There is a saying that in these times your young men will have dreams and your old men will have visions. What are these things really? Why does Gator remember some dreams vividly and others barely at all, or even if a dream came to mind upon yawning awakening? Some dreams we have never forgotten as well as some ‘visions’. First things. Looking up the definition between the two reveals this: Dreams actually occur 3 to 6 times a night and last from 5 to 20 minutes. Visions usually are contained within a dream and can be somewhat translated by ‘The Word’ Scripture, the Bible. There, Gator has put that out right at the beginning of his column.

After all, there is a great mystery about these things and many highly educated people have completely declared great and lofty dissertations upon these things. Rem sleep (rapid eye movement) Psychological triggers for actions or action to be taken stuff. The experts will fill us in on something they have dabbled in and graphed oscilloscope tracks, written long and indecipherable dissertations read by other long winded professors that pontificate lengthily on their dreams and their contents. Education is often a great thing, no question there. Often the high brow attitude can be a trap for us when we are ‘rightly lauded’ for some theory that sounds good.

Gator has had visions and dreams as most of us have. He remembers some of them still after decades of ruminating on his strange and yet, rewarding life. Thankfully, his dreams are made clearer when he writes them down. Writing is a version of the two-edged sword. It gives others a story that they have not heard before and it gives the writer an outlet and sounding board for that writing. Gator welcomes critique or praise of his writing. It means someone actually read what he wrote besides the editor and proof reader! Another subject.

What makes a reader of books do so with alacrity? Re-reading old favorites is an indicator of a reader, even beloved children’s tales of Mr Toad and Badger. One of Gators dreams is his favorite: Gator was running towards a tall man with one eye. Gator had a stone in this hand and was going to stone the man as he was ‘unclean’ Obviously a dream set a some time ago when that was popular behavior. (people still stone, but with letters to the editor and on Facebook with words.) Sticks and stones rhyme has a somewhat unpleasant origin per-Se.

So, Gator ran to the one eyed man that kept smiling at Gator and there was no fear on the man’s face. As Gator drew near the man said; “Look behind you” There were scores of men, running down a hill coming near, also with stones in their hands. When they were on the other side of a fence quite near, the one eyed man declared: “In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is King.” Astonished and deeply convicted, they, along with Gator, dropped their stones. End of dream. You can sort that one out, Gator has an interpretation as he was the dreamer.

Visions are a bit more direct and can be within a dream or heard or seen while awake. Gator has had several of those kind as well. They have saved Gator’s life. They have led him to impossible, simple tasks that have impacted strangers. One was timely and healed a hip problem while Gator was sitting in a large room delightfully listening to a team of musicians and singers praying to the Risen Lord.

Jesus appeared to Gator as the two of them were swimming (Gator’s favorite physical thing of course) The Lord and Gator were both doing the side stroke facing each other and Jesus said “Do you want to go down? You can breathe down there!” Gator asked him, “how deep is it?” Jesus answered, ”How deep do you want to go?” The vision abruptly ended and Gator was healed. How deep do you want to go? Gator got out of his chair and began to dance around. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator