A Trip Without Memory -- Feedback desired!

Now I'd like to do a thought experiment for which I'm asking some participation. I remember an article I once read, or I think it was a video lecture, with the general subject of happiness, and pitting a person's remembering self versus their experiencing self in the evaluation of the happiness of the person's life, and it was often found that the remembering self and the experiencing self were in disagreement about this. This was found out via a survey given to some volunteers in which they were asked about their dream vacation, first in general terms and then asking them to imagine they would not be able to retain any memories of that vacation, neither in their minds nor in physical form such as photos. It was found that people chose different kinds of vacations in the latter case, but it wasn't any further elaborated upon.

Such elaboration is exactly what I intend to do now since I think it is a very fascinating question to think about, also touching upon your general views of life (as the ultimate journey) and of the afterlife, or respectively your belief or disbelief in an afterlife and how you handle your perspective of choice.

So here goes... Imagine you are offered a free vacation, let's say for the duration of five days. You may choose any destination on Earth to travel to, no matter how much it costs. You will also be afforded a very generous budget, your food, accommodation, and any activities you may want to pursue will be provided for. But now here's the catch: You will be given all of the above for free under the condition of being administered a certain drug first which is engineered to completely erase your memory from the point when the drug is taken, but taking effect only after a specific span of time which can be accurately determined, being in this case the span of five days. Now let's not bother with the question of whether or not a so accurate (and perfectly safe) memory-erasing drug might be realistic - remember, it's just a thought experiment. Let's imagine the drug is perfectly safe with no risk of side effects, it would take effect only at the predetermined time to erase all memory of what happened during these precise five days.
Further conditions are that you are not allowed to take any photos nor to bring any souvenirs from your trip. With your generous budget you may buy whatever you like, but you will have to leave it behind before the five days have run out. In fact you will be required to bring nothing with you; you will even be given different clothes of your choice for your journey which you will have to return upon arriving back at "headquarters" - so no trickery such as for instance secretly writing "Maldives" on the inside of your sleeve to remind you of where you had been. You won't be allowed to bring back any written notes either, so no secret diaries or anything.

It's probably not fool-proof, you might say you would try to make friends with some person you meet on your journey and simply give them your address and ask them to send you a letter or an email later, telling you about your journey that you won't be able to remember. We can either disregard such possibilities, or you can instead elaborate, if you wish, about to what length you might try to go in order to break the rules and gain knowledge about your five-day mystery trip. But be aware that in case your trickery is detected you may have to pay back the full costs of your expensive vacation - that's also in the contract! ;)

You may, if you wish, also bring a friend or family member on the journey but who will, of course, have the same conditions applying to them.

So... now I'm looking forward to some comments. What kind of destination and activities would you choose, if any? Or would you prefer to reject the offer?

Myself, I think I would do the latter. I'm not sure, on the other hand it costs me nothing, nothing but five days of my life which might be very enjoyable - plus the mystery for the rest of my life of what I may have done during those lost days. But therefore it would be essentially wasted days - I'm a seeker, there are already enough mysteries about life, and I'm someone who by nature works towards goals. We are shaped by our experiences, but in order for this to happen we are required to remember them. An experience not remembered might only create problems in my life. There may already be enough forgotten dreams and other things in my subconscious that I'm unaware of... There is in fact this obvious parallel to dreams in this scenario. We go on such journeys each night from which we can't bring back any souvenirs or other physical items - but with some luck, and first of all practice, at least some memories. And I hate it enough when I can't remember my dreams.

Where would you go, if anywhere?

-- Seems I just found again the lecture   in which I first heard about the idea, it's quite interesting!

  

Reductio ad absurdum

I joined a lucid dreaming group on Facebook to possibly find some inspiration and exchange, as well as just for curiosity. I found it very un-inspiring though to see that even in this group there are some few who claim that whatever we encounter in dreams were "not real", and when someone else mentioned that sometimes spirits might enter one's dreams they claimed that spirits were not real either. Just like the opinions displayed in a certain book which I gave a negative review   for this very reason a while ago. The big question remains, if nothing about lucid dreams is real then what the Hell are you doing it for??!
Then again, what the Hell are they doing anything for, really?

I discussed with a friend the other day the great question of why we are, and we found that it can't be answered, but materialists are taking the cop-out via replacing it with how we came to be and explaining it by cosmological and then biochemical processes, and from there they will deduce the answer to why we are as being, "just by accident." Congrats, you have successfully explained the essence of life away!

But let's look into this a bit further to see why such a view in fact declares virtually everything as being immaterial.
So, spirits, including our own, and everything else that can't be seen or touched or at least be detected by scientific instruments does not exist. When you experience a dream it really takes place only inside your head, as an illusion inside the dark confines of your skull. Problem is... so does everything else!
When in waking life you look at, say, a tree, the tree you can see is not real. The reason is in the scientific explanation of the process of seeing. Your eyes detect electromagnetic radiation in the visible range of wavelengths (known as visible light) which is reflected by the tree. A small, electric signal of this input travels via the optic nerves into your brain where this signal is processed into the image of the tree which you think you are seeing in the outside world. This image is really generated by your brain in the same way it generates the images you see in your dreams!
And here is our reductio ad absurdum: Whatever you perceive, whether in waking or dreaming, is the end product of signal processing in your brain. Obviously, this includes the reading of any scientific instruments and measurements. You have no access to the immediate, outside world,but only a reproduction of it generated by your brain - which means you have no way of knowing if there actually is any outside world at all or if all it is is just a virtual reality generated by random signals, an illusion just like the dreams, which takes place entirely inside your brain only. And even the apparent fact that you have a brain and that this is the cause for your awareness and experience has only been deduced from these signaling processes inside it - which means your brain may as well have dreamt up itself.
And this is how all of reality is explained away by the materialist approach.

