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

Dream - Through the doorway

In the last few months of 2005, and continuing into 2006, I had some dreams about my mother's mother, my grandmother, who has been dead for over 20 years.

In one of the dreams, which occurred in October or November of 2005, I was in a house that was similar in some ways to the one that was on my grandmother's second farm, on the highway three miles from town in rural Missouri. (The first farm was much more isolated.) She moved from the second farm to a house in Arizona (to be near us) almost 40 years ago.

In the dream, I was going through a series of rooms on one side of the house. It was sometime during the day. I was looking at things on little shelves, mostly little glass figurines and knickknacks and such. Some other people were in the rooms, too, perhaps some family members.

After a time I moved more toward the end of the house, and then I had to leave. I walked into a small, not very wide room past my mother, who stood in the doorway with her mouth open and a look of alarm on her face. She looked much younger than she does now.

On the other side of the room, near the doorway to the outside, my grandmother sat on a wooden bench in front of an upright piano. Sitting beside her, on the side near the door and away from me, was my mother's sister, who is still alive. My mother's sister is younger than my mother, but in the dream she looked near her present age, though perhaps not quite that old. My mother's sister was fussing at my grandmother, who sat slumped with her head down and her eyes closed.

As I came up to them, I paused and reached out with my left hand and ran my fingers up and down the keyboard on the side facing me, making up a tune as I went. Then I reached down and hugged my grandmother for a time, to try and comfort her. Then I turned to the doorway and walked out.

Outside, a short walk of flat, irregular stone led to the side of another house. I don't remember actually entering the other house, but I was somehow then inside it. It was very dark in the other house, and nobody seemed to be there, though I felt that some people were coming back at some later time.

I was making my way through small rooms mostly hidden in shadow, with a little light coming through the windows, not much brighter than moonlight (and perhaps dimmer), though before I entered the house it had still been daylight. The walls of the rooms were partly illuminated, and I could dimly see the tops of things. The rooms seemed to be at least partly used for storage. I could see a small, shallow dresser against a wall, and nearby there was a folded metal chair resting against a box or boxes. I could just see the top of the folded chair, and I put my hand out and brushed it with my fingers as I went by.

Dream - The elephant entity

Around the end of December 2005, I had a dream that had an entity in it of a type that I don't normally see.

In the dream, I was driving in the early morning on a divided highway. The road looked like it had just been raining and was shining in the sun. As I came into Arizona from another state, the speed limit dropped to 55. My brother, in another car, went on ahead, still going fast. I was reluctant to go much faster than the speed limit, though, and slowed down.

A pickup truck passed me, and as it did I saw that it had no cab, just a pickup bed with four wheels. A small elephant was sitting in the middle of the bed. Everything was in dark silhouette, though gray rather than black.

As it passed me, it faded, but it was always there as a kind of darkness. It moved on down the highway, becoming more visible at times. I thought that if any state trooper was checking for speeders and saw that, they'd never believe anything else they saw, and I smiled, thinking I could probably go faster and get away with it. I didn't really take advantage of it, though.

I had the feeling that the entity was on my side, helping me, like some kind of guardian angel.

The Journey to 479

The following story is true, but very strange, and features multiple synchronicities and a prophetic dream that predicted an unlikely occurrence years in advance.

In the predicted events, the number 479 was featured prominently. The prediction concerned me personally, and was not about the world at large.

Toward the time of the fulfillment of the prediction, the number kept occurring in different forms, always in events that were related in some way to the prediction itself.

I will mention now that the numbers are miles, and that 479 needs to be multiplied by 1000.

Other things will be included in the main narrative, both as background and as their own little stories, some with their own predictions and/or synchronicities.

And it does need the background information, in order to properly understand and appreciate what happens later. Even so, much of the story will seem very unlikely to many people, and others may think I'm either extremely lucky or surrounded by guardian angels.

I have been lucky, at times, but I think those guardian angels are there, too.


THE JOURNEY BEGINS

In the late spring of 1988 I came into a situation where I had to do a lot of travelling. The car that I used then, a 1970 Cadillac Sedan DeVille, gold with a white vinyl roof, was old and had a lot of miles on it, and had some major problems. It was a car that I had purchased, used, in the late summer of 1973. Though it had made some trips in the past, it was years, now, since it had been taken out of town. There was some doubt as to whether it was up to it at all.

It did it, though, in spite of everything. The travelling, however, though initially thought to be short-term, became extended, and finally became indefinite. I had repairs done from time to time, but the repairs were frequently unsatisfactory, and new problems kept surfacing. The miles seemed to be accumulating at the rate of 50,000 a year or more, and I knew that this couldn't continue.

Over a year later, in the late summer of 1989, I bought an upscale version of an Oldsmobile Delta 88. It was used, a 1987 model, 4-door, dark blue in color, with a little under 22,000 miles on it.

I had originally intended to split the driving between the cars, so that each car accumulated mileage at a more reasonable level. As time went on, though, I more and more drove the newer car

Initially, it was a difficult transition. In spite of the deterioration of the older car, the newer felt like a big step down. It was much smaller and lighter, with a much less powerful engine, and felt much less immune to what the road could give it. It was years before I really felt comfortable in it.

The newer car, the Oldsmobile, had to last, though, in spite of the rate that the miles were now accumulating on it. By the time it was even paid off it would have more miles than the Cadillac did.

I didn't know how well the car would hold up, but in spite of the expected mileage, and in spite of the cars apparent light-weightness, it would have to last. I couldn't afford to buy another car while still paying off this one.

I tried to keep it maintained, and changed the oil frequently, but things happened from time to time. It had an early problem with a sensor, that occasionally caused it to abruptly run very poorly and usually die. If it did die, it had to set for a while to cool off before it could be restarted. The waterpump was replaced several times in the early years, and then never again. Two of the struts went bad, one was leaking and one collapsed. Replacing them didn't cure the bobbing ride, though. Much later, I had air-cushioned struts put on, which stopped the bobbing and improved the feeling of the car immensely. From time to time some of the fuel injectors had to be replaced. Much, much later, I had to have the oil pan replaced, because the threads were becoming stripped where the bolt went in. Lots and lots of oil changes had taken their toll.


JUST IN TIME

Once, over a period of days, it started running worse and worse. Initially, it just sometimes made a little jerk and cough while going up mountains. This became more frequent, and sometimes happened while accelerating on level ground. By the time I got home, it had become very worrisome. Lots of problems in the mountains, and then making it through the city and past all the traffic lights. The problem turned out to be half of the electronic distributor going bad.

Another time, it developed a problem starting when it was cold. The weather was cold at the time, but this hadn't bothered it in the past. Now, I had to let it crank and crank before it started. It also developed problems similar to what had happened when the electronic distributor went bad.

It was a very difficult drive home, but I made it. Going through the city was bad, though, and it was difficult to keep the car running. Once, it died when I tried to accelerate after stopping at a traffic light, and I had some difficulty getting moving again after restarting it.

I did make it home, though. A day or two later, we took it to the dealer. It was night and we were just going to drop it off there. It died in the dealer's driveway and did not restart. It turned out that the problem was a fuel filter that was mostly blocked, and that the strain of trying to pump fuel past the blockage had burned out the electronic fuel pump.

I had driven it all that way, past the deserts and the mountains, almost a thousand miles, maybe even more, and it died in the dealer's driveway.


THE LITTLE REPAIR SHOP

Then one night, when the Oldsmobile had 271,000 miles on it, I stopped at a service station to get gas. Afterwards, the car would not restart, no matter how much I tried. The engine turned over, maybe even a little too fast, but it would not start.

I had it towed to a local repair shop. I was in a small town, far from any big cities. It was left in a dirt lot by the small repair shop, while the mechanics tried to figure out what was wrong with it. Initially, they thought it might be the electronic distributor, but replacing it didn't solve the problem. They did eventually get it running again, but after it was turned off the original problem resurfaced. They thought, then, that it was probably the timing gear and chain. When they took the plate off the front of the engine, the timing gear had most of it's plastic teeth gone, and little bits of plastic were everywhere.

This occurred close to Easter, and I ended up trapped there in the little town for several days. I also ended up going with one of the mechanics to the nearest big city to look for parts. Then I had to wait for them to find time to repair it. Meanwhile, the car sat in the dirt lot, with a cover over the open front of the engine.

One night, I walked over to the local Safeway. It was cold outside and a little foggy. In the parking lot, a small young woman came up to me. She looked up at me and asked if I were an angel.

I am very tall and I was wearing a heavy coat, and at the time my hair was a little longer than normal. The fog and the lights in the parking lot probably contributed to the effect. It also probably helped that she had been drinking.

It seems that she was married, and now they were in a bad financial situation. Evidently the stress was getting to her husband, who sometimes hit her and had once thrown her down some stairs. I noticed that she had at least one of her front teeth missing.

I went with her to a phone outside the Safeway, where she called a friend, and then walked with her to the apartments where she lived. I waited, then, on the sidewalk while she walked up to the apartments. She was quickly lost in the darkness, and I couldn't tell if she made it to where she was going. I finally assumed that she did, lacking any information to the contrary, and left.

As the days passed, I kept checking on my car, and eventually it was fixed. It seemed to have suffered no ill effects from the trauma.


