Dreams – Page 2 – Kai Staats

Over the Sun We Shall Go!

Footsteps in the Wind
Just a few nights ago, I slept beneath the shelter of a tent in the Stanage National Forest, near Hathersage, England, and awoke to the sound of a light rain and the wind whipping the camping permit against the stretched nylon with a nearly steady rhythm, footsteps echoing down long, narrow corridors.

I held to the image and poetic composition of my dream: an old, tall, thin man, arms waving, running without apparent destination, overwhelmed by the obvious, pending doom. He wore a tattered black top hat, a long, black tail coat split at the bottom and pointed, broken shoes. His bare, white ankles shown just below the limit of his dusty trouser legs, the cuffs of his once-white shirt longer than the coat. He was bent over as he moved, compensation for his unusual height more than for pain in his back or defect in his bones.

He was, in the Hollywood tradition of pre-industrial revolution London, wide-eyed and mad, going on about things which the mass of equally ragged individuals around him generally ignored.

In this dream, I was a child who could not ignore such a man, even crazy as he was, for what he said hurt deep within me. The concept that there could be nothing new was too much to bare without challenge.

And so the exchange unfolds …

There is nothing new under the sun!

“There is nothing new under the sun!”
I once heard a man cry.
I looked across the crowd,
called to him and asked “Why?”

He stopped, considered,
and then came to my side.
“Innovation, invention, and creativity cost.
It’s an accepted principal that new ideas are lost.”

“We just recycle what is here,
to use again and again.
Something truly new?
Well, that would not be what has been.”

And with a touch of his hat,
and a brief, shameful grin,
he shook my hand
and then bounded down the street again.

“There is nothing new under the sun!
… nothing new under the sun!
… under the sun!”
his voice fading into the clamor and din.

I was moved, yes,
but impressed I was not.
The answer was clear to me,
for the sun is indeed quite hot.

But to live without risk,
that’s not living at all.
To avoid the light of the sun,
is to avoid the call.

And so I ran in the opposite direction,
with a confident, wide grin, yelling,

“Over the sun we shall go!
Over the sun we should seek,
for there the ideas are new,
and the innovations replete.”

In the summer of 2010, this poem was put to music by singer/song-writer James Hersch and enjoyed via the embedded audio player, here:

By Kai Staats|2018-09-08T16:42:19-04:00October 7th, 2009|Dreams|0 Comments

The Stars’ Embrace

Preface
As dreams go, they are in many respects out of our conscious control, even if lucid dreaming. While individual choice may be available, the context, the dreamscape in which the dream unfolds is often presented to the dreamer, a call to adventure, a risk of the unknown.

In this particular dream, I was at the very opening granted a background of strong emotion but few facts, only enough to enabled me to understand the otherwise bizarre terrain and conditions in which I found myself.

I have inserted my photos of the lava flows below Kilauea, Big Island, Hawaii, taken in 1991 and 2006.

Fire’s Edge

Marooned
I stood a half dozen steps behind Karaen and Chao. Both of them already stripped of their field gear, they wore only light, grey-white pants and a darker, tight, short sleeve top made of the same, synthetic fabric. Chao wore his shirt tucked into his pants while Karaen long ago gave up the regimen of dress code and as I watched, removed her shirt altogether. She stepped back from the fierce heat as it now reached out and tore at her bare chest, burning the ends of her long, black hair. The river of molten rock that passed just to their front, ten meters broad and seemingly just as deep, cut through a red rock canyon uninterrupted by anything living or even reminiscent of life.

I was not prepared to watch someone die whom I had come to care for so deeply. So many years in training, living within nearly impossible, cramped quarters, and then exploration of this relentless alien world. Our time together as brothers and sisters, as superiors and lovers left us without need for additional words, our decision set in motion days prior.

It reminded me of too many times watching a loved one pack her things in what I cognitively knew was the last goodbye, but inside so many words continued to press against the back of my throat with desire to reconnect and try again. If only I could present the missing solution, the one we had not yet discovered, maybe then we would find a way to stay together, a way to survive this hostile world, to ignore the reality of our situation. There is always a way, I told myself over and over, there is always a way.

Our base camp, our shelter, our rations, and our communication back to Earth had been completely destroyed. We had what we could carry on our backs and in our hands, no more. We tried to repair what we could find of our equipment, but there were only the three of us now, with no hope for assistance from an orbiting ship, for it had long ago left for the voyage home. It would be years before anyone would know what had become of our mission, the time required to communicate far greater than the time we had available under any scenario we had explored.

