Randy’s Blog

On September 3rd, 2001, eight days before the 9/11 attacks, I dreamed that I went outside and saw dark storm clouds in the distance. Then an American Airlines plane appeared, flying very low. Suddenly, it swerved and crashed into the woods. I ran inside and called 9-1-1. When I went back out, emergency crews had arrived and were finding body pieces in the wreckage.

I completely forgot about the dream until 2 weeks after the 9/11 attacks, when I suddenly thought: didn't I have a dream about an airplane crash recently? I looked in my dream journal and there it was. To be honest, it freaked me out! Was it really possible I foresaw the 9/11 attacks in a dream?

I finished reading the book Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self by Eric Wargo, which I mentioned in a recent post.

The author lays out a whole framework of how precognitive dreams are possible and how they work. One of the key points he makes really helped resolve the freakiness I felt with my 9/11 dream. After spending years studying precognitive dreams he and others have had, Wargo suggests that when you have precognitive dreams, what's happening is that you're sensing your reactions or thoughts about a future event. You're not actually seeing future objective events. Essentially, you're remembering your own future thoughts: memory, he suggests, can work both backwards and forwards in time! For some reason, I find this idea much more palatable than being able to foresee the future. 

Wargo builds upon the work of J.W. Dunne, who published a book about precognitive dreams in 1927 called An Experiment in Time. When both Dunne and Wargo studied their dream journals, they discovered numerous precognitive dreams. Dunne (and Wargo, too) challenged his readers to do the same. Wargo even says you should assume all your dreams are precognitive.

That's all well and good, but I have a dream journal going back a number of years, and my dreams that could be interpreted as precognitive are very few and very far between. I linked to a couple of them in the previous post mentioned above. So, to convince myself that I rarely have them, I sat down with my dream journal a few weeks ago and started looking for any evidence of precognition. And I could not believe it, but I found one I'd had just the previous week! To say I was stunned is a bit of an understatement. 

In the dream (which I had on April 12th), I was eating pancakes with syrup at a table, for breakfast. Somehow, I accidentally knocked my plate on the floor, and maple syrup got all over the carpet. I got really upset, but then started cleaning it up. At the end, I noticed a Christmas tree in the kitchen with a lot of unopened presents.

Four days later, on April 16th, Wendy was making pancakes when the bowl suddenly tipped over, and pancake batter got all over the counter and floor. She got really upset, but then we both started cleaning up the mess. I very rarely dream about pancake accidents, and we very rarely experience them in reality. And yet, my dream preceded the actual event by 4 days.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized this dream followed several patterns Wargo identifies in his book. For one, it is extremely easy to not notice precognitive dreams if you're not looking for them. He likens it several times to the River Lethe from Greek mythology. In my case, I probably would never have noticed this dream was precognitive if I hadn't been reading a book about them and looked through my dream journal for examples.

You'll notice one big difference is that I had the accident in the dream, whereas Wendy had the accident in reality. Precognitive dreams 1) are symbolic representations, and 2) are never specific enough to take action to prevent them. There are some deep sections in the book that explain this. According to quantum physics, sending information back in time is allowed. But any information sent back in time will always result in a future where that information is sent back in time. It's called the principle of self-consistency. Wargo suggests there's nothing I could have done to prevent the pancake accident. If there was, I never would have dreamed about it in the first place. (He stresses this means it's not your fault if you have a precognitive dream that comes true.)

Another pattern is that a big sense of relief (what he calls thoughts of "I survived") are often the target of precognitive dreams. That's exactly what happened here. When Wendy had the accident, she initially gasped and then was silent. I was in the living room and got up to see what happened. Part of me was worried I would discover she'd cut herself and blood would be everywhere. So when I saw the bowl had spilled, and batter was everywhere, I was greatly relieved. It was a mess, yes, but we could clean it up. No first-aid or hospital trips were required.

And finally, let's talk about that Christmas tree. When I first had the dream, I thought "That's weird. It's April, why am I dreaming about Christmas?" Well, the book claims that precognitive dreams often contain a symbolic representation of your thoughts about the dream when you later realize it's precognitive. I think the tree and unopened presents were a sign this dream was a gift I hadn't opened yet, and foreshadowed my excitement when I later realized its value (like a kid at Christmas).

Now I want to dig deeper into my dream journal to see if I can find other precognitive dreams. Wargo points out these dreams often have "calendrical resonance", where you have the dream a few years before the event, on or about the same day. He mentions an astronomer who dreamed he discovered a peculiar exoplanet around a specific star, and 9 years later to the day discovered an exoplanet, with the same peculiar properties, but around a different star!

There are some things in the book I don't agree with, like Wargo's suggestion that all dreams could be precognitive. I now want to dive deeper into the Edgar Cayce readings, to re-familiarize myself with what Cayce says about dreams. He had a decent amount to say on the subject, and helped a number of people interpret their dreams. I was a little disappointed Wargo didn't cover it in the book, even though, funnily enough, he mentioned someone who had a precognitive dream about giving a talk at the Edgar Cayce organization.