A DREAM OF THINGS TO COME

The recent problems with the timing gear concerned me, though, and I wondered what else might lie ahead.

Then, one night, when the car had 279,000 miles on it, I had a dream.

In the dream, I was told that two major things were going to happen to my car, and that the second one was by far the worst. And the problems would be made much worse by not maintaining the car properly.

The times that the problems would happen were given to me, in terms of mileage intervals. The first would happen 38,000 miles from now, and the second would happen 162,000 miles after that.

At least I believe that those were the figures I was given. I knew them at the time, but the passing of time has made my memory less sure. Even if they are not exactly correct, I know that I realized after I woke up that added together they made exactly 200,000 miles.

And 200,000 miles added to 279,000 miles made 479,000.


THE FIRST THING

479,000 miles is a long way for a car to go. I didn't know if it could actually do it, but there was no way to know for sure until I got there, or failed to make it. Other things were bound to happen along the way, too, even if they weren't major enough to warrant being predicted in the dream.

Time passed, and one time when I was home, my mother borrowed the car for a while. She complained, then, that the brakes weren't working properly. They were too low, and she had to really stretch to push them. I hadn't noticed any problem, but my legs are long and I would not have to stretch in order to reach the pedal, no matter where it was. My mother insisted that something was wrong, though, and didn't want me to go driving off in the car while it was like that.

I knew that the mileage was now somewhere around the mileage of the first prediction, and so I finally relented and left the car to be fixed while I drove the other one. I was mindful, too, that the dream had said that the problem would be made much worse by not performing the proper maintenance.

The dealer said that the brakes were almost entirely gone.

And so the first prediction came to pass, but the damage was minimized by getting the proper maintenance in time. If the maintenance had not been done, the outcome might have been very different, as the dream had warned.


HOW LONG?

One night, when the mileage was in the early 300,000's, I was driving along through the desert, wondering again how long the car would last.

I looked at the odometer and thought of the future. If the car made it to 479,000 miles, how much longer could it go? What mileage could it reach?

I saw the odometer in my mind, with a reading of something like 506 or 507 thousand. I felt that it was true, and that the car could make it that far.

I tried, then, to change it, to make an odometer reading up around 580 or 590 thousand. I couldn't do it, though. The image wouldn't come. I kept trying, and finally forced the image to come, but I knew that it was false.

So the car would make it to the early 500,000's, but for whatever reason would not make it to the upper 500,000's, at least not while I owned it.


ON AND ON

Although I spent many long hours driving, the driving was not the work itself, but a means of getting to the work. Driving was not my job. Combined with the job, though, it meant that I often spent a lot of time with little sleep.

With the passing of time I gained in stature at my job, and also made more money, but the money was not nearly as much as it could have been elsewhere. I kept hoping that something would open up that would let me work closer to home, but it never did. I was hesitant to leave, too, knowing that things would not be the same without me. There was no one there who could do what I did, and never had been. Not even close. I was also able to fix problems that other people couldn't. Sometimes, they couldn't even understand the solutions that I came up with. But they knew that they worked.

It was a lot of stress on me, though. All that driving with little sleep. And sometimes I got cooperation from people, and sometimes I didn't. And sometimes, though well intentioned, they worked against me.

Sometimes, while driving, I wished for it all to be over, to be done. I could accept almost anything, just let it be done. Almost anything.

Almost.


TRANSMISSION TROUBLES

As time passed, the car developed more and more of a problem with the transmission.

Once, long ago, when the car had less than 200,000 miles on it, perhaps around 174,000, I got so tired that I mistakenly shifted it into neutral and then reverse when the car was going around 30 miles an hour. It died, and I pulled off the road. I had just passed through a little town and wondered if I was going to be stuck there. I restarted the engine, though, and drove away.

Everything seemed to work normally, except that the shifts were a little duller and the car didn't seem to roll forward quite so easily; it seemed to slow down faster when I took my foot off the gas. As time passed it seemed to improve, though, and by the mid 200,000's it was not quite so noticeable.

Now, though, in the 300,000's, in extremely cold weather it tended to get lost for a brief time between second and third gears. It acted almost like it was in neutral, except it was a bit more draggy and there was a sound like gears barely touching each other, just hitting on the edges. Sometimes it seemed to help to push on the gas. Though the engine would initially just rev, sometimes it would then suddenly snap into gear. But sometimes it didn't seem to make any difference.

It was never in that state for very long, though, and when the car had warmed up sufficiently it didn't do it at all.

It started doing it more and more often, though, and in milder and milder weather. I often tried to let the car run for a few minutes before trying to go anywhere, rather than risk having it happen.

I eventually found out that adding transmission treatment improved it immensely. It almost felt like new, for a while. For a while.

One time I took the car to a transmission shop, and described the problem. They told me that there was nothing in the transmission that could make it act the way I described. I left it with them so that they could try driving it in the morning, when the engine and transmission were cold. The weather was relatively mild at the time, but it also sometimes happened now in such weather.

They were unable to duplicate the problem, though, so I drove on with it as it was.


THE CRASH

Once, when driving on the freeway through Las Vegas, I noticed a large flat-bed truck ahead of me. It had various things on it, including a bundle of white slabs sitting upright.

As I watched, the bundle came loose, and fell into the road in front of me.

I slammed on the brakes, and stopped in time. I heard a screeching sound behind me, though, and then WHAM!

I looked behind me, and saw that a pickup truck had run into me. It was evidently a commercial vehicle, and it had tall bumper guards on the front, bumper guards that were now somewhat bent. I saw the driver on the phone calling someone, and after a while the police showed up.

It turned out that the white slabs were just styrofoam, and one of the policemen moved it off to the side of the freeway, while complaining about the construction trucks.

The back bumper on my car was pushed way in, with a straight area between where the truck's bumper guards had hit, and sharply angled areas going out to the corners. The trunk lid was also pushed in somewhat.

Everything worked, though. All the doors opened and closed with no problem, and even the trunk lid worked.

The pickup truck driver's insurance company paid for the repairs, and I eventually got the car fixed, though I drove it for a few months like that.


THE LITTLE SHOP, AGAIN

One night, while driving along, I noticed that sometimes the car would react oddly to acceleration. It would have odd little variations in speed. It would seem to briefly bog down and then speed up again.

A couple of hundred miles or so later, I noticed a loud metallic knocking sound when I went by a big truck, like the sound might be reflecting off the truck back at me. I wasn't sure it was actually coming from my car, though. I hoped it wasn't.

In the days that followed, though, it became apparent that it was coming from my car. I finally looked under the hood to see if I could see anything. Everything looked normal, except that one of the big pulleys low on the engine looked like it had something sticking out a little on the side of it.

I took it to a local repair shop, the same shop that had worked on the timing gear years ago.

They fiddled with it for a while, listening to the engine with a stethoscope-like device, apparently thinking that one of the pulleys on the accessories was to blame. They couldn't find anything wrong, though, so they finally took the belt off and started spinning the pulleys by hand, but still couldn't find anything. I mentioned that I saw something earlier sticking out of the big pulley. It was hard to see anything now, though. One of them took the pulley by hand and tried to turn it. There was a loud clank.

So, they jacked the front of the car up and took the pulley off. The center of the pulley was made of rubber, and the rubber was torn in a line all the way around it. Without the rubber holding the rim in place, the rim was banging against the metal stops on the pulley. The pulley also had a device on it to control the engine timing, and with the pulley moving back and forth the timing kept changing.

One of the mechanics, looking at the damaged pulley, said that he had never seen that happen.

He said that I could probably drive it that way for a long time around town, but he wouldn't try to go anywhere with it like that. I knew that I had already driven it for hundreds of miles that way, maybe even for over a thousand, and thought for a while about the possibility of driving it home.

I knew, though, that if I made it home it would have around 407,900 miles on it. That sounded a little too much like 479,000. I was also mindful about the dream warning about the maintenance.

So, in the end, I had them repair it. And as before, we had to travel to the big city to get a replacement part for it.

It was done much quicker than the timing gear repair was, though.


THE CADILLAC BECOMES UNAVAILABLE

As I said earlier, I had intended to split the driving between the 1970 Cadillac and the 1987 Oldsmobile. As time went on, though, I more often drove the Oldsmobile and seldom drove the Cadillac.

Eventually, I stopped driving the Cadillac at all, except for emissions testing. There was just too much wrong with it, and repairs too often didn't seem to last for very long. At times, it seemed to be falling apart in front of my eyes. Sometimes, it did so literally.

So it sat there at home, with 255,000 miles on it, and I had no spare car anymore.

Much of the time when something happened, though, I seemed to be trapped in other places, either waiting for the Oldsmobile to be fixed or driving around in a rental car.

Sometimes I was able to borrow my mother's car, a car she did not have when this all started. Oddly enough (or not), it was an Oldsmobile Delta 88 also, a 1989 model, two years newer than mine. It was a much less upscale model, though. It was purchased for her by my sister, and it was already well-used and had over 100,000 miles on it. It was colored gold and had a slightly modernized, slightly more powerful version of the engine that my car had.

It also had problems of its own.


A PREMONITION OF DISASTER

My Oldsmobile was now well into the 400,000's, and the predicted mileage was now not so impossibly far away. I still had quite aways to go, though.

I started to feel a sense of foreboding, though. It continued over a period of several days, and I finally started praying, to "let this cup pass from me." That whatever it was would not happen.

One night, I stopped at a post office to use the phone. When I returned to the car, it would not start. The engine turned over, but nothing happened.

I had it towed to the local car dealer. They found out that the electronic fuel pump had burned out (again).

I felt that my prayers had been answered. Far better to have it happen in a town, than out in the middle of nowhere.


A SYNCHRONICITY OF NUMBERS

As the car approached the midpoint of the 400,000's, it developed a problem going up hills. The engine was getting too hot, and there seemed to be a film on the inside of the windshield. I had noticed, for years, that an orange dust seemed to form on the inside of the windshield when I used the defroster. I felt that the heater had probably been leaking a little, and it was now definitely time to get something done about it.

When I finally arrived at a radiator repair shop, the car had 447,799 miles on it.


AN END IN SIGHT

Meanwhile, things were deteriorating at work. I had big projects ahead of me, but it seemed unlikely that I would have sufficient support to easily complete them. Perhaps not even enough to satisfactorily complete them at all.

My car was costing me a lot of money, too, as well as time away from work. It seemed likely that I would need to get another car to continue.

But I didn't want to go through that again.

At some point I asked myself how long this would continue. And the answer came, that everything would be resolved in the late summer. That there was a feeling of peace associated with it.

If only I could hang on until then.


THE SCREECHING NOISE

Over a period of several months, I had become increasing concerned about a noise I sometimes heard, usually when I heard it reflected off of buildings. It was a kind of faint screeching-grinding noise, and I only rarely heard it, but I suspected it was there more often than I knew.

I finally took it to a car dealer and told them about the problem. I was worried that it might be something like the alternator bearings going bad. The person at the car dealer couldn't hear anything, though, and refused to replace it unless they found something wrong with it, in spite of the mileage. He was going to have his mechanic look at it, though.

They never found anything wrong with it, so I picked the car up and continued to drive it as it was.


THE SECOND THING

Time passed. It was spring, now. My car had 479,000 miles on it, in fact it was halfway to the next thousand. I had recently changed my schedule a little, which resulted in me being other places when particular mileages occurred.

The sun had set, and I was driving up a small mountain. I noticed, then, a lot of screechy, static-like noise. I thought at first that it might be poor reception on the radio, but when I turned the radio off the noise continued.

Then, a burst of sparks came flying out from under the back of the car, and flew away like fireflies in the dusk before disappearing. I reached the top of the mountain and started going down the other side. More bursts of sparks came out. The alternator light came on, and I started trying to find some place to pull over. I found a little place, just big enough for my car, and pulled over into it just as the car died.

I got a flashlight out of the trunk and opened up the hood. A huge wall of smoke came up and quickly dissipated. I peered down at the engine and saw a tiny fire in the alternator. I blew on it a few times, until it finally went out.

It was dark, now, and I was on the side of a mountain, maybe 30 miles or so from the nearest town, though there were farms and residences and businesses that weren't quite that far. Perhaps I could find a phone that was only 20 - 25 miles away. There was also a phone booth at the bottom of the mountain, but I had never tried it and I didn't know if it worked.

I decided to try to walk to the phone at the bottom of the mountain, and if it didn't work, to just keep on walking. Perhaps someone would pick me up along the way. It was cold, but I had on a heavy coat. It was very dark, too, so I used the flashlight when I walked, both to see where I was going and to alert passing cars that I was there.

It seemed to be very slow going down the mountain. It was very dark, so I couldn't see much around me, and it didn't seem like I was making much progress, even though I knew that I must be. Sometimes a car would pass going the other way, but there wasn't much traffic.

Finally, a car passed me and then came back. It turned out to be someone who knew me. He was on his way to work, on a late shift, and thought he had recognized me and my car.

So he picked me up, and took me with him on his way to work. When I told him what had happened and what I was doing, he stared at me and finally said that the last time he was at the phone booth someone had cut the wire. Later, he took me to the town.

The next day I had the car towed to the local car dealer, where they replaced the alternator, and, I think, the battery.

And time moved on.


JOURNEY'S END

In the late summer, everything seemed to come together, like events and people were puppets being pulled on a string. I was at a turning point, where major decisions had to be made. My life would change, no matter what decision I would make. I made the one that I always knew that I would. I resigned. My car was a few thousand miles away from 500,000.

Many years have passed since then. Both cars are gone. The Cadillac was sold with 255,000 miles on it, and the Oldsmobile was sold with 508,000 miles on it.

And everything happened as predicted.

And this is where the story ends.

The broken baby brush

The earliest memory that I can set something of an actual date to (but only approximately) occurred when I was apparently only one and two-thirds to one and three-quarters years old. I remember that it seemed like I had done a lot of things, and had many memories. Almost all of them are gone now, though.

This particular memory was of something important to me. I was able to give it an approximate date because it contained a reference that would force it to be within a particular time period.

I have a younger brother, who was born less than a year and a half after me. When the incident occurred, he was a baby who couldn't do much except lay there and wave his arms and legs and grab at stuff.

On this particular day, my mother was cleaning the house, and she moved the crib around as she cleaned so that she could keep an eye on the baby. She had moved the crib to a very small room with lots of openings (we later determined that the only room this could be was a short hallway with bedrooms on either side, a bathroom at one end, and an opening to the dining room at the other end). The baby kept fussing and my mother kept putting things in his crib for him to find. He would eventually come across them and grab them and then be surprised and distracted for a while. He would lose interest fairly quickly, though, and wave his arms and legs again and fling whatever he was holding out of the crib.

My mother was running out of things to give him and she finally gave him his little baby hair brush (we each had a comb and brush set, but in different colors; his was blue and mine was yellow). He found the brush and was distracted for a while, and then flung it out with great force. It hit the floor and the handle broke off.

I worried and worried about it. I wanted it to be fixed. My mother told me that it wasn't the type of material that could really be glued, and that even if it could be glued, it wouldn't be like new, you could still see where it had been broken. She put the pieces together to show me. She said that she would have to go to town and buy him a new one. I didn't want a new one, though, because it wouldn't be the same. It wouldn't really be his brush. My mother said, "He's too young! He doesn't care!"

I already knew that, though. I knew he didn't care right now. He was just a little baby and didn't know what he was doing. I said, "But when he gets older, and does know, he won't have his brush, because he broke it when he was a baby."

It seemed terribly tragic and I didn't know how to fix it.

A record at school

When I was in grade school, one day we were working on some kind of projects or something, something that didn't involve the more usual requirement of constantly being seated at your desk. This was probably somewhere around 1964 to 1966.

The teacher had brought her record player to school, and she played some records during class. The records seemed to be collections of hits by various artists. One of the songs was by some singing group that I didn't know (I'm not sure I actually recognized any of the other artists, either). This group sang about a young man who was going off to war, from the viewpoint of his girlfriend. She offered to dress up as a soldier and go with him, but he kept refusing, until in the end where he finally agreed.

I liked the song so much that I finally went up and asked the teacher who was singing it. She said it was Peter, Paul and Mary.

I believe the name of the song was "The Cruel War." The song was on one of their early albums.

I began collecting their albums, bit by bit. I eventually accumulated all of their albums that I know of, up to the time of their temporary breakup. I have some of their later ones, too, but not all of them.

The cat that wasn't fooled

My sister loves cats. Years and years ago, she had a black cat with white feet and white on its face. My sister used to hide around a corner inside the house and jump out at the cat and grab it when it came walking around the corner. They loved each other, and it was all in good fun.

One time it paid her back and waited and pounced on her when she came around the corner.


One time the cat came into my room, which it didn't normally do. It walked slowly across the floor. I lay on my bed, watching it. When it got to about the middle of the room, I hissed loudly, pretending to be another cat.

The cat jumped up in the air with its back arched, then landed and continued walking slowly forward, with a small smile on its face. It never did turn and look at me.

I guess it knew I was harmless.

Posts about posts

In a message board I visit frequently, new threads crowd out old ones, old in this case meaning oldest last update. In spite of this, threads can persist for a long time, even years, if they are posted to frequently enough so that they stay comfortably away from the bottom of the list.

On this message board, there are some threads that I help to keep going, by posting to them when it seems that a new post might be needed. When I can, I try to post something more than just a "stopping by" or "time for more" type post, because I feel too many of these will make the thread less enjoyable to read and may end up driving people away who would otherwise read it.

And so I try to find something to say, hopefuly something that has some relevance to the thread's subject or at least what has been talked about somewhere in it. Sometimes a post must be made, though, that has very little connection to what has been said before. Sometimes the inspiration does not come that would allow anything else, or perhaps time does not permit too much thought upon the matter, or the subject may be such that what would directly relate to it, at least in posts that I could make, has already been said. Nevertheless, a post of something must be made, and so a post of something is made, because the alternative is to lose the thread.

In some threads relating to writing or poems, I have sometimes posted poems to keep the threads going. Most of these poems refer to posts or posting in some manner, and most of them are short, sometimes very short, though a few are fairly long. I have posted a few of the shorter poems below, and I will post some of the others at a later time. The poems did not originally have titles, but I have given them titles here, in case for some reason they should need to be referred to again. The times shown are in Arizona time (MST), not the time on the message board, which uses Eastern time.