Now we sat on the edge of a fast, smooth lava flow moving as a river of silver and black by day, orange and red by night. The surface swirled slowly with eddies and bubbles of varying temperature and chemical composition. We had been transfixed for countless hours, without conversation, the two of them steadily moving closer, me remaining further behind, still seeking resolve for a debate long since settled.

Suddenly, Karaen took the final few steps to the river’s edge. She didn’t look back to me nor to her right, for we had said goodbye days earlier. I could see that the heat of the river was already burning her bare skin, but she felt nothing then nor when she dove headfirst into the flowing fire. She was nearly instantly consumed, without struggle, without a sound. Only the momentary breath of a dragon as the thick surface of the flow was broken, the molecules of her hair, skin, muscle, bone, and DNA fully consumed.

I felt as though I had been kicked in the stomach. I wrapped my arms around myself and twisted from side to side. This is not how it was suppose to end. This is not the dream we had shared. The final three astronauts of a failed mission stranded on a barren, red stone planet whose bold blue sky met undulating cliffs cut not by running rivers of water and life, but by magma which had found its way to the surface through relentless pressure and little concern for time.

To my front and right, my final companion did not appear to notice when the lava river was momentarily satisfied by the sacrifice of a human form. He sat on the edge of a rock shelf, palms down at his side pressing to the stone, arms flexing in preparation. His head low and stare forward, he dangled his bare feet above the fire. I did not understand how he could tolerate his position, just a few meters above the surface, for even at my distance I involuntarily turned from side to side, my arms unwrapping in order that my hands could shield my face.

Chao raised his head, looked out to the other side of the fiery river, and for just a moment his body was lifted from the rock shelf and suspended from his shoulders. He kicked his legs out and then his body lept down into the lava. Feet, legs, torso, and head disappeared without struggle, a torch of light and sound shooting from the momentary opening his form created.

Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. The spirit is set free through the fire of rocket propulsion, energy to explore the stars. But in the end, it is the original creative process, the one that formed the stars themselves which recalls even the most independent soul, demanding, ‘Return to me and I will consume you.’

I stood there, alone, weeping, shifting to one leg and then to the other. I repeatedly walked toward the river of lava and away again when the heat became too intense. While completely illogical, I scanned the river bank, hoping to see my lost companions resurface. I wanted to join them. I did not desire to be alone, completely alone. I tried to let go, to run and jump without concern for the pending moments of pain. But I could not. My legs simply would not carry me to that end.

After an hour, maybe more, knowing I would never again find warmth in the embrace of another human nor share a conversation with anyone but myself, I reached down, lifted my backpack, took what remained of my companions’ rations, then turned and walked up the undulating hill of nearly seamless red stone.

Our orbital surveys had shown traces of flowing water in the highlands, and in my mind I pictured fields of green. To this place I would go. Even if it did not exist, I would try. I tightened the familiar straps over my shoulders and linked the waist belt to hold my only chance of survival tight to my body, I climbed up, away from the heat and the fire and the loss, to the intangible sky above the darkening, red horizon.

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:46-04:00May 3rd, 2009|Dreams, Looking up!|0 Comments

The River’s Edge

I was sitting across from the order pickup counter, in the third from the end of a double-sided row of booths that ran the length of this one-room, inner city diner. The main entrance was to my back. To my left, across the isle and along the outside wall of the restaurant, another row of booths, each filled with anticipating or recently satisfied patrons.

The original construction was likely ’50s or ’60s, but the vinyl seats were relatively new, the tile floor repaired so many times that fewer original pieces remained than those which were replaced.

I sat facing a large, multi-pane window at the end of the restaurant opposite the entrance. I took note of the river, brown and gray, whose surface was without substantial features. It ran parallel to the outside wall of the restaurant, from left to right. The river’s bed was maybe eight or nine feet lower than the city grade, its banks gently sloped, brown leaves over green, a confused mid-state between winter and spring. The water was cold in the overcast light, low clouds obscuring any view of the sun and sky.

I was with two men, business associates I believe, for we were wearing button-down shirts tucked into our pleated slacks. The man seated across from me had arrived with a long rain coat, the kind that is worn over a suit in cities like Chicago, Boston, or New York. He carried a briefcase which rested open on the end of the dining table, adjacent to the partition between our booth and the one on the other side. This dream did not provide much detail for the man to my right, seated on my side of the booth.

Through my small portal to the outside world, I lost focus on the intent of the meeting. My business associates spoke to one another, waving hands and tapping fingers on printed figures whose sheets lay scattered between three times filled yet half empty cups of coffee and small plates which held the remains of a quickly consumed lunch.

