[jyl]

I have an interesting story, for you dream theorists.

I was a lawyer for 13 years. Back then, our files were kept on paper, in manila folders, with deadlines written on slips of paper and in big red calendar books. It wasn't until the end of my career that litigation calendaring software was being used. Basically you had to keep track of deadlines manually. And if you were busy, every day you had two, three, five critical deadlines across the fifty or so cases you were handling. Critical meaning if you did not get a brief filed or a document served or a form delivered by 4:30 pm that day, your client's case was prejudiced and you had committed malpractice. Kind of a nightmare. Ulcer stuff.

So, I don't normally remember my dreams. But during those 13 years, if I did wake up and remembered a dream, that was my sign to rush to the office and physically search through every single case and find the deadline that I had miscalendared and forgotten. I'd find it, and make the deadline. It worked EVERY SINGLE TIME.

When I stopped being a lawyer, my "dream alert" stopped too. My dreams no longer alert me to companies that are about to miss earnings or stocks that are about to blow up. Bummer.