ALL I HAVE
9:52 AM 11/24/2005

I thought that I might make a post,
But this is all I have,
And though it's not as good as most,
It's a temporary salve.

Perhaps another post will come,
From me or someone else,
Until that time I leave this rhyme,
For someone like yourself.



TALKING TO MYSELF
6:08 AM 3/2/2006

A time has passed,
With no one else,
And so I continue talking,
To myself.

And so I leave this thought,
Upon this day,
Lest this thread,
Should go away.



I POST THIS POST
3:11 PM 4/13/2006

I post this post,
Upon this place,
I leave it here,
With all due haste.

And if you'd post,
Instead of me,
Perhaps a better
Post you'd see.



WHAT STILL COULD BE
3:14 AM 5/16/2006

Another post
Put in the air,
And for a time
It lingers there.

A reminder of
What still could be,
For you could make
A post like me.

Dream - Footsteps, mine and others

Earlier in "The girl with the disappearing face" dream that I talked about in June (the dream where an alien that looked like a human woman was left with just eyes and parts of her face hanging in the air after a series of flashes), an interesting thing happened.

In the dream, previous to the part that I talked about in the post, I had gone upstairs and there was a long room with a wooden floor, which had some smaller rooms with carpeted floors connected to it. My footsteps on the wooden stairs were quite noticeable, and also in smaller, wooden-floored rooms.

When I was walking on the floor of the long room, however, the footsteps changed and became much louder and with more of an echo effect. I stepped off into one of the carpeted rooms, and my footsteps became absolutely silent. I could also feel the cushion effect of the carpet under my feet. I stepped back onto the wooden floor and the loud footsteps returned. I put a foot back on the carpet and the foot made no sound.

I nodded approvingly at the special effects.


I have noticed the loud, reverberant footsteps before. I mentioned them earlier in another post, the "Flying with a leprechaun" dream, where in part of the dream a person coming down wooden stairs caused a leprechaun to hurriedly move down the stairs to get out of the person's way.

It seems to me that these sounds, or ones like them, are also associated with near out-of-body states. Of course, other strange sounds can also occur at such times.

Dream - The pale spider-like thing

Sometime in 2004, probably in the fall, I fell asleep sitting at my computer and had a strange dream.

I dreamed that there were several presences around me, generally of small size and mostly either hidden or invisible. One of them was somewhere under the desk near my feet. Others were off to either side of me and at least one was several feet off the ground and a little behind me. They all seemed to be watching me.

The most disturbing one I could actually see, though only in my mind, because it was directly under my chair.

It was a large, pale, spider-like thing. It was flat and round and perhaps 15 inches across. It was upside down and an enormous amount of legs radiated like spokes from its center. The legs were somewhat flattened down and in disarray, like something had pushed down on it. It still seemed to be alive, though, and aware of me. I felt like it was waiting for something, perhaps some event or signal, or maybe something that I might do.

Time passed, and I became more aware of the other entities, while keeping an eye on the spider-like thing under my chair (at least a mental eye; I wasn't physically in a position to see it).

As more time passed, the scariness of the situation receded somewhat, and some amusement crept in. I felt some amusement from the entities, also.

Time continued to pass, and eventually I woke up.

Dream - The man with the wrap-around eyes

A few months before "The girl with the disappearing face" dream, probably in late 2004 or early 2005, I had a dream which, like the later dream, also had a lot of flashing of lights.

In the dream, perhaps eight or ten feet away, a person stood, almost in a sideways view. There seemed to be something like fog, and there were a few other people here and there, mostly just shadowy images in the fog.

This particular person was seen fairly clearly, particularly the head area. His eyes wrapped around the sides of his head, and the eye facing me was looking at me very intensely.

Like the girl in the other dream, this person was evidently an extraterrestrial alien or at least a hybrid.

Dream - The girl with the disappearing face

I had an odd dream the night of April 24-25, 2005, part of which featured an extraterrestrial alien. Most of the dream was about something else, though it, too, had some strange features.

The part about the alien occurred near the end of the dream. I was taken by someone to a meeting with an alien, or I at least followed the person there. It was dark, and we were outside in a small, dirt parking area with a wooden railing at the back. The area was lit up by one or more lights, so I had no trouble seeing.

The alien was a human-looking female. She was pretty, and her face had somewhat square features. She had blondish hair and was smiling broadly, showing all her teeth. Her skin looked odd, though. It was too smooth and seemed to be all the same color. It almost looked like plastic, or like someone with heavy makeup.

Light started flashing brilliantly, then, like lightning flashes. Her mouth and nose disappeared, replaced by skin color, like an area being deliberately fuzzed out on the TV screen.

The light continued to flash, and the lower part of her face seemed to be lost somehow. Her eyes, cheeks, and part of the top of her head remained, though. Sometimes her eyes seemed to have eyebrows under them, and sometimes they seemed to have eyebrows both over and under. Sometimes, it seemed that her face was actually upside down, and then it would seem right side up again. It was starting to get pretty scary.

Abruptly, then, her head was mostly gone. The section with her eyes was left, and parts of her forehead and cheeks, and long, ragged strips of skin trailed back around the sides.

The tattered fragment of her face hung there in the air, with the eyes having the same intense expression as before.

Dream - The figure in the doorway

I had an odd dream in early January 2005.

I fell asleep for awhile in my chair at the computer. I sensed that there was someone in the doorway, which was across the room and to my left. The person, who I didn't actually see, just sense (my head wasn't pointed in that direction), was dressed in a long, tan trenchcoat, like old-time private eyes might wear. The coat was wrapped tightly around the figure and was tied closed. The figure also had a very wide-brimmed hat pulled down low on its head. Its face was just a dark shadow under it. The figure was very skinny and did not seem to be very tall, perhaps 5 to 5 1/2 feet.

I tried to move, but I was partially paralyzed. I could move my legs back and forth, but when I tried to move my hands, they seemed to move with excruciating slowness. Perhaps they didn't really move at all.

The figure in the doorway seemed to be watching me. I felt that it was more than just watching, though. That it was "aware" of me on some deeper level.

I finally managed to wake up. The figure, of course, was gone.

In retrospect, the figure in the doorway reminds me of some stories of extraterrestrial aliens (the Visitors) disguising themselves. It's hard to know what to think of it, though.

Dream - Composed of bright particles

A long time ago, perhaps in the mid 1980's, I had a dream in which I was composed of bright particles and rose up from my sleeping body to form a peak, like the ridge of a wave, and then sank back down into my body and spread out to the sides, and then drew back into my body until I was within it, at which point I woke up. I did not find it scary, just interesting. (Some other experiences WERE scary, though.)

Dream - Flying with a leprechaun

Sometimes in dreams, we may meet people, strange beings or even places that we seem to have known for a long time but without really knowing why. I met a leprechaun, once, in a dream that occurred probably in the first half of 2004.

To be very, very brief, in the dream I first went through a time of driving around doing various things. I think it started out sometime during the day, but progressed to evening and night, then started to get toward morning. Eventually, I turned a corner and started to go down a long street with a gentle downward slope. It was a mostly residential area.

At the end of the street, where another street crossed it leading to a more commercial section, a house had the remains of some creature buried in the front yard. It had been there for over a hundred years, but it was buried very shallowly, and parts tended to come to the surface from time to time. Sometimes it was supposed to be a smallish bigfoot, but frequently it looked more like some kind of dragon instead. I tried to cover it back up to protect it and sent someone to get an archeologist to come and see it.

Finally I had to leave, though, and I went to the other street and turned right and started walking toward the center of town. A lot of other people were doing the same thing. They seemed to be tired and waiting for something to happen. The sun came up as we stood there waiting.

I finally went to some professor's room, where I was supposed to see about a test. I think I had already taken it and he was grading them. The room was half sunken into the ground and I had to go down a few steps and open the door. I kept repeating the scene over and over. He was always sitting behind a desk in the small room, with papers in front of him. He had a beard and looked vaguely lumberjack-like, but he didn't seem to be very tall. He looked older as the scene kept repeating itself (always with variations), but he almost always looked at me, if only briefly, with a knowing smile. He usually had someone in the room with him.

I finally moved on. I felt I had to get to school (I do not attend school in real life, and have not done so for a long time). I started floating in the air, perhaps because it was easier, perhaps to impress the other people.

Some of them did seem to be impressed. In fact, I started getting chased by a mob of people. The surroundings had changed, and now contained long buildings with concrete walks along them. At least some of the buildings were more than one story high. I went along, moving from building to building and then I turned left and started moving down the long length of a building.

At that point, I met a leprechaun who was hovering in the air near the building on the other side. We seemed to know each other from long ago. He went with me and we flew down the length of the building, with the crowd after us. I was under the impression that the other people could not see him.

We reached the corner to turn left again, but there were some rough wooden steps going back and forth as they went up the building, which was several stories high, and the leprechaun wanted to go up the stairs and hide. He seemed to be getting out of breath.

I wasn't sure about this, and sure enough I soon heard footsteps of someone coming down the stairs. I also heard the leprechaun hurrying to get out of the way. He couldn't be seen, but he didn't want to be walked on. The footsteps kept coming and getting louder and louder. The leprechaun finally got back down the stairs (to the level of the top the first floor) and then left the stairs and went back to flying.

