The Russian Psychic

I was what you might call an idiot savant. My mind did not work like the others. It was deficient in some areas, but brilliant in others. They kept me here in the this insane asylum, but I was not part of the general population. Still, I liked to lounge in the hall near a small planted area and watch as the insane people passed by. One of them did not like me and on this one day, he decided to challenge me with rude words. I knew I could easily crush him with my strength. My huge male body was naturally strong and bearlike compared to this thin little spastic man. I knew I should ignore him, but today he had hurt my pride and I got up and spoke words back to him. Suddenly, he jumped on me attacking and biting. But I did not want to fight him.

Guards sprang into action and pulled him off and no one was seriously hurt, but from that day forth, I was banned from that area of the ward. I was too valuable for my life to be risked in that way and so I was disconsolate. I knew in my heart that the incident was my fault. The crazy man had sensed my pride and that had triggered his attack. I could not blame him as he was crazy, after all, and I was not like him. I knew better. If I had controlled my pride, it would not have happened. Now I was no longer allowed to go to the only place I liked, the only place where life throbbed around me. I was disconsolate.

The officials were concerned about my sadness and so they prepared a special room for me to try to make me feel better. The room had many tables and small machines and some tapestries and a nice new expensive grey carpet. They presented it to me with great fanfare, but to me it was dark and dead. Lifeless. I hated the room and continued to be disconsolate.

At times, me and others were expected to gather in the room together. The others were psychics, specially trained and regularly practicing their skills. They were proud of what they did and often spoke of it. I was glad they had this important job and they did seem to like what they did, but I did not consider myself one of them. I did not understand their training and I did not speak with them about what it was like to have this job called 'psychic.' They were different than me, of that I was sure.

We spent most of our time in the building that contained the insane asylum but once in a while, they would take me out in a car, late at night, to visit someone or do something. The streets would be deserted and dead around me as we usually traveled at weird hours. I remember when I would return from these trips, I could see the outside of the facility. It was only about two stories tall and reminded me of a 70s style movie theatre with swooping stylish curves. It seemed an unlikely place for a secret government psychic program.

One time, I was taken to a large factory with many long work tables and workers milling around working hard, and a woman that was one of my overseers led me to a table with some machine parts on it. One was a canister shaped piece of metal and she asked me to pick it up and hold it in my hands. As I held it, I said, "Falls apart after 300 tries." I would say these things with little understanding of how or why. They would just sort of spill out of my mouth unbidden. I didn't even understand what they meant, but the woman was angry now, not at me but at someone else. She snarled to the man near her, "We are NOT buying them! Did you think you could fool me?" And then she led me out. My task was over already. I was glad because I did not like the feeling of anger and tension in that place.

Occasionally, I would linger by a back door in the facility above the insane asylum. I could feel with my mind that the burning life giving sun was behind that door. The door was locked, but I knew I could easily escape if I felt like it. They could not hold me against my will and often I dreamed of being in the outside. But always, I decided against it. They would hunt me and track me and I would have no kind of good life. I would not have food and I did not have the skills to survive on my own out there. I knew I would not succeed. So I allowed them to think they contained me, that they held me captive, and I stayed in their facility, even though I often did not like it.

One day, I was doing something else when something caught at my my mind and I came running as fast as I could towards that door. The door was open and my friend was leaving, the only friend that I really cared about and that really cared for me. I ran through the open door and screamed "Natasha! Natasha!" as anguish oozed from every pore of my soul. How could she leave me!

She was walking away rapidly. They had thought they could have her sneak out but of course I knew. She turned now and looked genuinely sad in her tight grey skirt suit and beautiful blond hair, as she told me in a pinched voice that she would return later. But I knew she was only saying that. In truth she had little knowledge of her future assignments. I might not ever see her again. The sadness overwhelmed me.

End dream.