I did my best to pay attention to the conversation, and yet I remained transfixed to the water whose swirling brown eddies carried white bubbles and debris through elliptical orbits eventually overwhelmed by the rules of gravity and flow. I looked down to my hands on the table, then up to my associates’ faces, giving a well-timed, polite nod of approval to something I did not fully comprehend; then back to my front and again the window.

One of the eddies broke open, water thrown to the sides as a woman’s head broke the surface and rose from the river. Just a dozen feet from the bank, she struggled to bring herself upright, exhausted and I could only imagine, very cold.

I stood half way up from my seat, as far as the confines of the table would allow, holding myself upright with my hands as much as my legs.

The woman found purchase in the river bottom and half walked, half pulled herself toward the shore. She looked back over her shoulder with some difficulty, reaching to take the hand of a child whose body just broke the surface. The young girl could not have been over the age of twelve years.

As they pulled themselves onto shore, the river continuing to flow over their bare feet, I noticed that both were wearing dresses that I would place in the 1700s, something now found only in theater or a movie. Plain, worn, and tattered from work and wear. Their hair was wet, gray and brown and streaks of black intermingled, as though they had been in the river so long to absorb its color.

I had stood fully now, sliding from the end of the booth. The woman and child lay on the river bank, grass and leaves beneath their palms, knees and sides. I noticed the translucent nature of their dresses, the cloth soaked and clinging to their shaking bodies.

As I watched them gain their feet, I realized with some level of disbelief that it was not the dresses that were transparent, but the woman and girl themselves, for I could see the bank of the river through them.

The girl clung to the woman’s hand and thigh, the skin of her outstretched hands as colorless as the dress. The woman turned, looked over her left shoulder away from the child, and stared directly at me from across the river, up the bank, and through the diner window. Even at this distance, I received the moment of her stare as though she were standing before me. I received anger, pain, and fear, causing me to intentionally hold back my own emotion.

I quickly looked back to my associates, to the two men at my table. They saw my face, followed my stare out the window, and back to me again.

The man across from me, his back to the diner window and river asked, “What’s wrong?”

“There,” pointing to the window which overlooked the river, “a woman and child just came out of the river. I, I think they nearly drowned. There, look, can you see them?”

Their heads turned quickly to the window, as did a few others in the restaurant having overhead my statement, or curious for what we witnessed outside. The two men rose from their seats and quickly followed me to the window. Those seated in the last booth recoiled with discomfort as we pressed ourselves to the window, one of the men kneeling on the edge of their booth.

But no, they did not see them, nor now could I. I aggressively pressed myself to the window, forcing the others, which now included a woman who sat at the last booth, out of my way. I looked frantically from side to side, scanning the full bank of the river that was visible to me.

“They’re gone. God, what could have happened? I need to go see if they are alright.”

I turned back to face the restaurant. A good majority of its patrons were now looking at me and the commotion by the last booth near the window. It was oddly quiet for a restaurant. Even the waitresses had stopped serving. Someone mentioned calling nine-one-one, but posed it more as a question than a command.

I hurried back to our booth, intent on gathering my things. My associates walked behind me, quiet, unsettled, I was certain. I paused for a moment, questioning what I had seen, not certain now of my own integrity of my own experience.

The man who sat to my right slid past me and into the booth. As I stood there, not certain what to do, I lost my balance, stumbled and knocked an emptied soup bowl and spoon to the floor. Startled, the waitress moved quickly to assist me, as did my associate who was nearly seated, but I was already kneeling on the floor to collect the fallen ware.

The three of us saw what had happened next, at the same time, and simultaneously froze.

I set the bowl upright, on the floor, and then placed the spoon in the bowl before bracing myself to rise. I reached for the bowl, but before I could make contact, the spoon flipped to the other side as though my hand were magnetic and of an opposite charge.

I nearly lost my balance and looked up to see if anyone had noticed. They were both silent, intent upon the bowl, then me, and the bowl again. I reached again. The spoon spun a full circle in the bowl, the ladle in the center, the handle riding around the rim.

I pulled back and nearly sat down. I looked at the bowl and spoon, my hands, and then back to the bowl and spoon again. I waved my right hand over the bowl in a circular motion and the spoon spun wildly, round and round and round for as many times as I motioned with my hands, even continuing for a full turn of its own momentum.

The waitress stepped back and uttered a sound that was somewhere between a shriek and a reprimand, as though I should know better than to do such things in her restaurant.