Lastly, Wargo says he now believes that precognitive dreams have a sort of social orienting function, which draws us to the reward of human connection. He encourages readers to share their dreams with others (hence this blog post), and says that the precognitive dream itself may be unimportant. What is important is what the dream leads you to do, or the connections it helps you make.

So, let's just say I found this book extremely interesting.

You might recall that part of why I got a trail cam a few years ago is because food in the bird feeder was mysteriously disappearing in large quantities over a very short time frame. See this post. I was hopeful the cause was a Sasquatch, and that I would get proof of its existence. After several years of watching the trail cam videos, it pains me greatly to say that the food disappearance likely has nothing to do with Sasquatch, and everything to do with birds.

Having accepted this fact, I check the trail cam much less frequently these days. I did check it this morning, though, and of the 28 videos it had captured in the last 12 days, here are the notable ones.

First up, a couple of ducks have discovered the food that falls underneath the bird feeder. I think this is the first time I've seen ducks here.

Next is a black and white cat that briefly made an appearance. It walked right in front of our basement window. I can't help but wonder if our black and white cats (which are inside-only cats) saw it.

And finally, there's this hilarious video. Not only did the squirrel fail to climb the pole, but it also got a rather rude surprise from a chipmunk!

This morning I saw two sandhill cranes waiting to get into a local rec center. I didn't have the heart to tell them that it's closed on Friday, though.

It's always fun to see (and hear) sandhill cranes!

I'm currently reading a book about precognitive dreams; it's called Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from your Future. I stumbled across it at the employee bookstore, and was excited to find it. I recognized the author, as he previously wrote a book called Time Loops, which I haven't read, but which received a lot of high praise.

Anyway, the book has gotten me thinking about a few dreams I've had over the years that turned out to be true. I've documented a couple of minor instances previously; see my Cherry Cordials Alert and Darkhawk posts. In this post I want to share another instance that might not count as precognitive, but I still found it quite funny.

Close to two years ago, on the night of May 28, 2021, I dreamed that I was at a conference. I asked the man next to me what his name was; he replied Royc. I looked at his nametag and saw it was spelled just like that: Royc. When I woke up the next morning, my first thought was "How funny, there was a typo in my dream. It left out the letter 'e' in Royce."

Out of curiosity, though, I searched the web for "royc", and the first results were about a soul singer named Roy C. I listened to the first song of his that appeared in the results... and it was one of the funniest songs I'd ever heard! I listened to a few others, and found another song that was hilarious! I don't know why I didn't blog about this at the time.

So, if you don't mind a bit of adult humor, let me recommend these two songs by Roy C. The first is called "Peeping through the Window":

And the second is called "Infidelity, Georgia":

I hope you enjoy them as much I did.

As far as the book goes, we have precognitive dreams thanks to quantum physics, where sending information back in time is entirely possible. From what I understand so far, my future self was so entertained by these two songs that it sent Roy C's name back in time via my dreams to ensure that I discovered them!

Last week my trail cam captured a rather grim video: a coyote chasing down a rabbit in our backyard. Fortunately, the final seconds of the chase are shrouded in darkness, but it sure seems like the coyote is closing in on and about to catch its prey. If you turn up the volume you can hear what is, perhaps, the cry of a rabbit as it gets caught. I know it's the circle of life and all, but man, I feel bad for that rabbit.

Here it is:

And a few days later a coyote wandered up close to the trail cam, in daylight hours. It may be the best coyote sighting my trail cam has recorded:

I just searched for "do rabbits make sounds" and the first result includes this text:

The sound of a rabbit screaming will send chills down your spine for two reasons. First, it sounds eerily close to a terrified child. Second, rabbits only scream when a predator is chasing them down or they are dying. It is never a false alarm when a rabbit screams.

Sadness.

RIP little rabbit.

This winter has finally turned snowy! We've gotten several rounds of snow the past week and a half, with the biggest coming on Saturday, when we got nearly 6 inches! I've been dutifully measuring snowfall each day and reporting my totals to CoCoRaHS (I've mentioned this citizen science project a few times in previous posts). It's fun to see how my measurements compare to others in the area.

When it comes to weather around Chicago, Tom Skilling is the go-to meteorologist. He's the chief meteorologist for WGN TV, and has been the most popular weather forecaster in Chicago for pretty much forever. He's basically a celebrity, known for his love of weather. That really comes across in the WGN weather blog, where he has an "Ask Tom" article each day, and generally geeks out with all kinds of weather information.

