Blue_Opossum

Sunday, 13 September 1970. 1,364-M1. 1 min 11 sec read.



A tornado approaches Arcadia, Florida, from the southwest in the morning. I do not consider it a threat to my Cubitis home about four miles north of Arcadia, but I wonder if it will reach my school.

At the end of the driveway of Kenny and Karen’s home; is an elevated podium where an unfamiliar dark-haired man of about 30 gives a cheerful lecture about tornadoes. He faces Highway Seventeen. A small crowd stands on the wayside. The man’s head and shoulders are about three feet above the audience as I watch from my bedroom windows. I zoom in on the scene. He uses a pointer stick on a picture of the “tornado” on an easel to his left.

The “tornado’s anatomy” picture is only a series of sparse horizontal lines on a white background. The simple diagram suggests a tornado’s shape, but I am puzzled by its lack of detail.

I think about how the tornado will affect my school. I find myself in my school’s playground. The tornado arrives but is only as high as a single-storey house. I neither feel its wind nor sense peril. I stand on the south side of the hexagonal merry-go-round, thinking I could save my schoolmates.

I grab the merry-go-round’s metal bar and run in a circle to counteract the tornado.

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Note: The end of Kenny and Karen’s driveway is where we waited for the school bus in some semesters.

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My dream begins with the physiological influence of vestibular-motor sensations (from REM atonia). It changes from spontaneous vestibular-motor responses to controlled and more defined.

A tornado approaches, but I know it will dissipate when I spin the merry-go-round. Also, I associate the area where we waited for the bus with expecting the vestibular-motor sensations of riding a bus.

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