Now one knee and one hand on the floor, I looked up. My business associate was staring with such focus that nothing I did at that moment could not have distracted him from the bowl and spoon.

My other associate, to my left, had now risen from his seated position in the booth and while leaning over the table, nearly fell when his arms gave way to the weight of his trembling torso.

I felt cold, anxious, and scared. The image of the woman’s eyes reaching mine was mixed with fear and delight. Sweat ran freely down my spine and the front of my chest. Even my neck was warm, on this otherwise cold, wintry day.

I looked up, not to any one person but across the whole restaurant. Words pressed against the back of my throat, an acidic bile that I tried to swallow. My stomach convulsed, and then I said, “They’re coming.”

And at that instant someone at the far end of the isle in which I crouched cried out, and the whole assembly of the patrons were immediately aware of the sound of dozens of footfalls, wet human feet moving across the restaurant tile.

I looked down to the bowl again, then rose up to my feet with the bowl and spoon in hand. I looked down to set them on the table, and when I looked up again the woman and child from the river bank stood before me, and behind them a dozen more pairs of women and children, some boys, some girls.

All were wet and cold with shivering pale blue gray skin, their feet bare and bodies covered with ragged dresses, nothing more. More opaque now than what I observed before, but not entirely solid, I wanted to reach out to touch the woman to my front but recalled my arm and hand afraid that I would not touch anything at all.

I was torn between wanting to jump over the booth and run or embracing them to give them warmth. But all I could do was sit on the edge of the table while I held the woman’s stare. The girl at the woman’s side held what I now know to be her mother’s hand and thigh, the same as when they crawled onto the river’s bank just moments before.

The woman’s eyes offered no greater detail now then when she was fifty yards away. I could neither feel comfortable nor turn away. I felt a great deal of emotion welling up inside. No end to sadness and despair. I don’t know why, but I said, “I am sorry.”

She looked down at her daughter, then walked past me, all of them followed, wet feet sliding across the tile floor. To the end of the isle and window they walked, and without hesitation, through the wall, to the river, and back again into the water.

One by one, their feet, thighs, their entire bodies and heads disappeared into the eddies. Small white bubbles swirled round where the last of their flowing gray, brown, and black hair submerged.

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:46-04:00April 18th, 2009|Dreams|0 Comments

An Afternoon Swim

Pulled into a corner gas station, not unlike the Circle-K at the intersection of McDowell and 7th Avenue in Phoenix. A young gas station attendant came out of the retail store front, greeting me and a few friends. He was light skinned with blond hair and glasses. An older, slightly chubby Harry Potter.

He walked toward the corner of the lot which had three or four slabs of new concrete, still grey and wet. He looked at the concrete pools, turned to us and said, “Watch this!”

Smiling, he jumped into the wet concrete, a good fifteen or twenty feet long and ten wide. He was treading, slowly, with his shoulders above the surface. Then he slowly sunk, still smiling, his arms at the surface at first, then no more. He chin, nose, glasses, and then finally nothing was left. He never struggled nor appeared afraid. We had all moved to the edge of the obviously very deep concrete pour, not certain what to make of this bizarre situation. A moment later his feet kicked through the surface, concrete splashing, and then he was gone.

We stood there, hands on thighs, watching, waiting … but he never came up again.

By Kai Staats|2007-06-13T09:54:59-04:00June 13th, 2007|Dreams|0 Comments

Digital Transmigration

a – Hey, how are you?

b – Good, good thank you. You?

a – Yeah, I’m doing well, thanks. (pause) So how’s work?

b – Work? (pause) Yeah, it’s ok. No. No, it’s better than that –look, that’s why I asked you to come here. I’ve got something to talk to you about.

a – Shit, what happened this time? (smiling)

b – Nothing. Nothing, man. (looks down at the table, coils the drinking straw wrapper around his finger then unwinds it) Well, actually, something … something pretty big.

a – (casually) You in trouble?

b – No, it’s not like that. It’s not like anything I’ve done before.

a – So, fill me in. (smirking) Is it a new tech that looks really good in white?

b – (smiling, quickly returning to a serious gaze) No, more important than that.

a – More im–

b – Look, give me a second. Sorry. This is not easy to explain.

a – (surprised) Ok, you got it. I’m listening. (playing with the straw in his cola)

b – Follow me for a few moments and I will try to explain. This isn’t easy.

a – (nods)

b – This is a progression of my work on objective spacial orientation.