I left the leprechaun behind and continued on, turning left at the next corner. There was a parking lot there, empty except for a witch by the wall of the building, surrounded by a group of her followers.

I flew on, getting higher in the air and going over lot after lot. As I went, I sensed that I was crossing invisible barriers that had been set up for monitoring purposes. They had been activated by the government when they heard what was happening, and they were trying to track me. For some reason, they thought that because I was flying I knew something about UFOs and aliens.

Finally, they activated a barrier that was supposed to contain me. I went through it anyway, and then flew around in an arc to the right and started flying through a different area. The new area had big low buildings, like libraries or schools, with big lawns in front of them.

As I came to each lawn, the sprinklers came on, in an apparent attempt to do something to me, perhaps to have the water outline me, as if they were having trouble seeing me. I would reach out with my mind and twist the metal pipe of the sprinkler, to keep it from spraying me, but it always sprayed me before I could do anything.

As I continued flying, the grass on the lawns thinned, and patches of dirt started to show. At one point I stopped briefly and talked with a woman who came out of a building. I was under an overhang that ran along the building, and I hoped that I might be hidden from the pursuers that way. I was just about out of energy and couldn't fly anymore.

After talking with the woman, I walked on, under the overhang, and then a man came out. He had evidently heard about me, because he started chasing me. I ran from him, but he caught me. I got away and ran a short distance across the now mostly bare ground until I reached a barrier of dirt that went across it.

I threw myself onto the barrier, trying to get over it. I was just draped across it, though, staring at another dirt barrier and the dry ditch that went between them. I had the feeling that it was something for flood control. The man was still behind me, but seemed to be frozen in place.

A small amount of water started running into the ditch, seeming to come from the other barrier and down aways to the left. It was slowly eating away at the other barrier. I realized that something was buried in it: a small, old-style locomotive, a train engine of the type that might be seen in amusement parks. I felt it had been there for a long time, probably over a hundred years.

Then, suddenly, the dirt was gone and there was a sidewalk with the train beside it, shiny and new looking. An engineer with a big mustache was smiling and leaning out of it and talking to some teenage boys, of which I was one (in real life I am much older). I felt that I had somehow gone back in time, and that we were being recruited for something, that there was some role we were supposed to play.

And that's where it ends.

(Not quite as brief a story as we might have hoped, but it could have been worse.)

Dream - And fly away

I had a dream, probably in early 2005, in which I could fly, and I taught other people how to fly, too.

I'm not sure how the dream began. I remember, though, that at some point it was daytime, perhaps late in the day, and two men, members of some organization, enemies of the group I was with, came to the door. I fought against them.

One of them I threw in the air, partly through physical throwing and partly through mentally causing him to fly, and I then turned him into a bird and he flew away.

The other man was struggling with someone in the yard. They were on the ground, with the bad man on top. I threw him into the air and turned him into a bird, also.

There was a sense of danger and of others coming, and we had to leave and fly away. It's possible that this first part came later in the dream, but I'm not sure where it would fit.

At some point then, in the dream, I was out in the backyard with several other people, quite a few, actually. It was night. It seems that we then started some kind of competition to see who could fly best. I started to rise up in the air, and found that I could do it easily. The others seemed to be having some difficulty, though many or most could manage it to some degree.

After flying around in the yard a bit I flew around to the side of the house. There was a long, wide area there (not like in real life). I saw a woman I knew (knew in the dream, not in real life) and I picked her up and carried her in the air. I flew back and picked up my mother as well.

It was much harder to get in the air while carrying two people, but I eventually managed it. I couldn't seem to get very high; the top of the fence and the edge of the roof were about all I could manage. I think I was trying to show them how easy it was, at least partly in an effort to get them to fly on their own.

At some point I noticed that the woman, who had seemed to be perhaps around 50 now seemed much older, perhaps around 60 or even older. She looked vaguely like the actress Patty Duke.

Then we all had to leave, for They were coming. It was that secret group, perhaps from the government, that wanted to get us. We flew off through the night, over the houses of the neighborhood and over the streets and alleys. We went out from the backyard and turned left, went for quite a ways and then turned right. We started to separate, then, and some of the others turned left and I turned right.

I flew alone through the darkness. I was having some trouble with the telephone and electricity wires. There seemed to be quite a lot of them and I ended up flying just under them in an attempt to avoid them, though I believe that I hit a few.

I reached a main road and turned right and flew along it. It was getting lighter now, becoming early morning.

After awhile I came to another main road that crossed the first. On the corner, across the street, there was a tall building made of metal beams and triangular crosspieces, something like the Eiffel Tower, but straight. The building was tall and massive, and had another, similar, building attached behind it.

On the front corner of the building, a tall, bronze-colored figure constructed of metal beams and crosspieces faced the building, with its arms raised hugging it. The metal figure was extremely tall, perhaps 30 feet or more, perhaps a lot more. It was smiling, and as I flew up it started moving. I felt that my presence caused it in some way to be activated, but I also felt that it could move without me if it wished.

It seemed glad to see me, and I felt that it was a friend.

I flew up the building and along the top, and it climbed up the building to be with me.

Then I woke up in the dream, but I was still in the dream. I was in my bedroom, in my bed, and my brother was there sitting in his bed, like it used to be decades ago. I tried showing my brother how I could fly, and levitated myself a little ways off the bed and drifted off low over the floor. It was a much more intense feeling then in the dream (though I was actually still in the dream). It seemed to involve generating a feeling similar to a falling elevator feeling and maintaining it.

Then I was back with my followers, in a large house. They were showing me various things of mine from the old days that were on some low shelves. One of the things was like something from a model kit, though perhaps it was some piece of art that I made. It had several figures clustered around something large, holding it. I made them move for a while, with my mind, but a growing sense of urgency was intruding. I felt that They might know where we were, and might be coming.

I told my followers that we had to leave, NOW. I went to a door that led out the side. I could see through the windows to the alley and the restaurant on the other side. A few people were in the alley, but not many. The ones that seemed of most concern were a man and a woman, in dark clothing, that were approaching from the right, apparently going somewhere. They were in late middle-age, and had a vaguely Eastern-European look, thick bodies and pudgy faces.

I hurriedly opened the door and stepped into the alley. It was paved with small, rounded bricks. I had been trying to get out before the man and the woman started going past the door, but I was not fast enough. They were almost at the door and stopped abruptly when it opened.

They stared at me, and the woman held a pair of small, curved, thin scissors in her left hand, like it was a weapon. I felt that it was indeed a weapon, and that it was not what it appeared to be.

They were part of the secret group that was after us. I tried to make it through the restaurant's doors, but they held onto me and I was caught in the doorway. A huge crowd then came down the alley from the other side. More of Them.

I turned and looked at the couple and said, "You're too late. I already taught them everything." I didn't really know that, though. It was more of a wishful thinking than reality, but I wanted them to think they had failed.

I stood there in the doorway of the restaurant, facing the house. The couple was holding me on the left and the crowd came and held me on the right. I tried to levitate the whole mass of people into the air, along with me, and perhaps turn them into birds, but I couldn't do it. I didn't have enough power to lift that many. I was trapped.

I woke up, then, but I continued the dream in my mind. I had the giant metal figure, sensing that I was in trouble, walk down the road toward us. He came, always smiling, and swept the vast crowd of people away with his right hand. With his left, he picked up me and the couple. He then separated me from them.

At that point I went through several possible futures in my mind. I tried having the giant figure drop the couple from a great height onto the alley, but I didn't like that. I then had him drop them on the crowd, but I didn't like that, either. Finally, I had him lift them high in the air, where he mentally made them rise up off his hand and turn into birds and fly away.

Dream - My dead grandfather helps me look for the dogs

I had a dream, probably around the middle or end of March, 2005, in which my father's father, my grandfather, appeared.

I'm not sure what the first part of the dream was about, but eventually I became concerned about securing the screen door in the living room. In the dream, the door was on the wrong side of the room, but it seemed normal then. The screen door in the dream was ragged, and did not fit right. It was collapsible, like an accordion, and I was trying to pull it out enough to latch, but it didn't want to stay in place.

After a while I noticed that the hinges on the main door weren't attached to the wall, and I was trying to fix that. But then it changed so that the main door was actually off and was sitting against the wall on the other side of the room (the same wall the doorway was in).

I said, "That's why it's been so cold all winter." Then I moved the door back to the doorway and was trying to secure it, but the door changed from wood to some type of rubbery plastic. The plastic was formed to resemble extremely worn boards set horizontally with a couple of vertical crosspieces facing outside. It was all one piece and colored blue and white. It had big gaps around the worn "boards" and I was having trouble getting this door to reach the latch, too.

Somewhere in there, the dogs got outside into the front yard. We were worried about them getting lost. I went out to try and find them. We had two little dogs (like in real life) and two other, newer, little-but-somewhat-bigger dogs (unlike in real life). For some reason the newer dogs were considered less important, and I was more concerned with getting the original dogs back first.

Out in the front yard, there were a lot of bushes forming a hedge against the house, and other tall bushes forming rows of hedges across the yard (unlike in real life). I think there may have also been a very large cylindrical metal tank sitting on its side (like my grandmother on my mother's side used to have on her farm).

