[FRIAM] Peirce, Buddhism, Monism, Behaviorism, oh my!

[Steve Smith]

Eric wrote:
> As for dreams: Plenty of people believe they have had dreams 
> confirmed, both in their own direct experience and in the experiences 
> of others. It really is a much more mirky topic than most give it 
> credit for.

around age 16, we lived in a semi-rural area where there was a street 
but not every lot had a house and there was light industry.  Across the 
road from us a man ran a construction operation where he had various big 
yellow machines, piles of materials, etc.   He often worked on those 
machines himself, by himself.

One afternoon after school (I worked nights) I was napping on my parents 
couch, slipping in and out of dream (as I often did during those 
naps).   I constructed a dream around someone yelling help repeatedly, I 
don't remember the dream I constructed, but I awoke enough to realize 
the yelling was in my waking life as well as in my dream.  I was still 
half in dream it seemed as I ran across the street to the source of the 
yelling, trying to sort reality from dream (with stakes like watching 
for traffic).   The man working on a road-grader had trapped his foot 
under the blade.  My understanding of such things had me assuming his 
toes were severed, but as soon as he saw me, his tone shifted from panic 
to relief and he quietly intructed me how to climb into the cab of the 
grader and raise the blade for him.   His boot was creased and he had a 
slight limp as he thanked me and assured me he was OK. It was not until 
he indicated the pair of 2x4 blocks under the blade did I realize that 
he *had* taken precautions but when the blade descended ?unexpectedly? 
the safety gap those gave were only enough to keep his foot from being 
sheared, but still trapped it. His bootlaces were undone making it 
obvious he had tried removing his foot from the boot, but apparently to 
no avail.  I asked if he had steel toed boots (I had recent got my own 
first pair for riding a motorcycle) and he said "yes, that is what was 
trapped, with normal boots, I would probably have been able to pull my 
boot out".

I was still half-dreaming I felt as I returned home.  The man (in 
embarassment?) was pretty dismissive of me.  Politely thanked me but 
made it clear that once he was not trapped it was time for me to 
leave.   I did not fall back asleep, but I *did* sit and contemplate 
what I had just experienced, especially the transition from the 
"dream-reason" for the cries for help to the real-reason, and also the 
transition from believing I was about to try to save a man's life (and 
toes?) from having had them severed to being dismissed summarily.  I 
went to work that evening still thinking about it, and I think it stayed 
(strongly) with me for days (and weakly for the rest of my life 
obviously).  The *high stakes* of what felt like life-death imprinted 
this strongly, and made me at least consider the question of "what is 
really real?" and how I could be so wrong (especially on  the severed 
toes ideation).

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