FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[James Catmur]

How often do we dream about minerals? I know that they do seem to appear in my dormant wanderings from time to time .

I had yet another mineral dream last night that turned into a nightmare as I seemed to be at a show trying to sell minerals (I am not a dealer) and everything seemed to go wrong - lights, theft, etc, etc.

So what do we dream about - the great finds or the nightmares?

[Jordi Fabre]

Curiously, I have only had bad dreams related with minerals. It is probably due my job of dealer. Probably people don't realize it when they comes to shows with everything well done and the minerals shining, but the stress in minerals shows for dealers is very high, that's probably why the anxiety to be ready for a main show gives me bad dreams very similar to the one described for James: everything seemed to go wrong - lights, theft, etc, etc.

Mineral shows are extremely unsure, lights frequently doesn't work, tables are old and bad, not really solid, frequently there is not the space required to work and neighbors overload their stands with the risk that they collapsed falling down in your table, the workload is very physical and it should be done in a very short time with a lot of people, cars, cleaning workers, etc. around you...and the hardest is that we work with something extremely delicate and expensive, so if we do something wrong or we have an accident the disaster could be enormous. I don't know why you have nightmares James, but it is more than logical that I have it before and during the shows considering all these circumstances.

More and more I prefer the Internet and less Mineral Shows. Is totally different to have time and mental peace to answer customer and prepare updates carefully comparing with the Show's rush.

Jordi

[Carles Curto]

When I was a young boy, time to time, I use to have mineralogical dreams, most of them successful or happy. The worst was always when I woke up without my “newly” acquired wonderful specimens.
The most significant dream I remember is related to my grandfather. I was very devote of him and It was my introducer to natural history: trees, mushrooms, insects, birds, mountains, landscapes... He also had a reduced collection of minerals and rocks. Aged my grandfather and being ill, one day I dreamed we were walking on a very well geometrically ordered landscape of green truncated pyramidal hills (the weather was splendid). In one of those hills, my grandfather and I found a nice green mineral. We actively broke it with our hammers and we laugh a lot, we were then very happy. My grandfather died the same night, and I knew the notice next morning.
My worst “mineralogical” nights coincide with the first visit to Folch collection (1973) and to the first visit to Mineralientage (1974), but I think in this case it is not adequate to talk of dreams. They were, most approximately, an estrange melange of nightmare and reverie.