Sometimes I wake up from dreams with fully-formed chunks of information fresh in my mind. One time it was a street corner in East Elmhurst. The street corner was at 23rd Avenue and 92nd Street. Within an hour of waking from that dream I was on my way to 23rd Avenue and 92nd Street to see if anything for me awaited, to see if even a bit of trash on the sidewalk would resonate or lead me to new directions.

Nothing was there besides houses, streets, a few people, grass… Just another street corner in East Elmhurst.

This morning the dream was of fish. Precise bits of information which surfaced included the e=mail address 11106@aol.com and the IP address 67.0.0.2. In the throes of waking up from a somewhat tortured dream I wrote and sent this e-mail to 11106@aol.com:


Dear 11106@aol.com;

I just woke from a dream in which your e-mail address (11106@aol.com) appeared. This is strange, I know, but I am not crazy, and this message is not automated.

In the dream I found myself in possession of a small fish tank which I had as a child. I lost the fish tank decades earlier but the fish survived. Some of them, that is. 30+ years after losing the fish tank I found it. It was still quite small but several of the fish had grown quite large — far too large for the little aquarium which held them. They were all squished in, wriggling around in limited space.

The bigger fish had survived by eating the smaller ones to which they had given birth. These bigger fish had human eyes and looked at me through the aquarium plexiglass with resentment for having abandoned them. Their look also carried anticipation that with my reappearance I could finally let them free into a lake or ocean, or at least into a larger aquarial accommodation.

I took no action during the dream, but noticed that this e-mail address, 11116@aol.com, was mysteriously present on the side of the fish tank. Also present on the side of the aquarium was the number 67.0.0.2, an Internet Protocol address that resolves to a networked computer in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I send this message now with no idea if the e-mail address is valid, and with no expectation of a response or resultant correspondence. I send this simply out of randomness and a sense of hope that finding fully-formed information (such as an e-mail address) in a dream can be a clue that leads to something real.

The response to my missive was brisk and brusque:


Sorry, we were unable to deliver your message to the following address.

:
Remote host said: 550 5.1.1 :
  Recipient address rejected: aol.com [RCPT_TO]