Intergalactic Travel Atop Microwaves

Step by step, I climb slabs of stone stairs toward an ancient-looking building. Something doesn’t quite seem right. The colors of the sky and surroundings seem subtly otherworldly. 

 “Is this a dream?” I ask myself. I levitate in place to confirm. 

 Turning my awareness to the dream itself, I shout, “Tell me something I need to hear!” I receive no response. 

 On to Plan B—I fly directly into the building until I see dream figures. I stop to chat. 

A normally-dressed woman tells me we are on Planet Ioota. She somehow knows Earth and tells me about how she used to live on an Earth-like planet. We discuss traveling to Spain, and she uses the phrase “un montón de” to describe a lot of something, which is a common phrase in Spain. 

A clean-cut man stops to calmly explain how he travels between galaxies. He tells me it involves the use of a “chronotrigger” and microwave technology. He sees this as a no-frills method for intergalactic travel. I’m taken aback by how basic this notion is for him. Before I could ask more, the dream collapses. 

I rush to my dream journal to capture what I hope are helpful hints for the future of space travel. In a fit of clumsy excitement, I knock over my nightstand lamp and grab the journal. While writing in the journal, I notice complicated math scribblings at the bottom of the page. Before I can inspect the equations, this dream also collapses. It was a dream within a dream. 

Upon waking, I assumed that I had merely made an odd mental connection between space travel and a lazy (i.e., efficient) man’s kitchen appliance. A quick online search revealed a deeper connection: the conversion of electricity into microwaves is actually being explored by NASA as a promising means of space propulsion. My jaw dropped. 

Perhaps this information was previously absorbed by my brain, and was forgotten before resurfacing in the dream. Alternatively, lucid dreaming could be a portal to communicate with nonlocal intelligence.

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