A Tachometer For Life

It looked like one of those trucks from the 60s, a faded light green Chevy. The truck was struggling to get up a hill.

Yes, the hill was steep, but not unforgivingly so. The truck should have been able to surmount it, but its engine was having difficulty summoning enough power.

The tachometer shot up. The needle buried itself in the middle of the red, upper section. That’s known as redlining. For all of the effort the truck’s engine was put in, it wasn’t making much progress.

RPMs stand for “revolutions per minute.” The number signifies a measure of the rotations a vehicle’s crankshaft makes in one minute. The higher the number, the more times the crankshaft is rotating. The higher the number, the harder the engine is working.

You’ll see tachometers on older cars and trucks with standard transmissions. Cars with automatic transmissions don’t need them.

For whatever reason, the truck in my dream couldn’t downshift to a lower gear that would have allowed the truck’s engine to produce more power.

Useful to know for driving a standard transmission…

Not every driver with a standard transmission will pay attention to the tachometer. With experience, you can hear the engine’s RPMs increase. You know when it’s time to shift to a higher gear. The tachometer trains your ear. Having the habit of shifting the right time helps fuel economy and enhances performance. It also enhances engine longevity.

Coming up on a steep hill, you’ll want to ride in a lower gear to give you more power. The top gears won’t allow for a higher RPM.

Going down a hill, you’ll want to ride in a lower gear, too. Maybe you’ll even want to ride in neutral. That uses little fuel. Riding in a lower gear prevents you from riding on the brakes for too long.

Automatic transmissions do the shifting for you. You turn over all of these calculations to the machine and not think of yourself.

That’s why the symbol was a standard transmission. There is no automatic transmission for life.

Analogy with dream journaling and interpretation

I’m writing a book called Your Hidden Superpower. My subconscious was comparing the act of meeting the ups and downs of life with a vehicle’s transmission.

You don’t have a tachometer anywhere on your body, of course. What you have, instead, are dreams. They’re your tachometer.

In life, you’re in charge of yourself. Mostly, anyway. You can’t always control what happens but you can control how you react. You can meet the challenges by upshifting and downshifting. The road through life is continually changing.

Concentrating your attention and work on one area is like downshifting. Spreading it among different areas is like upshifting. When one area of your life is under assault, however, you might still be tempted to spread your efforts out. Just as with a physical engine, will affect the effectiveness of your efforts and engine longevity.

Using your dreams as a sort of tachometer is even cooler than using an engine’s tachometer to drive more effectively. That’s because the engine’s tachometer only pertains to the engine, telling you when to shift to a higher speed or downshift to a lower speed. Dreams are more detailed. They’ll point to what you need to concentrate on or fix. They’ll tell you what’s going on.

Life is a journey. We use various tools to make the journey possible and more pleasant. When the going is tough, we’re better off if we can downshift. When the going is easier, the upper gears work fine. Getting it right in life allows for improved “engine life” and maximum performance.

 

Also on the blog:

James Cobb RN, MSN is the founder of the Dream Recovery System, a top sleep website dedicated to helping readers both sleep more effectively and understand their dreams.

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There's gold (figurative) in your dreams.
Really!
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