Home made rockets

I was giving a lecture to a group of schoolchildren about home made rockets.

The class teacher stood next to me and her attitude made it obvious that she knew that I didn't know what I was talking about.

However I kept prattling on, saying how I had, as a child, built a small rocket from steel piping and launched it into space.

The schoolchildren loved the talk and couldn't wait to get home and try building one for themselves.

No thoughts of Health and Safety or an irresponsible attitude towards schoolchildren.

That's the way to learn.

God Explained

My picture of God

I know you have all been continually wondering about the biggest question in the universe, relax, finally I can give you the answer.
For a while I have been oscillating between ‘god’ and ‘no god’, currently in the ‘no god’ position, the hurdle of ‘where god came from’ proving too big a jump. (not sure about that now, let’s keep it open).
But, suppose humanity keeps on evolving in body, energy and mind for the next billion years or so. Not just us, but the whole universe of life forms, and just perhaps all these civilizations come together and evolve into a fantastic entity called god. Alternatively, we manage to ‘build’ a god like being capable of creating universes etc. Pretty stiff remit I admit.
I accept that Occam’s Razor would frown on such a scenario (perhaps not) but it would probably have done likewise to the idea of mobile phones 500 years ago.
But time is on the side of such a tremendous transition.
My grasp was always tenuous of the concept of a (possible) infinite time stretching backwards and forwards from the present, although the big bang seems to have occurred a finite time ago. The end of this universe also is reckoned to be a finite time in the future.
In an effort to neaten things up a bit, perhaps the past and the future coincide, time being a continuous loop. This scenario is, I believe, not too unlikely, but alas, no easier to grasp.
So, the god of the future, our distant relation, or, built by a distant future universal conglomerate, is the one that created this universe.
And so it goes on.
Further, heaven and hell could be in private ownership, run by the highest or lowest bidder. This is facetious of course but the idea could be expanded almost indefinitely.
I am sure that philosophers have talked about this stuff for thousands of years and probably equates to 1st year studies or less.
It's just a musing.

The Eurofighter

I was camping on the site of a Tesco car park, with sons C and R. There was a loud roar and a Eurofighter appeared overhead and circled our tent at an altitude of only 100 feet. We all ducked down thinking it was going to crash.

The plane then swivelled vertically and landed on its tail, taking off again with a tremendous roar, flames belching from its exhausts.

The fighter then circled again, its pilot giving us a wave, before roaring off into the distance.

All done by computer except, possibly, the wave.

Aeroplanes, Robbers and Exams

I was in an aircraft, light blue in colour, inside and out. It was a small passenger plane piloted by a friend of mine. We came into land on South Street, in the middle of the town. Pedestrians, cars and buses scurried out of the way.
A good landing with around a foot to spare each side.
A short time later there was a commotion in the street ahead. A bank robbery was in progress. Some people had been injured.
I strode up to the three robbers and shot them with a repeating shot gun that had materialised in my hand.
Not long afterwards I sat in a cafe and a friend arrived happily telling me that she had almost passed her university course, just one more easy final exam after lunch. We celebrated over a cup of tea.
An average morning in the life of the Snoring Man.

The Unexpected Visitor

I worked in a big office, not the boss but quite high up, present day.
We got word that Heinrich Himmler, German SS leader was to pay us a visit.
All the other staff then ran out of the building with the exception of myself who remained.
Himmler duly arrived in full uniform and we shook hands.
I showed him round the office, as he had requested, and he seemed genuinely interested in all the various operations.
I had a vague idea of who he was, but perhaps the others had a better grasp of what he had been involved in during the war.
Perhaps their reaction to run away was the sensible course of action.
I was perhaps too gullible or trusting.
Anyway we seemed to get on well and made ourselves a cup of tea.
I was unaware that he had commited suicide near the end of the war.

Dream on Ben Nevis

I was making a jogging ascent of Ben Nevis (unlikely, even in my prime).
The problem was that I was wearing a pair of brown leather town shoes.
I remember these shoes as I wore them in the sixties.
They were not designed for the Ben.
As I ascended, rather slowly, I had to download a black and white dream into my brain.
This kept me busy and I tended to forget my feet.
Makes perfect sense.

Rabbits and the Planning Department

I was out on the back garden of my old council house, watching my two pet rabbits annoy the next door neighbour. The rabbits had a door that led straight onto his garden.
I agreed with his request to remove the door.
I also resolved to improve their water supply which was in an old sink on top of a small brick mountain.
Suddenly three men in suits appeared, with clipboards and measuring tapes. The local planning officers no less. Such superb service.
One immediately started measuring the back garden, marking off triangles.
The others asked for my mother, who was in the house, trying on fur coats and hats with my auntie.
One of the officers shouted, "Its me"
As my mother appeared, he said, "Remember me, it's Mr Mee?"
A hopeful start.

Green Flag Oak

I was in a big old house, comfortable, with a lot of varnished wood and leather furniture.
Several people were there as well but the owner seemed a gaunt old soldier, bit scary. The atmosphere in general was vaguely threatening.
I went upstairs and exited by a back door which led directly onto a green field sloping upwards. Another person was beside me.
Near the top of the field was a huge, ancient, oak tree. Around 100 feet up was a hollow part of the tree. Sticking out of the hollow was a tattered green flag. It looked like a wooden figure was also in the hollow, perhaps holding the flag.
Suddenly the figure jumped down from the tree and ran towards us.
It then became two, then four, finally five.
They were weird creatures, half human, half tree like. (Dryads?)
They spoke to us a lot (don't remember what).
One ran off (the original one?) into the house. I told the others it was dangerous in the house and I would go and get him (her?) back.
One said not to bother as he would use the Dyrac (or Dirac) technique to get him back. He spoke into his hand and the adventurer suddenly reappeared alongside us.
I was quite intrigued by the whole episode but then woke up.

Cycles and Sheds

I bought myself a new bike. Dreamt of doing this before.
Maybe I should follow my own advice.
Anyway, the new bike was a racing model with very narrow wheels.
I gave it a whirl, it could go very fast, even faster as I narrowed the wheels down a bit.
I found I could do this by pure thought. Handy.
I was going faster and faster.
I then became aware that if the wheels were too narrow they would just cut into the road.
So, I achieved a happy but zippy medium.
Zoom . . .
I also found that I had materialised a new bike shed in the middle of the garden. Blocked the view a bit but perhaps materialisers can't be choosers.
Not yet . . .

A Present of Firewood

I was back at my old house. My ex girlfriend lived there. She looked great, suntanned and really attractive.
A whole load of firewood lay on waste ground nearby. It had been pulled out of the 'haunted house' in the woods.
The man who had pulled the firewood out was a gaunt old woodsman.
He told me to take some down to my ex girlfriend. I took a huge piece which was easy to cut up.
She was unimpressed.
There was an old cart with other items from the haunted house. I found an old fiddle in a leather case which had two sound holes rather than the normal one.
I thought I might pinch it for myself.
I hid it in the hallway of my ex's house.
Silly place really.

Car with a little extra.

I was looking at a new car in a showroom. It was a shiny blue hatchback.
There were tiny patches of tastefully coloured glass on the side of the door.
I peered through the glass and saw that the interior was much larger than what the outside would suggest.
Inside, a large curved kitchen was visible, plus loads of food on shelves, looked excellent.
Thought I might just buy it.

Virtually a Ladder

I was trapped on top of a tall building or tower, been there for ages.
I looked over the wall and saw a steel ladder, fixed vertically to the wall, descending to ground level about 60 feet below.
Why had I not seen it before? Possibly because it seemed to blend with the stonework. Was it really there?
I swung myself over the wall, grasped the top rung and started to descend. The rungs were hard to hold onto as they were so close to the wall.
Suddenly my heart lurched, the ladder was no longer there, just stone work. I was gripping onto stone edges. Please come back. Then the ladder gradually reformed, but hazily. I descended even faster before it or I decided it wasn't there again.
Perhaps the world is what you make it.

That sinking feeling.

I was on the surface of a wide river or sea inlet beside a wall of seaweed. I started to sink down and down, passing an undulating wall of greenery.
The water was unnaturally clear and I started to feel disorientated.
Was I going up or down? What way should bubbles go?
I started to panic, the amount of water around me seemed immense.
I tried to struggle back to the surface but I think I just got myself deeper.
Sounds familiar.

Probably influenced by a recent kayak trip to the Tay rail bridge.

The Race

The race was on.
I had another man for company.
We were to race against another team, all men.
We set off at a punishing pace.
A huge empty church loomed ahead.
We decided to cut through the church.
The other team went round to its right.
The church was in complete darkness. My companion stayed near the door. I raced on down the aisle hoping my way was clear.
I ran and ran, but could not reach the other side of the church. I kept on running and shouted over my shoulder to my companion.
I was stunned when I heard his voice beside me. He was still near the entrance. All my running had got me nowhere.
I could never cross the church.
We had lost.
Can't imagine what the moral might be!

Floating Visions

I was somewhere in the north of the world, walking along a river bank, heading upstream. I was with my son Callum.
It was a wide river, swift flowing.
Coming down stream were several floating trees, branches and bushes.
The frequency of this floating foliage increased.
Amongst them were round bushes. Closer inspection revealed that they were concealing egg shaped transparent boats. Within each egg was a woman in blue robes facing backwards. The branches were an attempt to camouflage the eggs.
They looked quite magical.
Callum waded out into the river, seemingly attempting to get a better mobile signal.
He fell face down into the water. I dived in to save him and pulled him ashore.
Most unlikely as he is a far better swimmer than myself.