a – Of course. Your fascinati-, no obsession. What else? (rolling eyes)

b – (ignoring sarcastic comment, frustrated, raises voice mementarily) LOOK! JUST LIS- (pauses, lowers voice), Just listen to me. (looks around) Let’s go back to the basics. Ok?

a – (understanding the gravity of the situation, nods)

b – For any macro, meaning not subatomic nor fundamental object to move from point A to point B, it must travel through the physical space.

a – Of course. A basic set of calc equations can describe this motion.

b – Right. So, that motion from point A to point B takes the particle through a described distance and of equal importance, this motion requires a particular period of time depending upon its velocity.

a – Also well understood and describable.

b – Right. (impatient, nervous) Here me out.

a – Sorry.

b – It’s ok, I just have not yet tried to speak of this new, this new … I have not described it yet so it is not coming out real smooth like.

(takes a breath, looks at the table and back to

[a], then continues)

During the motion of the object, it may interact with any number of other objects in its path, affecting them in one way or another –but always affecting them in such a way that the path of the object, in theory, could be traced by its path of affects, like following the tracks of an animal on a sandy beach.

a – Right. But what if the object is moving through a vacuum?

b – Of course. Then it has an initial velocity, meaning direction and speed, and a terminus as defined by what it hits when it stops. And during its travel, its course of motion is always defined by its relation to its starting point, ending point, or any number of points between.

a – Correct. So —

b – So, the object’s place in its universe is object-centric. Where it is, where it is going, and how fast it is moving to get there are all described according to the other objects around it.

a – Right. But what do you mean by “object-centric”?

b – That we are describing the object’s properties according to those around it.

a – Well, how else would you describe it?

b – So that’s the crux, that’s why I am here talking to you.

a – (leands forward, arms resting on table) I’m listening.

b – What if the objects around the object d-e-f-i-n-e it, that is, what if they determine what and where that object is through a (pause), a sort of … mutual concensus.

a – Huh?

b – What if they “agree” to the properties of the object?

a – I was following you for a while. Basic macro physics. But you lost me.

b – I know, it still evades me. It’s really hard to describe. I can f-e-e-l it more so than describe it. Give me a moment (pauses, plays with drinking straw wrapper again). I think I –I know I discovered something pretty amazing. But it will sound crazy.

a – I would expect nothing less of you (smiling).

b – My research has shown that the position and definition of an object, macro or sub-atomic is not quite as rigid as we have assumed.

a – Rigid?

b – Yeah, rigid. Defined. Solid. Objects can migrate from point A to point C without passing through point B. In fact, without moving at all.

a – I don’t get it.

b – Take the motion we agree to, that which defines all objects in motion according to the basics of Newtonian mechanics and call it analog migration. Then consider the potential for an object to be at point A one moment and the very next moment, without passage of time, at point C.

a – Are you talking about the breakdown of Newtonian mechanics and subatomic particle creation?

b – No.

a – You lost me again.

b – Listen. I think I have discovered something really important. It seems that the objects around a particular object define its position through an agreement of sorts, a mapping of space and time. And if they all agree that the object is no longer at point A but instead at point C, the object can instantly be in the new location.

a – Objects agreeing?

b- (frustrated) Listen –no, look. Just watch. Watch the straw wrapper.

(And in that instant, the wrapper jumped two inches to the left of its original position without sliding nor moving nor through any assistance by [b] at all.)

a – (stunned, jumps back into his chair, holding the table at a distance) Jesus Chrst! (looking at [b], the table, the wrapper, and back to [b] again) Shit. What just– what did you jus– How the hell did you do that? What did you do?

b – I didn’t really _do_ anything. I just ‘suggested’ that the wrapper _be_ somewhere else. There were no objections. No one disagreed. And then it just transmigrated.

a – Who agreed? Transmi-whatrated? Who agreed?

b – Not “who”, but “what”. And yes, it t-r-a-n-s-migrated.

a – You’re scaring me (pause, laughs uncomfortably) Can you do that again?

