Enlightenment (possibly maybe)

He was on the verge of true enlightenment
just now
it was a flash
if you werent paying attention
you would have missed it
what was the cause?
maybe the wind was just right
and his left foot stepped on
a broken piece of cement
perhaps it was his stomach
ache that had been there for days
or he had eaten 17 almonds
instead of 71
any answer was as good
and meaningless as any other
possibly maybe
and as quick as it
came it went
rasing his hopes once again
true enlightenment is hard to come
by and seemingly impossible to sustain
the closer you think you are the more
you realize you arent even close
like looking directly at a star
makes it disapear
his search had been the same
all the effort and choices made
seemed not to make a difference
so slow time down
look at the moment again
was something missed?
living in a gray foggy world
enlightenment is easy to spot
even when it's far away
it starts faint
a white
no
yellow light
a deep health yellow hue
like butter cups in spring
and as it comes closer
the light shines thought the fog
like car head lights do
it clears a path in the road
warmness comes next
not in a specific place
more like a blanket
warmed by a lover
brighter and brighter
it's obvious now
everything
infinite time is crunch
compressed into seconds
forwards and backwards
energy and matter
flow like spring water
the meaning of life
nearly there
and then
gone.
cold
gray fog no
yellow light
the reaction was not
sustainable
the whole experieces was only
a second or two
body still tingling
hummm
he walks to his front
door and wonders
why did it go away?
maybe the wind was just right
and his right foot stepped on
a broken piece of cement
perhaps it was his hair that
needed to be cut
or the keys in his left pocket
instead of his right
any answer was as good
and meaningless as any other
possibly maybe

Hand me the Mace

Back in 1994 I spent two weeks in Ukraine and Russia on a school trip. It was a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union and the region was unsure of where it was heading. Kiev and Moscow weren't dangerous in the way a war zone is but I definitely wouldn't walk around by myself at night in a dark alley. Of course, in the tourist areas, everything was fine.

One unusual aspect of the region was the number of drunks. Public drunks: stubbing around, vomiting, passed out on park benches or in the streets, yelling at passerby's. There isn't a college campus in this country that can compare. Although I found it unsettling, I never felt threatened by the drunks.

In Moscow our group was staying at a Soviet era hotel, a long, gray, concrete structure, with no personality. The hallways inside were a block long. The red carpet was worn from years of ware and neglect. I was one of three boys staying in the room. Our room was a full city block away from the elevator. It was mid-morning and the three of us were hanging out in our room, killing some time before we had to go down stairs and meet up with everyone else for that day's group tour. Being young and not understanding the dangers of the city we were in, we didn't have the door locked. Without any warning, the door opened and a man stepped into our room. Standing in the entry way, he started yelling at us in Russian and waving his hands. Acting in the way that seemed appropriate to three 14 year olds, we rushed the man, pushed him out the open door, slammed it in his face, and quickly set the lock, all while he continued to yell. Soon we would be expected down stairs but there was no way we were going to leave while we could see him out the peep-hole. He stopped yelling after a minute and walked away.

Later that day we visited a museum. Most museum shops reflected the content of the museum's collection. This museum had a lot of medieval Russian artifacts so the shop had replica medieval weapons. I don't remember whose idea it was but one of us picked up a mace and said "we should get this for protection". When I say mace I don't mean the spray used to dissuade attackers, I mean its namesake: the medieval weapon used for crushing skulls. It had foot and a half wooden handle with a wooden sphere attached at one end. The sphere was about the size of four fists and had sharp wooden points covering it. Yes, it was a wooden replica but still definitely dangerous. We got the mace. That evening when we got back to the hotel we decided that the person with the bed closet to the door should have the mace, just in case something should happen at night.

No one came to our locked door that night. In the morning we left our room to get some breakfast at the dining room down stairs. So we walked out our room, locked the door, and began down the block long hallway to the elevator. About twenty feet away there was a man walking towards us. We walked passed each other and a few seconds later we heard a banging on a door. When we turned around, we saw the man banging on our door. It was a different man than the day before. Luckily we had all our money and passports with us so there was nothing in our rooms except our suitcases, our clothes, and our mace. As we were waiting for the elevator we could still hear him banging on our door. Obviously people thought someone else was staying there. Fortunately we were leaving Moscow for Saint Petersburg shortly after breakfast.