All this created almost a maze effect, making it difficult to search.

I did find one of the original dogs fairly quickly, though. It was near the house. It was laying on its side on the ground, looking at what I took to be a fox, which was laying on the ground almost touching the dog. They almost formed a circle, and they had their heads raised and their mouths open. The dog had its tongue hanging out, I'm not sure about the fox, and they were both looking at each other with peaceful expressions on their faces.

I was worried about the fox. I didn't know if it would try to bite me or maybe bite the dog, too. I saw a scrap of brown cardboard on the ground and picked it up. I used it to try and encourage the fox to leave. I nudged its shoulder a few times with the cardboard, but my hand kept bothering me. I looked at the cardboard and did a double and then triple take. I realized that it was not cardboard, but was some small animal, curled in a ball around my hand. It's claws were very long and looked like long straight gray nails, cut off straight across on the end, and they were dug into my hand. It had very expressive eyes, with dark fur around them. The dark fur was pointed up in the middle now, giving it a worried look.

I think I tried some to shake it off, but it didn't want to leave. I tried to nudge the fox with it several times, hoping that the fox would want to eat it, but the fox paid it no attention. The little animal now had the black fur around its eyes pointed downward in the middle, giving it a mad look.

I gave up on distracting the fox with it, and somehow managed to get it off my hand. The dog, in the meanwhile, had gone away somewhere.

I continued looking through the maze of the yard. I saw many strange creatures, some of which looked something like one of the "less important" dogs, but not exactly like it. Many of the creatures were quite large, and didn't quite look like dogs at all. Some of them looked almost like mountain lions, but not quite like those, either.

I had reached the sidewalk, now, and looked around and across the street, where a lot of cars were parked. All I saw were some more dogs that didn't match and various strange creatures moving about. They seemed to be aware of me, many of them looked at me, but they seemed also to be slightly wary of me.

I walked around to the side yard, which was much bigger then in real life. There was a slight dip in the ground, which was apparently to aid in runoff when it rained. I came to a tall chain link fence which, in the dream, went from my house to the house next door. There were a few strange creatures about, but not too many, and they were fairly small.

There was something in front of me and slightly to one side, that I took to be a small white dog. I wasn't paying too much attention to it, I was more looking off into the distance. I turned to it then, and gave a double and then triple take. The air almost seemed to boil. When I was finally able to focus on it, I saw that it wasn't really a dog. The front of it looked like a dog, almost puppy-like, with long floppy ears and a tongue hanging out. It had no back legs or hips, though. Its body just narrowed to a point. It lay there, propped up on its front legs, looking peaceful.

I thought, "THAT again. Things are really going to get strange now!"

I reached down and ruffled the short, white fur on its shoulder, and patted it.

I became aware, then, of someone standing nearby.

He was short, and older, and dressed in dark pants and a white shirt. He may also have had a coat, but I don't remember. He was also a little overweight.

I had trouble focusing on him. The air seemed to swim, and I was only able to get good looks at little bits of him at a time. He looked very much like my grandfather on my father's side, though, who had died over twenty years ago.

I asked him who he was, and he said, "Don't you know me?"

I thought about it, and finally acknowledged that I did.

He asked me if there was anything he could help me with. I thought again before answering. Was he really who he seemed to be? Would there be a "price" for the helping? I wondered these things, but did not actually speak. I decided that I had to go with appearances. I was afraid of hurting his feelings if I actually questioned him any more.

I told him that he could help me look for the dogs. He happily agreed, and we set off looking for them.

As we walked off, he said that he was here to be with my father when he (my father) went to a meeting next week (next week as measured from the time of the dream).

I was immediately suspicious of this, and wondered if something was going to happen to my father. I asked him a couple of times, in different ways, if something was going to happen to him. His first answer, while in the negative, was also somewhat ambiguous. When I asked him the last time, more explicitly, he finally turned to me and said, "Not as far as I know."

As we walked down the street, I looked closely at his face, trying to focus on it. My grandfather had a glass eye, and I wanted to see if he looked like one of his eyes was gone. I guess I believed that he might not currently be using a glass eye. After awhile, looking at his face in profile as he walked, I determined that his eyelids on that side of his face didn't have an eye in them, only darkness.

We came to a cross street and turned down it. We met a woman walking her small dog on a leash, and stopped and talked with her awhile. All the other animals seemed to be gone, now.

I looked across the road at a house. Some of its windows faced me, and one was very wide, and looked like a dark mirror. It appeared to also be bulging slightly.

I walked over and peered into it, trying to see my grandfather's reflection. I saw the shadowy form of my own reflection, and aways off I saw the shadowy form of the woman's reflection, but I was having trouble seeing my grandfather's. I was peering and moving my head around, but I still couldn't find anything I could identify as his reflection.

He walked up, then, and stood nearby, watching me. I kept trying, and finally saw it. His reflection was pale and washed out, and drastically stretched from side-to-side, but at least it was there.

We decided to go, then, and look in a nearby car dealership for the dogs. I believe it was because of something the woman said.

We got to the car dealership and started walking among the stalls where they worked on cars. I saw lots of strange animals, mostly large, that wandered and hid among the cars.

Finally, someone asked if they could help us (I had been wondering when someone was going to question why we were there). One of us, probably my grandfather, told him of our mission, and the person told the other mechanics about it. They tried to be helpful, and more strange animals showed up, including some that came over low walls. We also saw a dog that looked something like, but not quite like, one of the "less important" dogs.

We eventually came to, or were directed to, a pit where a mechanic worked on the underside of cars. More strange animals existed in the pit, and it had something like water in it, with strange animals coming to the surface and going back under again.

We never found the dogs, though.

Streaks in the air

I noticed when I was very young that I could see pale, transparent streaks going through the air in various patterns, like swoops and swirls. The streaks had slightly larger areas at the front of them, which seemed to be heads for the streaks.

The streaks traveled in groups, packed tightly together, and were always moving. They seemed to be much closer than the clouds, sometimes only a few yards away.

If I concentrated, I could change the direction in which they were moving. That is, I could make them turn in a different direction. Since they are always moving, I'm not sure if this would be an overwriting of the previous direction or just a change in course or even simply viewing them with a different set of prejudices.

They were most noticeable outdoors, especially against the sky, but the groups of streaks could travel down past trees and shadows and still be visible to me. I could also make them appear indoors, but they were easier to see when the background was uncomplicated, such as bare walls or the ceiling.

They were always faint, even outdoors, and most of the time I either didn't notice them or regarded them as a kind of background noise interfering with what I was trying to view. They were most noticeable, and annoying, when I was trying to look at the sky, and sometimes they seemed to form a faint random visual static where small dots and squiggly lines appeared and disappeared without moving very much. Usually, I would just focus on what I was trying to see and try to ignore them.

As I grew older, I tended not to notice them or pay attention to them as much, and months and even years sometimes went by without really seeing them, though they were always there when I thought to look. I just tried again to see them and I still can.

Dream - The drugstore outside the universe

In the summer or fall of 2006, I had a dream in which something strange happened near the end of it.

In the dream, I kept going to a small drugstore. Over time, it gradually changed into a much larger store, though it was still a drugstore. Also, very few people had been in it at first, but the store gradually accumulated more and more people as time went on. It wasn't just that the store itself got larger, though that of course helped.

At some point, I became aware that time was running short and the store was about to close. I think that announcements were being made, perhaps over loudspeakers. There may have been 5 or 10 minutes left. Although I had been going to the store alone, this time someone was with me. Unable to locate this person, I eventually went out the back of the store, still searching.

I found that the store existed in another dimension, or perhaps another reality. The store was on a square that looked like something generated by a computer, including having a grainy texture. A similar square was to the side and connected to it. The second square did not have a building, but it had rough terrain and steep, tall hills. It, too, looked computer generated, with dirt and grass being represented for the most part by grainy colors. There was also something to the back of the original square (the one with the store), but I'm not sure now what it was. The squares themselves seemed to have no thickness, like a computer generated terrain that consisted only of the surface, with nothing underneath it.

A formless grayness lay outside the squares and associated structures, a grayness which seemed to be without end but also without an up or down and where things like measurements had no meaning. I did not know exactly what would happen if I fell off the square areas into the grayness, but it seemed to be something very bad, and that I would, in some way, be lost. I seemed at this point concerned both with finding the person I was with and eluding some people who were after me or who were trying to stop me.

Eventually, I got back inside the store and had somewhere located the person, and we were trying to leave. I noticed that there were still quite a few people in the store, and I started trying to warn them to leave, too. I knew that when the store closed that anyone in it would be trapped in that dimension. A lot of people left, and we had to leave ourselves now. Time was almost up and there was no more time left to do anything else but leave.

As we rushed toward the doors (there were several doors at the front), someone rushed to try to block the exit. In his haste, though, he hit the door frame and was leaning against it at an angle. We rushed past him and out the door.

Once outside, we saw a broad aisle leading to some more doors that led to our reality. On each side of the aisle, the square on which the store stood extended forward to the dimensional barrier, but the area outside the aisle was dimly lit. In the dimly lit area, scattered figures were seen, figures who wanted to stop us and trap us there. We rushed past them and through the door into our reality.

