2.1-1
Dreams
Remembering my dreams has always been difficult for me.  I had a few memorable
dreams when I was a kid but only a few scary ones.  In my adolescence, again, the
dreams weren’t too memorable.  Instead, for me sleep and dream time was the
time my brain spent thinking about unsolved math or physics problems of the day
or week.  I was able to go to bed at night and wake up in the morning with an
answer or a method to solve this or that problem.  

This method of problem solving continued through college and became helpful in
my work as an engineer.  Surprising to most as it may be, this type of problem
solving is not uncommon in the engineering field.  A few other engineers I've
spoken with believe they too were always working on some unsolved problem even
though they were away from work.  I suppose it isn’t easy to just shut the brain off
when you leave the physical presence of the work place or ‘go to sleep’.  The
design of the machine is such that it just wants to keep on cranking out answers.  
At times this ability has proved to be bothersome but mostly it has been helpful.

Before I left General Dynamics back in August of 1990, my co-worker Kirk, asked
me, “What are you going to do for work when you get back from your travels?”
And my answer was that I truly did not know what I wanted to do for work when I
returned, nor did I really care.  The only thought in my head was traveling and
when I returned I wished to have a simple job for I was tired of draining my brain on
engineering problems.

Kirk never believed me when I told him I had no particular career plan in mind and
that the only thing I knew was that I didn't want to be an engineer anymore.  But
Kirk, with his simple question had unwittingly and without meaning harm sown the
seed in my brain.  So, although my mind consciously was set to only travel, have
fun, meet people, and see new and interesting sights, subconsciously the sleep
and think machinery couldn’t just be shut down.  It was still looking for problems to
solve and it seems there are many unsolved problems lying dormant somewhere
in the brain, at least in mine, one of which was the one Kirk had posited.
Counter
World Turned Upside Down
Music - Dream by
The Everly Brothers