Last night I had the strangest dream
I sailed away to China, in a little row boat to find ya. Also, 7 other things worth knowing today
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A while back I had a dream. It was super-vivid and unusual.
In the morning, I wrote down what I remembered. A few days later, I had the dream again—only, a second version, incorporating the first, but expanding it.
Then it happened a few more times: Have the dream, write what I remember, have an expanded version of the dream.
The premise of the dream is simple:
I go to bed after a nice 50th birthday dinner with my wife and daughter.
I wake up. Only, it's 40 years ago, the early 1980s, and I come to find that I've been transported back in time to my 10th birthday.
I'm frantic. I realize my wife is a 10-year-old girl living hundreds of miles away. My daughter won't be born for decades—if at all, in this new timeline.
Also, I can't tell anyone. Who would believe me? I look to all the world like an adolescent. Imagine your child wakes up tomorrow and says:
This is going to sound weird, but I'm from the year 2062. During the second Pete Davidson presidential administration, if someone asks you to take an aircar to one of the old Elon Musk satellites and go to the moon for dinner, politely decline. I can't tell you why.
Back to the 1980s. I'm sharing a room with my 6-year-old brother. My parents are only in their 30s.
I start to question my memory. Did I imagine this life—the one you’re in, in which I'm a guy who lives in New Jersey and writes a newsletter and for whom one of the greatest moments of the day is the 10 minutes of kicking a soccer ball around with his daughter before the school bus in the morning?
Do I try to just keep it to myself? Do I go to fourth grade as if I don't already have a law degree? Go to movie premieres and amuse myself by casually yelling out things like:
"Why can't they just use the lightning bolt from the clock tower to power the DeLorean?"
"I'll bet Andy Dufresne has been tunneling out of this prison through the whole story!"
"Bruce Willis's character obviously died in the first scene! He's a ghost this entire movie!"
In theory I might put big bets on sporting events, except for two problems:
First, I'm 10. I can't bet. I can't just get on a plane to Vegas.
And second, which is funny, I'm not like, the world's biggest sports guy.
I tested myself after the dream, wondering how many big sporting events I could remember the exact dates and scores for, especially back in the early 1980s. I got some of them right, but not enough to be confident about every bet.
Believe me, this goes on and on. But ultimately, in the dream and in my real-life notes afterward, I decide that I have to look at this strange curse as a gift, and try to do something good with it.
Even as a 10-year-old kid, I set out to think of a single tragic event that will later happen in my version of the future—and try to stop it.
I'll tell you the event I came up with in the comments, and why. But for a Friday comment thread, I have two questions for you:
Have you ever had a recurring dream? What do you remember about it?
And, imagine you really could go back in time and change one thing in history. What do you think you'd choose, and why?
It’s why we have comments, folks. Hope to see you there.
7 other things worth knowing today
The Louisiana legislature is advancing a bill to make any abortion a homicide, just 48 hours after the leaked opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. "Experts say the bill could also restrict in vitro fertilization and emergency contraception because it would grant constitutional rights to a person 'from the moment of fertilization.'” Separately: 70 people are known to have had access to Justice Alito’s draft. (WashPost, NBC News)
Pope Francis, who has suffered from pain in his knee, used a wheelchair for the first time at a public event on Thursday. The 85-year-old was wheeled into the Paul VI hall at the Vatican for a meeting of a Catholic organization of sisters and nuns, according to an AFP journalist. (France 24)
Jen Psaki admitted she was struggling to fight back tears as she introduced her 'partner in truth' Karine Jean-Pierre as President Joe Biden's new press secretary. Jean-Pierre makes history as both the first person of color and first openly gay person to hold the job. (Daily Mail)
Elon Musk is expected to serve as a temporary CEO of Twitter for a few months after he completes his $44 billion takeover of the social media company, sources told CNBC’s David Faber. (CNBC)
This is pretty wild, in terms of the nexus between law and technology. You might know that J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, won the Republican nomination for senate from Ohio two days ago. His campaign was underfunded, but a giant political action committee funded primarily by Peter Thiel backed him. The PAC legally could not coordinate secretly with the campaign, so what they did instead was publish everything they were doing and advising him to do to a public account on Medium. (Politico)
An Appalachian town was told a bitcoin mine would bring an economic boom. It got noise pollution and an eyesore. (WashPost)
Maradona's 'Hand of God' jersey, from the 1986 game between Argentina and England (ok, I’d have known that one) fetches $9.3M at auction, a sports memorabilia record. (NPR)
Thanks for reading. Photo credit: Pixabay. Want to see all my mistakes? Click here.
My grandmother was my best friend and she would frequently pick me up just to run errands. If I could change something I’d stay home instead of going with her one Sunday afternoon in August 1964. She picked me up and we drove to town. She was going to a visitation for a friend who had died. I stayed in the car with my aunt, who was had some developmental challenges. My grandmother was hit by a car as she was walking across the street in the crosswalk with the light. Didn’t matter that she was following the rules, she was killed anyway.
If she had not picked me up she probably wouldn’t have been at that place at that time. I haven’t spent years blaming myself for this butterfly effect situation but I really wish I had had her in my life during my high school years. I was just entering 8th grade at the time. I’ve had a fine life, but I think it would have gone in a different direction. She had graduated from college in Iowa in 1922 with a degree in psychology. She was by no means a typical Iowa farm girl. I didn’t have nearly enough time to learn from her.
Early in my prior career (law enforcement) I had a recurring dream that I was in a parking lot doing paperwork when a car pulled up and asked me for directions. As I started to tell them where to go, they pulled out a shotgun and shot me. I couldn’t get the car from Park into Drive to escape. Without further details, it was hyper realistic. After talking with a co-worker, I recreated the dream as I fell asleep, only this time I left the car in drive and kept my foot on the brake. When the shotgun appeared, I drove off and was able to “win” the fight. That night I had the same dream but with my modification. That was the last night I ever had the dream. From that point forward I always left my car in drive while parked and doing paperwork.
I would be afraid to change anything because I have the most wonderful wife and children and wouldn’t want to risk not having them.