I Open The Doors To My Dreams

I have been quite successful in my new job, which is to decorate airplanes with moving images. I create photographs and digital images and stick them on every airplane visiting the airport. The rules for the airlines are straightforward: no images - no landing rights. I have the full support of the management.  My images are rectangular, roughly two by three meters. They are made from living pixels that can move across any surface. The images move horizontally across the body of the airplane, from tail to cockpit and back again along the other side. So, even when the plane stands still, it looks like it is moving. People love it!  Previously, people had made it clear they found airplanes boring, and as a result the number of visitors, travelers and flights at the airport had started to decrease. My moving images have stopped this downward trend. They make people smile. They hypnotize people. They make people stay longer at the airport, consume more, and travel more often. My employers

Even though I've been retired for over two years, my former employer - a global pharmaceutical company - has invited me for a brainstorming session. It will take place in a local bar, not in the office building where I've worked for so many years. When I arrive I recognize a lot of my former colleagues, of whom A serves as the sole bartender. What surprises me is that no-one is ordering any drinks. No-one seems to recognize me either. When the session starts it appears that not only am I unable to participate, I'm also unable to hear what's being said. Not that it matters much, because within minutes the brainstorming session morphs into a meeting of the Council of Leiden, the Dutch city where I live. Subjects being discussed are bicycle routes, parking regulations, construction permits, etc. And though I can hear what's being said, I can't talk back. Well, I can talk back, but nobody hears me. After the meeting, when people start to mingle, the situation norma

I leave my house to go shopping, and when I return everything has changed. The apartment building where I live has disappeared, and the farms that used to be here before the city was extended have returned. The nearby district of single family homes is gone too, it's all fields and cows. There's hardly any traffic, just one noisy tractor in the distance. I suddenly feel very lonely, and I decide I want to go downtown to be surrounded by people. Because the bus stop has disappeared as well, I have to walk. When I arrive in the city centre I see many people, but by far not as many as I remember. The city itself looks different too: some streets are canals like they used to be, and the factories that I know as abandoned are operational again. Then I realize what happened: I'm in the past! This past is a mixture of the 1970s, when I moved to Leiden as a student, and earlier periods that I only know from photo books. The situation is getting to my nerves, and I want to leave Lei

It's the early 1960s. I am sitting on the floor in the living room of the house where I spent the first nine years of my life. But I'm not a child, I'm an adult: the person that is dreaming this dream. So how did I end up in the past, surrounded by my childhood toys? When I look around, I notice that my (adult) twin cousins are in the room as well. They have turned into statues, resembling the Anubis statues of ancient Egypt. In their stone-like hands, both cousins hold a carton of orange juice. Puzzled, I approach one of them to have a look at the orange juice. When I get close, the carton becomes transparent, as does the orange juice. I can see thousands of small creatures swimming inside the carton. Roughly half of them are from our planet's prehistory; the other half is of alien origin. The carton of my other cousin is similarly full of creatures, but they are different from the ones in the other carton. The two cartons are counterparts: male vs. female, positive vs

In real life, I have retired from my job at a pharmaceutical company. In my dream I am invited back to attend an inspection meeting. In the pharmaceutical industry, the European Medicines Agency and other regulatory bodies execute inspections of pharmaceutical companies to investigate if quality and safety related to the development, manufacturing and marketing of medicines is maintained. Apparently, my former company was to be subjected to such an inspection, and my presence was required. The meeting takes place on the eighth floor of the company headquarters, and the whole floor is turned into an auditorium consisting of a central stage surrounded by circles of seats. There is also plenty of standing room. The meeting is absolutely packed; I estimate between 100 and 200 people are attending, most of them standing. When I arrive, the representative of the Agency is already at the center of the auditorium, speaking through a microphone. He's asking questions that the attendees have

The Randstad job agency has communicated that they will start to accept submissions of people's home-made inventions. They will pitch them to companies, and when a company accepts an idea it will hire the inventor and help him or her to commercialize the invention. I have invented a Living Map. My prototype is a large piece of cardboard that shows, in miniature and in real-time, everything that is happening in my city, Leiden. Because it is raining I wrap my investion in plastic, and get on my bike to go to the Randstad office. However, it has been raining so heavily that the bicycle tunnel on my route is flooded. I have to get off my bike and wade through 30 centimeters of water to reach the other side. Just when I'm getting off my bike a rook lands on the front fender and punctures the front tire with its long, sharp beak. Now I'm in trouble. Not only will I miss my appointment because I have to walk to the job agency, I won't even be able to find my destination becau