Harrier jet, a few feet above the deck:
Last nights dreams
12/3/05
I had four dreams last night. I only remember two now, but I know I had four dreams because something else interesting happened. I thought, "Wow these four dreams were strange... I have to remember them after I wake up!" I was not dreaming when I thought this, nor was I awake. I was still asleep but having a conscious thought, making an effort to remember. I find that fascinating in itself.
Anyway, the first dream I remember: I was in a highrise hotel, in use but still partly under construction. I was several floors up and was going to go down the "elevator." The so-called elevator was less than a window washing scaffolding. It was a structure permanent during construction, but that would be removed once the building was finished. It was open to the air, on the outside of the building. Made of rusty but strong steel, the floor was about 8 inches wide and maybe 4 feet long. A bar went up both ends and over the top, that you could hang on to. Other than that, there was just a partial rail around the 8 inch by 4 foot floor that looked like to was made of rebar. Something more likely to trip you on the way down than keep you in. This elevator went up and down smoothly enough, but it was so insubstantial by itself -- just barely wide enough to stand on! Just the barest essence of elevator functionality and not for the faint of heart.
So Tom, a project manager I work with, was staying in the hotel too and asked me, since I was going down anyway (which at this point, given "the elevator" I was not really sure that I was) if I could take this stack of files and put them in his truck down there, while I was at it. I saw his white pickup parked 8 or 10 floors below in the dry construction site mud. I took them, leaving me with only one hand to hang on with. The dream ended as I was on the way down. The elevator was descending smoothly, I would get there ok if I just didn't do anything stupid.
Usually all it takes me to find the meaning of my dreams, if there is one, is to go over the events of the dream while awake. The meaning makes itself clear. Remembering the dream so I can do this later is what is usually the problem. Writing about a dream is far more than enough to reveal its meaning. This dream is about my feeling that frequently these days my job asks more of me than I am willing to give.
The other dream started with a vision of three VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) KC-135s taking off. KC-135s, for those not familiar with military aircraft, are military transport aircraft. They are the ones I think you most often see in news file footage, four propellers and dropping relief supplies or humvees or tanks out the back. In the dream they were painted white and taking off vertically, like harrier jet fighters which really do take off and land vertically. I thought, "wow, I did not know they'd converted KC-135s for VTOL operation!"
Next I was at a neighborhood party/gathering of sorts, at a neighbor's house who had a new VTOL jet I'd dreamed up. He was showing it off. It looked most like the "blackbird Laura," the home-built stealth fighter from the last last few episodes of Battlestar Galactica (Awesome show! Starts again in January!). The dream plane was longer though, the pilot sat more towards the front, and it could take off and land vertically. It had both wheeled landing gear and big foot-like landing skids. My neighbor was showing off hovering just above the ground, pulling up the wheels, putting down the skids and landing again. Then things went wrong. Hovering about 10 feet in the air, the plane began coming apart, disintegrating. The skin evaporated from the fuselage around the pilot, my neighbor. The plane broke into three sections. He fell out of the fuselage, nothing left to hold him in. He hit the ground hard, on his back. He was hurt badly, I don't know how bad, could be paralyzed or dead. The engines and midsection hit the ground and the fuel exploded. That probably finshed him. The explosion threw the still somewhat sturdy framework of the fuselage high into the air. We watched it come down right into another neighbor's house, worrying about them being hurt or killed too. That was the end. This dream did not seem to mean much, it was just greatly distressing. People behaving recklessly and getting themselves and others hurt and killed.
Whatcha think about those?
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