Changing the Old Programs

I looked at the brain in front of me, not literally at it, but at a conceptualization of it, as if it were a whole item, not split in hemispheres, and not in its real physical shape but as an idea. To me, it seemed more like a dark grey half sphere resting on its flat side, an intact package containing innumerable programs, similar to computer programs. Some of these programs were big but so many of them were very tiny swirls and they all interacted to create the whole package. What we were doing was changing all of the programs, every one. It was our mission. All of them would change. I felt confident about that.

Fractionally my thoughts shifted and I remembered we were not changing all of the programs, we were only changing all of the OLD programs. We could not change the new programs, only the old. The programs that were intermediate in age would be effected in some intermediate way but exactly how didn’t seem important to me now. Minor details! What mattered was the old programs would all be changed and the new programs would not. The rest would sort itself out.

My perspective shifted again and the brain was all around me now. I was using it, thinking with it. I noticed it felt the same as it always did. My thoughts and consciousness still felt the same. I wondered if perhaps that was because I was in the part that was new programs that had not been changed.

I felt myself traveling upwards towards wakefulness and shortly after one last big shift, I was there in my bedroom awake and pondering the strange dream. I would have to write this down surely, I was thinking, but soon I was drifting off again, only to be woken again rudely by the sound of someone pounding vociferously on some sheets of plywood. Except I realized there was no plywood. The sound and the plywood were all in my mind and I had a strong feeling it was an effort by my mind to convince me to wake up and remember the dream about my brain. It was important somehow.

Eventually I drifted off again anyway but did manage to suddenly remember the dream halfway through the next waking day. Maybe the plywood interruption was just enough to do the job.

I have felt a bit strange lately. I wonder if my old programs really are changing.

Flood

For some reason, my dreams have been dark of late:

I was walking down a wide dirt road with a friend. We were relieved to see we were coming up on a restaurant constructed of old wood slats. The place was busy with customers and activity. My friend said he needed to go do something and he would catch up with me shortly. He went to the left and I went into the front door on the right.

The place was bustling inside with a classic western motif and what looked like cement floors. The people around me were mostly dressed in dusty brown colored clothes as if from an older era. I sidled up to the bar and ordered some food before involving myself in small talk with some of the locals around the pool table. Eventually, I realized my food was long overdue and made my way back to the kitchen area to find out the only cook, with a pot belly and all dressed in white, was on break. He apologized for the delay and asked if he could just have 10 minutes to eat something himself and then he would start right away on my food. He looked exhausted and in much need of rest so I took the news cheerfully.

Here it gets a bit blurry. I remembered it all clearly at one time but now it is fading. But I know I was called away for some reason. I left the building and went to speak with some people that were some kind of news organization. I remember seeing various scenes of confusion and fear. One scene I remember clearly was a man on a horse with muddy water coming up almost to the horse's back. The man was trying to get the horse to move forward by clamping his legs together repeatedly but the horse would only make as if to move but then balk. I had the impression the horse was exhausted. Around him, other people were moving around in the water, some on make shift rafts, others half swimming or slogging through on higher ground. Everyone was too busy to help the man with the horse.

Then I came back to the restaurant. Some time had passed and the ambiance had changed drastically. I could hear an angry black man's voice demanding that someone get those people out of his restaurant, that they had destroyed it, etc. He sounded almost irrational and used a variety of epithets.

I walked through the same front door I had entered earlier and the view was shocking. The entire interior was now covered up to about 7 feet high with a dark grey colored mud, the walls, the furniture, everything. A few people walked around listlessly with heads down in despair. Slung high over a tall rack were 6 dead adults, each completely covered in the dark steely mud. Several other dead people were slung over some of the other furniture, all bent at the stomach with arms and legs dangling down towards the floor. The shock of the sight woke me with a start.

