A chondrite meteorite

While on leave in the UK, my brother is helping me clear some weeds from the back garden. After a while, he calls me over to show me an interesting rock he has just turned up. At first, I think it is just a pebble, but on closer examination I see that there is actually an impression in its surface of either an insect or a flower. Has this been engraved, we wonder? The underside is lumpy, and the rock fits easily in my palm.

A chondrite meteorite

Later, I show April the rock and ask if she can tell me anything about it while in the clear dreaming condition. Such an approach was successful before when we asked for the names of Pluto and Jupiter's moons. She says she will try, and before bed places the stone under her pillow.

Her signal arrives at about 01:15; an hour or so after we retire. It sounds and feels like a gentle coiling wind, moving from her feet to her crown. There is a sensation of movement through grainy darkness and after half a minute, she finds herself in a twilight environment, soft underfoot, hills and trees in the middle distance, her grandmother standing next to her; no other people are around. A shooting star descends from the left and lands a few metres away, close enough for them to hear it sizzle in the ground. A female alitaptap (firefly), maybe attracted to the glowing rock, lands and gets stuck. Its brief struggles only make it worse and I feel a sense of pity as she tells me. Can we save it? she asks her grandmother. Her granny shakes her head. No, it’s already too late. Then she is told, The rock is a chondrite meteorite. It’s from Mars and is very old. Then the signal is broken: her body wakes her; she needs to use the bathroom.

In the morning she tells me what she has learned. I’ve never heard of the word chondrite before and check online. I find that it is a real word and refers to the grainy particles which typically constitute some types of meteorite. I’m amazed and thrilled that we have found a possible answer. Both the age and origins of the rock are feasible. There is no way April has ever heard of this word before. It reaffirms to me that the clear dreaming condition permits access to 'total' information, and not only from those sources accumulated personally.