What haunts your fever dreams?
People often say I should do some personal LinkedIn posts — ‘let them see the real you’.
Well, this might go beyond that — I’m asking what weirdness comes out of you when you’re a little bit out of your mind?
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The first time I nearly died from a stomach bug, I was staying in the home of one of the richest men of one of the richest families in Bangladesh. Heavy, soft, beautiful brushed Egyptian cotton sheets, a vase in the corner of my guest room that wasn’t — surely — Ming?
Well, perfect expensive cotton sheets are not what you want when your stomach and entire nervous system are actively trying to kill you, but I spent a night like Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, sweating profusely and staring at the exquisitely-crafted ceiling fan.
I had a series of dreams about how I’d used a relational database to connect all the world’s information. I was trying to avoid hubris but, frankly, I’d achieved something miraculous. I also had to fight off the Forces of Evil who — obviously — didn’t want the secret to come out.
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The second time was, I’m afraid, Bangladesh-connected too. It’s a wonderful country, and I mean no offense to my Indian subcontinent readers, but I had an ill-advised curry one evening before an early flight. In the 4am taxi, with (of course) a Bangladeshi driver, I was waxing reminiscent about my wonderful earlier trip to his country. Perhaps that triggered something?
I spent 48 feverish hours deeply sick. My main job in my dreams was two consultancy projects we had on that were proving really tricksy and difficult. I never got to the bottom of the trouble — which is doubly frustrating now I am (I believe) back to consciousness and realise these projects ‘don’t exist’ — but the key moment was being indignant at the realisation that all the client REALLY wanted us to do was categorise their information. ‘Is that it?! Category Theory?!’
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I like to think it’s a sign of intellectual maturity that I’ve gone from ‘connecting all the world’s information’ to ‘putting things into boxes’ (same thing, of course) — but my latest dream was walking Doggle and his ball fell into a hole in the roots of the world tree, and I had to get it out again and battle snakes while keeping him from diving into the subterranean depths.
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So let’s see if it’s true that another person’s dreams are the most boring thing possible.
What weird dreams have you had?