The Ketchup Solution

Tap on the side!
Tap on the bottom!
Use a knife!
Hold it sideways!

No.

The problem is that the ketchup is stuck at the bottom and hitting it too hard causes too much ketchup to plop on your plate. The best solution is the following…

1) Keep the lid on the bottle.
2) Turn the bottle up-side-down.
3) Shake it, tap it hard. (No worries about too much plopping out!)
4) Once the ketchup has moved from the bottom to the top of the bottle, open the lid and ketchup will gently pour out.

Just like magic~

The Big Move

Dear Subscriber,

It has been a long time since I posted anything here. Apologies. Life first, writing second. I recently moved to Brooklyn. This has been one of my major life goals. It was the evening of January 7, 2006 when I had a life altering vision. Many sacrifices were made during the past few years. Sometimes periods were fun, while others were extremely hard. But like most things, everything worked out in the end. Now it's time to change my mind from "planning-moving mode" to "life mode" (which will require me to re-learn how to relax and live in the now). Life is awesome!

Talk to you soon.

What are you doing here?!

It was late October 2007 and I was in a ticket line (I mean queue) in Paddington Station, London. After I got my ticket I walked out of the ticket area into the main train station hall. In front of me a glass door opened and a man my age, with a big hiking backpack on his back, stepped out. We looked at each other for a second before recognition set in. Here was a New Zealand bread maker named Colin, a single-serving friend I made five month ago in a Madrid youth hostile. We ran around Madrid for four days together, museums, dinners, drinks, clubbing, and attempting to pick up chicks. Colin and I shook hand and started laughing. What line of events caused two people to meet twice in a life time, months and hundreds of miles apart? We found a place to sit and recount our stories of what happened between Madrid and Paddington Station. He was on his way north to meet up with his brother (or cousin) and I was on my way down to Hampton Court Palace (one of Henry the 8th palaces). I missed the first train because the second train gave us enough time finish our conversation. We exchanged contact information again, and then went our separate ways.

This is either amazing because it's so rare or because it happens often but we don't recognize the people we meet again and again. Another thing could be that a certain life style causes the same sort of people to go to the same sort of places. So the world isn't quite as large as its surface area per person. Like I'm a traveler and Colin is a traveler. We were both traveling around for months. Madrid and London, though big, are much smaller than the earth, and you could shrink it down further saying that even within those cities there are only a few places or regions we would visit. Once you remove the distance and location issue, you are only left with time. So, it was less amazing that we were both in the same place, it was more amazing that we happened to be there at the same time. One of us could have easily changed one thing about our day which would have caused us to be in Paddington Station on the same day, just at a different time.

But anyway way I look at it, it's still pretty awesome.

Dream Journal #8

Since I've started my new job I haven't been able to remember my dreams as well. I've begun waking up during my dreams (which is the first step) but 6am is still too early to for my brain to remember things properly. Just to keep you all from getting bored here is an archive dream...

:::It's only a matter of time, Spider-Man:::
I was with my dad in a shallow cave. We were looking for bones. I found a few in some dirt and asked him what they were. Digging further I found some fragments of Spider-Man's suit. My dad disappeared and was replaced with a female cop. The cave turned into an empty, dusty, abandoned mansion. She was in the bathroom. As I was walking around the living room, she started screaming. I opened the door and she was pointing her gun towards the ceiling. I looked up and saw it was Spider-Man hanging upside down. He told us to chill out and if we wanted to find what we were looking for we would have to leave the safety of the first floor and go to the second floor. Then Spider-Man swung out of the bathroom and into the shadowy corner of a large empty living room. The woman and I decided to go to the second floor. We walked to the large stair case. It looked like something out of the 1800s. The woman disappeared and Matt replaced her. Matt and I walked up the stair case into the dark second floor. He carried a flash light. As we walked up I started repeating a phrase to myself under my breath. The stairs ended at a large dark room. Sitting 15 feet away, cross legged, on the floor, with his back to us was a ghostly man. He was chanting the same phrase I was repeating to myself. This freaked me out. The ghostly man started to get up. We decided it was a good idea to leave immediately. Matt and I ran down the stair before we had a chance to see his face. We flew out the front door of the mansion into a yard covered with a foot of snow. It was late at night and the walk to the front gate was long and cold. Our car was parked right outside the fence. We got in and started talking about what we had seen. I told him that one day something like that was going to get him.

Watch out Matt.

Not Alien

While driving home I looked up and saw this strange pattern of dots and dashes in the sky. I was a little freaked out because they did not seem like a natural creation. Then I noticed that I was growing. White poofs continued appearing in an orderly fashion one after another. It was a bright blue day and I couldn't see any planes but I knew it wasn't alien.


Then I remembered a new type of experimental jet engine called a "pulse jet engine" or "pulse detonation engine". This engine made contrails like white balls one after another instead of the typical unbroken stream. By this time I parked my car, ran into the house, and got my camera. Outside I snapped a few shots but no one else on the street seemed interested. Later that evening I showed my pictures to my dad and he pointed out they spelled something.

"What do you mean spell something?"
"Like an advertisement."
"But I don't see any letters... oh. right. there. Oh wow. How the hell did I miss that?!"

No, thank you very much. I don't want to lower my insurance rates.

Requires Authorization Beforehand

My morning train was delayed and the following explanation was announced to us...

"There will be delays due to an unauthorized pedestrian accident on the tracks."

Unauthorized, indeed.

Dream Journal #7

This is what I wrote at 3am…

I had a child with Emily
I met him went he was 4, we got along
Plus Emily and Jan were ok with it
It was at a party
I went to pee outside and I broke up a fight between two cats, night time
I made a soup that was sprayed on the yard
When I drove back to their place they sprayed it on my car
So then we, three of us, shot arrows at a target
While the entire neighborhood came out to watch

Discussion:
So in this dream I had a child with Emily, without sex, an immaculate conception if you will, I did not raise him nor had I seen him since he was born. Emily and Jan had been raising him without any issues of my abandonment. At this party I hung out with my four year old child, we talked and played around. I had to pee so I went outside with Matt. It was night and in the back yard there was an animal that looked like a raccoon however once it came out of the shadows I realized that it was just a cat. Another cat appeared and the two began to fight. I broke up the fight. Then there was a jump in time, not place. It was morning and I had made a soup which was now being sprayed on the driveway and yard. The soup wasn't coming from a specific place, it just appeared in the shape of a giant umbrella. I was standing under the umbrella-shaped soup spray, not getting wet. I went out in my car and when I came back someone sprayed my car with the same strange umbrella-shaped soup spray. In the front yard we began shooting arrows at a red and yellow target. I guess it was a site to see because the entire neighborhood came out to watch. This dream was far more detailed that I can get into with just words. Everything seemed so vivid and real. It was quite amazing. Oh and apologies to Emily, Jan, and Oliver. No offense was meant by my subconscious. I'm sure I just needed characters to fill my strange story so my mind used people from my real life.

It's all about the journey

"Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will – whatever we may think. They flower spontaneously out of the demands of our natures – and the best of them lead us not only outwards in space, but inwards as well. Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection…"

-Lawrence Durrell


Tomorrow I start a new phase of my life, a job in midtown Manhattan. World, here I come...