Avoiding The Funeral

I was driving along to a funeral dry run, ie without the body. I attended the church service and all went well.
The next day I drove towards the real funeral, passing hundreds of parked cars and people heading for the church. I couldn't face attending so I slowly edged past the crowds, hoping I would not be noticed.
Just past the church I entered a white paper tunnel that spiralled downwards for around a mile.
I drove slowly down and near the end, walked the rest into an underground town.
It was a spooky and scary place, old shops and house with unknown doors and tunnels leading off the underground street. All totally deserted.
I knew finding my way back would be problematic.
If I did find my way back I surmised I would find myself back at the funeral.
No escape.

Missing Water

I dreamt that son C and a friend were re sizing the terrapin tank near the back door. They were using their hands to squash and distort the tank. Impossible in reality as it is made of glass. I remonstrated with them and they desisted.
When I awoke I went through to feed the terrapins.
I blinked in disbelief as I saw that almost half the water was missing from the tank, around 10 gallons. The tank was fine the night before.
No sign of the missing water, the floor was dry.
Must not jump to conclusions.

Various Ghosts

1/ Accompanied by a tall female ghost I entered a block of flats and went up to the 3rd floor and entered some rooms.
The rooms were bare of furniture.
The ghost told me that a woman was buried behind the wall. I pulled the wall away and right enough, the decomposed body of a small thin woman was revealed.
Tricky situation I thought.
A ghost of this dead woman then emerged and started to violently struggle with my ghostly companion. Things were getting out of hand.
They didn't improve when the dead woman came to life and joined in the fraca with a view to aiding her ghost.
This was too much for me and I changed channels as it were into another dream.

2/ I was working in an old house with a hollow interior, familiar.
My Dad who was working outside asked me to help him board up a small cellar window for the night.
He would hold a series of boards over the opening with a long bolt and I would go inside and attach a nut and piece of wood to the bolt, that would do the trick.
I crawled into the cellar and along a narrow tunnel to the window opening. After the job was done I peered into a little alcove by the window and found an old diary, camera and spool of film.
We then gathered our tools and went outside to put them in the car.
Blast! Someone had pinched my kayak from the roof of the Volvo.
Peering more carefully I noticed that a ghostly blue shape of the kayak was visible on the pavement.
Not completely gone perhaps.

Hangman's Crack

I looked over a wall and saw a old castle.
Running up one side of the wall was a long shallow groove. Half way up the groove ran a horizontal crack.
The groove continued to the castle battlements, about 100 feet high above the ground.
The groove was a sports rock climb, which ended at the horizontal crack.
On the wall beside me was a small green steel plaque giving details of the climb.
It was called 'Hangman's Crack' and graded Extremely Severe, not a UK sports climb grade.
The plate had been placed there by the 'Climbing Pixie' and there was a cartoon drawing showing this intrepid individual.
Apparently in elder days, people were hanged from the battlements down the line of the groove.
An atmospheric line.

Dog with no name.

A new puppy, 7 weeks old, house training in progress, that's the reality.
He has been sleeping in the kitchen.
The dream was that several people were taking care of him around 8 am. Cleaning up any mess, letting him out, feeding him, morning papers etc.
I thus relaxed into a bit more sleep, fully justified.
Waking up, reality kicks in, as it does for everybody.
I crept though to the kitchen, fearing a terrible mess before tea and toast would be permissable.
No worries, pup still fast asleep, any mess done, he must have cleaned up himself, perfection.
Wagging tail, pleased to see me.
Good doggie.

Self Destruct

I was up to my waist in sea water and wearing a stainless steel helmet.
In front of me was a mortar launcher.
I plopped a mortar bomb down the vertical barrel and watched as it launched upwards for several hundred feet and come straight down onto my head.
I repeated this procedure a number of times and got increasingly impressed by the qualities of stainless steel.

Triple Redundancy Tower System.

I was living in a three tower system which was absolutely massive.

Standing between them they often could not be 'seen' due to their unnatural size. They went up to the edge of space.

Lifts went up inside them but took all day to get to the top. People strapped themselves in and it was worth getting to know your fellow lift travellers to pass the time.

The towers had everything that was needed to survive. Each was similar to the other. I remember running through a church at one point so I could find a lift going up to the heavens.

The towers were constantly getting built higher.

A job for life.

Thief

I asked my mother if I could steal her purse.
She seemed surprised but agreed.
I asked if she could some money in it first, no point in stealing an empty purse.
So, in went a £10 note.
She then lay the purse on a chair.
I swiftly picked it up and ran off.
Success!

