I had another dream the other night, two separate dreams really but in one night. It’s funny how that works, you’ll have long periods of time sometimes with no dreams worth remembering and then when you do have those more vivid experiences they come all at once. When it rains it really does pour, in the etheric realm anyway. Like an anthology of stories almost, I do believe there were a couple more dreams that night but a few days have passed and these are the two that I’m still thinking about. I don’t really know if there’s anything to actually glean from either of them, despite my fascination with dreams and the ethereal (which I suppose we all have) I’ve never really studied or read a great deal on the subject. Therefore I’ve also never really been too interested into looking for “meaning” in my dreams or anything like that, like how people say if you see certain images/ symbols or find yourself in certain situations in dreams it can supposedly reveal something about yourself. I don’t think there’s any truth to that, I’ve come to kind of disregard that whole idea. What I think is so fascinating is the alternate state it puts you in, where the physical rules of the universe no longer exist. Time is convoluted of course, the physical environment morphs constantly and the thing that really gets me is how you will just be entirely unfazed by any of it. It’s a world of representations of material things, they exist to ground us just enough but no more. Because without some kind of material reality or at least the perception of it there can be no cohesive thought. Because our own method of thought developed in such an environment we need something like it to stimulate the mind perhaps. Not that all the environments of our dreams are always places we have personally been to, or even seen, but they resemble a world that is familiar always. Often in fact you’ll believe (or at least I experience this) you’re in a location from your own life, a school, workplace, park, library, your own home, etc. and yet when you wake up you realise that the place you were in looked completely different and had a layout of some entirely different place. For whatever reason, it had some kind of essence of that real place that made you believe you were there despite it actually being some creation of your unconscious mind that might not have any equivalent in the real world.

I don’t really like Jordan Peterson but I have to credit him with making me aware of this in his lecture series about some of the bible stories. I don’t remember exactly which one but at some point he talks about how early attempts at artificial intelligence where they believed they could create a metaphorical “brain in a jar” were unsuccessful because all thought is filtered through material experience. In a somewhat paradoxical way I suppose, in order to have any kind of objective view on things (or at least be trying to get there, if in vain) you must have a subjective/ limited cognitive experience. If there’s no starting point to work from, you can’t form a worldview or come to an understanding about anything because you’re all possible interpretations and conflicting information at once. I mean even the idea of an “idea” is something that would be impossible for this hypothetical disembodied intelligence because something that doesn’t inhabit the material world can’t possibly categorise and separate. That’s omniscience right there, that’s God I suppose, or enlightenment. You know because if we go back to my favourite subject, the ascetics, a lot of them (particularly eastern ones) have this idea that by rejecting the physical/ material world and their worldly desires they will achieve enlightenment. Well I suppose maybe they were getting at something, it seems to me anyway when you take this idea into account. It’s interesting when you think of how heaven, or paradise or similar ideal “end points” I suppose you can call them are described and represented. They’re places you can do no wrong, an eternal bliss. I remember my dad talking to me about this when I was quite young, and he said that to him heaven (I think he was really just talking about the Christian or more specifically Catholic conception of it, being born to that background) sounded like an opium den. Now that’s partly his typical Gen X cynicism talking (something which I think he should have done a better job of keeping more contained around me growing up) but there is something to it. Opium, heroin, and other similar drugs do have that effect of detaching one from their instinctual desires. People will go days without eating or sleeping, or doing anything at all, and on the surface it does seem a little like the behaviour of the ascetic monks of the world. It’s not actually if you dig a little of course, the addict is not rejecting these physical needs out of sheer force of will but rather tricking the brain into thinking such needs have been satiated because it’s overloaded with pleasure. It’s cheap, a false prophet you could say. See even in Christianity the end point might not be enlightenment but it kind of is because they say heaven is where God dwells. Only in death (losing your body) can you lose that restraint which keeps you from having a total understanding. Everything can very easily be confused for nothing, because it isn’t something.