Dropping Acid

This past weekend I was at my family’s house. It was Sunday morning and all four of us (mother, step-father, two sons) were home. My brother was inside practicing the piano and I was outside with my mom working on the pool. My step-dad was also outside trying to fix something. He walked into the cabana and within a few seconds he started screaming, a blood curdling scream (like how I imagined torture victims screaming). My mom and I ran towards the cabana door yelling “What’s wrong?!?!” He stumbled out wiping his face and glasses with his shirt, breathing really hard. He was able to say “Acid… acid on my face… in my mouth…” I sprinted towards the hose spigot and turned it on. My mom grabbed the hose and started running water over his head and in his mouth. By this point my brother was outside. I said “take off your shirt and glasses”. He was breathing hard. “Did you swallow any?” my mom asked (she’s a MD doctor). “I think so, just a little maybe.” I needed to find the bottle to see what the emergency directions recommended. I walked into the cabana and saw I was not prepared to retrieve the bottle. My eyes started burning so I jumped back out. My brother began opening the windows to vent the room. I ran into the house, grabbed a yellow rubber glove and my sandals, ran back, held my breath, and stepped into the cabana. Inside I could see a yellowish liquid all over the back wall and floor. The air burned my eyes and nostrils. I moved fast to the corner, found the white plastic jug on the floor, and brought it outside. It read: Hydrochloric Acid. Damn. The back said flush out with water and if ingested drink water and call 911. My mom was still drenching my step-dad's head and mouth. “It says drink lots of water. Did you get any in your eyes?” “No, I had my glasses on.” “How is your breathing?” “It’s tight.” My mom and I looked at each other both thinking: I hope this doesn’t start an asthma attack. When he had thorough rinsed his head, chest, and mouth out, I said “You should go in with mom and drink two big glasses of water, get your inhaler, and take a shower to clear out your airways.” Soon after he was in the shower my mom called a chemist neighbor. He said that water was the best way to clean up.

My brother got some fans from the house and set them up by the door way. Once the acid vapors had cleared we carried everything with acid splashes out onto the lawn to be washed. My mom hosed everything (floor mats, lawn equipment, gardening tools…) while my brother and I laid out the cleaned stuff on concrete around the pool to dry. Later on, I spayed the cabana floor with water and my brother swept it towards a drain. We left the windows open and the fans on for the rest of the afternoon to make sure the toxic vapors were completely gone.

Luckily, there were only first degree burns on the right side of my step-dad’s face. His mouth, lungs, esophagus, stomach, and eyes were fine. Actually, if he hadn’t been wearing his glasses there would probably be some eye damage. We were all very relieved that there was so little injury.

The acid had an affect on the copper pipes and on only some of the plastics. The copper pipes had a yellowish discoloration and the plastics looked a bit lighter and warped were the acid had been. Interesting.

During dinner we discussed how the accident happened. He had been reaching for the WD-40 next to the bottle of acid and accidentally bumped the bottle which slide off the shelf and dropped onto the floor. There must have been a pressure build up inside the bottle or maybe the lid wasn’t on tight (although it was one of those super-child-proof lids) and when it hit the floor the lid popped off, spraying acid everywhere. Why was there a bottle of hydrochloric acid in the cabana: to clean masonry. Apparently acid is one way to clean grout, stone, and concrete.

In the end everything worked out and only minor injuries were sustained however the situation could have been much worse. And for that, I am grateful.

Dream Journal #6 (guest dream from Matt)

Matt sent me his dream a few days ago. I thought it was awesome enough to post here. Take it away Matt...

You have all the intense & meaningful dreams. For once I have my own. 90% of my dreams I don't remember, the 10% I do remember are generally very mundane and boring (I'm walking around in the woods or I meet a girl i've never seen for lunch then wake up). So here it is...

I'm at a farm in the middle of nowhere. There is a farmer with his hot daughter. I ask the farmer if I can marry his daughter. He says no, but that I can sleep with her if I can cross the bog. [Scene shift] we are in a swamp/bog, it's covered in fog and small islands with dead trees and looks like Yoda's home planet from 'Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi'. I'm on a small island with misty darky bubbling water all around me. The farmer is on one island and his daughter on another. The farmer is still wearing overhalls, no shirt, a straw hat and a pitch fork. He says I can sleep with his daughter if I can cross the bog to her without touching the water. I jump from island to island narrowly missing stepping in the bog. After a while I finally jump to the island she is on and then I wake up.

That sucks man. If it makes you feel any better I also never get the girl at the end either or if I do they turn into an ex-girlfriend and I wake up pissed off. Good luck next time.

NPR Observation

NPR uses music to separate segments. Usually it's just 5 to 10 seconds worth. Interestingly they never play songs or parts of songs that have vocals; it's always instrumental. When I first realized this years ago I found it strange, but now I know it’s because they want the only their voices and words broadcasted. Perhaps voices could be confused with their own or because words are loaded with meaning which would distract from the neutrality NPR seeks for segment separation music. Instrumental music isn't laden with human-ness.

