I had several quick dreams in a row about getting reviews back on my paper. Bit of background first: I've been watching a ton of Chopped and Kitchen Nightmares, especially right before bed. So, my first dream, I was watching the reviews on TV. My secondary experiment (partial drug action) was shown as a rather dry and poorly seasoned baked chicken drumstick while my main experiment (drug combination) was portrayed as a nicely seared chicken thigh with crispy skin. Each course was on a large skewer of 5-6 of them in a row. The reviewers were shown eating each course and complaining about the drumsticks but loving the thighs. The ultimate decision was to reject, which made me mad because the main should have outweighed the starter. I was particularly ticked off that each reviewer/chef had only written a couple of lines each, which I thought was unprofessional.

In the next dream, I was home with my mom living in a quaint 1980s-style ranch house. The reviews came via FedEx, and to our surprise were delivered by Gordon Ramsay himself! He had been helping with the paper writing previous to this and was here to follow up on the reviews. He even gave us change for the order (in pounds, of course) and started yelling at us when we dropped the numerous coins all over the nearby couch. Eventually we found them all and I put them in my back pocket. I ripped open the FedEx package and was delighted to see the words "Accept with revisions." I quickly scanned the comments to find that they liked the paper but wanted to see more mouse data. I had a hard time concentrating though, because my mom had started vacuuming with a noisy, old-style machine. I then got a text from my boss telling me to start putting together the response to the reviewers. Things warped over the next few moments, vacillating first toward rejection, then back to acceptance with revisions. I even remarked that I'd just had a couple dreams about getting the reviews back. During this time I experienced the appropriate rollercoaster of emotions, but was glad to end on the dreams on a happier note. When I woke up, I had that fleeting moment of belief in the dreams, but found nothing in my email. Sometimes no news is good news though.

posted by Larry at 8:50 AM