Toddy's insomniacs united thread got me to realising that I have a reverse problem: vivid dreams. And I may not be alone.
Although for very many years I have helped myself to drop off to sleep by thinking about past adventures in the wild or often imagining myself to be in a sleeping bag under nylon somewhere in the mountains instead of being tucked up in bed in a house, I don't ever remember having had a bushcrafty dream until last night.
I have had many very vivid dreams and nightmares over the years often associated with work stress but last night was different. I dreamed that I was on a firemaking course with a number of other people run by a well-known bushcraft blogger and teacher who shall be nameless! To pass the course, we had to demonstrate that we could build a fire using his particular ferro-rod technique. His instructions were to get everything ready but not light the fire until he was there to see what we did. I carefully gathered pine resin rich splinters, tinder, kindling and progressively larger pieces of wood of exactly the right species for the given task. However, in my eagerness to show off, I lit my fire too soon while he was still engaged with another student and was asked to do it all over again. But in my dream, I kept on starting the fire too early and had to repeat the process over and over again. Finally, I was the only student left and I had the undivided attention of not only the instructor, but also the rest of the group who all gathered round to watch my effort. Unfortunately I had by now used up all my carefully gathered combustibles, the rest up the group had cleared the vicinity of everything with which to replace them except two large, rotten, soaking tree stumps. My showing was a dismal and embarrassing failure.
No post-freudian analyses of my dream please or those of anyone one else willing to contribute but:
1 Do you have any pleasant bushcrafty things you think about to get yourself off to sleep?
2 Have you experienced any bushcraft related dreams or nightmares?
I should point out that I have never attended any bushcraft course. My knowledge has been picked up incidentally over many years from other people I have travelled with or from putting into practice what I have read. So I have only myself to blame.
Although for very many years I have helped myself to drop off to sleep by thinking about past adventures in the wild or often imagining myself to be in a sleeping bag under nylon somewhere in the mountains instead of being tucked up in bed in a house, I don't ever remember having had a bushcrafty dream until last night.
I have had many very vivid dreams and nightmares over the years often associated with work stress but last night was different. I dreamed that I was on a firemaking course with a number of other people run by a well-known bushcraft blogger and teacher who shall be nameless! To pass the course, we had to demonstrate that we could build a fire using his particular ferro-rod technique. His instructions were to get everything ready but not light the fire until he was there to see what we did. I carefully gathered pine resin rich splinters, tinder, kindling and progressively larger pieces of wood of exactly the right species for the given task. However, in my eagerness to show off, I lit my fire too soon while he was still engaged with another student and was asked to do it all over again. But in my dream, I kept on starting the fire too early and had to repeat the process over and over again. Finally, I was the only student left and I had the undivided attention of not only the instructor, but also the rest of the group who all gathered round to watch my effort. Unfortunately I had by now used up all my carefully gathered combustibles, the rest up the group had cleared the vicinity of everything with which to replace them except two large, rotten, soaking tree stumps. My showing was a dismal and embarrassing failure.
No post-freudian analyses of my dream please or those of anyone one else willing to contribute but:
1 Do you have any pleasant bushcrafty things you think about to get yourself off to sleep?
2 Have you experienced any bushcraft related dreams or nightmares?
I should point out that I have never attended any bushcraft course. My knowledge has been picked up incidentally over many years from other people I have travelled with or from putting into practice what I have read. So I have only myself to blame.
