Dream 44: Einstein and I
Thoroughly enjoyable night of dreaming. Started off in a hotel, a regular theme for me, most of it is lost now, but usual things of rooms being changed, sharing rooms, finding towels and so forth. Then I took part in one of the activities, we were walking on this giant rocky outcrop or tor. It didn't involve climbing as in ropes, harnesses etc, but it was extremely tricky and potentially very dangerous. We were very high up and the views were spectacular, there was a crisp breeze but the sun was shining in a brilliant blue sky and only the odd cloud. I was in my element. Our tour leader was Einstein. He was pretty much as you'd expect from the photos, although his hair wasn't quite as mad or as thick on this occasion and he was a short, slender, agile, wise, oldish man. He was telling us all sorts of things about the rock and the route, and was extremely patient and kind. He gave off the feeling that he found everyone to be intelligent given half the chance and that he wasn't especially more intelligent than anyone else. Yet his aura was immense. You knew you were in the presence of someone great but you also felt like you were his special friend and at peace.
We were going along a particularly tricky section with these built in staircases and steps as well as the natural and sometime treacherous rock. There were shear drops of hundreds of feet every now and then. Einstein was there to show us the way, but we also had to figure it out for ourselves like a puzzle. There was a woman in front of me who was trying to get one bit right. Einstein had been chatting to her more intimately and I wanted her to get on with it so it would be my turn. He hopped down some man-made steps on to a ledge, asking the woman if this was the way to go. She hesitated as there was another lot of steps with a rail going another way. She started to follow but he trotted quickly back to her, saying she shouldn't follow him on that bit. He was trained and skilled, but that was actually the wrong way and she would have fallen, he didn't say to her death, but she probably would have.
We continued on. I looked across the valley to another rocky ridge. About halfway down under an overhang was a steep path cut along the scree. I could see figures running up it. Looked like a team of extreme sports people doing some training and they were trying to compete with each other up the slope. I looked around at the rest of the view and drank it all in. We came to a break in the rock and looked out at a different view. The woman was talking about her ancestors and Einstein nodded as he listened. Then she said well of course you know V's family history goes way back to.. she was going to say William the Conqueror, but Einstein cut in with yes the something of Cornwall. Is wasn't Duke or Earl or a title I'd heard of but as soon as he said it I recognised it. I wondered how he knew so precisely our ancestral line, most people just new generalities, but he had pinpointed an obscure predecessor and far removed from the Northern England regions which were more well documented. I was impressed and flattered. He just smiled slightly impishly. We were impatient to move on, but Einstein suddenly trotted off down a grassy slope with some boulders scattered around. It was steep but looked innocuous enough. He grabbed something from the bottom, like a jacket or fleece then trotted back up like a mountain goat. I wondered why we couldn't just go down that way, but there was an unspoken rule that although it seemed an easy route it had taken years of training and skill for him to be able to trot down and back, and really he'd just taken a short cut because he needed his jacket. We still had hours to go before we would reached the bottom.
Then it was my turn to be next to Einstein, he led the way calmly with occasional reference to me to make sure I understood the puzzle and chose the right the pathway. He told me all sorts of things about the surroundings and about life in general. I felt wonderful. I had a glimpse of a future where I could tell people that I actually knew Einstein, and we were friends, because I genuinely felt we were by this time. He talked much more freely to me than to the other woman. We were climbing quite sharply and just as we got to the top of a little plateau I said I just can't believe.... and he jumped in and said you can't believe this isn't real? I said no, everything feels so real, my legs ache from the climb, I can feel the sun and breeze, I can touch the rock and see everything so clearly, plus the conversation was very real. He said yes I know but that is part of everything. He didn't actually say 'relativity' but the word was hanging in the air. I was thinking, but this isn't like my other dreams, it seems to be happening in real time, everything is so clear and sharp, not muddled and jumping from one thing to another. There were no strange close ups of things and weird scenarios (!). Then we came to another descent. There were rocky steps that disappeared to nothing. Einstein trotted down then must have gone down another lot of steps underneath the overhang that we were on. I knew this was the last part of the journey and I didn't want it to end and I was trying not to think about it being a dream. I pulled off to one side and P was there. A few people came up behind us talking and one man turned to speak as he was going down the steps. He put his foot into mid air, then realised and quickly adjusted. The steps were steep and very deep, sort of squarish boulders with huge gaps between seemingly suspended in mid air. If you just kept going you'd walk off into nothing. So I figured you had to spin around at some point and find the other steps underneath where we were standing. This was the last test and it looked like the others might not make it. I was nearly ready to leave when I had a really sharp pain on my right big toe. That was very real too! I yelped and P tried to help. When I looked down my foot was bare and was in a puddle from an indent in the rock. There was a large bug thing on my toe. It was a cross between a crab, a cicada and a huge flying beetle. It was very colourful and spread it's wings to the side. I got a close up of it and thought, here we go back to dreamscape and I felt slightly disappointed to have left the 'reality' of the previous part of the dream. The bug let go and flew off, but there was another one which latched on to my toe, again with the same painful consequence. They seemed to be hatching from the pool.
That's all I can remember from that section. A couple of snippets from later dreams include my bed being in street, parked like a car. Some bloke came up, a cross between a policeman, spy and an IT advisor. He stood at the head of the bed and said I don't expect you have broadband. I awoke very hazily and looked up over my pillow and said in a very slurry, sleepy voice, I do have broadband but I can't speak. Meaning that I was still half asleep.
Another snippet was my brother and I were sitting in a lounge room. We were watching a larger than life couch with three men on it. We were sitting at odd angles to the couch and each other. The people on the couch should have felt very uncomfortable with us so close and under such scrutiny. But they were actually from a sitcom. They were normally on telly, but we'd somehow got them in this room, live, but not so we could interact with them. I exchanged glances with my brother. I think I quite liked the sitcom, although it was silly, but he hadn't seen it on the basis that it was too stupid. One man on the couch had just had a baby with his sitcom partner. The baby was on the couch with them and he had his two best mates there. He said I know guys, (looks all around) we'll share the load! Huge laughter and high jinks as this was a running joke for them although this time he was referring to the baby. I smiled, I didn't think my brother would get it but he seemed to be amused too. We continued watching them as they did more humour seated on the couch.