By Tim Sanders

Last Wednesday night I awoke with a chill. I’d dreamed that I was a kid again in Michigan. I was walking to school–waddling, actually–all trussed up in snow pants, boots, and stocking cap, following along behind a line of other kids similarly dressed. We headed down Main Street toward the bridge, single-file, and when we crossed the bridge, we headed up the hill toward the school. It was bitterly cold and the wind was battering us with snow and sleet. We all had a large egg duct-taped to each boot, covered by a warm protective mitten. They were fresh eggs, and I believe it was part of a science project, but I’m not sure. So I’m nuts, right? Well, not so fast.

Have you ever visited a hospitalized friend who has suffered a heart attack, and then returned home, only to notice you are experiencing some of those same symptoms? "Hey," you tell yourself, "my left arm is a little sore, and my chest does feel kinda tight, and now that I think about it, I do have some shortness of breath. Omigosh, if this is the big one, then Lord I take back all the ... "

Well, if this has ever happened to you, then obviously you are a hopeless hypochondriac. Believe me, before you finish this column it is entirely possible that your hypochondria will raise your blood pressure high enough to explode a major blood vessel in your head and leave you little more than a vegetable for the rest of your life. And even if you’re not already an ear of corn, I’ll bet you do notice a slight throbbing on the top of your head, on that kernel right there under your tassel, don’t you?

For those of you who are still with me, I am simply illustrating one of the most potent psychological weapons available to mankind–the lie. No, actually what I am illustrating is the power of suggestion.

If you’ve ever read an article in the Farm Journal about flea infestation, and then awakened in the night to find yourself itching like a hound, you know the power of suggestion. Either that, or you know not to let old Blue sleep under the covers anymore.

In the late ‘70s, after viewing the original movie "Jaws," my wife, our two sons and I spent a few days camping in Savannah, Georgia. We were wading in the ocean not far from the campground, as happy as if we had good sense. I don’t remember if it was Marilyn or I who first saw those three or four menacing fins slicing through the surf a few yards away, but it took no time at all for the four of us to exit the water. Some of the natives there were amused, and told us we’d been scared off by dolphins, but we took no comfort in that. "Jaws" had planted that seed–the suggestion of becoming human fish bait–in our tiny minds, and we weren’t about to go back in. We saw what had happened to Robert Shaw, and he was a tanned, salty old seafarer on a boat with a wench and firearms, for Pete’s sake. We were pale, pathetic landlubbers, with nothing but a couple of butter knives back at the campground.

So what about that goofy dream, you ask? Well, last week, Marilyn and I were watching an excellent video, "March of the Penguins." This National Geographic film documents the yearly trek of the Antarctic emperor penguins from that frigid continent’s coast inland to the penguin breeding ground, where they polish their beaks, bugle at each other, exchange phone numbers, pair off, preen and bow repeatedly, mate and lay their solitary egg. The devoted male then incubates the egg by positioning it carefully on his feet, under a warm fold of abdominal skin, while the female waddles back to the coast to eat for a couple of months.

The initial seventy-mile walk starts in late March, at the beginning of the Antarctic winter, and since the penguins tend to waddle and slide on their bellies a lot, mostly in single-file formation, it takes weeks. I wondered why, given the difficulty penguins have with speed, they didn’t just select a closer breeding ground–oh, say fifteen or twenty miles inland. But that is for wiser minds than ours to contemplate. Hey, I know several otherwise rational humans who waddle off to places like Gatlinburg every fall, despite traffic jams and tourists up the wazoo, and usually not even for breeding purposes–only for shopping in chintzy little craft stores.

But I digress. For just a few seconds of wild, unbridled penguin sex, these poor birds endure this yearly march, which actually consists of seven trips back and forth to feed, often through -80 degree temperatures and up to 100 mph blizzard winds. Seventy miles for a few seconds of sex? Penguin sex?

And here’s where the power of suggestion first reared its ugly head that night:
"You know, it’s funny," Marilyn said, about halfway through the film, "but this makes me feel like I need–"

"Yeah, it sure does," I replied. "How about we turn off the video, waddle around the house a few times, polish our beaks, bugle once or twice, preen and bow to each other, and then–"

"What I was going to say, you idiot, was that all of that footage of those poor penguins huddled together in those blizzard winds and -100 degree temperatures makes me chilly. I think I need a jacket."

I hadn’t thought of that, but she was absolutely right. There did seem to be a nip in the air. It was the power of suggestion.

"I’m cold too," I agreed. "I’ll turn up the heat. And speaking of turning up the heat, do you ever get any of those Victoria’s Secret catalogs in the mail anymore? I haven’t bought your Christmas present yet."

She threw a pretzel at me. Obviously, as far as she was concerned there was little or no power in that particular suggestion. She was still preoccupied with those marching penguins, and the wind chill in our den.

Ivan Pavlov was the first physiologist to test the power of suggestion on dogs. In the early 1900s he found, after months of tedious training, that by ringing a bell he could make his dogs think of Victoria’s Secret lingerie models. Well, actually what he made the dogs do was salivate; I don’t believe they had Victoria’s Secret lingerie models back then. He called this conditioning, but it was still the power of suggestion, and he eventually won the Nobel Prize for his valuable contribution to mankind–making dogs drool. This was important because today modern scientists, using sophisticated technology based on the pioneering work by Dr. Pavlov, are able to make grown men drool by pushing the appropriate button on a TV remote.

Which brings us back to my dream. Now that you know the background, it all makes perfectly good sense. Right?

If you still doubt the power of suggestion, when you go to bed tonight, try your best not to think about penguins wearing Victoria’s Secret lingerie. Remember, no penguins, no lingerie. No eggs duct-taped to your boots. Not fresh eggs, nor hard-boiled, nor poached, either. Remember, no penguins, no lingerie, no eggs. Don’t even think about it.

And happy dreams.