musings from the sleep deprived

So I have a peculiar brain. I say this because it has managed to take four completely unrelated, seemingly innocent facts about the current state of my life, and turn this into insomnia. Note the time of the post. I’ve been up for about an hour now, and here is the reason:

1. I’m currently reading Sherlock Holmes Complete Works. This isn’t really notable, except in that if you’ve read it, you might recall the precision with which the main character goes through crime scenes and observes things. Watson’s descriptions for his methods, and the narratives describing those examinations borders on the pathological. A minor nod must also go out to the style of language involved in the dialog. This is certainly a function of the era and perhaps also the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s command of it.
2. I’m playing a game called XCOM: Enemy Unknown at the moment. This is an odd sort of game that you don’t often see these days. The relevant point here is that it is a turn-based, squad combat game. For those not familiar with computer gaming parlance, what this means is that, during at least the action-heavy parts of the game, combat is slowed down into turns. In each turn, you get to choose an action for each of the 4-6 squad members in your strike team. Things like “move over to this spot”, “fire your gun at that enemy” or “use your special blow things up especially well ability” might be example actions. At the end of every round, each enemy unit on the field likewise chooses its own action and tries to foil your well laid plans. If you think about how this plays out, it makes what would otherwise be a very quick SEAL-team-like combat sequence play out in very long carefully scripted action sequences, broken into little chunks of action only several seconds long, mixed in with long pauses of your own strategic decision-making about what each member of your team should do to end the combat with minimum losses.
3. I am capable of lucid dreaming. For those of you unfamiliar, I will link to the wikipedia page, and steal its first line here to explain: “A lucid dream is any dream in which one is aware that one is dreaming. The term was coined by the Dutch psychiatrist and writer Frederik (Willem) van Eeden (1860–1932). In a lucid dream, the dreamer may be able to exert some degree of control over their participation within the dream or be able to manipulate their imaginary experiences in the dream environment.”
4. I wear a CPAP at night. Again, I link you to wikipedia if you happen to be unfamiliar. It is basically like going to bed wearing an oxygen mask, prescribed to help with my sleep apnea.

Ok, I’m going pause here briefly to give you a chance to read stuff at those links if needed, and maybe think about how these things might all play in concert with one another. Go ahead, I’ve got all night. Take a few minutes…

Alright, so here’s what my brain has done with all of that. I end up dreaming about Sherlock Holmes crime scenes and gunfights. Except that those gunfights and crime scene investigations end up playing out like XCOM combat sequences, with each character getting to move in little time-sliced chunks, after each move, taking a moment to have a soliloquy in Sherlockian dialog, with exactingly long sequences of observations about what is going on and with whom. If you’ve seen the recent couple of movies with Robert Downey, Jr, you might recall the sequences where you can see him planning out a method of attacking an opponent, in each moment observing how to best disable them, and then seeing it play out in real time exactly as he had surmised. That is how it happens in the dream. Now add to this the fact that I begin lucid dreaming, and I can, in fact, influence the course of the action, and it becomes exactly like playing XCOM-style in a Sherlockian novel. And then, of course, becoming aware of the sounds of my CPAP machine, adding that into my dream, and then slowly falling out of the dream state because moving through Sherlockian combat scenes in slow motion while listening to the augmented sounds of your own machine-assisted breathing is, in fact, quite disturbing and mind-numbingly boring.

So yeah, thanks brain! I owe you one. I’m going to just go in to work early and try and get some work done.

Brain? By the way? Pull this shit again, and I’m pulling out the ambien and taking your ass down. Just sayin’.

I love waking up to the first snow of the season. Stand outside in the early morning, before the traffic really gets going. You get some quiet moments still where all you can hear is the snow falling. Dim light halos coming from every street light or car headlight or porchlight. You can *almost* forget everything else that is going on and believe there is some purity left.

Almost.