In an article I read about the subject (artificial intelligence and how they need to give it a body in order to get anything we could actually recognise as intelligence or even just consciousness) on some online science journal they talked about this ancient idea of the separation between mind and body and how this somehow proves it to be the wrong way of looking at the situation. I disagree though, if anything it’s further proof of such a separation. Because we’re flawed aren’t we, we’re fallen. We may have eaten of the tree of knowledge but we are not knowledge unbound, we’re just something more than mere beasts. Speaking allegorically of course, I don’t believe there was an actual Adam and Eve. I hope whoever reads this understands what I’m getting at, because I know I’m not very articulate or intelligent and I’m just scraping at the surface of subjects which are far beyond my understanding, because it’s fascinating stuff and to read or listen to the people who really know what they’re talking about is very satisfying for me. I suppose there’s this arrogance in that conception these scientists (or more accurately the science journalist who wrote the article) have that bothers me, because they forget that the material form which grounds us and gives us a starting point for understanding also limits us. Because knowledge builds on itself, ideas build on other ideas, and so if you have no starting idea (food keeps you alive, etc) you can’t get anywhere at all sure. Also though, you’re always going to be constrained, it’s not that there isn’t a greater unlimited intelligence but rather that we just can’t interact or even really comprehend it because it is completely intangible. I’m reminded of something I mentioned briefly before in a different entry, about language. Of course the idea is something plenty of people have talked about, and it’s something I’ve thought about for years before starting this blog, but the idea of language as both our liberator and jailor. I think it was in “Living up to my shitty blog title” which is still in my opinion the best post I’ve made so far. Because without language you can have all kinds of ideas but can’t express them, and also there are ideas and ways of expressing things that are now locked away from you at the same time. So your potential is expanded greatly and yet also given a limit. Hopefully that helps explain what I’m getting at here, a body provides the gift of perception and yet will always prevent you from having a total understanding of things.

I ended up going down a bit of a rabbit hole, but I’ll give that description of the two dreams I had. The first one had me in this sleepy town, or maybe it would be more accurate to describe it as a large village. I don’t know where it was, but it was snowing heavily and there was only one way in or out. There was this huge road that wound all around and up above the town, along the edge of a cliff almost. I arrived down from this road and came to this small church car park (I was able to drive in this dream) which was completely desolate. It was the first place I saw after coming down from the road above, and other than that there were just narrow streets. There were only a couple other cars, and maybe double as many empty spaces. All the cars were kind of old fashioned looking and clearly aged quite a bit, even mine. I don’t exactly remember getting out and moving but I remember being in the graveyard right after this, and in the centre as it snowed around me I stood and looked up at this great granite statue of an old woman holding up a celtic cross with both hands almost like that scene at the beginning of the lion king. It was dark, with just the light of the moon to help me see, and so I couldn’t see her facial expression. Also in the background there were some houses, terraced it looked like, so I felt fenced in in a way. The graveyard itself was very small, but other than that I don’t remember anything else about it. I don’t even really know why I was there, I vaguely recall being sent there for something but I don’t remember much more than that. I remember walking along one of the few streets there, and none of the houses had their lights on. My memory is hazy I’ll be honest, I remember waking for a moment not long after this and feeling kind of disoriented before returning to sleep.

