Sessile Utopia
Dreamed 1998/8/8 by Wayan
1: SESSILE UTOPIA
The future. A science fiction writer describes a utopia with a bizarre setting: it's a big lens of ice orbiting close to Saturn, a shard from a tidal-shattered moon. The lens spirals slowly into Saturn's outer atmosphere. But because its orbit was so close to circular, the lens vaporizes only on the bottom and skips like a stone--levitates on a bed of steam! Sessile, like a waterdrop on a hot skillet.
So the ice-lens skims along at the very top of Saturn's atmosphere, glowing hot as the sun beneath. Up top, a disk hundreds of kilometers wide--with water, heat and power all free for the drilling. The writer calculates it's as stable as the Great Red Spot--will last about 500 years before the ice gets too thin. His utopia site.
After the book comes out and does well, his concept of sessile lenses becomes current. Only now do astronomers think to look for real ones floating over gas giants. The possibility just hadn't occurred to anyone. And they find one--on Saturn, as he predicted!
Inspired by the book, a group prepares to go settle there... Most people assume humans can't take the high gravity of a gas giant, but in fact Saturn, like Uranus and Neptune, are so low-density their surface gravities are much like Earth's. Only Jupiter would crush you. We're strong enough for Saturn!
His absurd Utopia may actually be viable.
NOTES IN THE MORNING
Wake and write sleepy notes of the dream. Draw tiny images of Saturn. Hope I'll recognize later, not mistake them for Scandinavian Ø or Greek phi or Chinese chung or the musical sign for a half-diminished chord. Tell myself "remember--don't treat them as symbols, they're literal images."
When wake again, find no writing on the pad by my bed; I dreamed this too! Such an afterdream emphasizes Saturn is literal--not a symbol of my slowness to invest. Keravision produces rings, and from the side, a corrected cornea would look rather like the dream logo. Invest in Keravision, it'll power my utopia!
THE OUTCOME
I did invest in Keravision--and it tripled in the next few months. Then I had a follow-up dream warning it wouldn't last--to sell when my portfolio hit $45,000. Seemed astronomical when I dreamed it, but I set up an automatic sell order, just in case. And it DID climb that far!
Trouble was, my broker was Charles Schwab, and it turns out their online system ERASED sell orders after just 60 days--hidden in the fine print. The stock peaked where the dream said, but Schwab erased my sell order, so I ended up losing not gaining. I'd always found Charles Schwab's online system buggy--I often had to go in and stand in line and yell to get stuff done. But THIS was the last straw for me.
Schwab's not unique. Like most brokers, it serves (and milks) eager-beaver short-term speculators. I wanted to invest long-term and leave it alone, check in just quarterly--if that. Vote for good products and services, not play the market. Value investing, a la Graham Alexander or his student Warren Buffett.
So I switched to E*Trade, using it minimally (and warily), bought an ethical/social fund specifically for long-term investors, and left it alone. That's worked for me.
The message for dreamers is, I think: dreams' financial advice was specific and sound even during this time when I tried speculation. My dreams did NOT...
The point is... if you need money, if you've dealt with any training to reject money, if your financial plan is ethical... then your dreams can aid you. They're aren't naïve or treacherous. Though capitalism is.
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