(the wrapper instantly reappeared back in its original position)

a – (taking a deep breath) Oh god. Holy shit. (slapping his hands on the table) Ok. Ok. Wait. Ok. Shit.

b – (smiling, nervously)

a – Can you show me how to do that?

b – Not certain. I don’t even know how I do it. It just happened.

a – What do you mean it just happened. What just happened. Where you hit by lightening? Did aliens shove something up your ass? Did you discover some amazing drug or something? (grabbing his water glass) Did you drug me?

b – No, it just happened. About six months ago.

a – What just happened? Why did you wait six months to tell me? This is incredible!

b – Remember when we were kids and after seeing Star Wars, we would lie on our bed at night and try over and over and over again to make something on the other side of the room move, our arms outstretched and fingers trying to direct the force?

a – (laughing) Yeah. Wait, are you telling me you can use the force?

b – Sort of. Maybe. (tapping fingers on table) I’m not certain. I just never stopped trying. It’s sort of a meditation for me sometimes when I need to focus my mind. You know, to just focus on one thing and shut everything else out.

a – And it just worked?

b – Not at first. It’s a little strange, that is, to tell you how it happened.

a – It can’t be any more strange than what you have just shown me.

b – Right, ok. (obviously relieved to have made it this far) So I was sitting my bath tub and, well … I was trying to just make the nob on the end of the tub turn because the water was getting cold. But I was trying to do it with my mind.

a – And it worked?

b – I think so. I must have fallen asleep because all I know is that I awoke to the water nearly running over the edges of the tub, the overflow hole doing its best to drain the excess.

a – What if it was just your foot, or maybe you turned the knob in your sleep?

b – Yeah, I thought of that. Except that when I awoke, the knobs for the hot and cold water were reversed. And not just the knobs, but the plumbing too. Hot was cold and cold was hot.

a – What? Are you k-i-d-d-i-n-g? (scared look on his face)

b – No. I wish I was. It scared the shit out of me. I thought I was dreaming but I could not wake up. The bath tub is still like that, switched.

a – Shit.

(silence … both just looked at their hands, the table)

b – And it was only later that day that I realized I had fallen to sleep in the tub while trying to turn the hot water on with my mind … but I had also dreamt about a time when I was a kid, in a hotel room with my parents, and burnt myself because the hot and cold valves were backward. I was just a kid, but that taught me something really important –the rules can be broken.

a – So you’re saying you fell asleep trying to make the hot water turn on with your mind and awoke with the hot and cold valves replumbed?

b – Yeah, something like that.

a – I don’t really know what to do right now. I’m a little scared. I mean, I mean if I hadn’t seen what you just did I would think you were crazy. Actually, I still think you are crazy. But now I am feeling crazy too. This is, this is messed up. It just doesn’t make sense.

b – But it is beginning to.

a – Beginning to make sense?

b – Yeah, I think so. Look, if I didn’t have a strong background in mathematics and physics I would probably think my bathtub was haunted or that god had given me some gift. But that’s not it. I think this is really important.

a – (nodding) But how did you do it again? I mean without falling asleep in your bathtub? When was the next time?

b – It was another three months before it happened again. I was setting the table for dinner with Jennifer. I had just placed the wine glasses on the right side of the plates, the forks and knives and spoons in their respective places. I turned and walked back into the kitchen and was confused, not fully recalling if the wine glasses were suppose to go on the right or left. I decided that when I would return to the table I would switch the wine glasses to the other side.

a – And when you came back, they were already switched, right?

b – Yeah, exactly. I figured I was just tired, confused, or something. But then it started happening more and more often, eventually every day or so until it became something I could do intentionally.

a – Like with the wrapper.

b – Yes.

a – (shaking head)

b – So I took this to the lab and built a series of experiments to determine what exactly was happening. And the results were, well, useless. I can’t prove a thing, except that it just happens and I can do it over and over again except in one case.

a – What’s that?

b – If I don’t “believe” I can cause the object to digitally transmigrate.

a – You are saying this is a about will power?

b – Actually, it’s about acceptance.

a – I don’t get it.

b – If I try too hard, it doesn’t work. Just like when we were kids trying to move objects using the force. We strained, held our breath, used phrases from the movies –everything we could but it never worked. But in the bathtub, it happened after I fell asleep.

a – You think you are the only one?

b – No, this probably happens to a lot of people and the don’t know, or they write it off to forgetting where they put their keys, or they are locked away somewhere. (pausing) The scientific community has always assumed that to move an object from point A to point C requires energy. An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. Basic Newtonian mechanics.

a – Back to Newton again?

b – Yeah, back to Newton. So maybe we have all been trying too hard. Sending sub-atomic particles through accelerators at nearlythe speed of light and then colliding them into each other to see what comes from the resultant explosion.

a – What wrong with that?

b – Nothing, it accomplished what it should. But what if there is another way, another way to interact that requires little or nor energy at all? Instead, a simple acceptance of something, an agreement by all parties involved, and then it just is.

a – Who are these parties? You? The table?

