Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Foolish dreams

So I had this crazy hilarious dream last week, but decided to keep it for April Fool's day.

In my dream, I was round at my friends' house when an alien spaceship crash-landed in their garden. We called it in to the police, but they wouldn't believe us because it was April Fool's day and the local news team were running a similar story as a prank. We turned on the news, and they were indeed all dressed as Imperial Stormtroopers and running around pretending to panic.

So we had to deal with the crashed spaceship all on our own. I woke up laughing before the aliens came out though.

Dreams absolutely fascinate me. I've never read a convincing explanation of what they're for, but even if they turn out to be completely useless I wouldn't give them up for anything. My favourites are the ones where I suddenly realise that I'm dreaming, but don't wake up, so I get to direct what happens. I usually end up flying in those dreams.

Has anyone spotted any good April Fool's stories today? I've seen a couple, but they're really obvious. The comments thread on my post about lab-based practical jokes contains some excellent suggestions if you're heading into work with mischief on your mind.
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Update: I just spotted Nature's contribution to the festivities. And how could I have forgotten to check what Google are up to today? Apparently, "Well, you're distressingly normal and could conceivably adjust to life as a deep space pioneer, though we recommend instead that you leave the Mars missions to the serious whack jobs who scored over 130 and instead finish year 3 of law school, tuck your toddler into bed, design Web 2.0 applications, run for Congress or do whatever other normal, healthy, middle-of-the-road thing you're currently doing with your normal, healthy, middle-of-the-road life. If you're determined to give Virgle a try, though, you can submit your video here."

9 comments:

  1. I once worked in a great lab where we spent much time playing tricks on each other. One enterprising tech took the time to rig up mini 'buckets' above each of our desks, operated via a pulley system with the controls at his desk. One by one, as we entered the lab in the morning, he dumped a load of confetti on us....good thing he modified his original idea of something sticky like glycerol!

    Another time I came to work to find that a bikini had been painted on my lab coat....which was rather embarrassing as we were in a new facility and later that day some important government workers were given in depth tours.

    And then there was the time....well, I could go on.

    Fun!

    Mermaid

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  2. I LOVE the bikini idea!

    My cousin got me once with an envelope filled with confetti and glitter. It took forever to clean up and I kept finding glitter in the carpet weeks later. I bet a whole lab full of confetti was quite a sight!

    Did anyone think you were pulling an April Fool's joke this morning?

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  3. I think dreams must be functional. I rarely remember mine, which I think is my brain protecting my conscious mind from something.

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  4. LOL - you show those aliens!

    The bikini does sound like fun :)

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  5. EcoGeoFemme, I just read an interesting article in New Scientist about the function of sleep (conclusion: more research needed), and they didn't really get into dreams at all! Well, they did in the context of defining REM vs. non-REM sleep, but they didn't mention the possibility that the function of sleep is to let us have dreams. Even if it had been debunked you'd think it would have merited a note!

    I think my dreams are my brain trying to process, order and make sense of things I've seen that day. When I remember my dreams (once or twice a week I think) I usually wake up wondering where the hell that came from, but eventually I start to recognise elements from the day or days before. In this case I'd just watched an old X Files episode in which they were investigating strange happenings at NASA and on the space shuttle, and I'd also just seen an ad for Star Wars episode 2 which was on TV at the weekend.

    ScienceGirl, we didn't get to kick alien ass (a la Will Smith) because I woke up. Shame!

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  6. I've never had a dream in which I realized I was dreaming, so I've never been about to direct my own dream. I think that would be really cool! Any tricks you can teach me?

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  7. It is cool, but it only happens once or twice a year or so. If I knew how I was doing it, I'd do it every night!

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  8. Jen over at one plus two had an awesome april fool's blog...http://droolstreet.blogspot.com/2008/04/nobody-told-me-thered-be-days-like.html. Go check it out.

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  9. That's a good one! I've added that feed to my reader too, it looks fun.

    Science had a good one too. At least one person fell for it...

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