Paradox

During a job interview I was asked the following question:

What is your greatest weakness?

The first thing that popped in my mind was:

Not being able to admit my weaknesses.

Oh Great Paradox! I looked over at the interviewer, saw the lack of humor in their eyes, and forced a generic response. But I could barely come out with one because I was laughing to myself. It reminded me of this lovely paradox:

This sentence is false.

When I first read that I nearly fell off my chair. Never before had I seen such a compact, self-referencing paradox. Even now I get a little jolt in my brain each time I read it.

Ms. Cat (poem)

Ms. Cat
I don't think you like me

Ms. Cat
I don't think we're friends

You'll never let me know this
But I can tell you just pretend

I keep you from the outside
I don't let you chew my shoe

I think you're just using me
To open your canned food

Dream Journal #5

A girl and I were walking down a street covered with about two feet of water. We both were wearing our bathing suits. On the side of the road was a big case with glass doors and a wooden back. I opened the glass door to take a better look. Inside there were little electronic components mounted on the back wood wall, wires connected them together. The device was playing music. Each electronic component had a switch or dial that would alter one part of the music when changed, like the melody or rhythm. We played with it for a while. Afterwards we started swimming in the shallow water. We played around and eventually started talking. She was from Kazakhstan (even had the correct accent) and told me about her country. We walked to her house and entered her backyard from an alleyway.

::wake::

Fun With Words

Have you ever noticed that the word "evil" is in the world "devil"? Pretty neat.

I just checked the etymology of "devil" and it doesn't mentions "evil" being its root, which makes the whole thing even more interesting.

Restaurant Idea

There are hundreds of thousands of restaurants out there. All restaurants follow only one menu style type. This is an Italian restaurant. This is a Chinese restaurant. This is a vegetarian restaurant. When you choose a restaurant it's based on what flavors you desire at that moment and therefore every restaurant is specialized in one area.

One thing that I've never seen is a restaurant which makes many different dishes. You'll never find a place that serves Thai food and BBQ. But why not? Both are good. My idea is to create a restaurant that has 15 items on the menu, each from a different country or region. The goal could be to make a signature (or best) dish from each country or region. And not just make it, but make it really good. (bbq ribs, pad thai, peking duck, tamales, home made pizza, fish cooked Greek style, falafel, Indian curry, a raw dish, some French creamy dish…)

I'm sure the main problem is finding a chef that has a diverse enough background to make it possible. Most chefs specialize in one area, maybe two. When they specialize in two they sometimes make a fusion (like French-American). I mean to keep flavors separate. Perhaps that's another problem. When you have a restaurant that servers food from one region there is a lot of common ingredients, and in this proposed restaurant you would need such a diverse number of ingredient, preparation space, and preparation staff that it wouldn't be financially feasible.

But let's say that it was; would you come?

Perfect Sunset

This was taken from a park that is a two minute walk from my apartment. (click on picture to view large version)

Dream Journal #4

I remember almost nothing from last night's dream except it involved traveling to Iran. What was more memorable was what I experienced before falling asleep. I got in bed around 2am but wasn't able to fall asleep for 10-15 minutes because a bright yellow light blinded my mind when I closed my eyes. When I opened my eyes the light disappeared, and when I closed them again it returned. My normal visions are pleasant, cool hues, curved lined shapes, slowly moving, waves, and shadows. Last night's bright light was a first.

Future Forecast

The Big Bang created the first 4 elements on the periodic table. All other heavy elements were created in the center of exploding stars (novas, super-novas, hyper-novas) by smashing lighter elements together. By the way, the sun's power comes from fusing pairs of hydrogen atoms to make helium. The earth is composed mostly of iron (32.1%), oxygen (30.1%), silicon (15.1%), magnesium (13.9%), sulfur (2.9%), nickel (1.8%), calcium (1.5%), and aluminum (1.4%); with the remaining 1.2% consisting of trace amounts of other elements (percentages from wikipedia).