Sometimes a Pencil is only a Rocket

In this dream I was alternating between being a woman and a man and lived in a seaside town.

As the dream progressed I knew I had done it all before.

I designed rockets.

I built and launched a white rocket with a red nose cone and launched it into space. It divided into six smaller rockets, each of which returned to my garden although one went through a neighbours window. These rockets all brought back information from space on how to build another, smaller rocket with unusual properties.

I built this small rocket and prepared to launch it from the glass pleasure dome on the front.

But the residents of the town heard about the launch and surged onto the front to stop the take- off. At this point green sea creatures emerged from the surf and duck taped everybody except me. Nobody else could move or speak. I had disguised the rocket as a pencil and held a bunch of them to hide the rocket.

The rocket took off from my hand on schedule, soared up through a sky light in the pleasure dome and out into space.

It then returned and entered the body of a person in a glass case near to where I stood. The person then reanimated, got out of the case, walked over towards me and merged.

The whole episode then started all over again.

The cycle of life and death continued.

Nice Steam Engine

A familiar dream.

I go into an underground toy shop with my son and find both my parents sat on a park bench. There are various shops around all selling toys down the ages.

There is one open area where a toy steam engine is runnng around a track in a large room. Sort of has a Christmas atmosphere.

I point the engine out to my son and the engine leaves the track and comes over to us like a pet dog. We stroke the engine and it seems pleased and rolls back onto the track to continue its circumnavigation of the room.

I know that some reality law has been broken but decide that its not too weird and the world carries on.

Submarines

I was a crew member on a submarine, probably British. We were being chased by a Russian submarine. Our boat surfaced and we all got out onto the deck. It was a grand sunny day.The Russian submarine then surfaced about 100 yards away. It was really sinister looking, very dark and covered with green slime and seaweed.

Their crew came out on deck as well and the boat slowly cruised alongside and then in front of us.

I waved to one of the Russians, he gave a tentative wave back.

They all seemed so young and I couldn't believe that they may try and kill us all.

It all seemed so pointless.

Could that wave have made a difference?

Surfacing from sleep, I never found out.

Lunch Time Adventure

A recurring dream I have had since childhood.
Its lunchtime and we all file into the dining hall.
There is a rush for the large tables and all my class end up round one of them.
I am left out and have to find a space at the table of another class.
That is the usual scenario.
This time I end up seated alongside a young guy from the year below me.
Then, oddly, the entire roomful of people follow me out of the dining hall and over to a derelict building.
I lead the way up a crumbling wooden staircase and along a dangerous corridor.
Sounds of distress behind me as various schoolchildren fall through the rotten floorboards.
Then in front of me, over a large gap, I see a red canoe.
I know this to be some sort of salvation for us all.
But how to reach it . . .

The School Train

I had my childhood train set laid out on the floor of a big barn.
It ran from a station uphill to the door at the top of the barn.
Powered by clockwork, it looked good and worked well.
As I was looking at it I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. It was a tiny child running to catch the train. More followed and boarded the train. All wore school uniform and had schoolbags.
Then, without me touching it, the train moved off and trundled along, up to its destination. I watched as the children disembarked and run out of the top barn door.
The train waited at the top station presumably for the schoolchildren when they came out of school.
The whole episode didn't seem that odd and I was pleased that the train set had some use.
Then the barn filled with wasps, not so pleasing.
Some balance law had asserted itself.

The German Shepherd

I was going to get a new dog.
It was an alsation, belonging to a German butcher in Perth. I believe there was a butcher's shop in my town, owned by a German (Kumerer?) in my childhood.
Of course they are now and probably originally called German Shepherds although I think the word 'German' was dropped after the war, but its now back again.
Anyway, the dog was brought to me by the German and it hid behind my back.
He told me it was an old dog but I was welcome to keep it.
The dog's face seemed remarkably intelligent and looked at me as if it had a lot of stories to tell.
I thanked him and gave the dog a crust.
Woof.

Terrapins and Eggs

I am looking after 3 terrapins.
It was Easter time and I had a large chocolate egg filled with foil covered mini eggs, around 50 of them.
I ate half of the big egg and decided to hide the remaining half together with all the mini eggs. Predators in the house you see.
But where?
Of course, float the half egg and contents in the terrapin tank.
Then I got hungry again.
Off to the tank to find the terrapins had scoffed the lot, 50 mini eggs, silver paper and all.
Only a fragment of the half egg floated forlornly.
A wreck.
Their owner would be furious, how could they survive eating all that armoured chocolate?
I got up and rushed through to the terrapins.
They were all alive and were still hungry.
No trace of the half egg either.