One dream in particular that really stands out in my memory happened when I was in Mannheim, West Germany in the late '60s.  I had been in the Army Transportation Corps for about five years and had been on many convoys and truck operations.   One night I had a long and detailed dream about driving a truck in a convoy.  We were supposed to enter a housing development but were delayed for some reason so we had to pull off the road and wait for word to go in.  I remember the image of the road and the area very clearly.  We were on a wide shoulder, about ten trucks in all;  on our right were the back fences of the houses which fronted on a parallel street inside the development.  I  could see the street that turned into the development and drivers of the trucks ahead of me getting out and milling around while they waited for word to go.  To our left was an open field;  several acres-worth.  Behind me was the main road we had turnedoff of to get where we were, it was treelined on one side and straight as a board.  I saw another group of ten trucks coming up the road enroute to the same development we were waiting to get into.

I woke up and told MC about the silly dream.  First of all, all the trucks were white and all the drivers had white helmets.  Each truck had its own radio, too.  The Army didn't have white trucks, green was the color of choice for all things Army...and the Army's green trucks didn't have individual radios...and certainly no white helmets.  There were other procedural errors but it was just a dream so I let it go.  For the next couple of weeks it would cross my mind now and again and I would puzzle over it and try to see if it could mean anything....it didn't

Now we move forward in time about four or five years.  We are out of the Army, about halfway through our "civilian tour".  I have had a series of nothing jobs and have wound up driving for United Metro, a sand and gravel and asphalt delivery outfit.  The International dump truck I drive is white with a red and white company logo on the door.  

One afternoon I am one of a number of trucks assigned to carry hot asphalt mix out to a new housing area to pave the streets.  When we get there, there is a delay and we are told to line up on the shoulder and wait to be called to the paver.  

To avoid a log-jam at the paver, we were all loaded at five-minute intervals but a delay like the one we were having meant that the trucks would get all bunched up.  I heard another group of trucks calling us to see what the delay was;  they were on Baseline Road about a mile or more west of us and wanted to know if they should find a wide spot to pull over, too.  

As I looked over my shoulder to watch the second group coming down Baseline Road, I realized, sitting there in my white hardhat, that my truck and all the trucks I could see were white.  I had heard the conversation about the delays because my truck and every truck in the group were equipped with company radios.  The shoulder, the trees, the street, the trucks, the helmets, the radios:  all the elements of my silly old dream were present and accounted for.  

When I got home and excitedly told MC about it, she didn't remember me telling her about the dream in the first place.

I don't know what to call it.  Deja vu?  ESP?  I don't know what good it is to have a dream like that, no warning or premonition, no insight into the lottery numbers, nothing that would interest a kid.  So what good are they?  As I pointed out earlier, I have had these kinds of dreams all my life...