While I was driving around in the Appalachian mountains, I realized that I was traveling in a three-dimensional vector system, in which direction and speed were joined by height. I suppose I could more simply describe the changes in my position as moving in three-dimensional coordinates, but that doesn't take into account my changing speed. I was able to start reviewing trigonometry while traveling, and I hope to continue my review this year and get mathematical again. I have come to realize that mathematics is a spiritual path that does not concentrate on emotion, which makes it attractive to me rather than the anti-intellectualism of most contemporary religions.

I recently had a dream about Asheville, North Carolina. I dreamed that I had moved there and had a nice apartment in an old building filled with antiques. But in the dream, I had forgotten where I lived, and though I had a bright shiny new key, I couldn't find my home or the door. I walked up the stairs and found nothing but a ceiling above me, not another floor. A rational person would say, "This is because you really don't have an apartment in Asheville." There is no Trader Joe's in Asheville, so I am unlikely to move there.

I have had the "trapped in a building" dream more times than I can count. I also have dreams about being lost in a big city, either one I know (like Boston) or one I do not recognize. Sometimes, as in the aforementioned dream, it is a combination of being trapped and lost at the same time. I keep running through corridors, up and down stairs, entering into rooms and leaving them, then down through other corridors that lead nowhere, or into more rooms which lead into smaller and smaller chambers, until I reach a dead end. I can look out of windows sometimes and see open areas, but there is no way to get to them.

Tradition says that dreams mean something, but current scientific opinions state that they mean nothing, and are just some kind of mental re-shuffling that goes on while you are asleep. If that is so, then I wonder why I so often dream about being trapped in a building with no way out, rather than the more usual dreamish material people experience. If I have sweet dreams, I never remember them. All my dreams are unpleasant. I would rather have dreams about trigonometry, which does offer a way out as long as you have the proper angles.

Posted at 2:19 am | link