WAYAN'S DREAM

In San Francisco, out near Cliff House. Rocky heights. My friend Mike leads me west toward the sea. We meet his wife Nic.

Dark clouds. Lightning. Close, brilliant, scary. We shelter in an apartment building. Mike finds a secret chamber. Blasted out of concrete and rock with dynamite, it still shows the drillholes and pocks. Puddles; indeed I get a strange feeling we're under water here, can't explain why. Steep, narrow climb up rough ledges--barely steps--to a window and roof. But it's burnt--lightning-struck! I'm uneasy. Rain's getting in--if it reaches the wiring, no need for a lightning strike to kill us. Water all over...

I say "It's not safe in here." Argue this is a terrible place to stay in a lightning storm, we KNOW it attracts hits. "I'm going home."

Nic asks about the route home--I suggest "through Golden Gate Park, then over one of the passes through the central hills, then diagonally across the Mission." At least homes & trees shelter that route. The beach is too exposed in a thunderstorm.

Mike ignores me and keeps exploring. I figure he thinks I'm a coward--feel ashamed. But I've hit my stress limit; I need safety and rest (and pain pills--I'm starting to hurt).

A second secret chamber. Smaller, but similar. Lightning-scorched, roof damaged, rain gets in...

I say "Shouldn't we tell the management? This is a fire hazard!" Mike ignores me, climbs on.

Now he wants to find out what this building is. Goes out front. No number, no front door! Instead, just a steep wooden ladder for an entrance, like a Pueblo house. Mike climbs up... another steep climb!

He recognizes the place. He & Nic lived here long ago. I recognize it too! But not from living here. I DREAMT it years ago--ladder, chamber, locale. Psychic dream!

But then I feel skeptical; I must verify it, and it'll be hard to find in my journal--so long ago it may be in paper journals I haven't transcribed--if so, hell to find! My handwriting's awful... And what if it's NOT predictive but pseudo-psychic? This corroboration scene, finding that old dream-building is real, may be a dream TOO. I've had that before...

But I don't pursue this possibility I'm dreaming right now. Just a quick flash of lucidity, as quickly dismissed. At the time.

MIKE'S DREAM

I'm climbing outside a structure on a metal stair so steep it's almost a ladder. It's unsafe--and scary.

I feel responsible for a woman who my wife Nic has been trying to help recently; in the dream, there she is, scrambling above me, zooming ahead recklessly, while I lag--climbing slowly, full of fear. Almost a nightmare...

NOTES NEXT DAY (WAYAN)

Hmm. Mike, Nic, ladder-climbing, danger, fear, trailing a reckless friend who minimizes the danger... O Skeptic Reader, whose dream did I just summarize?

Note how inside my dream I conclude it's psychic, and next day comes evidence it was. The dream seems to be flagging itself as extrasensory, not purely internal.

Such self-flagging dreams don't demand belief in ESP. Say you dream your brakes are bad, and then a figure in the dream says this is literal, not symbolic; so when you wake, you check your brakes, not your ability to say no. That's self-flagging. Or a dream figure mentions lucid dreams, prompting you to go lucid. Self-flagging! Yet neither involves ESP (or auras, or tofu; fear not, O Squeamish Reader.) ESP and self-flagging are independent; neither implies the other.

What self-flagging does imply is that your dream-process can on occasion be both self-aware... and helpful.

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