Verified dream
Reprinting part of an entry from last November. I'll leave out the sloppy sidenote analogies and just reprint the actual dream...

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Even without TV and with cautious use of other inputs, there's still plenty of tyranny in the air. Nothing I can do about any of it. I try to observe and analyze, which is pointless. I have occasional scary dreams, again pointless...

.... but finally a scary dream that I have the tools and skills to test. The dream was quite specific: a ground fault in my electric stove. Some liquid spilled from the pan and caused a buzzing short between the ceramic burner and the outer reflector.

Got up, got out the voltmeter, turned the burner on, tried AC voltage between various points of the burner and the reflector. Nothing. Just to see if the reflector is grounded, checked voltage to the refrigerator; a few millivolts, which is typical of ungrounded fridges. Even with no actual leakage, there's always a capacitive wave in a fridge that you can feel with your hand.

So there. No ground fault in the stove. I suspect the dream-scripter was hearing a buzz from the radio. National programs coming in via satellite sometimes drop into a buzzy digital repeat when the reception pauses.

Just in case, I ordered a new burner element. I always listen to message-bearing dreams, testable or not.

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UPDATE Feb 13: The dream was right after all. A few days ago the burner started acting oddly. Some things were heating too fast, some too slowly. A pan of barley would have boiled over if I hadn't been alert. Finally I lifted up a pan and saw the problem.... a small section of the element was red hot and the rest was black. Probably an internal short. Replaced with the new burner that I'd ordered earlier.

THANKS, DREAM-SCRIPTER! I SHOULDN'T DOUBT YOU!

Labels: defensible spaces

  ¶ 2:55 PM