During that time I had the most unusual dream.
Before I continue, I should explain a few things about myself. I don't remember most of my dreams. Most of them are not that remarkable. I have gone to bed thinking about a problem and awakened in the morning with a solution, which is interesting, but not that unusual. I sometimes dream that I am working or flying. I dream that I'm walking through my childhood home or revisiting some other place that I've been or some person that I've known. I dream that I'm fighting, or running, or falling, or making love. Most of my dreams are pretty run of the mill. I don't spend much time thinking about them.
On rare occasions in my fifty four years, (only three come to mind), I have had unusual dreams that caught my attention enough for me to remember and think carefully about them. Why did I dream that? Two of them were fairly easily explained.
One time, when I was about 17, I dreamt that a man was chasing me with a razor and slashing at my upper back. It was an unusually vivid and disturbing dream. When I awoke, I found that I had slept in a strange position, which had caused my shoulder and upper back to "fall asleep", (become numb and tingly).
Another time, in 1980, when I was about 25, I dreamt that I was metamorphosing into a beautiful and colorful butterfly. The colors were stunning and the details amazing. At the time I was hospitalized and recovering from serious injuries I'd sustained while falling from a cliff in Yosemite. I had several broken bones and damaged joints, which required more than a couple of surgeries. I was taking Percodan for pain and the powerful narcotics it contained had clearly influenced my dream.
The third of these memorable dreams, my dream of 2000 - 2001, was the most unusual and the most puzzling. At the time I had a Hoover upright vacuum that I used to vacuum my apartment, (I still have it). In my dream, for some reason, I was unable to vacuum a little less than two feet of the hallway. About halfway down the hallway dust and dirt were gathering on this one to two foot band. I was trying to figure out how to vacuum it. I awoke, got up, went to the hallway and stared at the floor. What a strange dream! What could possibly keep me from vacuuming that one part of the hallway?
By 2003 I was remarried to my current wife. We moved to New York, leaving Fresno and the apartment behind for what I thought was forever. We lived in New York for almost two years, but my injuries of 1980 began to catch up with me. I needed to have surgery, which required time off from work. New York is an expensive place to live on one income, so my wife and I decided to return to Fresno. Though we ended up in a different upstairs unit in the same apartment complex, it had exactly the same floor plan as my old apartment.
In 2007, once again, I headed for New York, (the other place I know well beside California, the place where I grew up). I believed again that I had left Fresno and the apartment behind forever, but in early 2008 circumstances lead me back to Fresno and back to the apartment.
During Christmas season in 2008 I was walking through Costco and spotted Roombas on sale. It was a good price and these were the sixth generation of the little vacuum cleaning robots. I figured they'd worked out most of the bugs. I read the specs and decided that to clean an apartment of my size thoroughly would require two of them. I bought them.
I took them home and turned them loose. It was fun to watch them propel themselves around, vacuuming away. I was delighted. After all they were my first, very own robots. I set one on one side of the apartment and the other on the other side. Pretty soon, after watching them scoot around bumping into things and mapping their surroundings, it became apparent that I would have to separate them with a barrier. If I didn't, they would wander to the other side of the apartment. This would prevent them from finding their way back to their base units, where they charge their batteries once they've finished their work.
They come with little infrared lighthouses that can be used to create just such barriers. I placed one in the center of the hallway to divide the apartment roughly in half. This worked well, but there was a slight problem. Both robots would approach the barrier from either side and turn back before coming right up to it. They turned back eight to twelve inches before actually reaching exactly where the lighthouse was placed. This left a little less than two feet of the hallway that they were unable to vacuum.
After giving it a little thought, I thought I had solved the problem of vacuuming the hallway pretty easily. I placed a lighthouse barrier at the far end of the hallway for each Roomba. Now their work areas intersected and overlapped. The hallway would now get vacuumed more than the other parts of the apartment. Unfortunately, this didn't work for long. They seemed to get confused about which lighthouse was theirs. Sometimes they would overlap and at other times they would stop at the near lighthouse, which meant the hallway wouldn't get vacuumed at all. Frustrated, I went back to using one lighthouse and I still have a little less than two feet of the hallway that they are unable to vacuum.
I should probably contact Roomba Tech Support and solve the problem, I just haven't done it yet. I am currently more interested in the problem of my dream.
One might say that my dream lead to some sort of subconscious self-fulfilling prophecy, but let's carefully consider the facts.
- I had no sense at the time that the dream was at all significant or important. It only stood out at all, because it seemed to make no sense.
- I had no feeling at the time that the dream was about the future. In fact the problem seemed very much like a present one in my dream, which is why it puzzled me. Why couldn't I use my vacuum to clean that part of my hallway?
- This is the only dream like it that I can ever remember having.
- I left Fresno twice in the interim, believing I would not return.
- Psychological Explanation : We are ruled by our subconscious mind and the power of suggestion in ways that we do not fully understand and are not fully aware of.
