MAN did I have a weird dream last night. It really spooked me. It was SO vivid I can recall exactly what the images described below look like… and if I could paint I could detail even the leaves on the tree still. I have never had a dream this vivid I could recall the next day, let alone be able to recount as many details as I can.
I was swimming maybe 100 yards offshore at a family cottage, though as in most dreams it was just that in name and familiarity in mind. Instead of a small lake with mucky bottom, and mostly flat land around, it was large and very hilly, and the lake was sand bottom.
The shoreline of the cottage was similar, though much larger. Looking out at the water was facing due west, with an airport on the other side of the lake, maybe ½ mile away. The runway of this airport went east-west directly, and in the dream the flight path for landing and takeoff were right over our cottage.
Looking at the cottage from the water there was a large (maybe 500 foot) hill going up, heavily wooded by large deciduous trees (some oaks topping 100 feet).
So here’s the dream:
Me and a buddy were there fishing and swimming all day. Near sundown a B25 (very similar to the one at the museum we went to at the CON) came in for a landing right over the cottage, “buzzing” me and said buddy possibly 200 feet overhead. It was a thrilling sight, and we watched him land.
The next morning the neighbor brought a new sailboat over, and was going to bring it down to the water later. It was sitting on his driveway at the top of the hill above the cottages. Where the boat was sitting was in a gap of the trees maybe 50-100 yards wide. It was almost the only way clear up the hill. This is significant later.
That morning the B25 was ready to head out to an air show we had learned, and went out a few hundred yards into the lake swimming to get a first hand close look at the plane flying over us. Planes routinely took off and landed on this route, and we mostly ignored them, but this being a WWII classic we had to go see it.
When the B25 took off, it was obviously heavy with fuel or something. He barely made the end of the runway before the water’s edge, and got gear up and leveled out right away. He was headed straight towards us at maybe 50 feet. We could feel the power of the engines and the prop, and we could see the water being agitated by the turbulence.
As he came nearer, we pumped our fists in the air and waved energetically, and the pilot actually got close enough for us to see him smile, and wave back proudly. He looked like a kind gentleman, obviously in his mid 50’s or higher, and defiantly like a pilot in the white scarf, leather jacket kind of way.
About the time he passed over us he started the climb over that hill ahead of him. The strain of the plane was a sight, and flying a sim, I could sort of feel the tension of climbing with such little power. It immediately dawned on me this was no Cessna, and getting over that hill and tree line was going to be a major feat.
Then it hit me, that sailboat with it’s huge mast sticking up was blocking the main break in the trees. OH MY GOD I screamed out, trying to warn the pilot of the danger ahead of him! We started frantically heading to shore in a vain attempt to get ahead of the plane and somehow flag him back or something.
We watched from behind as the plane climbed and entered about a 20 deg right bank towards the gap.
The rest is hard to type out in detail, but I could “feel” exactly what was going on inside the plane.
The pilot obviously noticed the obstruction in his path, and attempted to bank the hill, and head parallel to it. There was a strong headwind coming over the hill, but I couldn’t tell if that was helping his lift, or hurting his climb. Unfortunately he didn’t have enough power, and the plane began to stall over. Gradually at first, eventually getting past a 90 deg bank.
At that very moment my friend and I were almost running on the surface of the water trying to do something, anything to stop this disaster. My heart was racing, my chest pounding, and I was screaming NO, NO, NO!!!
The plane went past 90 deg, nosed over and slammed into the shoreline, the nose on the shore, and 80% of the plane in the water.
Remember this was a dream so not everything happened in a “realistic” matter.
The plane did not explode and disintegrate on impact. It kind of crumpled.
We reached the shore, and sprinted over to the plane, hoping to help that pilot if he was alive.
I am getting the shivers typing this, because I can feel the fear I had in the dream. I wasn’t scared of the plane, or it blowing up, I was scared of seeing a mangled body to be honest. I have a deep fear, and aversion to corpses, and in general open wounds. In the movies it is ok to see because I know it is fake, but real blood and guts I am very disturbed by, and have childish nightmare about the injury I see on someone else happening to me.
Anyway back to the dream:
My buddy and I are the only ones there. We can see the people on the airfield a mile across the lake running to the shore, and the emergency vehicles heading to the road around the lake. I am yelling “HELLO?” “ARE YOU STILL IN THERE?” to the plane, hoping for a response from the pilot, so I know he’s not all messed up and stuff. As I edge closer to the cockpit on the ground inverted in front of me, I see the glass in the front of it splattered with blood. I’m yelling my lungs out “HELLO?” not knowing what else to say, because I am afraid to say, “Do you need help?” fearing that seeing him injured would make me turn and run like a coward.
About 10 feet from the front of the plane, voice now strained, I’m begging in my mind for someone else to get there and help the pilot. I am embarrassed I am being a coward and not running into the wreckage to help.
SNAP I wake up, heart pounding faster than I can ever remember, throat sore like I was really screaming out for help.
I have been thinking about this all day.