The second dream was entirely different in feel, instead of the spooky and silent streets of cobbled stone we were in this bright and warm building at mid morning. I say we because I wasn’t alone this time, with me was one of the girls from work. Not one I’ve mentioned before here, or ever had appear in a dream of mine before. This building we were in, a huge room with two levels under one roof, kind of like I was talking about earlier was work to me. It was the shop, even though it wasn’t even a shop. If anything it was more like a library, a big old library with an old stone façade and this wonderful art deco interior. Rich mahogany furniture, bronze cladding on the small escalators that took you to the second level and chandeliers with misted white glass. Now looking back this is really weird, but in the dream it made total sense to me, again like I was talking about earlier. My co-worker, the girl who was there in the dream with me, said that the manager had told her it was my job to make some mayonnaise. There was some kind of meeting or lunch and I had to have it ready before then at midday, luckily this library also had an open kitchen. Now the funny thing is I don’t know how to make mayonnaise and I don’t really like it very much, but there’s this scene from a tv show I watched as a kid that has for whatever reason stuck with me to this day. I mean seriously I was maybe six or seven years old at the time I first watched it. In the scene this kid who wants to be a chef when he grows up makes some mayonnaise when the party or whoever he’s with run out, I don’t remember the details, and it only takes him a few minutes. I’m pretty sure he used eggs and maybe vinegar or something (yes, it’s been over a decade and a half and despite telling myself that day I’d learn to make it too I still haven’t even got around to checking the recipe) and this kind of blew my mind at the time. See to me it was just this white goo that came in jars, like one of those jokes people make about americans who think food “comes from the supermarket” in a way. Of course I was aware all non naturally occurring food had to come from somewhere but this moment made it real as opposed to some abstract thing I didn’t ever give any thought to.

So in the dream I still didn’t know how, but I was too prideful to admit it and I think I just threw some eggs in a blender without even cracking them open. I left to go to the second level where the toilet was, and there were two small cubicles. They were right in the middle of the room, and weirdly shaped like big books almost. Long, but really narrow so inside both walls were pressing on you, and in turn both the cubicles were pressed against one another. As I went in to use one, she followed and went into the other, and as I left she left hers. It was very strange, she gave me this really odd and kind of villainous grin. I went back down to the main level and she said something about how the omelette better be ready soon as I was running out of time. It wasn’t until I woke up later that I realised something had changed, not that it mattered because soon after that things had changed again and now there was no kitchen or lunch to prepare for. I noticed there was a huge back area around the side of the escalators and somehow a bunch of people had got inside. They were sitting all separate from one another at these long cafeteria tables reading books or newspapers or magazines and I started shouting to get them to leave. “We haven’t opened up yet, how did you even get inside?”. Now we were librarians, and always had been. I distinctly remember coming down the escalator earlier in the dream before this now looking back and appreciating the emptiness though. In fact it’s that specific moment which has really stuck with me, it’s been four nights now and every night since before I go to bed some part of me is hoping to go back. It was a really comfy environment, and also it was nice to get to know this co-worker of mine better as well because I’m quite shy and reserved and I never speak much with any of them. I didn’t mention it before, but we also got to chat a bit in the dream and it was really nice. In a wholesome way as well, not ruined by the primordial urge. I’m not saying she’s not a pretty girl, but for whatever reason I’ve just never seen her in that way, which is why that whole weird bit with the bathroom freaked me out so much.

There’s not much purpose to this post, it’s admittedly aimless but so am I right now. It’s not a bad one though I don’t think, if you like what I do here this should be enjoyable. I haven’t had any real ideas of my own lately, but the stuff I talked about in the first half has been on my mind a lot. I almost didn’t write this entry at all, after the last entry which I thought was one of my better ones got no response for days I thought I had been totally abandoned. I still practically have, for just under two weeks I didn’t get a single person despite there being two new uploads in that period. I get it, most youtube channels I take interest in (the closest thing I have to compare with this blog) I also lose interest in after a short while and stop returning to. So I really do understand why people aren’t coming back anymore, I’m not entirely on my own yet but it seems inevitable now. I don’t want to stop though, and shit if having people read what I post is so important I can shill on r9k and pretty reliably get one or two anons to give me a read. That’s how I got this entire blog started, and also I linked my post about school shootings in a thread on a similar subject once and people seemed to appreciate it. I like having this little hobby, something to occupy my time when I’m not at work instead of just mindlessly refreshing the catalogue. The lonely journey is preferable to returning back to stagnation.