Dreams

Dreams have always fascinated me.

That likely is true for many pholks, although doing it in the daytime isn't a great thing if you do too much of it.
I have said for years that that if someone could develop a way to record dreams, they would become the richest person on earth. I don't think it will happen in my lifetime by there probably are pholks working on it somewhere.
Anyhow, generally I love to dream and although there have been a few I'm glad I don't remember; for the most part I would give just about anything to be able to replay them.

Yes, I dream in color, a fact which some people say doesn't happen. I can recall at least part of several dozen dreams which I know were more or less Chromo Color, to use an outdated term. I don't think there were any digital, but I don't know. I wonder if we will all have to be rewired or have converters installed by February 2009 to be able to dream. I haven't heard about any coupons for that and I'm betting we won't need them.

There are several issues about dreams which have puzzled me for as long as I can remember.

First, I just can't comprehend how a long adventure or scenario can be compressed into a fraction of a second, as the experts claim. I've had conversations which seemed to last 20 to 30 minutes, along with a trip or some adventure which took hours, it seems, and yet the whole thing supposedly lasted less than a second, dream scientists say. My conversations were at regular speed and so were the actions. I know the mind works in ways we can't comprehend but just doesn't compute in my mind.

Another issue is how smart I can be in some of my dreams. I recall one where I used by superior math and nuclear physics knowledge to vastly improve the efficiency and output of a nuclear power plant. Of course, it worked and I just took it in stride – before I woke up and spent 15 minutes trying to reset the alarm clock.

Also, I continue to wonder why some things just seem to make sense in a dream until you stop and think about it. A recent dream involved me and about 20 other guys going to an island destination to play golf. We flew there, at about a 50-foot elevation, just sitting in comfortable seats. There was no airplane. We just sat in an airplane configuration at a speed where we could watch the land and sea and yet we made the three to four thousand mile trip, played golf, had dinner and returned home in one day. I don't recall how we landed without a plane. It just seemed so normal.

Another recent dream involved my watching three classic cars, a '57 Chevy two-door Bel-Air hardtop, a '57 Pontiac Catalina hardtop and a '55 Chevy flying around a local airport in single file. A Visalia police car was also in the air, but wasn't chasing the three cherry classics. A delivery truck was flying around in the background. The great paint jobs and the body conditions were what fascinated me, not the fact they were flying, landing, flying again before one car, driving the wrong way on a curved road near the runway ran over the top of the '57 Chevy causing no injuries but leaving ruts on the hood and top.

That woke me up.

One of the biggest problems I have with dreams is that once I wake up, I can never get back into the dream. I've tried everything. There probably isn't a way to do it.

I do have a confession to make.

Last night, I had a dream about an issue I wanted to write about in this column. I think it was a real good one, but when I woke up and started to jot down a note I couldn't remember a thing about it.
I'll try again tonight, maybe even this afternoon.

Miles can be reached at mshuper@valleyvoicenewspaper.com