To Track a Killer

I dreamt of an old fashioned house with low ceilings and wood floors. The rust colored window drapes were drawn, blocking the harsh sun from penetrating the cluttered gloom within the house. The house was a confusing mix of chaos and organization. Here, piles of clothes on a shelf in a closet with small tools and iron files resting on top. There in that drawer, 20 plus light bulbs sheathed in their yellowing cardboard protective containers, all lined up and snuggled perfectly in their place, enough to last for 20 years in this gloomy darkened old house. I wondered if having large supplies of these household items somehow gave him a feeling of comfort and stability. I noticed that the equipment for his crimes was found in 3 different rooms of the house and no attempts were made to hide them. Some things in the house were meticulously kept while other things were flung haphazardly or lain out carefully but in unusual places or configurations. The house was like his life.

This was the house of a killer. My friends and I had tracked him, chased him and hunted him down. A thrill of excitement ran through me. No one would ever know how much horror we had prevented. We would probably never get credit, but I would know. I would never forget the excitement of the hunt and the thrill of success. And I would never forget the horror. This was the house of John Wayne Gacy.

[After I woke up in the morning, I recalled hearing this name before and so I googled it. John Wayne Gacy was a famous serial killer in Chicago.]

The Concept of Lieing

In some kind of dream, I was trying to explain to someone about what it was to tell a lie. The other person was confused at first but then I felt a sensation of excitement and she said she thought she understood. She said, "So it's like when someone says they are going to do something and then they don't do it." I said no, that's not exactly right but it seemed that was as close as she could come to understanding. I had the sense that we were communicating telepathically and because she was telepathic, she was unable to fully conceptualize the idea of lieing. It was too alien to her.

The Tips are Where It's At

I was telling the man that I didn't think he should be doing this kind of job, hanging around with these kinds of people. He was a tall lanky Polish looking caucasian, with short cropped hair and a slight but perpetual forward stoop, as if it his head was too heavy for his body and was continually overbalancing him. Even now as he stood talking to me, he looked down at the pavement.

"I have to do it because tips are where it's at," he said to me. "Tips are were all the money is. Without tips there's nothing really. You got nothing. So I have to do it this way," he said with a sort of dejected defiance.

I looked around at all the widely spaced cars spread out on the pavement. Here, space was plentiful and cheap. No need to be frugal with space. In the dark night, I couldn't see much beyond the pavement platter of cars, but I had the feeling that south western style desert surrounded us with sand, cactus, and the occasional outcrop of weathered sandstone. Above me towered a covered carport type of construction, similar to those you find at gas stations. Several flood lights were strung on its edges, attracting clouds of whining insects.

A cluster of men were assembled around one of the cars. Sniggering and drinking, they lounged against the car or the carport, some of them staggering at times to keep upright. They were a surly bunch. Disagreements flared up regularly intermixed with ringing raucous laughter.

Eventually, one of the men threw a shot glass at another's feet and exploding glass shards sparkled in the reflected light. Angry and confused, the victem threw his own glass at the car. Just then, the man I had been talking with earlier stalked into the middle of the group and demanded to know what was they were doing to his car. Behind him, one of the drunk men calmly picked up a long handled axe and expertly swung it over his head and struck down with a sick thunking noise directly onto the back of the car owner's neck.

The scene changed. It was daytime now as I gazed on a small house with a peaked tar gravel roof. Near the chimney, a man cowered on this roof, attempting to hide. The cops had already seen him be he pretended not to hear their shouts to come down. Eventually, they put ladders on the side of the red wood house and reached up to the man's leg and pulled him down.

He did not resist. In fact, he relaxed. The chase was over and there was something he wanted to say. "It was Wayne SoandSo (I forget the actual last name he used)," he said without any prompting. He had wanted to say it all along but he hadn't wanted to get himself implicated. But now that he was already caught, he could finally get it off his chest with confidence. He wanted the real murderer to be known. Everyone knew Wayne anyway and nobody was surprised. He would be easy to find. The only question was, would the charges stick?