Humans do not have the ability to create new elements by fusing lighter atoms together and because of this we will eventually run out of our favorites. What will happen when we run out of copper and cadmium? How will we make new electronics? I know everyone is freaking out over the limited supply of oil but we can always figure out new energy sources; what is truly scarce are the raw elements. Now from those percentages above it looks like we are ok with iron, silicon, magnesium, nickel, and aluminum however most of their locations are out of reach for humans. Future wars will be fought over mines.

Solution: we mine our garbage. I don't have the numbers on me but I'm certain that most of the elements used in cans, electronics (especially cell phones), appliances, etc. are not recycled. Don't think of landfills and big mounds of trash, think of them as our precious future raw material reserves.

Dream Journal #3

I wasn't part of this dream. I was watching it from a god's eye view. The scene took place in a car. There were two people in the car, one in the front seat, one in the back. The person in the back went completely nuts and began attacking the person in the front. It was really bloody and grossed me out to the point that when it woke me up I was actually worried I had puked in my bed (I hadn't). Apparently in my dream the scene was a preview of a movie called "The Jackal" (not related to the 90's movie of the same name nor its parent book/movie "The Day of the Jackal"). It was one of the most graphic dreams I've ever had. Hmmm makes me wonder…

::sleep::

I was working at a resort. My job was to walk around the pool area and straiten things up and to get fresh towels. However I was also a secret agent and the resort had a special room where I would go to practices. The room was dark and had a web of lasers and mirrors scattering laser beams all around the room. I entered the laser room from a hole in the middle of the floor by climbing a latter from the room below. The goal was to move around the room with out crossing any of the beams. Some how the laser room was linked to missiles hidden around the resort and if I messed up they would fire. A few times I practiced moving around the room, avoiding the lasers but eventually I crossed one of the beams. I tried to maneuver myself to minimize the impact but it was too late. I ran out of the building down to the pool and watched a small missile fly into the sky.

::wake::

Analysis: Well the first one says I'm pretty fucked up. The second one is another story dealing with my current career struggle. Dreams should be vacations not work!

People First Policy

We have a finite amount of hours per day (duh) and there are many things vying for our attention. In order to prioritize, I use something called the "People First Policy". The PFP states that given the choice between two activities, first weigh the activity that involves people higher than the rest and then reconsider your motivations for what you want. This is important because in the age of electronics we use many fancy distractions to appease our laziness or fear from interacting socially.

This is not to say that some solo activities like reading, writing, or working on a hobby are less important than being social or that socializing is always more rewarding than solo time. What PFP does is force to look at your motivations. When you choose to sit in front of the computer, are you being productive or just being lazy or fearful of the outside world?

Full Disclosure: in general I require more alone time than social time... but my alone time is put to productive use

Buddhism + Christianity

Buddhism says:
Suffering comes from attachment.

Christianity says:
God is love.

As we know:
Love is attachment.

Therefore, Buddhism + Christianity:
God = love = attachment = suffering

Which can be reduced to:
God = suffering

I think I just proved that all suffering is God’s fault…


[Update]
This logic requires a few assumptions (thanks Matt):
God exists
Buddhism beliefs are true
Christian beliefs are true
God agrees with both Buddhism and Christianity dogma
Those that love also feel attachment to their loved thing/person

Dream Journal #2

We were having a pool party at my parent's house. The pool wasn't completely clean, it so more similar to the consistency of a lake, with plant life such as water lilies. There were people snorkeling through the grasses and lilies. For some reason I was afraid to get in the water. I walked over to a barn [which doesn't exist in my parent's back yard] to look for a mask and snorkel. It was a traditional barn with big doors and hay on the floor. There was junk piled everywhere. I began going though it and eventually found a mask. I kept moving deeper into the barn looking for a snorkel when I stumped on two people from the party having sex on a mat. We were all startled. I apologized and told them it was cool and to keep going. I left the barn with only a mask. As I closed the door I saw an authority figure (parent? boss? cop?) coming towards the barn. I opened the door and yelled to the lovers that someone was coming. I left the scene and walked back to the pool. Almost every one had gotten out of the pool. Even though I had this enormous fear, I put on my mask and dove into the section with the water lilies. If felt very awkward diving in, like I couldn't get my arms in the correct position.