After running a short distance, I looked back and saw someone go through the door at the last split second, practically leaping through. He fell on the ground as he came through, unable to keep to his feet. It gave us a little extra time to get away from him, and we got in a car and apparently escaped.

Dream - The brilliant light

I had a dream, probably in the summer or fall of 2004, about a large ball of light. The overhead light was on when I was sleeping, as it occasionally is, so that may have had an effect. However, the ball of light was not in the physical location of the overhead light, but was lower, perhaps centered at about five or six feet in the air and more toward the doorway.

In the dream, I was sleeping in my bed, as I was in real life, and the light hung there in the air, huge, blindingly brilliant but without hurting my eyes. The light was white, with perhaps a tinge of blue, and with rays like long needles stretching out everywhere. I felt the light going completely through me, and felt peace and love radiating from it.

Dream - Acquired by China

I had a dream, probably in late 2004 or early 2005, in which the United States had been taken over by China. We were mostly left alone. It was a little like a corporate takeover, where the acquired company mostly continues as it was. The parent company, though (China), did keep watch on things, and did ultimately control things.

In the dream, I was a soldier in a dark green uniform, standing with other soldiers beside me and behind me, in row on row, a vast array. We were standing there, like we were waiting.

At some point we had gotten word that China had decided that there were too many American soldiers, and had decided to execute a large portion of them. We continued to stand there, waiting for the decision as to who would die.

We were notified, then, that the portion I was in was chosen for death. I was hoping that there might be some sort of appeal, but there didn't seem to be a process for it. I continued to stand there, waiting.

Fears

What am I afraid of?

When I was young, there was a time when I was very afraid of the dark. Sometimes I could even seem to see things in it. The closet was a worry, too, in the dark, at least when it was left open.

Oddly enough, I don't seem to recall being afraid of the dark when I was very young. The memories I have of this are from later childhood.

I don't have a fear of clowns, though I know they can be somewhat disturbing at times. I recently wrote about a problem that developed with a Clarabell Clown doll that I had (Clarabell was a character on the Howdy Doody TV show).

I don't have a fear of cloth in my mouth. Indeed, I seem to remember chewing my shirt and chewing the sheet on my bed. They both tasted pretty good.

I used to be afraid of bugs, spiders and praying mantises in particular. I'm still wary of some spiders, but this is only common sense. I don't like bugs touching me, though. Or me touching them.

I used to be afraid of change. I wanted things to always be the same. Some of that is still with me.

I used to be afraid of meeting new people and doing new things. This faded fairly quickly, of necessity, but an aversion remains. In other words, I am more reluctant than afraid, though something of the fear still exists. I can be difficult to know on a personal basis.

I have gone through times when I did a lot of checking locks and things. To some extent it seems to go in cycles, perhaps influenced to some extent by events.

I used to be afraid of heights. It was a fear of falling, of somehow being almost pulled off the edge by the distance. It called out to me in some way, and reached out for me. I had to resist that call, and was afraid to go too close to the edge, or of being in a position where there was an edge.

Somewhere in childhood I developed a fear of failing, of somehow, and maybe in spite of all appearances, not being good enough. Some of that remains, though it is somewhat muted now with time and experience. Still, there is a concern that I could have made or could make a difference. Depending on what I do or don't do, things could go a different way.

I used to be afraid of the Biblical End-of the-World, and of somehow not being Saved. With time, though, I came to a less-than-traditional view of such things. Though I still consider myself a Christian, I do not subscribe to a fundamentalist viewpoint, and many Christians would, in fact, probably disown me.

I used to be afraid of growing up. I could see the future ahead of me, the years stretching away, and it would never be as good as it was before. I also knew that the best times had, in fact, already passed, as my life before I entered school contained the best times I would ever know.

I developed a tendency to worry about the future to the extent that the present could not be sufficiently enjoyed. I used to look forward to getting out for school for the summer. Then I started worrying earlier and earlier in the summer break about returning to school when it was over. Eventually, I started worrying about returning to school before the break even started.


Time changes things. I am over 50 years old, and some of the worries are more distant, now. I'm not afraid of the dark anymore. Too much has happened over the years. The dark can contain dangers, but it seems less important in the face of what has already happened. Changes and new things can also hold dangers, but I am less afraid of them, though I do retain, at times, a suspicion of them and even an aversion to them.

But things are not as bad as they were, or as they could be.

Finding the elephants

I remember reading a news story long ago, in which a train derailed. Evidently the train had been carrying circus animals or some such thing, because some elephants escaped.

Some of them wandered over to a nearby old folks home and broke inside.

One resident opened the door to a room and saw an elephant inside. The resident shut the door again.

Later, another resident, an old lady, was telling newspeople that "we get elephants all the time."

It reminds me a little of the UFO situation, and different people's reactions to it.

Perhaps we, too, would find the elephants if we didn't keep shutting the door.

The Clarabell Clown doll

I used to have a Clarabell Clown doll (Clarabell was a character on the Howdy Doody TV show). It was a stuffed doll with a thin plastic face. I used to take the doll to bed with me.

One night, I was looking at the doll, and its eyes bothered me. I knew it was just a doll, and not alive, but it felt like its eyes were somehow looking at me.

I looked at it for a long time. I couldn't go to sleep like this, with the doll beside me looking at me with its eyes. However, if I threw the doll away from the bed, I knew that its thin plastic face would probably be dented, and it would never be the same after that. I didn't want to get out of bed to take it somewhere, either. Probably because my mother had put me in bed, and by getting out of bed I would be undoing that.

Finally, I did throw the doll away from the bed. It hit the wall where the wall met the floor, and I knew that its face was probably damaged. I could get to sleep now, though.

In the morning, my mother, looking very disturbed, showed me the doll and told me that she didn't know what had happened, but she had found it over by the wall and somehow its face had gotten dented. I told her, briefly, what had happened, and she said, looking upset, "But this is your favorite doll, you sleep with this every night! We can't fix it!"

I think I probably just repeated some of what I had already said at that point. In my mind, I understood what she was saying, but it couldn't be helped.

It was very sad, but it had to be done.

Dream - The girl on the mountain

I don't have anything that I can identify as a past life memory, but an odd dream that happened long ago had some strange features.

I was probably about five years old when I had the dream. My brother was in the dream with me. I am older than he is, but less than a year and a half so. In the dream, we were the same ages as in real life at the time.

In the dream, my brother and I were in the Old West riding in a wagon pulled by horses. We were sitting in front with the reins. We were going around and around a mountain, like in the song, "She'll be comin' 'round the mountain when she comes." I believe the song was actually being sung in the dream, as background music. I think at first we were slowly spiraling up the mountain on a dirt path, but eventually we were just going around the mountain in a circle, part way up. At this point, anyway, the going was not difficult at all, with the surrounding area being fairly flat for most of the trip.

Each time we went around the mountain, we passed the farm of a family that lived there. There were always a few people outside, and one of them was a daughter about our age. All of the people were dressed in Old-West, frontier style clothes, with the women, including the daughter, wearing long dresses and bonnets.

The daughter had eyes that were open very wide and staring, and we were supposed to stay away from her, because she was crazy. She was scary to look at and I didn't want to look at her.

One time, when we were going around the mountain, I looked for my brother and he was gone. He must have gotten off or fallen off somewhere.

When I got to the farm again, he was talking to the little girl.

It was so awful and scary that I forced myself awake.


An odd thing happened a few years later. We had moved to Arizona and were visiting a wax museum. In one of the scenes, I saw the little girl.

In the scene, which takes place in a small log cabin, a man is on his knees getting scalped by an Indian. In the corner, a little girl watches, a horrified
expression on her face, her eyes wide open and staring.

I'm not sure what to make of this, other than that the dream seems to predict the seeing of the wax figure. But I don't know why it would do that, and it seems that some deeper meaning should be associated with it.

Is this really necessary?

One time in grade school, we were being taught how to spell words and "necessary" ended up being talked about quite a bit. The teacher said that if anyone missed it on the spelling test then that person would have to write it on the board fifty times (I think it was fifty).

Well, somehow I got confused and missed it. I was the only one. So I had to go up to the board and start writing "necessary" over and over again. After a while, the teacher told me that I could stop. I kept arguing with her that I wasn't finished yet, that I didn't have it written down enough times. She insisted, though, so I went back to my seat.

She was really a pretty nice teacher.

Reality - I think, but am I?

I think.

And I think that I am.

But am I really?

Or am I just in the mirror, looking back?

Or am I a character in someones else's dream?

Or am I in a play, believing that the play's the thing?

And if the play's not the thing, then what is?


Robert Heinlein wrote a story, once, in which a man invented a machine that could measure the span of a person's life. When viewed in the context of time, people did not appear as they normally do, but appeared as long, worm-like things that began at their birth and ended at their death.

What do we appear as when viewed from other dimensions? If we have a current existence that extends past the reality that we know, does all that we are or were or will be form just a projection from a greater entity? A lobe that extends into what we view as reality?

If so, which is the reality? Is it what we normally perceive, or does it include all that underlies it? How is reality defined? If reality is what is real, is the underlying reality real in that sense? Or would it be not real, but still exist?