"Most people over the age of 10 dream at least 4 to 6 times per night during a stage of sleep called REM (for Rapid Eye Movements, a distinguishing characteristic of this stage of sleep). During REM periods our brains become as active as they are during waking." (dreamresearch.net, "Frequently Asked Questions", http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/FAQ/index.html)
For the purpose of my estimate: 20,000 nights multiplied by 5 dreams a night = 100,000 dreams. My dream could be said to be one in one hundred thousand. It seems to me, (a simple donkey), that if the explanation was psychological, my dream would not be that unique. I would have experienced something similar at least one other time in my life.
The other thing that bothers me about the psychological explanation relates to the power of suggestion. I have one important question; where would such a suggestion come from? It just seems so random.
- Scientific Explanation : A unique, (to my location on this planet and in my lifetime), cosmic event took place which warped spacetime to the point that my dreaming mind, (or more specifically, the energy in my dreaming mind), found itself, for some reason, for a brief period, in what we think of as a future time. Though most people would call it science fiction, this possible explanation is based on Einstein's work and our current understanding of the universe.
In the 1960's astronomer, (and now professor at Harvard), Irwin Shapiro wanted to test Einstein's theory of General Relativity. He did it by bouncing radar beams off of the planet Mercury to track it. Radar beams travel at the speed of light, but he hypothesized that as mercury orbited the Sun and his radar beams got closer to the Sun, it would take longer than it should for them to reach Mercury. This would happen because, according to Einstein, the gravity of the massive sun distorts spacetime, and the closer you get to a massive object like the Sun, the more gravity distorts it.
It turned out that both Einstein and Shapiro were correct. As he tracked Mercury in its elliptical orbit around the Sun, when it got close to the Sun, (from his vantage point on Earth), Mercury appeared to suddenly move farther away. It's orbit appeared to have a "spike in it", which scientists know it doesn't have. "The first test, using the MIT Haystack radar antenna, was successful, matching the predicted amount of time delay. The experiments have been repeated many times since, with increasing accuracy." (Wikipedia, "Shapiro effect", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapiro_effect) There are many other ways that Einstein's Theory of Relativity has been successfully tested.
What's this got to do with my dream? What cosmic event could have caused it? What massive things are near me that would affect me? I am nearest to the Earth and the Moon, but by far, the most massive thing near me is the Sun. Could the Sun have something to do with it?
The little knowledge that a donkey such as myself has recently been able to acquire indicates that it is possible that a solar wind storm caused my dream. Extreme space weather may create distortions in spacetime, which might cause something like the phenomena of my dream. I know this all sounds completely and utterly insane, but please bear with me and think about it for a moment.
The Sun emits particles regularly in massive amounts. We call this Solar Wind. How much mass are we talking about? "The total number of particles carried away from the Sun by the solar wind is about 6.7 billion tons per hour." (Wikipedia, "Solar Wind", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind) That's pretty massive.
The Sun also experiences a Solar Cycle, which affects Space Weather and Solar Wind. "The Solar Cycle, or the Solar Magnetic Activity Cycle, is the main source of periodic solar variation, (changing the level of irradiation experienced on Earth), which drives variations in space weather". "The cycle is observed by counting the frequency and placement of sunspots visible on the Sun." (Wikipedia, "Solar cycle", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle) "Sunspot activity cycles about every eleven years. The point of highest sunspot activity during this cycle is known as Solar Maximum, and the point of lowest activity is Solar Minimum." (Wikipedia, "Sunspot", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot#Significant_events)
I found myself staring at a hyperlink to a table that lists when solar maximums occur. I hesitated for a moment before clicking on it. Skeptical donkey that I am, I wanted to find out that there was little or no solar activity around the time of my dream. Then I could dismiss my wild theory as pure rubbish, the product of too much caffeine, science fiction and an overactive imagination.
As it turns out, the last Solar Maximum was in March of 2000. It seems that there was an abundance of "geoeffective solar eruptive phenomena" taking place around the time of my dream.
Unfortunately at present, the mathematics and science of all of this is well out of my reach, but I'm working on it. I am looking for a PBS documentary called Solar Blast. It's not available at pbs.org, but I'll probably get it from a library. I did recently watch a documentary called Solarmax, available from Netflix. Most of it taught the kind of basic Solar Science that I already know. There was some really spectacular video, which was unfortunately set to some really cheesy, (to the point of being distracting), music, but I did learn one very interesting, important and pertinent fact.
- NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)
It appears that on June 25, 1998, all of SOHO's power, communications, and telemetry were lost. SOHO became "Lost in Space". I believe it could be more accurately described as "Lost in Spacetime". The next 3 months were spent on a massive, labor-intensive recovery of the $1 billion joint project between NASA and ESA.
If you are interested in more details, there are numerous news stories and documents on the web. The point is that for about a month, (in our "spacetime zone"), SOHO vanished. When the observatory was eventually found, frozen and lifeless, NASA and the ESA were able to, almost "miraculously", bring it back to life. The official SOHO Mission Interruption Joint NASA/ESA Investigation Board's Final Report on the incident can be found at http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/soho/SOHO_final_report.html. The official explanation is that human error caused SOHO's solar arrays to be pointed in the wrong direction. As a result it lost power and they lost contact. This explanation makes perfect sense, even to a donkey.
