Dream - Flying with the professor

In May 2005, around the middle of the month, I had another dream about flying.

I had been flying around in the desert by and at some military area, and the military got interested. I got away, but later came back with some people to get some big black SUV that had been left there.

One of the people was a professor type who had come up with the concept of flying, and he wanted to fly back instead of driving, so he went flying off.

I flew after him, even though I was worried about the attention it might bring. Sure enough, we were tracked down by military people, who captured us after we landed. They came into the building and got us.

We were holding little metal things that looked almost like hose clamps that were made of a couple of loops of metal with two bolts at one end. They were supposed to help us fly, but they weren't really necessary. The military wanted to use them to handcuff us to some pipes.

The professor willingly went along, maybe even fastening it on the pipe himself. He looked at me and said that normally he could pass through any metal, but not this metal, of course, because it was a special metal. I think that beyond what it was made of, that it was actually enchanted. I knew, though, that even if he couldn't pass through it, he could undo the bolts with his mind.

I pretended to fasten mine around my wrist and the pipe, but I just bent the loops so that it looked like it was fastened. I thought that it was easier to bend it back and get loose that way, rather than trying to undo the bolts with my mind. The captors didn't seem to notice and left us there, though we expected someone to come back later.

Our intention was to be gone, though, before that happened.

Suddenly, sleep paralysis

I've gone directly into a sleep paralysis state without falling asleep first at least once, but I was lying down at the time, and was extremely tired. It was the middle of the day, though, and I had not intended to actually fall asleep.

It was a strange feeling to have it happen. It seemed that all of a sudden my mind retreated. I could still think, but it was like I withdrew the physical connections and was locked into a small space inside my head. I was still somewhat aware of my body, more aware in some ways than before but less aware in others. I was unable to move at all, though. The only thing I had any control over was my breathing. I kept trying to make myself breath harder and deeper, and I seemed to be actually doing it, but it felt very odd. I seemed to have no direct connection to it. It was like my attempts were being conveyed through some intermediary, and I wasn't getting any feedback except for noting that my body did seem to be breathing deeper and faster. It was almost like giving commands to a sluggish robot that responded slowly, and not right away, but eventually did respond if you kept pushing the buttons.

I kept up the fight, refusing to give up, and finally, all of a sudden, my mind reconnected with my body and I could move. That was a little odd, too. It felt that my mind suddenly reached out and grasped the nerves that led through my body, and, while reaching out, simultaneously retreated. For before, my mind was alone, in a small place by itself, but now it was a small part of something bigger, my body.

Real or not

Perhaps we ourselves are not real, yet still exist.

A probability among other probabilities. A universe built upon an underlying unreality.

What of all the other possible worlds? Is our world more real than theirs?

Is our world more real than the afterlife? The afterlife will still be there when our world is gone.

Nevertheless, this is where we are, now. We have to go with what we have, real or not.

Write101 - The Never-Ending Story

There's something called "The Never-Ending Story" that a person named Jennifer runs. It's a story about the adventures of Dr. Morgenes. In the story, a brief introduction is given and then people are invited to add their own brief continuations to the story. Originally, it started out at her write101.com site, but a couple of years or so ago it was moved to a blog she started, and then given its own blog.

The blog version seems to be at least partially restarted, without carrying on the original story line at the point where it last left off, although she mentions briefly some of the earlier story in her explanations of it. Part of the earlier story is still available, though the blog seems to begin at the end of the first page and not the continuation page (both at write101.com), and ignores all the posts that were added at a different website (now seemingly abandoned; see below).

I've managed to put in a few contributions from time to time, part of them at the previous, now lost, location and part of them at the new location.


Write101.com

The write101 blog: All about writing

The current story location (the blog):
Never-Ending Story

The original story locations at write101.com (which still exist):
The Never-Ending Story
The Never-Ending Story continued


There was also another location, an outside website that was really a guestbook, that the continuation page originally linked to instead of the blog. This other location held 200 posts that continued the story. More posts actually existed, but they were lost because only 200 posts were allowed, and after that earlier ones disappeared.

This other location is apparently entirely gone, now. Trying to access it directly produced a long delay without much happening. (I have all but the earliest posts saved, though.)

The Word Imperfect word definition game

A while back, I came across a blog called Word Imperfect, which is run by a person known as the Word Imp. Each day, the Word Imp puts up a new word and a made-up definition, and readers submit comments with their own made-up, "wacky" definitions of that word. The next day, the Word Imp reveals the real definition and chooses three finalists from the entries submitted. The finalists seem to be chosen on creativity and humor, not for how close they came to the real definition. Readers vote for what they think is the best one, and the next day the Word Imp announces the winner. The only prize is the glory of being chosen.

Normally, large numbers of competing definitions are not submitted (sometimes less than 20), so people have a better chance of winning than they do in contests with huge numbers of entries.

My entries have won or tied a few times, and have also sometimes been nominated and not won. Just being nominated was an honor, and, of course, I appreciated the wins or ties. For those times when I was not a finalist, well, there's always next time.

The link for the site is below. The definitions that people enter can be very creative and are interesting to read, even if you don't enter a definition of your own.

Word Imperfect