Monday, July 28, 2008

Weird, Weird Dream

I've never been one to catalogue my dreams, although I do often get ideas for things in my dreams. But, I know people who keep a journal by their bed and immediately record their dreams upon waking. I'm not one of those.

However, I'm going to make an exception and tell you about last night's dream because it was so freaky and "telling" as to my basic thought patterns in general. I think. Maybe. Who knows?

As it turns out, according to this dream of mine, the apostle Paul wrote a great deal more than just a few verses addressing folks with sexual identity issues. There was an entire book (in the Bible, mind you...unfortunately, I never caught the name of it) dedicated to a lengthy set of "experiments" conducted on intersexed people back in the day.

The odd thing about that word intersexed is that I didn't even know that was a "real" word until I looked it up this morning. Obviously, I've heard it somewhere in my goings-about here on the internet, but I had to look it up this morning to find out what it meant. Don't click on that link if you are easily offended by the use of body part words.

So, in this dream of mine I'm back at church in Granbury and lo' and behold Tdub shows up there on the same day as me. Go figure. Furthermore, guess what book of the Bible we're studying on this particular Sundee mornin'? Yep. It's Paul-Does-Intersex day at the good ole Granbury CoC. Amazing.

The really weird thing about this Bible passage is that it's complete with drawings, diagrams and details about all these tests and experiments that Paul conducted on these intersexed people. As I reflect on it, I realize that Paul was actually none other than my good friend Dr. T. Imagine that! (I know he'll get a kick out of this.) Don't ask me how, but in this dream there's electricity and wires and stuff detailed in all the data that had been canonized after being collected and recorded by "Paul".

Our Bible class teacher is one of the ministers at the church; one whose daughter pops in now and again here at my blog. (crypto shout-out to miss A!) The action begins as I'm in the class, listening intently and, as is typical, asking lots of questions and making comments, when in pops a very outspoken (meaning loud and rather obnoxious) lady who is ranting on and on about the fact that Tdub is out there right this minute eating
DONUTS and drinking JUICE (it was clearly a dream, he never drank the juice or ate the donuts even though he did stand out there and visit all through Bible class which annoyed me greatly and still does even in this DREAM....TDUB!! hmmmph!) It's definitely "post-divorce" in the dream so I'm totally teasing about being annoyed. It's no longer any of my business if Tdub wants to stand outside class and visit while I, on the other hand, make every effort to "hear the word".

OK...back to the dream. The lady pops in ranting about Tdub and going on and on about how Exodus has proven that homosexuals can change and that God has made it very clear that all of them are an abomination. She says all this in a really twangy southern Texas accent which does nothing for her credibility. I start crying and defending Tdub and talking about how surely there's some grace involved here because at least Paul went to all this trouble of trying to figure things out and even though all of his studies were inconclusive the very fact that he studied all of it and wrote it in the BIBLE should mean that we need to be at least nice to homosexuals....right??? Pretty please??? Tdub is just standing there shaking his head and looking at me and saying, "See, I told you this is what would happen." And I'm all like, "No, wait, don't leave. Just give them a chance, they'll be nice...I just know it."

Then I feel something warm and wet and wake up to Emma licking me in the face.

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5 comments:

Iain said...

Hi, Grace,

Certainly a weird dream with St. Paul the scientist carrying out experiments!!

Do you think God is trying to tell you something via this dream, or that it's just a weird dream? Sometimes God tells us things through dreams or pictures, and my own personal journey in this area was prompted by a picture I received in Church.

As regards scientific research, there was a fascinating article placed on the BBC news website at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7456588.stm

that may well be of interest. A friendly warning to anyone who might be prudish - the article contains a photograph of two men kissing. It's not a problem for me.

It documents a Swedish study that carried out brain scan analysis of 90 individuals, male and female, and gay and straight.

What they found was that straight men showed a slight asymmetry of the brain - the left and right hemispheres were slightly different in size. Thie asymmetry was also present in lesbian women. They found that straight women had more symmetrical brains, and that this symmetry was also present in the brains of gay men.

Since this was found in a study of around 90 individuals, it seems to be strong evidence that the structure of your brain determines which gender you are attracted to, irrespective of your own gender.

It appears that this symmetry or asymmetry in the brain is determined by the quantities of different chemicals in the womb during early pregnancy.

grace said...

Iain,
I promise I'll change to the correct spelling of your name in the sidebar very soon.

Well...I think my dreams are mostly just my mind working through all the data and emotion that's in there. I still have nightmares about snakes at least once a month because of this completely irrational phobia I have regarding anything remotely slitherish.

I imagine it somewhat like a big scrap box of odds and ends, the kind art teachers like me are always collecting. And the dream is just my mind randomly pulling items from the box and fitting them together in some sort of story.

I must have one box set aside just with snake stuff in it.

Thanks for the link!

Anonymous said...

That sounds like quite the dream!

W. Throckmorton said...

I will be publishing that research next month in the Journal of Nocturnal Submission. Glad you contributed to science!

Warren St. Paul

grace said...

Dr. St. Paul,

This made my day.

Can't wait to see how all of our mutual friends dissagregate your latest findings! Sounds fun, at least!

:)