netflix queue and always look forward to watching the next episode in whatever series I’m currently viewing.

Auguries

Forget going to parties. They only make me uncomfortable.