Dreams and cochlear implants and brains

Last night I had a dream that I had stolen the space shuttle from the Air and Space museum by the Dulles Airport in Virginia and I was trying to use it to fence-hop so I could runaway, only my pilot was a talking golden retriever. There was also something to do with a scientific study going on at an amusement park, where they put everybody in a Tower of Terror type enclosed drop-zone ride and monitored everybody's heart-rates, and everybody was fine except me and my heart rate was something like 550 beats per minute, which I don't think is even possible? Anyway, the doors opened and the medics came in with this stretcher, assuming someone was having some sort of attack, but I was just sitting there totally fine, like, hey, I don't know what's going on with my heart.

Last Sunday was testimony meeting at my church, which, for those of you who don't know, means that members in the congregation all get a chance to go up to the pulpit and take a few minutes to bear testimony about their faith and belief. One girl got up and started off by saying that she hoped she didn't sound to weird, because her cochlear implant was broken and she couldn't hear anything. When she said that I automatically thought 'You are awesome and sweet and I want to be your friend.' I think a lot of people felt that same way. I connected with that girl and automatically felt like she was more genuine. "Ideal" people do not exist in this world, or I think even hypothetically. There is no "ideal" or "perfect" person. (Except Meryl Streep, obviously. Sorry, I almost forgot for a second.) This is why we need well-rounded, complicated and unique characters. No Mary-sues. We're all so beautifully perfect in our incompleteness.

Life is strange and wonderful. Brains are strange and wonderful. And dreams. Isn't it just ungraspably weird how our minds form possibly random and incoherent images and stories while we sleep? Isn't it incredible that technology allows us to take someone who doesn't hear and give them the ability to hear? That must be one of the most intense and incommunicable experiences in the world. There's a story for you.

Sarah Allen
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