dream preparedness

My dreams are really weird.

What is weirder, though, is when real life sneakily introduces itself into my dream.

This happens to everyone to a certain degree. For example, people dream about missing an exam they will actually have to go to next week. Or, sensory input from the sleeper's environment makes its way into the dream.

But my dreams are weird to begin with. So when real life influences my dream, the result is even weirder.

I saw a documentary once that said, dreams are your brain's way of preparing you for hypothetical situations. This seems perfectly logical. Except my brain seems to think it is equally likely that I will have to protect my household from a pirate attack as it is that I will have to study for my exam next week.

Some people have said that my brain is weird, but I think that my brain is just helping me be incredibly prepared for life. I always have a carton of eggs in the fridge, thanks to that velociraptor attack. I always study for exams early, because of the pirate incident. And if ninjas ever attack while I am buying a carton of eggs at the grocery store, I'll know what to do.

tattoo

Many people think that tattoos are a terrible idea. That is what they keep telling me.

Actually, I think this flowchart is flawed. I have determined that getting a tattoo can be a really good idea in certain situations. Here are the situations in which getting a tattoo would be an advantage.

1) You have an evil twin.
An evil twin is always trying to impersonate the good twin. Sometimes, the evil twin has some defining feature that sets him apart, usually a mustache.

However, what if the evil twin were to shave his mustache? The good twin should get a secret, identifying mark that the evil twin does not know about. That way, when the evil twin tries to steal the good twin's identity, he will be quickly found out.

If you have an evil twin, I suggest you get a tattoo like this one:

2) You are really, really terrified that someday, you might get amnesia. [NOTE: THIS IS MY REASON.]
What if you wake up one day in a hospital with amnesia? The doctors can't describe you well, because your description is "Young, female, black hair, brown eyes." There's a million people described that way, so it is hard for anyone looking for you to find you. In that case, it would be useful to have some identifying mark so that your husband/parents/family who are looking for you can easily describe you to others. (Make sure it's something no one else has, otherwise it is useless!)

You have to get a really weird tattoo in this case, that your family can write on any missing person notices. I suggest one like this:

Yeah. Who doesn't like narwhals?

3) You are a farm animal.
Farm animals always have ear tattoos. I think this is so that farmers can tell them apart, but I'm not sure. Either way, you'd be really out of place if you were the only farm animal without a tattoo.

Farm animals usually have tattoos of numbers, but I think you should be more creative.

Here is the revised flowchart:

dolphin disillusionment

When I was a kid, I had the unique opportunity to go swim with the dolphins. I was really excited, because what seven year old girl doesn't like dolphins? Dolphins are so singularly revered by seven-year-olds that if there were some religion, centering around dolphins as deities with unicorns and rainbows to complete the holy trinity, it would be entirely populated seven-year-old girls.

My friends had prepared me for swimming with the dolphins. There would be no other experience as amazing in my life. I figured no photograph or video or trip to sea world could ever prepare me for being in a pool with a real dolphin.

Upon meeting the dolphins, however, I came to an important realization. Dolphins, while really cool, did not have the magical quality given to them by seven-year-olds. They looked a lot like they did in pictures. They were interesting, rubbery, grey, and had a charming laugh. But they were not empirically magical.

As I grew up, I realized that it wasn't only seven-year-olds who were amazed by dolphins. Dolphins are revered by many of my scientific-minded peers for their high intelligence. It's true-- they are awesomely smart. Not only do they possess the ability to repeat behaviors on command (much like a dog), they also show higher intelligence through creativity and teamwork in creating their own, new tricks, alone or with other dolphins. In our discussions about dolphins, we speculate that they probably have a secret dolphin language that has not yet been deciphered.

During these discussions, I remember my experiences with dolphin disillusionment. I warn my friends about the dangers of expecting too much from dolphins. What would we gain, for example, from speaking to the dolphins? Another conversational partner, perhaps. But perhaps not all that we expect. Many people think talking to dolphins will be like this:

But in fact, the cultural barriers between us and dolphins would be incredibly high, nearly insurmountable at first. A dolphin can't understand where we come from as humans with a human society. Dolphins live under the sea with fish.

A conversation would more likely go like this:

Forget trying to talk to dolphins about any human-created subject. Also, forget trying to make jokes with dolphins. We don't get their humor at all.

Dolphins are jerks when they think you are stupid. Luckily, we don't get their insults, either.