Feet down, coming out

That's what they would yell at us at the end of each parabola. Basically it let us know that we would be experiencing Gs in a few seconds and we had better get our feet on the ground; otherwise we'd be slammed down wherever we were floating. Honestly though, my feet still have yet to touch the ground.

I made it back to CVille late Saturday night after two looong days of driving. I still can't quite get a handle on what I've just gotten to do. This was an experience I'll be telling my grandkids about. Of course by then they'll be like, "So what, Old Man? I was weightless in the hover-bus on my way to school this morning!" What I'm trying to say is that this was a truly incredible experience - one that I'm having trouble putting into words (let alone humorous, entertaining words). I think I will have to let the pictures and videos speak for themselves (once I get a hold of them). I can tell you some of the specifics though. For example, here's a typical reduced gravity trajectory...
This picture shows one parabola. At the top of each parabola we'd get about 25 seconds of weightlessness. Over four days of flying we did exactly 200 parabolas. (For those doing the math... that's about an hour and 20 minutes of 0-g.) Also, you might have noticed that between each parabola (we'd usually do 10-12 in a row) we would rise and fall about 10,000 feet. I flipped when I realized that this is nearly 2 miles! Imagine a roller coaster with a 2-mile vertical drop and that's about what this was like.

I'm sure I'll have more to say on this later - but for now I've got to get some more work done before dinner. I'm supremely behind after having been out of town all week. Ah well, who cares.

By the by - for those of you wondering - I did not get sick once on the Vomit Comet.

Night Dreamer

To die, to sleep...
To sleep, perchance to dream; ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.

Thank God I don't have dreams like that. Then again, I'm also not dead. My point is: some dreams are scary and therefore I am glad not to have them. The truth is I rarely dream at all. Now at this point, I am quite sure people are thinking, "That's not true! You dream all the time. You just don't remember the dreams!" Believe me, I've heard that a million times and I still hold fast to my position.

I don't believe you can truly call something a dream if you don't even remember having had it. Do you want to define a dream as subconscious thought? Then fine, if we're alive we're in a state of dreaming. But that's not what people mean when they say, "I had a dream last night." They mean they woke up remembering having dreamt about riding a unicorn through a forest and being chased by Rodney Dangerfield who was throwing jelly beans and ninja stars at them - and when they finally escaped, they found themselves speaking at the UN. Or at the least they mean they woke with a feeling that they had dreamt - but the memory of the dream has escaped them. They do not mean: "Last night my subconscious continued functioning as normal." When I wake, I don't even have a feeling of having dreamt. So why people give me such a hard time when I claim I practically never dream is beyond me.

Now, that being established, there are several advantages and disadvantages to my predicament. On the one hand, as mentioned above, nightmares sound like not much fun. I can't imagine I would care for them. On the other hand, I also don't get a chance to enjoy dreams where I'm flying or making out with a super model while watching TV and enjoying a pastrami sandwich (the most sensual of all the salted cured meats). But the trade off is that when I sleep I feel I'm maximizing my opportunity to rest my brain - which I believe is just as important as resting the body.

Most of the times that I have remembered a dream it's really been more of a thought than a scenario. One time two years ago I woke up convinced the Cardinals had traded Chris Carpenter. I was incredibly distraught. I couldn't understand why we would trade our best pitcher. Then I realized it was just a dream (nightmare) and went back to sleep. Believe it or not I've even had recurring dreams (pretty amazing for a guy who dreams about once every other month). In my recurring dream, I'm in a play and I've just come out on stage when I suddenly realize I have forgotten to learn my lines. I haven't forgotten my lines. I've forgotten to even learn them! So I have to ad lib. It's very stressful. One time I had this dream two nights in a row. The funny thing was that in the second dream, it was now the second night of performances and I came out on stage only to have the same realization as the previous night. But this time it was far worse in that I couldn't understand why, after the previous night, I hadn't remembered to take the time that day to learn my stinking lines! I'm not really sure what causes this particular dream to crop up in my life from time to time - but I'd be anxious to hear ya'll's thoughts.

In closing - I have agreed to help a fellow grad student with his research by volunteering for a sleep study. It should be quite fascinating. I'll get to see a printout of my heart rate and brain waves and eye movement and all that. Perhaps it will shed some light on my lack of dreaming (as I define dreaming). Then I'll have scientific evidence that I am not a Night Dreamer.