b – Yes. Me. The table. Even you. We all expect the world to exist in a particular fashion, and so it does. But if we just expect it to exist in some other fashion, maybe it could. Instantly. There is no difference between that wrapper being there (pointing) or there. It’s the same number of molecules, same number of atoms. I am not asking for a change in anything but position. And it just happens.

a – This doesn’t make any sense. Can you prove it?

b – I think I just did.

a – No, you just proved that you are more closely related to the X-Men than your own mother. (pausing, looking at his hands) I don’t think the scientific community is ready for this. No way. They will lock you up.

b – I know. But I have to tell them. They need to know. This changes everything. Everything we are doing.

a – Oh Jesus, I want to be there when you do.

b – Good. I need support. And a good demonstration. (smiling)

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:49-04:00December 27th, 2006|Dreams|1 Comment

Hibernation

Standing outside an apartment. Low lying brick building with a large, black-top parking lot to its south side. Overhanging flat roof kept the sun from directly hitting the pane windows. Well lit, clean, but not new. A sense of disrepair but not uncomfortable. Perhaps a ’40s or ’50s construction. Stepping inside, the kitchen was open to the living room, literally defined by the West and partial North wall of cabinets and utilities. Against the South wall, beneath the window panes a green couch.

The apartment was company rented in conjunction with a new job I took. Not certain of the name nor nature of the company nor my role, but I was required to maintain two additional refrigerators to house what I believed to be biological samples.

There was also a large, above-the-counter oven or microwave (not certain), mounted to the wall, which did not retain a front door and housed a human form, crouched and folded into its interior, arms wrapped around the legs in a severly cramped embrace. An artistic endeavor more so than one of utilitarian intent. Perfectly smooth, white, and made from what appeared to be molded plastic. No fine details. No real sense of the underlying structure nor original master.

[I was confused if this appliance was already present and the body-form inserted or if the entire unit was new. An oddity I was willing, in this dream world, to overlook for the moment.]

There was a woman from the company who delivered the units and helped with the placement. I neither recall her face nor name. We organized the two refrigerators against the North wall, pleased with the balance of the units in relation to the cupboards to the left and doorway to the right which led to the rest of the apartment.

I do not recall living there, as even that first night I had an engagement, a meeting perhaps for I was running late and in a hurry. I searched for my keys, finally found them, and as I briskly walked through the kitchen/front-entry room I was caught by what I believed to be a change in the body-form in the oven. The face was no longer an amorphous contour of plastic, but much more human like. I looked twice as I could not fully recall how it seemed to have appeared before, nor even if it had truly changed. But now I recognized a hint of blue eyes and pale skin in place of opaque, white plastic. Troubled by my lack of recollection for what was and what is, I was convinced the twilight was casting shadows. I kept moving in order to make my meeting.

The next morning [I don’t think I slept in the apartment that night, not even certain it was for sleeping, perhaps just for work], I returned to the brightly lit front room and continued to unpack, organize, and clean. Something caught my eye behind. I crawled beneath the left and South most of the kitchen cabinetry, a counter propped not on solid cabinetry, but a legged stand perhaps designed as an eating nook for bar stools.

Pressed between the back of the closed cabinet which housed the sink and the West wall, I discovered a half-cardboard box (the kind used for presentation in warehouse style grocery stores) full of shrink-wrapped Asian pastries. I was thrilled to find my favorite red bean cakes wrapped in sweet, white rice dough with a light powder coating. I simultaneously learned about the previous tenants and gained lunch for the next few days.

I extracted the box from beneath the counter, stood and I turned to walk toward the counter when I felt certain the body-form had moved. I turned, looked upon the oven and I realized the face no longer held any plastic mold at all, but was a solid, full human male face. Bald, pale skin, bright blue eyes which stared straight ahead– no, they moved, they now looked to the center of the room.

God damn it. It moved! A bead of sweat ran down my spine and I could hear my heart in my ears. It fucking moved! The head rocked forward a bit within the confines of its enclosure. I was backing from the oven and this living thing. I have no recollection as to what happened to the Asian pastries nor even how I found my keys, but as I turned to open the front door and leave, it, he was slowly crawling from the oven, stepping onto the floor. Clothed now in a contiguous skin-tight white garment that resembled the once plastic form, his movement was very stiff, robotic, and cumbersome.

As I tore myself from the horrific sight and turned to race to my car, the woman who had helped organize the refrigerators walked in. I said nothing for I could not speak. What was she doing here? And yet it was obvious by her determination that she knew of this creature, had no fear, and had come to its aid.

I ran to my car, not looking back. It was daylight yet my body trembled as it would have in a nightmare. I opened the door via remote, jumped into the driver’s seat, and started the engine.

