reams (the movies you watch while you're sleeping) are odd things. I'm a fairly imaginative person, prone to day dreaming and thinking up weird stuff, and yet I virtually never remember any of my actual sleeping dreams. Sometimes I wake up with the remnant of one in my head, especially if I woke up suddenly due to an alarm or loud noise or whatever, or when I doze off and snap back awake I often have amazingly-vivid and weird fragments of thoughts in my head.

But as for actual dreams I have during the night, or more often the morning/day, given my sleeping schedule, I remember perhaps one or two fragments a week, and a full dream much less frequently. I'm talking 2 or 3 a year, and usually only when I'm sick or feverish or something like that, and have especially weird dreams combined with interrupted periods of sleep.

Given this near dream amnesia, the entries on this page, archived from various daily updates, are more often about day dreams, quick fantastic glimpses, or the strange fact that I don't remember my dreams very often at all.  Certainly far less often than I'd like to remember them.

February 12, 2003

Yesterday morning I woke up around 4am, but didn't want to get up that early, so I stayed in bed, snug as bug in rug under warm flannel sheets and in the cold (relatively speaking) room. As often happens when I wake up and then try to go back to sleep, dozing for an hour or two, I had a dream, and remembered it.  I assume I dream all the time, but I almost never remember one unless I wake up during it, or am not really all the way asleep when I have it.

In this dream I was the president of the US, and had a blog, which was the most popular website on earth. I had been elected as an independent and was basically a centrist, making my way mostly by tearing apart the pork and corruption of both the Democrats and the Republicans, which made them all hate me, as did big business, but I was wildly-popular with the electorate for speaking openly and honestly about things politicians never do.

I remember seeing myself (even in the dream it wasn't really first person, more like me watching what I was doing from a distance) making a speech about military funding.  My agenda was to cut overall spending by about a third, while pushing through an across the board 25% pay raise for every single soldier, careerist or reserve, and similar upgrades for all basic infrastructure.  The savings was from scrapping the bloated boondoggle projects like the Crusader and Missile Defense System, and closing unnecessary bases and cutting back projects that had no value, other than being located in the home districts of powerful senators and congressmen.

I recall reading recently and during the Clinton years that basic soldier pay and equipment was often crap, while billions went to crooked defense contractors.  Getting the common troops and their voting block behind my presidency would give me enormous political clout.

I still love the name, "Reagan's Ray Guns" for the Star Wars plan. And yes, it's been sucking up billions in spending since the early 80's, and really isn't any closer to feasible yet.  The folly of it all is when you consider that the obvious risks to the US are from things like oh, hijacked planes?  Or some guy sneaking a backpack nuke in through the porous Canadian border.  Or firing a short range rocket with a nuclear tip from 5 or 10 miles offshore.

There are very few countries with the technology to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the great benefit of being attacked by one is that we'd know exactly where it came from long before it arrived, and could take appropriate measures.  In other words, the country that sent it would be basically wearing a giant "kick me" sign, and would ensure their own demise.

Now that would also be true if we had orbiting satellites that could shoot down the missile before it got here, but the problem is that the system, for all the billions poured into it, still can't even manage to hit one target, and would be totally hopeless against an attack by multiple missiles, which we would surely face if there were a real nuclear attack.  And of course by our having a shield to hide behind, plus adding in Bush's insane jibber jabber about using nukes offensively, we only spur the rest of the world into a new arms race, to make sure they have the ability to put up enough nukes to be sure that some get through, if we decide to take them out.

Anyway, I'm summarizing policy points rather than my dream, but this was in the dream, and I was explaining it on my blog, which was getting something like 40 million hits a day, as every politically interested American was checking it out directly, and not letting the media and networks spoon feed them the hard facts.

There was also a funny debate moment, where I was going up against some other contender.  I don't think it was Bush, but he was just as big a Dumbya; totally reliant on his teleprompter and script, and I quickly cut him all to ribbons by exposing his inability to speak for himself.

It's hard to describe since it was largely visual, and the eloquence of my speech in the dream escapes my fingers and early morning/no-breakfast brain at this point. But basically I was stopping the questions with things like, "Why are you asking this crap?  No one cares about these carefully-worded policy questions.  The American People demand real questions, hard questions, and honest answers.  How about this: 'Will you have the spine to do what's right, rather than what your corporate owners demand of you?'"

The other guy in the debate became totally flustered and just babbled while I stood there, arms crossed, giving him the eye of death. He kept trying to avoid the questions and just give those bullshit PR type replies that Ari Fleischer currently spins at every press conference, and every time he would I would just interrupt, or repeat what he said in about 1/10th the words, and ridicule it for the obtuse bullshit it was.  Or point out how his record totally contradicted the happy thoughts he was spinning for the audience.

Oddly enough, there was only myself and the other guy in the debate, when there really should have been a Democrat too, since I was definitely not one myself.

Pity I didn't get to writing about this yesterday, when it was fresher in my mind, or I could have put in some actual quotes.  Often in my dreams I'll remember reading a full magazine article, or seeing something like this debate, and will, at the time, find myself thinking how well written or said it is, and when I wake up I'll be objective enough to realize that it was very well done, and often seemed to use knowledge I wasn't aware that I personally possessed.

March 19, 2002

So I never dream.

Well I assume I dream, but I never remember my dreams.  Or very seldom anyway.

When I do remember one, it's one I had just before waking up, and those don't really count, since I'm generally sort of dozing during them, and partially in control of the action.  That's not really any different than a day dream, or the semi-fantasies you might run through your head as you are drifting off to sleep.  The morning ones are a bit less consciously controlled; but only just.

I often find myself thinking about stories I should be writing, imagining the characters doing something or other.  But it's never like I'm watching a movie, or I'm one of the characters living the events. It's like I'm writing a story, but seeing it more vividly than when I'm actually typing.  However I'm evaluating the events and character actions as I go, usually thinking they need to speak more, or I need to describe the scenery a bit more.

I almost never remember a real out and out dream, like where I'm just seeing bizarre things, or seeing myself doing stuff I wouldn't normally do.  I sort of miss it, as that sort of thing is a good window into the psyche, or at least something entertaining to remember as you wake up and get dressed.  Or to talk about with close friends at a later date.

A girlfriend I had in college always had really vivid dreams, or at least always described them as such to me.  And they were fun! She'd be in a cafe in Paris having lunch with her (deceased) grandfather, enjoying a lively conversation.  Or she'd find herself surfing in Hawaii, when she didn't surf and had never been to Hawaii.  Or a Paris cafe, for that matter.

She'd often have dreams about me doing something weird, or that she was on a date with me and her sister (who I'd never met, she lived on the east coast) appeared and I started flirting with her (the sister) and making out right at the table.

When she told me that one I asked if the sister was hot, and/or a good kisser.  She (the girlfriend) said no, and that she didn't know.  I asked if it was like kissing your sister, and we broke up.  Broke up with laughter, I mean, not broke up the dating.

That came later.

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