::jump::

We all had these magnetic necklaces. They were the hard, metal wire kind. They had a few inches taken out making them look like a “C” so you could fit it around your neck [similar to bracelets]. The metal was as thick as a drinking straw and at each end was spherical rare earth magnet. When you put it around your neck the magnets would attract each other, clamping the necklace around your neck. There was a group of us sitting in this room [no one from my real life]. A few people put theirs on but once on the magnets were strong enough you couldn't take it off. We were talking, talking about life, talking about the necklaces, and talking about some of the weird things that had been happening recently. Slowly more and more people decided to try on the necklaces until I was the only one left without an adorned neck. I didn't want to put something on that could never be taken off. And who exactly was giving out the necklaces? I couldn't remember. For some reason I knew it wasn't just us with these necklaces. It was everyone in the world. I was worried they had mind control properties. I began to distrust everyone in the room. To seem like I was part of the new system, I put the necklace around my head, which stretched it enough so the magnetic ends couldn't meet. Later on I looked out a window and saw bizarre space ships in a grassy field. It was then I realized the necklaces were part of an Alien mind control plot. Everyone in the room was chatting pleasantly, completely oblivious to the Alien presence.

::wake::

Analysis: Well for me it's quite obvious. I have been trying to get a job. Although I do not fear the change that will come with a new job (in fact I look forward to it), there is still a lot of uncertainty and that is expressed through my subconscious. As for alien mind control plots against the humans race... shouldn't we all be a little worried about that? And isn't it interesting, in my conscious life I am not paranoid (except for known government spying plots, "Hi NSA") or afraid of jumping into the deep end of life.

Dream Journal #1

I woke at 5am and wrote on a pad of paper the main plot points of the dream I was currently in. When I finally got out of bed I read this...

plane crashed into boat
we put boat in [a very large] pool
stigmata blood everywhere [in the water and on the survivors]
pulled people out of crash
drained pool
talking to Jason [my brother] at night in the rainy backyard
mom covered head and face with foil

Notes to the reader are in [ ]

Smoke On Plane

There have only been a few times in my life when I was truly scared. The earliest I can remember was when I was six and our drug-addict-neighbor's large dog chased me down the street with the intent to eat me. The most recent occurred on one of this past summer's flights…

After a massive summer rain storm caused my dad and I to miss our connecting flight in Geneva, we found ourselves rerouted and flying into Athens (our destination) from Budapest at 3am. I think by that point we had been traveling for 40 some hours needless to say we were both exhausted. The plane was coming close to Athens when the distinct smell of smoke poured through the cabin. Now if there is one odor you don't want to smell on a plane, it's smoke. And though we did not see any smoke, that smell only comes from one thing: fire.

People freaked out. The flight attendances were running up and down the aisle opening up all the overhead compartments looking for smoke and feeling for heat. Agitated passengers started moving around re-opening the overhead compartments, searching through all the carryon bags, and yelling at each other. As we dropped down closer to the airport the smell continued getting stronger but still no visible smoke. I imagined us landing in a ball of fire, dead before we hit the ground. Damn. It was then that the thought of dying came to me, maybe for the first time in my life; all the fear of not existing, the pain and suffering from this kind of death, my family finding out and how they will suffer, all the things I never got to do, who will inherit my enormous CD collection. But unlike the fear of getting mauled by a dog (who was as psycho as his owner), a wave of calmness came over me and I realized how funny life really is. I laughed as I imagined my end, exhausted on a Hungarian Airline commuter flight at 3am after traveling for 40 hours in a large ball of fire only a few minutes from touch down.

I looked over at my dad and said "Hahaha this is a dumb way to die". He smiled back at me and said "Yeah".

By this point we were only moments from landing. I gritted my teeth.

We landed without any problems. Once on the ground people started relaxing. Neither I nor the other passengers couldn't figure out where the smell of smoke came from.

---The Next Day---

While watching the news I discovered that north of Athens there were large forest fires. Of course. The plane flew right through the smoke of the fires. Mystery solved and another story to tell.