I dreamed I ran into my old friend Karen, heading into the ladies' room. She wore her hair down--as she used to years ago. She had a black boy about 7 years old in tow. I wanted to give him a couple of T shirts I had designed years ago, but he wasn't enthused. I thought he was kind of fussy, but it's true that one had dye stains on it, and the other, that I thought said "Plain Brown Wrapper", turned out to be blank!--a plain boring beige shirt.

NOTES ON WAKING

• T shirts: I'd been going through old art stored in the basement, including T-shirts just like these.
• Defective designs: why was I trying to give away art that wasn't up to standard?
• Karen as she was in the past: ???
• Black child: ???

LATER THAT MORNING...

I called Karen in Texas and told her the dream, just to see if she'd had an instant son or something! A foster child maybe?

She laughed. The night I dreamed it, she'd been up reminiscing with a friend about her fifth high school reunion. She'd been on the event committee; they'd been exchanging updates on their lives, and someone assumed she had to be childless because she wasn't married. That annoyed her, so at the NEXT meeting she showed up with two small boys in tow, kids of a friend... just to mess with the organizers' conventional little heads. And yes, the kids were black...

Next year, she wasn't on that committee!

I'm pretty sure this wasn't coincidence. She'd relived this old story the same night as my dream--even around the same time, as far as I could tell. We've always had a connection, but...

--Lily

EDITOR'S NOTE

If you plow through a lot of purported ESP accounts, and I have, the vast bulk fall into two solidly mundane types: practical warnings/tips urging action, or, like this dream, idly checking up on friends and family--a simple strengthening of bonds. Whatever ESP is, we use it exactly like our five known senses. Given ESP's woolly reputation, I find this amusing--and revealing. Our dreaming brains see it not as a mystical revelation or a threat to scientific paradigms but just a way to bond with our tribe and look over the next hill. In short, a normal sense. We only fuss about its apparent impossibility when awake.

--Chris Wayan

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