Fighting 'the Field'

I was following my partner. From behind, I could see he had somewhat short tussled dark brown hair and medium of height and wiry of build. He was wearing one of those long black trench coats that splits high along the back. He was very much a stereotype. I was just 'me.' I don't know who I was.

In front of us was a deep chasm similar to how subway tracks are dipped down lower so that the train door will be at ground level for passengers, except this chasm was narrower and much deeper. We were running on tile and I could see the tile continued down onto the vertical walls of the chasm but I was too busy to think much about it. We were in a hurry.

My partner jumped over the chasm, his trench coat flailing out to the sides as he did so, and then he headed to the right. I jumped over behind him and headed to the left. About 5 feet past the chasm was a structure of rough grey stone sides and glass panel windows that we wanted to enter. I had the feeling it was unoccupied for now but still might have security systems in place. I quickly found a large doorway similar to large doorways in a large store at a mall. It was made of glass but each time I made to approach it, giant metal gates or cogs would move and block my way. The metal pieces had varying shapes and would fit into each other in varying ways, each time different. For each configuration, gaps existed between the metal parts that a person could theoretically fit through, but approaching the gaps resulted in movement of the metal pieces. I had the feeling it was a giant moving puzzle that would most likely crush me if I tried to get past.

I decided to run back to the right side of the building to see if my partner was having better luck and quickly found a more ordinary metal door that was swung open and looked to have been bent and damaged. It was hanging akimbo. I ran in after my partner.

Inide was like a large mall store with tiled hall passages and metal shelves of things. But there were also these 2 foot long light green blobs on the floor that appeared as a cross between frogs and light green crumpet puff balls. Each one had a big blog in the middle and the 'legs' consisted of smalling blobs. I had the feeling they were alive in some simple way and also dangerous, although they were slow moving. The creatures looked surreal and cartoonish as if my mind was having trouble processing their appearance in a way I could understand. But I knew we had to act quickly.

My partner had some kind of machine that he wanted me to help him with. As I approached, I realized the machine would be hard to control, similar to how a fireman has trouble controling the end of a giant powerful water hose. But my partner now had a firm grip on the nozzle/gun end and seemed to know what he was doing. The gun thing was made of complex metal pieces with a stiff nozzle of metal the size of a small tank gun. He indicated I would need to stand right in front of him, with both of us holding the nozzle at waist height and me in the forward attacking position. I did what he said without question.

The gun/hose machine started up. I am not sure what it was doing, but I felt a huge surge of energy rushing constantly through me, so strong I could barely tolerate it at first, but I seemed to adapt slightly as the process went on. Or at least it seemed less painful. I had the impression I was simply adapting to the pain but it was still just as powerful.

With the operation of the machine was a very loud noise that was like a cross between the sound of a giant angry bee and the sound of a dental drill cutting into a tooth. The sound pulsed like an engine rapidly turning over and would rise up to an earsplitting violent crescendo and then cycle back down to a slightly quieter less rapid noise pulse. I could not decipher if it was actually me or if it was the machine that was making this noise as we worked. I had the impression that perhaps it was really both of us but especially me and that the sound/energy of it was important to the process. These cycles of louder and quieter buzzing noises repeated a number of times until at last we were done. There were no more of the puffy frog blobs and the energy stopped coursing through me. I relaxed a little.

I remember my partner was now telling me something and then with a start, I woke up in my bed with my heart pounding. My body felt warm as if with a slight fever and my legs ached as if from down in the marrow. I thought about the dream and managed to recall the last words my dream partner had said to me. I was sure I would not forget but I forced myself to find a piece of paper and a pen to write down his words anyway. The heat in my body and the discomfort in my legs continued for quite some time and although I felt very tired, it was several hours before I could get back to a decent level of sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, the pain and heat were gone from my body, and I had forgotten what my partner had said to me in the dream. I reached over for the scrap of paper on the nightstand. On the paper, I had written that the frog puffs were an 'equation resistance field.'

But what the heck is that!?!