Some years ago I had a remarkable dream. In it I was a raindrop tumbling from a great, gray cloud and I felt ecstatically free the way one can in flying dreams. Then, suddenly, the clouds parted and below me stretched a vast and endless blue ocean and to my horror I realized I was about to be swallowed up in it, that upon splashdown “I” would forever disappear in that great expanse of water. Terror gripped me and I…