Rick Dreams

Mary writes: Rick has always had the most amazing dreams. They have complex plots, and they're funny. Rick is a lucid dreamer, i.e., he is able to consciously direct what happens in his dreams. If he is not enjoying the dream and thinks, "Wait a minute, this is a dream. All I have to do is wake up," he does - wake up, that is. I've always envied him that capacity.
The last few days he has been entertaining himself by drawing an illustration from a dream he had in February. I've been telling some people about this drawing because I think it is so cool, and tonight I scanned it so I could show it to people. It's not really completely done, but close, so I may replace this drawing in a few days when he's polished it to his satisfaction. Looking at it tonight he remarked that he needed to put one more sock in, for example.
Note: The "Mom" he mentions in the dream is his mom, Dawn, not me - he calls me Mom to the boys, so I had to ask.
Rick wrote:
From February 7, 2010:
I spent the night dreaming I was visiting an apparently uninhabited town with no name although for some reason it had been preserved in its original state somewhat as a museum. I parked my truck on the untended, grassy outskirts and Mom and I got out to see the sights together. As we walked the deserted streets I met a fair number of my old friends who also happened to be there. Mom went off by herself and I found an art store to explore. There was nothing for sale there but it was set up with innumerable displays of various artworks by former residents.
My Navy buddy Warren Bek was in there, inspecting an incredible sketchbook which he was marveling over and passed to me.
“See if you can figure this out for me,” he said. “Stare carefully at the drawings for awhile and you'll get a big surprise.”
The first sketch depicted a small rocky mountain with a path spiraling around it from the base to its peak. Primitive humans were walking up the path and seemed to evolve into modern humans by the time they reached the top. Miraculously, as I stared at the scene intently, it would briefly animate itself long enough for the evolved creatures at the top to fall off the pinnacle and roll back to the bottom to become primitives once again. The scene then de-animated itself back to its former frozen image! That was the surprise and I yelped with disbelief.
“So what d'ya think?” asked Warren.
“I think the message is that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it forever,” I answered.
“I got that,” said Warren. “I want to know how the hell the artist did that!”
“You figured it out yourself, Warren,” I said. “The artist just drew the picture. You stared at it long enough to bring it to life.”
“Hmm,” he said. “I guess that explains the next picture then.”
Another surprise. It was a drawing of the ship we served on, the U.S.S. King, steaming along at flank speed with black clouds of smoke pouring out of its stacks. Staring intently at the image, it came to life, steaming suddenly in reverse with the smoke pouring backwards down the stacks until it imploded and sank like a stone.
“Wow!” I said, “There's no mistaking the message there.”
“Nope,” said Warren.
And we chorused in unison: “The King sucks!”