"Go to Dream-time!"

In 1992 I drove school-bus in Boulder, Colorado. When I applied for the job I didn’t own a wristwatch, which was required, so I bought one. After a few weeks I somehow lost the watch and so bought another one. A few weeks after that, I lost that one, too, so I bought a third watch.  Soon after, I found the two watches I lost – I had just misplaced them in my bedroom. So I wore my newest watch and the other two, each less than three months old, sat on top of my dresser. One afternoon while driving the bus, after I had dropped off all the students, I was alone, driving the bus back to the bus yard. Unexpectedly, there was a male voice behind me, over my right shoulder, that said “Go to Dream-time!” I was startled and immediately annoyed that one of the students would have purposely missed his stop by hiding, making it necessary for me to turn around and take him home. “Who’s there?” I asked, scanning the rear-view mirror and seeing no-one in the bus. “Come on,” I said, “Stop hiding. I have to take you home!” There was no answer. So I pulled the bus to the side of the road and parked, got up and walked down the center aisle of the bus, looking in each seat for the student. There was no-one there. Brushing it off as some odd, random thing, I started the bus and resumed driving back to the bus yard. Within a minute or so, the same male voice said “Go to Dream-time!” again. “Who’s there? This is serious. You have to stop hiding and I have to get you home. Where are you?” No answer. I figured this kid must be hiding under one of the seats, so I pulled the bus to the side of the road again, got up and looked above and below every single seat in the bus. No-one was there. I didn’t know what to think. I started driving again and it happened a third time – “Go to Dream-time!” This time, I didn’t say anything and just kept driving. When I got to the bus yard, one of the post-trip requirements is to record the time you arrived. I checked my watch but it had stopped working. When I got home, I picked up another of my watches and it, too, had stopped working. To my relief, my third watch was working. The next morning at 6:00 a.m., when I got up for work, the 3rd watch had stopped working, too. After that, I did two things. Whatever “Dream-time” meant, I felt that I had received a clear message to stop using “regular” time, so I didn’t wear a watch for the following eleven years. Second, I asked around for what “Dream-time” might mean and the only reference I found was that it is a term used by Australian aboriginals. I started reading every book about aboriginals I could get my hands on. I learned some things but not what I was looking for. I feel now that my destiny is in Australia and the answer to the puzzle lies in my seeking out and speaking with some aboriginals. I feel that somehow, even after all these years, if I can make it to Australia, I will be lead to the answer to this puzzle.

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