DREAMS

In 1985, an intrepid British sailor made his fourth attempt at a solo crossing of the Atlantic. According to a Los Angeles Times news item (“Sailor Is No Match, ” 1985), the 65-year-old man set out from Campbletown, Scotland, in a five-foot boat, the Marmaduke Jinks IV. Almost immediately, his outboard engine lost power. So he hoisted sail, but his boat drifted backward and he fell asleep. When he woke up, he didn’t know where he was. He used an emergency hand flare and was rescued by the Coast Guard after having traveled four miles – the wrong way! As an aside, the article states that one of his previous attempts to cross the Atlantic was in 1984, when he set out from England in a barrel. When he boarded it, it capsized! Who knows what the sailor’s dreams consisted of. Does it matter, though whether he was motivated by a dream of innovation and accomplishment, or one of simple notoriety? In either event, he certainly did not surround himself with a high-technology system. How universal it is for humans early in life to dream many marvelous things. Not only are our nocturnal dreams so often filled with hopes and happy times, but in those years our waking state is also replete with aspirations to be someone heroic, or courageous, inventive, artistic, of high stature and recognition, of great wealth, with great wisdom, or some combination thereof