Murmuring voices

Many years ago, probably in 1997, I had been going for a long time with very little sleep. Finally, I took a short nap. When I woke up, I heard what sounded like a huge crowd of people talking to each other. I couldn't understand what was being said, though. It was just a lot of murmuring sounds, with some voices momentarily becoming louder and then falling back into the background murmuring. No matter how loud a voice became, though, I could never make out any words. I walked around, but the sound followed me whereever I went. I was vaguely disturbed by it, but also amused. I felt that it was some side effect of my exhaustion, although I have been exhausted many times before and since. Perhaps, instead, the exhaustion allowed a breakdown of barriers and some kind of psychic manifestation occurred. Who knows? I finally started doing something, and at some point the sounds went away.

Half paralyzed, and something tried to take me away

An odd thing happened one time when I was sleeping. It was probably back in the 1980's. I heard a buzzing sound, and there was a roar, like a freight train. I felt that something was happening, and that someone or something was trying to take me away. I didn't know who they were, what they wanted, or if I would be allowed to return.

I fought against it, and tried to wake up. I was on my back, and the upper half of my body was paralyzed, but I could move my legs. I swung my knees back and forth and slammed one leg into the wall, over and over. It would have been so easy to just give in and drift back off to sleep, or to whatever it was that awaited me. I refused to give in, though, I felt that what was happening was too important.

Finally, I was able to fully wake up, and everything was normal. I'm not sure exactly what the experience means. It sounds almost like a partial or failed out-of-body experience attempt, except for the feeling of danger and the feeling that something was trying to take me away.

Dream - Destroyer of worlds

Around the first half of September, 2006, I had a dream in which I destroyed the world. It was an accident, though. I wasn't intending to destroy the world at all. Honest.

In the dream, I was in a room that seemed to be made of metal. It was apparently a large control room of some kind, or perhaps some kind of situation room. Someone was standing to one side and slightly behind me. I have the impression that this person wore a uniform of some kind.

A rectangular screen was on the wall, like a television screen. Below it, some kind of panel ran along the wall and protruded from it slightly. There were various controls and lights on both the panel and the wall, but not a large number of them.

The screen on the wall showed a picture of the Earth. It was not a photograph, it was more like a simple map, but without grid lines. It showed the Earth as a globe, but with everything flat. The water was a different color from the land, which also had an outline around it.

Initially, and I think probably before seeing the control room, I saw a large, wide ship filled with people and heading toward Antarctica, probably from someplace in the Pacific Ocean near Africa. The ship was low in the water and did not seem to have an upper structure.

Now, however, in the control room, the ship was replaced by a large island in the picture of the Earth on the screen. The island was vaguely round though somewhat irregular, and slightly flattened on all four sides.

I was happily talking to the person near me about continental drift, and about how over a long span of time the island would move toward Antarctica. To illustrate this, I reached out and put my finger on the island on the screen and pulled it toward Antarctica.

I came to realize, then, that the picture of the Earth was somehow connected to the real Earth, that perhaps it was, in some way, the real Earth.

And that I had moved a large island, perhaps a couple of hundred miles across, a large distance, perhaps a thousand miles or so, in a fraction of a second.

I took my finger away from the screen. There was a slight pause, as if it was waiting to see if I had finished, and then time started again. The island continued moving, cutting across Antarctica, which had become centered on the map. The image of Antarctica turned red, orange and white, and I could see molten rock churning and boiling. Only the far edges of the continent stayed the original color.

The island was destroyed, but momentum kept part of it going, not as an island but as a mass of associated particles and hot gases. It headed out past Antarctica, across the ocean to South America.

The view on the map shifted, then, and I was looking at the North American continent. It was covered with a dusting of snow. The remains of the island were circling the Earth, but going from north to south, not south to north. Each time it passed over North America, a band of the snow disappeared. The cleared bands were perhaps a couple of hundred miles wide, and a new one was added every second or so. The new bands were placed to the east of the old ones. The bands were not quite parallel, and were not exactly evenly spaced. Occasionally they even crossed. A rough striped pattern was being produced, though, as the new bands were added.

I could tell that with each new band the remains of the island became fainter, being composed more and more of hot air and less and less of dust and particles, though it was already so thin from the start that it was transparent from my perspective. I could feel, though, that it was fading out.


Thinking back on the dream, the effect on the Earth was similar to what would happen if a large meteor or comet struck it. A mass extinction of life. Perhaps even a total extinction. Something that could cause an entire continent to become molten rock could certainly do that.


My fault.

Sorry.

Dream - First contact

One time, in the late 1960s or early 1970s, I went to bed a little early and fell asleep. I had a dream in which I was on a spaceship (one of ours), apparently as a visitor, just observing. It was a very large ship, and people occasionally went by, apparently on various errands or carrying out their duties. Everyone wore light-colored clothes.

A few people, perhaps just two or three, were near a machine built into one of the walls. The machine protruded from the wall, almost desk-like except the top sloped upward toward the wall and the sides sloped out toward the wall. At the wall, the top narrowed and joined a flat section that ran up the wall. The machine had lots of small grills and rectangular lights on its surface, though everything was relatively wide-spaced; that is, lots of blank metal existed on the machine's surface, between the sections of grills and lights.

The people were waiting for a signal from space aliens. I got the impression that some kind of signal had actually been received already, and they had already sent back a response. Now they were waiting for a second signal, a response back from the aliens. The dream had a peaceful, expectant feel to it.

All of a sudden, the machine started making a series of loud buzzes, like BUZZ-BUZZ, BUZZ. I think some of the lights started going on and off, too. I was suddenly filled with an incredible amount of terror. I forced myself to wake up, and while I was waking up I realized that I was waking up and I forced myself to sit up, so that there would be no chance that I could accidentally fall back to sleep.

By the time I was fully awake, I was sitting up in bed. People who had not gone to bed yet were still moving about in the house; I could hear them and see some of their shadows on the hallway wall. It was still early in the night. Evidently, I had started dreaming immediately upon falling asleep.

The dream is puzzling. Everything was peaceful as we waited for a signal from the space aliens. When the expected signal came, in the form of the loud buzzes and possibly the lights going on and off, I was suddenly terrified. I wonder if some reason outside the dream, something that I don't remember, exists for the terror.

Is someone calling my name?

An odd thing happened to me when I was very young. On its face it doesn't seem to involve UFOs, but some similar things have been reported by people who claim to have been abducted by extraterrestrial aliens.

I was about 5 or 6 years old, living in a small town in Missouri. I was in the back yard, and I seemed to hear someone call my name, far, far away. I listened, looking in the direction it had seemed to come from, looking more at the sky than the town. I couldn't be sure I was really hearing anything, it seemed so far away. Still, I worried about it and finally decided to go looking to see if anyone had called me. I thought it might possibly have been one of the kids from school.

The house next to us in that direction had a tall, chain link fence. Somehow I got through it, through a gate between our yards and then through a gate at the back, and then along a drainage ditch and through other backyards. Finally, I reached a cross-street, which had new black asphalt paving, and I stood on a new sidewalk. The street had some traffic. It wasn't heavy, but I wasn't supposed to cross the street, and in any case, I didn't really want to try it, even if large gaps sometimes appeared between cars. So, my journey would end here, at the sidewalk. I looked around.

Down the sidewalk, some distance to my right, I saw a kid about my age. I went up to him and asked him if he had called me. Though I pressed him on the issue, he denied it and appeared very nervous that he was being confronted in this way. I finally gave it up and went back home, apparently retracing my steps.

I remember the beginning clearly, where I thought I heard my name being called, and I remember the street that I came to and the kid that I found, but the journey there and back seems almost dreamlike. Normally, I would never have gone on such a journey. And my mother doesn't remember a gate in the part of the fence that went between the yards.

I'm not saying that I was abducted by aliens (or anyone else) at that time, but the whole thing seems very strange and out of character.

UFO - A silver grain of rice against the sky

When my first remembered UFO sighting occurred, I was in school in the 7th or 8th grade in a city near Phoenix, Arizona. It was probably around 1966 or 1967.

For some reason, the class was on the playground behind the school, perhaps to draw the mountains in the distance for Art class. The sky was a brilliant blue, with only a few small clouds at the edges. I decided to look at the sky and see if I could find any UFOs. The sky was so bright, it was hard to look at. I kept squinting and turning away from it. I finally found something, like a silver grain of rice, far, far away. I looked at it for a while. It didn't seem to be moving, and it had no trail. It was just surrounded by the brilliant blue sky, with no reference points, so it was hard to tell if it was completely stationary. I finally decided to show it to another kid. After much pointing on my part, he finally saw it, too. It was very difficult to see, almost lost in the blue sky. He didn't know what it was, either. I finally went back to what I had been doing.

Much, much later, in the 1990s, I saw some strange things in the skies in Nevada. There are so many military bases there, though, that these were almost certainly military craft of some kind.

One time while driving at night I saw, flying over a small town that had a military base, the dark shape of a plane. All of a sudden, twin trails of glowing green smoke came from the wings. The smoke just came out for a second or two and then stopped. Chemtrails, perhaps?

Another time, while driving through the Nevada desert at night, I saw a triangular formation of lights flying around. It was too dark to see any details; all I saw was lots of lights in a triangular formation. I guess it could have been a group of planes flying very close together, in a very tight formation.