And so with FarmVille, so too with CafeWorld. Read more

It has now been bothering me for a few days about my two previous posts (Rhino and Watermelons…). How can I have the gall to post so self… confidently about philosophy or religion? Don’t I know that I’m just some guy? I’m no Kant, no pope, no Maslow. Don’t I realize that? Read more

( continued from part 1 )

Entities

In order to carry this discussion further, I do need to define one more thing. The concept of an “entity”. Rhinos and Watermelons are not entities, they’ve been defined above, and don’t believe they require further detail. An “entity”, however, is, loosely, either the target or the source of a Rhino or Watermelon. This is nearly always a person. In the context of self, you are always an entity. Any person you come into contact potentially becomes a source for the generation of Rhinos or Watermelons. This is an important distinction to make in order to proceed on to the next topic…
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I have had an epiphany. My first thought, as I travelled down this road, was that this thought was a method for describing Buddhist thought. After thinking a bit further, it occurred to me that this was actually very presumptuous of me. While I do consider myself a student of religion, and while I do consider Buddhism to be the school of thought that most closely resembles my own belief system … to say that this is a Buddhist thinking is to assign a level of understanding into Buddhist thought that I simply do not have. I will leave it to others to determine if this is so. Furthermore, any kind of writing that waxes philosophical is inherently presumptuous, and to some extent, self-aggrandizing. By the same token though, this is a blog, I suppose its somewhat expected that our own egos are the engine that drives them. So it goes…
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This one was pretty detailed. It started out in a skiing resort type village. Somewhere were there was snow and a gondola. For some reason, the main gondola had some kind of cable problem and one of the gondola ‘pods’ was hanging low over a street. A large SUV or truck came ripping around the corner and nailed it. The main character was in the gondola, and the next thing he knew, he woke up flat on his back on the ground, staring up and two huge pylons, one from the gondola, and one from a power line and transformer. Also notable was that he was surrounded by hundreds of snowballs and that he had a photograph of his best friend (who had come with him on this ski vacation) on his chest.

He was brought to the hospital and checked out, having suffered no overt damage except shock, and eventually went back to the condo they had rented. When he arrives, he finds out that it was his best friend who was in the SUV, and that after the impact, it had careened off the road and fallen down into a frozen pond where his friend had drowned.

After going back home, and getting over that event, as time passed, strange things started to happen to people around him. They would die in strange ways, or would disappear, or apparently be kidnapped and never heard from again. It doesn’t happen constantly, but certainly with a much higher frequency than would normally be associated with one person and those he knows.

Over time, and through hypnosis and counselling, he is able to slowly remember the events of that original accident. What he eventually discovers is that after the impact with the SUV, he was thrown from the gondola, and landed squarely on a power transformer on the other pylon. During that moment where he is being electrocuted, he has a sort of “come to Jesus” moment, and meets his maker. Not having been a religious person at all, he is confused and cautious. As a result, he is given a choice by this being. Either he can die, and be brought “into the Light” of this newfound God, or he can live a full life, and (looking down below in the snow) over his lifespan, people around him would always be dying in mysterious ways, one person for every snowball on the ground.

Again, he then remembers having woken up on his back in the snow, apparently having made his choice. The significance of the photo eventually becomes apparent as well. It seems that every time he really looks at a picture (not just seeing something in passing), someone in the picture then dies or disappears without a trace. One scene in the dream is where he is being shown a picture by a friend of his of this person’s child, who is in the other room. As he looks at the picture, there is a scream from the other room, some other adult just having watched the child vanish from where she was playing on the floor.

After that point, I was sort of waking up from a phone call or two, and there wasn’t much more. I do remember that earlier in the dream (again) I had a feeling that this dream was not ‘original’ and that it had come from a story I had read or movie I had seen or something. Also, in the ending parts, the person had started secluding themselves from society, trying desperately not to view any photographs and cause any more deaths. Then it ended.

Whacky.

Just got up from another weird dream, and this was another one worth writing down. I suppose this was possibly influenced by the recent watching of Passion of the Christ, but in alot of ways, it has nothing to do with that. Anyway….

