This regularly shows itself as being true: our bodies know more than our minds let us in on. Sometimes I just have <i>just a feeling</i> that something is wrong or something, while not being able to pinpoint exactly why or how. But wait a few minutes ignoring this bad feeling, and it turns out to be true.<p>As I get older, I also find my body acting more and more for me. Have something important in the morning to do? I don't need to put the alarm anymore, I'll wake up by myself, not really knowing why until a couple of minutes later when I remember "Oh, I had this thing to do, good thing I woke up!".<p>I think this is what happened in the authors case as well. His mind maybe didn't realize it at the time, that there could be timezone differences that were important, but his body did, so it did its best to steer him towards waking up on time just in case. And in this case, it turned out that his body knew better than his mind.<p>Maybe this is what people mean when they talk about "gut feeling".
I recently finished up a leadership coaching training program of which a significant component was working with our dreams. Our instructor held that our dreams are a reflection of waking life, and vice-versa. That by becoming aware of and interacting with the images in our dreams we can learn about ourselves.<p>She showed us a process for "opening up" our night dreams. By writing them down, identifying patterns, and then looking for deeper meaning. Not through a fixed interpretation of symbols but something more fluid. We opened up a few of our night dreams as a group, including a couple of my own, and I was floored by how powerful and revealing the process was. We learned to use the same process for opening up situations in our waking lives too.<p>I was incredibly skeptical at first but now I'm sure there is much more to our dreams than we give them credit for. I remember reading once that for many ancient cultures, dreams played a significant role. At some point, probably during the Age of Enlightenment, we discarded them as frivolous.
The number of times I've had a dream wake me up in time for something is astonishing.<p>Before I go to bed, if I tell myself "wake up at 7AM wake up at 7AM wake up at 7AM" I naturally get up within a few seconds of 7AM, almost always because I have a dream towards the end of sleep that forces me to wake up (they are not always relevant but they force me to get up at the right time)<p>Crazy
There's a bit of a taboo on sharing dreams, but I'm fascinated by other people's stories. I'm particularly excited to see someone as brilliant as Scott sharing his.
I had a dream like this many years ago, but it was Beyonce yelling at me to leave the house quickly to avoid getting late for work. When I woke up I only had time to leave the house.
Reminiscent of Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson; any chance you have read that book recently? If so, there is additional comedy in the fact that, perhaps, Stephenson's meme reappeared in your dream.
Hmm. Was that code for a quantum or classical computer?<p>But yeah that dream makes a great short story. An exception to the general rule that telling people your dream is boring.