I'm in my parents' house, in the hall outside my old bedroom, talking to a friend (an older man) about a machine running in my bedroom doorway. It's electric, larger than a toaster, pumplike, whirring. Perfectly common in this world, yet later when I wake, I can't identify it. What's it do? For some yards around it, you get the feeling you're in a car: faint vibration, sudden mild gravity/acceleration shifts corresponding to turns and stops. But that's not its purpose, just a side effect. Everyone here's familiar with it and ignores the effect. I'm sitting on the smooth linoleum floor; when a specially strong wave pushes me across the hall several feet. I could have braced my self easily but I let it push me, even help a little, enjoy the propulsion.

I ask "Has it ever occurred to you that this is an extraordinary side effect? This household appliance is a gravity generator! Not a strong one, I admit, probably less than 0.1 g, but millions of them across the country are pushing objects around and no one's thought to make the side effect the MAIN effect. Might build tractor beams, antigravity... Why has no one followed the implications of this effect?"

My friend is shocked. It's true. He's dismissed it like everyone else! Why? It violates every law of physics we know. Yet he's ignored it.

NOTES ON WAKING

• The effect = on the Simpsons last night, Lisa told Bart "the Coriolis effect makes tubs drain counterclockwise, except in the southern hemisphere." When they visit Australia and stay in the American embassy, an elaborate pump on the toilet makes the water spin "correctly." Doubly funny since Lisa's wrong and Bart's right: tubs and sinks are too small for Coriolis, they drain randomly. Anyone can check, yet who bothers? Like Galileo dropping cannonballs off the Tower of Pisa. The pop myth is so strong I'm unsure if the writers were joking on one level or two. Did they KNOW the Coriolis Flush is bogus or do they too buy the urban myth?
• The gravity-field feels like a car trip = do household appliances really generate fields that make us feel "driven"? Some studies suggest sixty-Hertz AC creates fields that stimulate cells--and potentially irritate them. It sure ain't meditation-alpha...
• Overlooked value: the dream suggests value not toxicity. A value, a potential millions ignore. What is it? Maddening...

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