For example, here is a fun fact: Today on the WGN weather blog, I learned that this January Chicago received only 18% of possible sunshine, making it the cloudiest January on record! The records began in 1894. It's also the 2nd cloudiest month ever in Chicago! That's the kind of geeky weather fun Skilling provides. (Here's a not-so-fun fact, though, that I learned today: Tom Skilling's brother was CEO of Enron during its accounting scandal and spent over a decade in jail.)

I mention all of this because sometimes Skilling will report CoCoRaHS totals on the weather blog, and sometimes my measurement makes the report. It's very cool when it happens. This morning, though, one of my co-workers said that during last night's TV forecast, Skilling showed McHenry as having gotten 11.1 inches of snow in the last 9 days. My co-worker wanted to know if that was from my snow measurements. I didn't know, so I looked up my data, added up the totals, and discovered I had exactly 11.1 inches! It really was my measurement!

I eventually found the video of the forecast, but I couldn't find a way to link to it. So instead, here's a screenshot of Tom Skilling himself pointing at my snow totals for the last 9 days!

How cool is that!

For at least the past month, if not longer, every time I've gone to the store to buy pet supplies I've seen these little collapsible cat cubes for sale. When collapsed, they form a small cat bed:

When expanded, they form a little cube that cats can curl up inside:

Even though I really wanted to buy them, I resisted. It's a slippery slope because there are so many cute cat accessories out there that I want to buy.

Fortunately, my patience paid off. I went to the store the weekend after Thanksgiving, and there was a big display of these cat cubes with a sign saying they were 60% off. My will power collapsed, just like the cubes, and I bought two.

Shortly after I got home and set them on the floor, both cats went inside:

Now they sleep in their cubes on a regular basis, and it is adorable. As I typed this, I realized I hadn't seen Chili in a while. I went upstairs and he was curled up in his cube. I am so glad I bought them, and extra glad I got them on sale!

Finally, I am happy to report that Jalapeno has become a soccer fan thanks to the World Cup. He was really into the France-Poland game this morning! Here is a short video of his enthusiasm:

About a month or so ago I was vacuuming the house in preparation for Wendy's parents coming for a visit. I don't remember what I was thinking about, but I must have been a bit hungry, because I turned off the vacuum and said to to Wendy: "Isn't there some kind of crunchy, cheesy snack called Conquistadors?"

Wendy was using her laptop right then. She did a quick search, and discovered that there's not one called Conquistadors, but there used to be one called Cornquistos:

That's exactly what I was thinking of! I have no idea why it popped into my head while vacuuming, but it did, and it led to a trip down memory lane.

First of all, Cornquistos came out in the 1980s, and are no longer made, which is a bummer. They had a crunchy corn shell with Mexican-flavored fillings, like nacho cheese, taco, and picante. They're similar to Combos, which are still made, but Combos use a pretzel shell and are not nearly as good, according to Cornquistos fans.

Secondly, there are a couple of memorable commercials for Cornquistos. One uses the slogan "The corn crunch with fillings that say... Olé!":

And the other commercial, which is where I must have gotten the conquistadors confusion, features CORNquistadors on an airplane, on a quest to bring Cornquistos to the United States ("One crunch and you're conquered"). Click the link below to watch it; I couldn't get it to embed properly.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x926s4

The funny thing is that I don't even remember if I liked Cornquistos! But I figure I must have, and I wish they were still made so that I could try them again.

Anyone else remember them?

In a recent blog post I wrote about 2 wild turkeys Wendy and I saw last month during a walk around our neighborhood. It turns out that was just a prelude to even more turkey excitement! (I've already shared most of the pictures in this post with family and friends, but I wanted to document it on my blog for posterity.)

A couple of weeks ago, we had unseasonably warm weather for early November. It was late afternoon, and I was working from home with all the doors and windows open so I could enjoy the weather. At one point I decided to look out the window, and I saw two wild turkeys in our backyard! They were eating the food from our bird feeder that had fallen to the ground.

I ran downstairs, grabbed my phone, and starting taking lots of pictures and videos. Our cats were super interested, as you can imagine! The turkeys were right outside our basement window. At times they were only a few feet away from myself and the cats.

They hung around our backyard for nearly 30 minutes! At one point they walked up onto our deck; one of them flapped its wings to sort of fly/jump up the deck steps. I ran upstairs to get a better angle, but I think I scared them off the deck. Then they wandered into our neighbor's yard for a bit, and I thought they were gone for good, but they wandered back into our yard again. After a while they disappeared to the side of the house and were gone for good.

Here are some pics of the event, starting with some very interested cats:

A cat-turkey stare down!

I really liked this picture, because if you look closely, you can see cats, turkeys, a squirrel under the feeder, and a bird at the feeder: 

And finally, here's a video of the turkeys:

It was a very memorable afternoon!

The weather was so nice today that I decided to take the afternoon off and rake the leaves that had overtaken the yard. I took these photos before I started:

And about 2 and a half hours later I took these photos:

Now I am quite tired!