But it's not as if I had a need to convince anyone - not anyone besides myself, that is, and perhaps those who wish to be convinced just as I do because they find the materialist view just as depressing and unbearably pointless and hopeless as I do.

I'm not here to help anyone, let alone anyone who does not want help. But most people's views are terribly black-and-white, and above all else terribly anthropocentric: Everyone and everything is either good or evil, and is either there to help or to harm human beings. Some have asked me, "but isn't Satan evil?" Guess what - Satan is not human, and thus He is above good and evil and certainly doesn't care for such petty human standards. He isn't there to help nor harm people either. Why should everyone and everything be so terribly obsessed with human beings? In truth it's only humans being obsessed with their own tremendous self-importance. Other beings - be it animals, plants, spirits, or deities - are most likely busy with their own existence. It's true that everything in this world is interconnected, just like the biosphere. Plants depend on sunlight for their energy, and other creatures depend on these plants for theirs, and predators in turn prey on those creatures. But none of them do it in order to help or harm others, they all have their own purposes instead. And so do I. In general I dislike humanity as a whole since it's a very harmful, invasive species, overrunning all other creatures' habitats to lay claim on them, to exploit and destroy them, convinced in their terrible human self-importance that their own right to exist by far exceeded the rights of all others. But despite my point of view on this I'm usually a surprisingly agreeable person - very rebellious, yes, but never out to provoke because I like to mind my own business and not waste my time, and I will only turn belligerent if someone tries to interfere with my business - and I do have friends and kindred spirits whom I hold very dear. They needn't even share all of my views or interests, but we will simply meet along our paths and share some part of the way, a short or a long part, or perhaps even more. None of it is forced, it's just like this blog of mine: I'm putting it out there, so anyone can read it, but no one has to. There's the opportunity to share or exchange some ideas or insights, and having some meaningful interaction is always awesome, but it's all optional.
I think it's much this way with other, non-human beings, they won't go out of their ways to help you, but they're not out to get you either - they're not good or evil, they're just being themselves.
They may be busy to sustain and protect themselves, and if they happen to be a plant they may use chemical warfare   to do so.

  

A strange visitor the night before Walpurgis

So I celebrated the Walpurgis Night yesterday; after some ritual dance   and a very small amount of the Diviner's sage   I slept too deeply though as to have been able to retrieve any dreams to relate.

The night before though, the night of the dark moon, I had a very interesting dream, non-lucid but at least very vivid. I had made a list of places I'd still like to travel to and hoping to pick one or two of them for the summer. While I was in the bathroom I then heard a very strange noise outside, like a roaring in the sky, but quite dissimilar to the usual airplanes, so I quickly headed to my balcony in order to investigate its origin. The object I saw flying swiftly across the sky looked like those thingies on some of the jetties in the Rhine river, those high posts, striped in green and white and with a conical "spear head" on top, that are (I think) used to measure the water level when it's high and the jetties get flooded. So this thing in my dream looked like that, except it was striped in red and white instead of green, and this long center rod was surrounded by a cluster of shorter ones without spear heads, making the whole thing resemble a fuel assembly in a nuclear reactor. I knew this object was a missile, and down in the street were some kids also looking up at it and talking loud and excitedly about how this was going to Russia, and thinking this was cool. I don't remember if I said anything to the kids or only thought to myself, "wonderful, and you think there won't be anything coming back here from Russia?!"
I thought how I'd have to revise my travel plans, better stay nearby... well best not to go at all but stay put...
While I was thinking, there was something coming back even much sooner than anticipated - actually right away. I saw two more missiles crossing the sky going out - and then one came in, crashing down pretty nearby. And something else came crashing down even much closer - hitting the building I was in! But this object was rather small and light, it came down with a "plonk" like an empty tub and didn't cause any damage. It had landed only a couple of meters from me. It was white and hollow, egg-shaped, the size of a tiny car. It had split apart into two halves, like two hollow little boats. Out came the single pilot of the tiny craft: a lady, looking about 40 years old; wavy, blonde hair; dressed in purple. She seemed unhurt and greeted me,she said her name was N'dessa, which she then repeated in different intonations which she announced as different (intergalactic?) languages but which all sounded like N'dessa - just different intonations; with the last one her voice sounded really alien and kind of artificial, but still in a very soft and gentle way. It was obvious that she was not from Earth although she looked like an ordinary woman. Her ways were alien, but in a very sophisticated and very likable way. I felt at a loss though, having to tell her I couldn't help her fix her craft, that I had no formal education, and even if so... those in authority here on my backward planet were now busy with their silly war and unlikely to be inclined to help her. N'dessa was so calm and unshaken, I wondered if she knew about this war and if it had been due to the missiles that her little spacecraft had been damaged. I felt so stupid next to her, I felt all humanity was really stupid next to her, and she probably hadn't realized yet on what a stupid planet she had landed.
This encounter left a deep impression and I had to think of her all day.