Natepod The weblog of Nate Cull

Dreamlog: Cemetery, Blue Cars

After a long while without memorable dreams - and commenting on that last night - I get one this morning.

I am watching an episode of The Simpsons which is apparently set in one school year. It starts in January and ends in August; September-December seem to be the holidays. There are two subplots: Bart starts a cult which ends up becoming a legitimate religious movement. Lisa has to analyse and write a science paper about a perpetual-motion rubber ball which bounces back with more energy than it is thrown with. Wackiness ensues.

By the end of the dream/episode, however, the tone has changed from comedic to serious and the imagery from cartoon to live-action. Bart's presentation has turned into Powerpoint slides containing quotes from A Course In Miracles about the afterlife. I am editing them. Some of the sentences are paraphrases in my own words.

A final shot. The camera pans down from the school grounds to a sunlit cemetery, built into the side of a bank which slopes down to a river. It is a warm summer day. The headstones are rich with moss and many have stone angels. A sense of peace and security. It's a very vivid image and doesn't seem really to fit with the rest of the dream at all.

I wake up with an old hymn playing in my mind, that I've never thought of for years:

Up from the grave he arose
With a mighty triumph o'er his foes
He arose a victor from the dark domain
And he lives forever with his saints to reign
He arose, he arose
Hallelujah, Christ arose

Ok what was *that* about?

Today was Mothering Sunday in the Anglican calendar, and at church in the ancient English tradition, sprigs of rosemary were passed out. I find myself thinking about my parents. Is that connected?

Tonight: not a dream, but a thing that makes one go 'hmm'.

I realise I left my car a couple of blocks away - I forgot and walked home without it, long story. Anyway, it is about 9pm and I need to walk the two blocks down my street.

As I'm walking, as I have often done since I was a kid, I get bored and wish I was already there. I find myself mentally 'jumping ahead', sort of wishing I could teleport, *blip* and be there already. I've never thought much about this; figured it was just imagination. It's not like I or anyone else actually *can* go places just by thinking about it.

Right?

Then I wonder: is this maybe the same thing as bi-location or remote viewing? Is it just actually a matter of mentally presencing yourself in another place? Because I do *that* all the time. And the walking-down-the-street-wishing-I-were-already-there thing is very strong, always has been. Except I've always thought it kind of pointless since I never pick up any actual details; I'm just inhabiting a mental virtual reality, a made-up little inner world.

But I think: okay, so what *if* there's something real? What if in some strange way, by thinking about being down the other end of the street, I might actually in some way be there? If I looked around, what details might I notice that I could later check and confirm?

So I try it. Can I see my car? What do I see?

My mind forms an image: a blue car. It doesn't go away. I don't pick out anything else. I don't see my car. I know the far end of the street is dark. All I 'see' in my mind is a blue car.

This of course is very silly since my real car is red.

So I figure, okay, it's just imaginary. But what would it mean if I do get there and see a blue car?

I get to the dark end of the street. Right in front of me on the footpath - halfway down a driveway so that I have to walk right around it, it's blocking my path - is a car. It's a dark colour. I can't see its colour because there's no streetlight.

A passing car's headlights glint off it and it could be blue, it could be green. I'm getting goose bumps.

I walk right past up close and the car looks black.

I get down the end to my red car, open it up, get inside. I drive past that car, shine the headlights on it, and sure enough - it's dark blue.

Okay. There were maybe a dozen cars on that end of the street. Odds for a blue one are... what? But what are the odds that the blue one would be the one I have to literally squeeze past? Interesting enough to call it a 'hit', I think.

Now the thing is the car I 'saw' in my mind's eye was on the other side of the street, it was a lighter shade of blue, and I 'saw' no other cars. So it's not like I was 'seeing' an actual image. It's more like I was picking up on one feature - if in fact that's what was happening at all, not blind chance, but I think the odds of blind chance are low - and my mind was interpreting the rest. If this is an actual talent, is it remote viewing or precognition, or is there even a difference? If precognition, how does the emotional feedback of the experience itself shape what we see?