Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Sound Waves, Ice Cream, and Golf


This morning, here in Tokyo, I awoke at 5am with a song in my head and tears in my eyes from riotously laughing in the dream I just had.  I was so overcome with the vividness of the dream that I grabbed my phone and recorded my memory so I could write it later.

There was a computer or TV screen attached to a microphone.  The screen displayed the audio sound waves of whatever was playing.  There was a song playing and the waves were smooth.  Dad pointed out to me that he noticed the sound waves and wondered how that worked.  "Look at how it goes up and down," he said.  He was always curious and inquisitive about technology and wanted to understand things.

The music stopped and then there was just voice showing on the sound waves.  Probably mine or Dad's.  It was a similar shape, but different.  He asked, "Sit down, and explain it to me." 

He sat down in one of those 2 person chairs like we have in our living room, on the left side, though I didn't see him. He was there but not there.  We are both big guys and I doubt we could both fit in that chair.  Even though I couldn't see him, he took up less than half the space, and motioned for me to sit with him and explain the sound waves.

I thought for only a millisecond about passing on the opportunity to explain something else to my Dad, but decided against it.  He was happy to have me sitting there.  And I was happy to do that, and not run off and do something else.

I sat down beside him and produced a notepad where I was trying to sketch sound waves and calculate the wave period or amplitude or something (2 x pi x diameter, in my dream).  I was sketching and drawing a circle, when suddenly we were sitting in a grocery store parking lot.

An 18 wheel truck pulling one of those double trailers was barreling through the parking lot.  It rapidly turned a curve and the back trailer slid along with the front.  The driver was clearly in a hurry and driving like a race car driver.  Dad and I commented that there was probably a lot of ice cream in that truck and we sure would like some.

The next thing, Dad was commenting that he was still here and going to go play golf that day.  He knew he was no longer here in body, but was visiting and thought he would play a round while here.  I was laughing with him boisterously about this reality!  Here he was hanging out with me and talking about sound waves, ice cream, and golf.  And I said, "Thanks, Dad."

It was then I woke up, tears in my eyes from laughing so hard.  Minutes later, I recorded this story.  And minutes after that, I noticed the song in my head.  Not one I've ever particularly liked, and not even one in my song library of over 9,000 songs.  So no particular reason for that song to be in my head.  The song was "Lucky Man" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.  It's in my library now.

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