While it was my intent to drive from that place at top speed, something held me there, kept me from leaving, the engine running. The man who emerged from the apartment leaned heavily on the woman, his body tall and thin and less menacing than when unfolding from the oven. His skin was less pale as movement seemed to have warmed him. And the woman was obviously not afraid. My hands were shaking. The image of his eyes moving for the first time flashed inside my head over and over along with his foot reaching the ground for the
first time. Strange, fascinating, and horrifying.

I wanted to drive away, but I could not. Both of them walked directly to my car, the woman obviously concerned for others seeing this event unfold. I moved the transmission into first gear and then neutral repeatedly, but could not bring myself to engage the clutch.

The man was then leaning against my rear passenger side door, the woman fumbling for the handle while keeping him upright. They slid in and sat in the rear seat together. The door to the apartment remained open. “We didn’t expect this to happen so soon. Let’s go.” We drove away.

* * *

Some time later, although I am not certain when nor where, I was present at an outdoor company picnic or luncheon. The man who had emerged from my apartment oven was the focus of everyone’s attention. His hair had grown in, sand colored and curly. He was thin, like an adolescent who had grown tall disproportionately to the rest of his body, slightly over six foot.

I shook his hand and said, “You gave me a real scare that day,” to which he responded in the English of someone who is learning, “I … I am sorry.” I could not quite place his accent. A former East block country? Romanian? In the background I could hear the laughter and banter of a hundred or more picnic attendees. He smiled. I smiled. He had a warmth to his face now that was pleasant and inviting.

We walked together, a small entourage of curious individuals gathered around, pressing against each other to hear the conversation.

I then asked, “How long had you been in that … that mold?”

He smiled, looked to the ground, the sky, and then to me again, “A long time.”

“Hundre–” I knew I was way off and corrected myself, “Thousa– no,” judging by his immobile smile which said, ‘Warmer … warmer …’ but my brain hurting at the prospect,”… tens of thousands of years?”

“A very, very long time. I was not … living, technically.”

“Hibernation?”

“You could call it that,” again smiling the way a parent smiles at a child who has received an explanation which is appropriate, but intentionally incomplete.

We talked a bit longer about the transition from his home to here. My mind raced, trying to connect what little I knew about this man now, the company I worked for, the absurdity of transporting him in an oven and wondering what would have happened if I had cooked him by accident. Perhaps the mold in which he had survived so long would have protected him; a hibernation system so completely perfected –or was this body even his?

Wait, it started to make sense to me now. Something clicked.

I asked, “How does it feel to be … to be in this body of yours now? How does it differ from what you had before? Do you even remember after all this time?”

He smiled then laughed like a child, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He awkwardly darted a few paces from the crowd, standing in tall brown grass, spread his arms and looking first to his left and then to his right, he exclaimed (to everyone’s amazement, for this was his first bold expression), “I –I did not have these!”

And with that he moved them wildly, up and down while spinning in circles as a bird trying to take flight whose wings were not quite strong enough to carry the burden, yet growing stronger every day. Everyone laughed and applauded.

And then I understood. I laughed too, realizing I was part of something beautiful and historic and terribly important. His body was but a vessel and inside, a miracle that was just beginning to unfold.

By Kai Staats|2017-04-10T11:17:49-04:00February 25th, 2006|Dreams|0 Comments

the animal man

i dreamt i was no longer a machine,
no longer confined to regulations and these mechanical things,
no longer required to follow the strange rules i can not comprehend.

i dreamt i had senses
and a most powerful awareness
that even a master computer could not record.

i could smell the fragrance of a wild flower upon the wind,
the essence of one woman among a thousand filthy men,
and i could hear the fall of water at the river’s end.

my eyes were keen, focused on a world that was new.

it was with powerful legs that i ran.
my lungs knew nothing of pain.
my breath could not be heard.
the placement of my paws not traced
and when the mountains were conquered,
it was the desert through which i raced

but oh god, when i awoke,
i had lost my legs, my paws, my vision.
i was no longer the animal man,
only a human–an incapable, incurable joke.

again programmed by the alarm, wristwatch, and tv.
i have time as my director
and no time to be me.

i live according to mundane, routine tasks,
none of which are satisfying,
none of which do i enjoy —
not when compared
to running as the wolf
when i was just a boy.

oh god, when i awake again,
i want to be on a mountain top
only dreaming that i am a mechanical man.

By Kai Staats|2012-01-26T13:25:18-04:00February 26th, 1996|Dreams|0 Comments

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