THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

[Stanley]

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

25 July 2004

I believe that most normal people dream and like me they have three sorts: The ones you don’t remember having. The ones you know you’ve had but can’t remember the details. The ones that are so vivid you remember everything. I had one of the latter last night and it triggered this piece off.
I was on my first day in a mill running two engines, an enormous diesel that ran the mule spinning section and an old beam engine that ran the weaving. The old engineer had left suddenly after a falling out do with the management and I was in at the deep end, I hadn’t even got an oil can, he had taken them all home with him! I won’t bore you with the details but one peculiar thing was that I had to start the beam engine, run it slow and use the drive from that to turn the diesel over to get it started, then I ran the diesel up to speed and after that got the beam engine going properly. The strange thing is that I’ve never heard of or seen a set-up like that, I made the whole thing up in my head whilst I was asleep. Another funny thing was that the place was so big there was a Russian or Chinese security man sat in the middle of the mill to direct workers who were lost. I had to get him to send someone with me to find the engine house.
Enough of that particular dream, but where do they come from? I have heard a theory that dreams are a way that your mind uses to clear out the files in your head and re-arrange your memory. Knowing how complicated the brain is makes this plausible but that doesn’t explain some of the dreams we have. My sister Dorothy and I used to have simultaneous dreams and it was always the same one, this went on for years. We have often talked about it but neither of us has any idea what the dream meant (if anything) or what triggered it.
Anyone who has made a digital film knows what processing power it needs and this is with ready-made images. How complicated must the process be to manufacture all the details of the dream? I can even remember the dirt floor outside the engine house in mine. I reckon that we must use images that are already there in our brain and re-arrange them.
The bottom line is that dreams baffle me, I accept them because they happen but I have no idea how they are made or whether they have any meaning. All I know is that this one woke me up and so must have some significance, but what? It was in colour as well. Got any ideas?
25 July 2004

[PanBiker]

Don't know about yours Stanley. I had one myself last night that I can fully recall. We were on town and someone told us to go home as their was a lad with a fishing rod and line in the back street. He had managed to get his hook stuck in the length of Paracord used to fasten my wire antenna to a ring on the gable opposite. I went home to find the lad with the rod bent almost double probably nearly to breaking point trying to free the line. I asked him why he was in our back street with his fishing tackle and pointed out that there wasn't a river, pond, canal or lake anywhere in the vicinity so why was he stuck on my antenna, no reply given just more attempted tugging to try and free the line.

I pointed out that he was on hiding to nothing with his approach and the best course, (as lifelong coarse fisherman myself) was to use standard procedure when caught in trees or snagged on the bottom. In all cases like this you are not going to win so you have to resign yourself to a lost hook, (hardly earth shattering) and a broken bottom line. You should get your float back if being used in this situation. I also mentioned that the Paracord he was stuck in has over 60lb breaking strain so that was going nowhere, The ladder line 300 ohm cable that the antenna was made of was copper coated steel conductors in a heavy plastic jacket and the fastening to the wall was to a galvanised steel ring directly drilled to the centre of one of the stones in the gable. The Paracord line was connected by a stainless steel carabina clipped to the ring.

I asked what the breaking strain of his line was and he said 10lb. I asked him what he was expecting to catch on the back street, or anywhere else for that matter with such heavy kit. No problem I said, your bottom line will be a lot lighter so it should break there, this is usual practice for float fishing for coarse fish. You may have 4 or 5lb line on the reel and 2 - 2.5 on an 18" or so length that holds the hook. With this lighter set up you can land fish up to 10 lb or more if you play them correctly. He said he didn't use a lower bottom length so in effect he was wired straight through on 10lb line. Less likely to catch as the fish may see the line and avoid and a totally different scenario if you get snagged.

I pointed out that the correct way to retrieve as much tackle as possible was to point the rod directly to where you are snagged, take up the slack on the reel as tight as you can then walk backwards to break the line, (on the weaker bottom line if you have one). Invariable you will loose the hook and a foot of line but retrieve your float. This places no strain on the rod or the rod rings. A simple matter then just to replace your lighter hook length and carry on fishing. He would have non of it and he continued tugging and reeling until the top section of his rod broke. I woke up then, it was in full colour and very vivid. I never found out why he was attempting to fish on the back street though!