Weights depending, and flying ships with anchors

Just a quick sync note. Last night I had a dream which I've forgotten most of, but I remember one scene in which I was paragliding over a beach -- or doing something similar to paragliding, but I could control the direction and altitude of my flight. I had a 14-kilogram dumbbell (it was labeled) which I wanted to give to someone standing on the sand. I didn't want to drop it from a great height, but neither could I afford to fly too low, so I tied it to a length of rope and lowered it. The rope wasn't long enough, so I still had to fly dangerously low. The person on the sand (who I think may have been my brother Luther) still couldn't quite reach it, so I let go of the rope and let it drop. It landed in the wet sand, and he was able to retrieve it just in time, before the rising tide made it impossible. I think there was also a magnet involved -- either the dumbbell was magnetic, or I wanted to give him a magnet as well as a dumbbell, or something like that -- but my memory of that part is too vague.

The sync is that today William Wright posted "Suspended in TIme: Loosening girdles and deepening weights, and the Grey Lady of the New York Times," which included this quote from him who must not be named:

The winds and waves took them withersoever, day and night, and by long store of provisions they were comfortably housed, if uneasy about their fates, to them known only dimly, but what was made known was this:  Zhera' [Jared-Faramir] would enlarge the girdle of Arda, and Izilba deepen the weights depending therefrom.

This begins with the wind carrying someone hither and thither (cf. paragliding) and ends with "weights depending" -- i.e. hanging down. If you wanted a visual representation of the concept of "weights," a dumbbell would be a natural choice.

The passage above was actually quoted earlier, in William's January 15 post "The Anchorwoman: Dream 2 of 3," which lessens the synchiness of my dream somewhat. Still, the original post was more than two weeks ago, and my dream came just the night before he decided to post the same quote again. In this earlier post, the "weights depending" are associated with "lowering anchors and ropes." Combining this with my dream imagery, I am reminded of various accounts of anchors being lowered from flying ships in the "vintage" reports of UFOs avant la lettre collected in Jacques Vallée's classic Passport to Magonia, for example:

In March [1897], an object of even stranger appearance was seen by Robert Hibbard, a farmer living fifteen miles north of Sioux City, Iowa. Hibbard not only saw the airship, but an anchor hanging from a rope attached to the mysterious craft caught his clothes and dragged him several dozen feet, until he fell back to earth.

From a month later:

Merkel, Texas, April 26. Some parties returning from church last night noticed a heavy object dragging along with a rope attached. They followed it until, in crossing the railroad, it caught on a rail. On looking up they saw what they supposed was the airship. . . . After some ten minutes, a man was seen descending the rope. He came near enough to be plainly seen; he wore a light blue sailor suit and was small in size, he stopped when he discovered the parties at the anchor, and cut the rope below him and sailed off in a northeast direction. The anchor is now on exhibition at the blacksmith shop of Elliot and Miller and is attracting the attention of hundreds of people.

After reporting the above incident, the Houston Daily Post goes on to note its similarity to something that reportedly took place in Ireland "about 1211 A.D. or earlier":

There happened in the borough of Cloera, one Sunday, while the people were at Mass, a marvel. In this town is a church dedicated to St. Kinarus. It befell that an anchor was dropped from the sky, with a rope attached to it, and one of the flukes caught in the arch above the church door. The people rushed out of the church and saw in the sky a ship with men on board, floating before the anchor cable, and they saw a man leap overboard and jump down to the anchor, as if to release it. He looked as if he were swimming in water. The folk rushed up and tried to seize him; but the Bishop forbade the people to hold the man, for it might kill him, he said. The man was freed, and hurried up to the ship, where the crew cut the rope and the ship sailed out of sight. But the anchor is in the church, and has been there ever since, as a testimony.

In Gervase of Tilbury's [early 13th-century] Otia Imperialia, the same account is related as having taken place in Gravesend, Kent, England. An anchor from a "cloudship" became fastened in a mound of stones in the churchyard. The people heard voices from above, and the rope was moved as if to free the anchor, to no avail. A man was then seen to slide down the rope and cut it. In one account, he then climbed back aboard the ship; in another, he died of suffocation.

No idea what to make of such stories. I simply note them as possible sync links.