These Nightmares

Marco strictly adheres to the premonitions he harvests from dreams and<br />visions. It is a defense mechanism that keeps him alive. Last summer<br />he dreamt he contracted flesh eating bacteria from a spider bite at a<br />picnic in San Antonio, Texas only three days before a scheduled flight<br />to that same location. He promptly canceled the flight and avoided the<br />bacteria.<br /><br />The verses of this song deal with two such premonitions. The first is<br />an abstract of a nightmare Marco had weeks before he was to accompany<br />NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission in October 2008 as part of<br />the Lunar Precursor Robotic Program to explore the feasibility of<br />human spaceflight missions to the moon. He withdrew from the mission,<br />and the launch was delayed until June 2009, by which time NASA had<br />realized the unnecessary danger of putting a human on what was<br />originally designed as a solely robotic reconnaissance.<br /><br />The second tells of a dream he had before climbing Mount Shasta in<br />August of 2006. Although terrified by the sight of his body plummeting<br />down the side of the mountain while reaching for trees that were only<br />matchsticks, he defied its warning and proceeded with the climb. "It<br />was incredible," he said of Shasta. "I am glad that I was unwilling to<br />let a nightmare prevent me from reaching 14,179 feet."