The beginning of the dream is all very Indiana Jones style. I was with someone, and we were investigating some documentation that had been put together a very long time ago about a manner in which to ‘summon’ God, or at least have a visitation of some sort. It wasn’t very clear. I believe the person I was with was supposed to be a priest of some kind. Later on in the dream, it turned into Trout.Complex, but I’m not sure if that was significant.

Anyway, we managed to uncover some sort of portal. It looked to me like a iron bar type gate, which we could see through into the inner chamber, which was filled with all sorts of religious symbolism. Interestingly, it contained symbols from many world religions, not just that of Christianity. At this point, the person I was with said some sort of prayer in Latin, and simply stepped through the gate without opening it. He had invoked some sort of belief or “spell” for lack of a better term, or called on God to help him through this challenge. Good call, as it turned out, as every step further inside the sanctum produced all sorts of traps going off that he(we) could just ignore. Though I remember seeing this part in slow motion, my perspective appeared to be viewing him from in front, facing backward. I didn’t see myself, and didn’t see how I was avoiding these pitfalls myself. Ah, the logic of dreams.

Finally, we reached what looked like a giant sarcophagus, and the priest person pulled out all kinds of stuff, including a long sword, a brooch with a huge gem in it, and a large bag or container of water (presumably holy water). The whole thing seemed to be slightly tipped up (head at top), so that when the water was poured over the thing, it began to spread down the entire surface, filling in all the relief parts of the surface, making it glisten, and almost glow. The sword he slid into the brooch, about halfway down the blade, and somehow affixed it there. It matched the impression in the surface of this thing, and he placed it inside the depression.

Nothing really happened, although it did seem to become darker, and there were several lightbeams, not unlike sunbeams (but more focused) that were coming in from odd angles, seemingly highlighted places on the walls. Behind the sarcophagus now, the priest guy read some text, and indicated that we would find “His Son” on the northeast wall, or something similar to that. Looking up on the wall, and spotting one of those lightbeams, it appeared to be highlighting a small picture of Jesus, who was looking down into his hands, where a small flame was lit. It did appear to be a button or movable in some way, so I reached up and pressed this.

This triggered a series of what I’ll call ‘tests’. It was also somewhere during these tests that it became clear the priest guy was now Trout. Two other things occurred to me at this point. One: that I seem to have been brought along on this thing quite intentionally by the priest (Trout), almost no more than one of his other props, like the sword or water. It wasn’t clear to me why until later. Second, that I also knew I was going to get up and record this dream. The possibility existed that I would later incorporate it into a story or write it, and the feeling that I couldn’t do that was strong. It seemed that this story had been written before, or that this was somehow else not going to be a unique work.

Anyway, I jumped fairly quickly back into the dream, and the tests. The tests involved different things. At one point, simply finding various images on the wall and noting them. At one point, reading text in Latin. Another was rubbing dirt off of images on the wall. Once uncovered, it turned out to be childhood images of myself and Trout. The image of me was a picture I do recall being taken of me as a child. The images had to be completely rubbed from of whatever ‘rot’ was happening, because if there was even the smallest spot left, it would then grow and re-cover the whole picture. This part I don’t remember so well, but I do remember the last part. It had to do with “Praying for the Ascension” or some such. Another very large, outline lit image of a massive sword in the wall had that inscription, and Trout told me to pray. We both knelt with our backs to the north wall, and looking at the sarcophagus, and then both closed our eyes and prayed.

I don’t remember the prayer. I remember it being rather disconnected and not really affiliated with Christianity, despite all the previous tests and evidence in the room being fairly heavily tilted that way. I felt a rush behind me, and wanted to open my eyes, but Trout said not to, that this was for someone else. I think we then both immediately ignored that advice, opened our eyes, and stepped up to an altar that was before us, very brightly lit. On it was a God figure type, and we didn’t really look directly at it. All I could see were the white robes and it being incredibly tall. Next to us was another figure, robed, with a golden chain around him. The chain seemed to be rooted behind us, and the voice was talking to him or it indicating its usefullness had come to and end. There seemed to be some discontent in that other person or entity being so tied to material things (the chain?) and it was pulled back behind us by this chain and disappeared. We stepped up onto the altar or dais and began hearing some kind of contract being read.

