It all started when I became a Christian back in 1968. Shortly after that, I had the first of my special dreams.

By special dreams, I mean these are dreams that set them selves apart from others just by their very nature. In these dreams, it is as if I am looking at a black and white photo. I see my self in the photo but there is no movement nor is there any sound. And, I am looking down at the scene from above.

In the first dream, I saw my self in an army uniform wearing a parade drum. I was standing in a small spartan room with three other guys who were also wearing parade drums. One of the guys was a tall black man wearing a “smoky the bear” style hat.

The room had a couple of green wall lockers and there was a single porcelain light fixture hanging from the ceiling. There was a window on one the end of the room and a door on the other. The window was a double hung with about a dozen small panes of glass supported by a wooden sash.

A year and a half later, I went into army basic training. One of the sergeants, a tall black man with a “smoky the bear” style hat, was a music major in college specializing in percussion. He got this idea that it would be really cool to march with the parade drums.

So, he rounded up the three of us and we started practicing in a small room with a multi paned window on one end and a door on the other end. There were a couple of green wall lockers and a single porcelain light fixture hanging from the ceiling.

At the time, I thought to myself that this is really freaky but I didn’t realize that this was just the first.