Being a humble, but curious, donkey, I have only one question that remains glaringly unanswered by the report. Why couldn't they even find SOHO for a month? Please allow me to offer one of my stupid, over-simplified donkey theories.
It is possible that severe Space Weather caused distortions in spacetime affecting SOHO. This caused the energy part of the matter that SOHO is composed of to be "elsewhere-when" for a while, (like the energy in my mind during my dream). Since no energy was present in the spacetime zone that we share, (its matter had gone "dark"), there was nothing for the radio waves to interact with and reflect off of. For about a month, (who knows how long it seemed to SOHO, it's all relative), it became transparent to radar. Once the space storm subsided and spacetime returned to a less distorted shape ... okay I don't know if it was less distorted, more homogenous, more common or what shape it actually returned to ... but once the energy in SOHO's atoms returned to the spacetime that we share, it reappeared.
Naturally, when they found it, it was frozen, (quite near absolute zero I suspect), but had sustained surprisingly little damage. It was of course located quite close to where it was supposed to be. That's where I believe the non-energy portion of it's matter had been all along.
- More Hints, Clues and Inklings
At that age, Guest's poems about hearth and home seemed so corny to me, yet I was strangely taken by them. My fascination with them was incongruous and inexplicable. I felt practically compelled to read them. The first gift my first wife ever gave me was the Collected Verse of Edgar Guest.
"Edgar Albert Guest (August 20, 1881, Birmingham, England – August 5, 1959, Detroit, Michigan) was a prolific American poet who was popular in the first half of the 20th Century and became known as the People’s Poet." "For 40 years, Guest was widely read throughout North America." His sentimental and optimistic poems were very popular.
"From his first published work in the Detroit Free Press until his death in 1959, Guest penned some 11,000 poems which were syndicated in some 300 newspapers and collected in more than 20 books." (Wikipedia, "Edgar Guest", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Guest)
Here's a sample:
"A Song" by Edgar Guest
"None knows the day that friends must part
None knows how near is sorrow;
If there be laughter in your heart,
Don't hold it for to-morrow.
Smile all the smiles you can to-day;
Grief waits for all along the way.
To-day is ours for joy and mirth;
We may be sad to-morrow;
Then let us sing for all we're worth,
Nor give a thought to sorrow.
None knows what lies along the way;
Let's smile what smiles we can to-day."
I spent many hours reading what I consider to be the trite and cliched verse of Edgar Guest. I assumed it was the result of a previously unexpressed corny and sentimental side to my personality. The book sat on the shelf for many years, but once in while, in difficult times I felt myself drawn back to it. I somehow always found that reading the folksy poetry was oddly comforting.
About three years ago I went to visit my mother in North Carolina. My father had died about a year before that. When I called my mother, she just didn't sound right, so I decided to make the trip across the country to see her. While I was there she asked me what I would like to do. "Do you have any old family photos or memorabilia that I haven't already seen?", I asked. "Have I ever shown you any of your great grandfather McKernan's stuff?", she inquired. "I don't know anything about him, other than that he was your mother's father", I said. She dug through a closet and brought out an old box.
As she sorted through old letters and clippings, she began to explain, "Your great grandfather was a newspaper editor for the New York World." She began to carefully unfold and hand me some very old and disintegrating newspaper clippings. I was fascinated.
It turns out that, "The New York World was a newspaper published in New York from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers." "It was purchased by Joseph Pulitzer in 1883 and a new, aggressive era of circulation building began. Reporter Nellie Bly became one of America's first investigative journalists, often working undercover." "In 1890, Pulitzer built the New York World Building, the tallest office building in the world at the time." (Wikipedia, "New York World", http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_World) That's where my great grandfather worked. This was very interesting, to me, but it was what came next that stunned me.
"Your great grandfather also wrote some poetry that was frequently published in the paper", my mother said. "Do you have any? I'd love to see it!", I exclaimed. She shuffled further through letters and clippings. "Oh, here's a few", she said and handed me the old faded clippings. I began to quietly read. My mother was quiet too, though I sensed she noticed my strange reaction. Finally I said, "Mom ... these poems read exactly like the poems of Edgar Guest. Are you sure that McKernan actually wrote them?". She responded, "It's my understanding that the style is not very original. The genre was very popular in the thirties, all the papers published that kind of sentimental stuff".
I felt as if I'd been struck by lightning. "You could have knocked me over with a feather". My strange affinity for the poetry of Edgar Guest no longer seemed strange at all.
- What does all this anecdotal, pseudo-scientific psychobabble mean?
"There will always be that which we do not understand." Robert Duvall
I could go on and on, but to this donkey, one thing seems clear.
- We don't fully and correctly understand time.
There's so much I need to learn, but clearly I need to understand more about time if I am to get anywhere on this journey.
Soon I'll talk about why I think Einstein's work might not be finished. "Cassius: The fault dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves", (Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare) Please allow me to paraphrase: The fault dear friends is not in the stars, it is in our math. I'll address this in a future blog entry, "Math from Scratch". But first ...
Next blog entry: "Thanks and Apologies"
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