The contract seemed to indicate that the earthly world was under the impression that we were dead, and would continue to believe so until our presence was also no longer needed. It seemed to indicate that this diversion from the natural course was some kind of alternate space, where we were no longer alive, and that once we left (sometime in the future), that alternate timespace whatever would also cease to be.

Our role almost immediately became evident. We started hearing sounds of different sorts. Some were grating (nails hammering, fingers on chalkboards, etc). In each case, Trout asked if such a noise were to be here for eternity, and it went away. The next noise was like a puppy lapping at something, or licking a face, and it was accompanied by an image of a very small child playing with a black haired puppy. It occurred to me that we were analyzing things that were innocent, and we needed to explain how, or why they were. I said something about it being important in that case that the innocence of the child was important because it hadn’t yet learned to fear the power of the dog, or that it could be dangerous. It was that fearlessness, which we eventually taint with experience, fear and knowledge that forced us to lose that sort of pure bliss. It occurred to me know why I was here, and a flashback (seemingly given to me by the god person/figure) where ZenRhino told me that I had a child mind, or was similar to Ho Tei from Japanese mythology. Our role was to show this god figure about this purity, or innocence, and why it left us (as humans) or something similar.

I remember being really happy at the image of the child and the puppy. The dream ends.

The main character of the dream is a merman. You know, the fullon fish man, Darryl Hannah style, legs turn into scales and fins, grow gills type thing. In the start of the dream, he’s being held in some sort of government study facility in an all underwater tank style thing. His every move is monitored, he’s hooked up to sensors constantly, etc. He is given one ‘porthole’ style opening that actually has open-air access to the outside world. Invariably (and presumably, with someone else’s help, he escapes).

Unfortunately, he also has a personality disorder, in that when he’s being held captive, he eventually reverts to his ‘base’ personality, which is probably his ‘real’ personality. He is convinced that there is another ‘freak’ like him somewhere in the world that he needs to find, that can help him, and nurture him or be a parent to him, or otherwise take care of him without having to be held captive. When he escapes, he invariably, after some short or long time, ends up heading back to the west coast of the US to search for this being.

The ‘person’ he’s looking for is actually an illithid (mind flayer, ala D&D style, no idea why). It also happens to be the head ringleader of a large criminal organization (as mind flayer’s are wont to do). He’s aware of the merman, and is invariably the one who always attempts to break him out of his captivity, and assists him in returning to their base in California. It is also aware of his personality problem.

The other manifestation of the merman’s personality, that eventually comes out as he is travelling to meet back up with this other freak, is that of a superhero, or at least secret agent. He convinces himself that he is working for the very government the he just escaped from, and even begins reporting back in to let them know what his progress is in finding his ‘arch-nemesis’ (the mind flayer).

Invariably, after each escape attempt, the mind flayer is able to assist him enough along the way (usually assisted by some other criminals he assigns to help him) to get them to meet, by which time the merman is usually fully reverted to the secret agent personality. The mind flayer attempts to get him to ‘convert’ or manifest the base personality, fails, and either lets him escape, or he escapes on his own. At that point, stranded out on the ocean (at least, in the dream thats where he was ‘stranded’, the merman radios back to his ‘base’ for ‘pickup’ from his mission, and is eventually found again and brought back (into captivity) to the very people he had escaped from previously.

The final ‘scene’ is where he’s walking back to the (or ‘a”) study area, explaining how he barely got away from this evil villain (which, in reality, the mind flayer really is) and how he barely escaped with his life, etc. They take on the role of wanting to debrief him, and direct him to a short hallway with a door at the end, darkened. They indicate he should get some sleep before the debriefing in the morning, and he readily agrees, heading down the short hallway to the door. As the door closes behind him, he can feel the splash of water under his feet, and reaches the door, which has his name on it (General Maximus or Marcus or something similar). As he opens the door, the room fills with the water from the other side, and he is once again back in captivity.

Cycle repeats.