I have never been a pat-myself-on-the-back sort of guy, and I’m not going to start now. But I couldn’t think of a better way to get into today’s topic other than relating an incident that happened 33 years ago, which I suppose is a pat-myself-on-the-back sort of story.
My best friend from high school, Bob, was and is a very technological guy. In fact, that’s how he’s made his living ever since graduating college with me in 1979. He has worked for a number of high-tech audio companies, inventing, improving and testing new circuits, designs and ideas. He even has a few patents. I respect his opinion on technological matters.
One day my new wife and I drove from New York to New Jersey to visit Bob and his new wife. Always one to have the latest gadget and gizmo, he showed us his new Sony Walkman, a machine about the size of a paperback book that played a single cassette tape—about 12 songs in all. The Walkman had hit the market less than a year before. I was fairly impressed, but commented that in about 25 years they’d come out with something the size of a postage stamp that would hold hundreds and hundreds of songs. To my dismay, Bob disagreed. He said it was impossible, and even gave me his reasons.
Despite my respect, I disputed his disagreement.
Today, my iPod is actually smaller than a postage stamp and right now has 450 songs on it, all of which sound as great in my earphones as they used to sound on my expensive Lafayette stereo system with the 10-inch woofers and 6-inch tweeters. .
Okay. That’s the back-patting part. But the real issue here is what I predict for the future. I have several notions about that, but one in particular has fascinated me almost more than all the others. I believe that everything we see in our mind’s eyes, from thoughts to dreams, are actual images that are stored somewhere in our brains, just like everything we actually see in real life is stored up there. The brain, in addition to a lot of other things, is the most amazing recording and storage device in the known universe. I believe that in about 25 years we are going to figure out a way of tapping into all those images and watching them on some kind of playback device. Even dreams. Several people have said ‘nay, that’s impossible.'
I disagree with those naysayers.
But what I initially didn't take into consideration are all the other issues to consider. The obvious one, of course, is something like this: a husband playing back a dream of his wife’s in which he sees that he’s not the object of her desires. Or a dream in which you participate in a real-life crime that in real life you had nothing to do with. The dangerous and disreputable possibilities are probably endless.
Normally I would tend to discount those possibilities for the sake of science, which I hold in high regard. But last night I had a dream that I was on the train. (Regular “Hey, You Never Know” readers know that I commute several times a week on the Metro-North railroad.) In the dream a conductor asks me for my ticket, and I give it to him. He punches it, and then gives me back a tiny pair of blue pants, which I fold neatly and put in my shirt pocket.
I have absolutely no clue where that came from or what it means. But I sure as hell don’t want to watch it replayed on a dream screen, nor do I want anyone else to see it. The hell with science.
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