I'm flying effortlessly. Well, my bed is. Grab one pillow just before it falls out.

I know that if my bed can fly, this is a dream, so I can fly too. And do a hell of a lot of other things. Doesn't mean I test it yet. Feel a slight nagging to; need to practice until using my full powers becomes automatic--in ANY continuum, waking or dream. Progress comes from exercising one's full skills, more than from radical innovation. But... I like just floating along in bed. Sunny day, grassy plain, rugged hills to the east, a blue line to the west: the sea? I'm floating toward the beach.

A huge flock of birds drifts by. Going just a meter a second faster than me, so they almost seem to hover, though judging by the ground, we're all flying along fast enough. One slow black bird big as a car, like an atmospheric manta. A hawk coasts along right under its tail, riding its wake. Two dogsized ravens orbit the giant. One croaks "Faster, faster." Some of the smaller birds (still big) around us also mutter and grunt "Faster". They make it sound birdy, but it's definitely English.

My bed and the birdflock are above a beach now; north and south, distant desert hills; west the sea; east, a flat, dry-grass valley, nearly treeless. A winding estuary, but the creek feeding it's nearly dry this season.

Humanity? On the beach, a military truck and a delivery van (UPS!) but no roads or buildings in sight--and I can see miles. What, were they airlifted in? Surely they didn't drive 300 km down the beach...

I suspect this is southwest Morocco, onshore from the Canary Islands, right on the Sahara's precarious edge.

If I really DID fully exercise my powers I'd do my shamanic job: develop this lonely place's ecological base so that both people and wild animals could coexist and interact. THIS place wants drought-tolerant trees. Need to add more desert date-palms in mountain canyons and here on the plain, for shade and food but also to make it a bit cooler, more humid, enough to make that winding little creek perennial, or at least last through most dry years. Then try drought-tolerant orchards in the bottomlands for fruit and nuts AND to anchor the people; the few here now are outsiders paid to mine or survey; they don't see the land as theirs, or worth caring for. You need locals committed to greening the valley. A few herders in the rocky hills aren't enough. Reserve a strip along the creek of mixed grass and groves for wild creatures to live in, but also as a sponge and filter for water, and as a migration corridor inland to the desert mountains...

...and also offering side-paths out to meet the newly settled humans, if they're curious. These talking birds are a sign that animals here are evolving into people. Exposure to tech-pioneers on their own terms, not capture or domestication, will speed that.

Wait, what am I planning? This isn't the material world. If these talking birds are dream entities... what sort of wild spirits am I inviting to join us?

Oh, who cares? The place is near-barren now. Welcome them in! Can't do worse than humans.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Giant talking birds: common on Abyssia, the alternate Earth I'm building for Planetocopia. But what do they mean in the dream world? People, but not human ones. Maybe inner voices I rely on, that humans see as abnormal: autism, freakish IQ, second sight... dreams themselves?
• "Faster, faster": they were going at least a BIT faster, without trouble. And I HAVE been drifting along at air-speed. Chronic illness most of my adult life taught me extreme caution; but I'm healthier now. Push a bit!
• Using skills: may be literal, but also... use the tools I buy! My new phone just sits in its box, digital mixer (for music demos) sits on the floor...
• Migration corridor to & from wild to civilization: Personally? Set up my life to make it easier for me to experiment socially--go out or retreat without high cost. But it could be literal too: I LIKE how wild animals are resettling suburbs and cities. Why should they want to live in the wild? Few of us want to. "Nasty, brutish and short."
• SW corner of Morocco, dry plain, push desert back:
  1. The Sahara's edge, where irrigation, tree planting & land-use really affects what the land becomes--for good or ill. I think this corner of the world means fragility but also potential. That's me, all right. Neglected or exploited, I turn barren. Tended, I can bloom... gradually.
  2. Morocco invaded Western Sahara just to the south, and the world's let them keep it. The locals have fought & suffered for decades now without even the weak support & aid given to the Palestinians or Syrians. I think this means both injustice and neglect.
• ACTION 1: Drink more water, eat more fruit, clearly. Irrigate my own body! But what else?
• ACTION 2: Fill my calendar with optional events so it's easy to go out--but easy to bail out, too. Don't be dependent on rides with others, for example. Migration corridors go both ways: it's equally important for ME, as an autistic, to feel free to return to the wilderness when I get overwhelmed.
• ACTION 3: Speak out about Western Sahara's unjust occupation.
• ACTION 4: Don't just drift--flap your wings a bit. Follow those inhuman instincts. It's not like humanity's much of a role model.

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