Food for Thought on a Rainy Weekend

It's been a rainy, rainy day, I still managed to haul in some groceries in the morning and ever since noon it's been raining. My day off from workout. So what have I been doing? Beadwork... finished some items earlier which will be offered at Art of Dark, a Gothic store in Cologne, once I get to ride there once more and bring them along (for sure not a rainy day like this one as it's a 2 hour bike ride, & 2 hours back as well).

I'm currently reading Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming and have been looking through my dream journal to highlight some dream signs.
I also bought myself a sleep mask since nightfall comes very late this time of the year here at 51° North, and it's much better than laying a towel over my eyes as I had done so far.

(I think Bela Jaws is laughing at me though, and he thinks I can't see it with the mask but now we got photographic evidence, don't we?!.) LOL

I usually wake up at least once in the night anyway, so I can take the mask off then and still be woken by the dawn.

Some days ago I finished reading Journeys Out of the Body by Robert A. Monroe. It's quite fascinating but in the start also kind of weird to read, and not because of the experiences he relates in it. In fact, what is most bizarre to me is how in the start he introduces the subject of the book with the utmost caution.
It must be stated that this is an old book, first published in 1971, thereby far older than myself, and the story of his out-of-body travels, which happened to him accidentally in the start, began about 3 decades before I was even born, in 1958, so those were different times and I can't (and prefer not to) imagine how I might have ended up had I lived in those times! (Not exactly burnt at the stake anymore, but probably not a lot better than that!)
Well, I'm aware than a lot of people probably, tragically, still think in similar categories nowadays. Myself I've been an outcast pretty much from the start, and many would probably like to burn me at the stake if they could, or at least have me locked up in an institution or something - which in fact was done to me during my early teenage although I've never been mentally ill. So the fear of the possibility of mental illness, such as Monroe experienced it, has never been an issue to me, as I've already been through with all that. And I've always known for sure I could never ever want a "normal life", to be a part of human society, to work in a normal job and/or in the end to even become someone's wife and have my body abused to produce offspring - all these things were,and are, to me the most nightmarish idea in the universe (especially the part about mating and offspring)! So I've skipped the whole trying-to-fit-in, since it was never a viable option. Some people told me I was courageous but it simply never was a viable option, I don't feel I had any choice (other than suicide), and if it's not a choice it probably isn't courageous... whatever.

Anyway, I can say that I've found a way of life for myself and am happy with those choices I did take - but the journey goes on, of course, and I'm looking for answers and for ways to grow my awareness. To me, this life is not so much about being than it is about becoming. And so what puzzles me most about Monroe's introductory words in his book is how people will be afraid to change their views accordingly, with the evidence for vast worlds beyond this life - when once there will be undeniable evidence, that is,which everyone can only find for themselves - because it is an "uncomfortable and frightening" change.
Is it??
So I have arrived at this conundrum again that is utterly beyond my comprehension: What might be so uncomfortable and frightening about NOT simply ceasing to exist? How to possibly wish their ephemeral, enslaved existence is all there ever will be?!

Fortunately, trying to make sense of that mindset is not a thing I need to do. I can't even understand the desire to "fit in" and to have a "normal life". When I've always had the contrary desire, to break free!

Here's some food for thought I watched today. Some of the stuff this guy is talking about seems weird to me, like that part about aliens (I think that comes part 2, 3, or 4 - these ones I've watched so far),but as he mentions in one of the latter, you shouldn't throw out everything of it just because you disagree with part of it. Another thing I vehemently disagree with is whenever this love and compassion shit comes up - but I'm keeping an open mind and trying to learn and make myself my own picture of it all - one that a large, predatory fish can make sense of. So far I've had no personal experience of my (non-physical) Second Body, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if it looked like this.

A Fascinating Big TOE

The toe in "Big TOE", of course, stands for "Theory of Everything". I was just browsing an online book store I had lately ordered from (a German one but selling English books, with free shipping inside Germany) and found Thomas Campbell's book   in the cosmology section, and in trying to find more info about it I came across his video lectures (here's part 1  ), which are quite fascinating. I can agree with much or even most of what he proposes, especially the assumption that consciousness is fundamental.

The one point though that I vehemently disagree on is, of course, that "love" thing. In this respect he definitely gets way too new-agey and overlooks the scientific fact that destructive behaviors are a huge driver of evolution, not only in the realm of biology in form of natural selection which is based on ruthless competition and predators and prey continually having to outsmart each other, but also in human technology. Nuclear power for instance was originally developed in WW2 in order to produce atomic bombs, but it is to this day indispensable for powering space probes and Mars rovers, and also rockets used for space travel are derived from missiles used in war.

Today I watched part two   of his lecture, which is also over 2 hours. I have felt for as long as I can think that physical "reality" is an illusion, so I can relate quite well to his virtual reality metaphor (although I'm not familiar with the particular computer games he mentions since I've always considered such games a waste of time - when there's so much to learn and to do in the "virtual reality" we're already in).
Being familiar with the concept of the Holographic Universe and thereby the proposal that spacetime might be pixelated, I remember such 3D pixels are called voxels. I think that was according to Leonard Susskind in his book The Black Hole War  , which I also own - voxels presumably being short for "volume pixels"? - a voxel would be one cubic Planck length in size (about 1^-35 m) and could hold one bit of information.

Again, my criticism of Tom Campbell's theory is only that it is way too anthropocentric. When he was talking about the well-known question of whether a falling tree in a forest makes a sound when there's nobody there to hear it I was already thinking, what about the other trees that are there?! Then he went on to mention squirrels as being conscious enough to count - sure, they are mammals, thereby pretty similar to humans. But trees don't have enough "decision space" to be considered conscious? He should definitely watch David Attenborough's "The Secret Life of Plants"!
I definitely consider a complex, multicellular life form such as a tree as conscious. You may argue that trees have no ears to hear - but then, what is sound actually? It's pressure waves in a medium (such as air) which causes our ear drums to vibrate,and that's what gives us the sensation of sound. Such vibrations can likewise be picked up by leaves or even by the trunk of a tree.
By the way, sharks (my totem & alter ego) have no externally visible ears either, but they do have inner ears and have excellent hearing.

Another point I disagree on is that we supposedly "de-evolve" through fear. To me, fear is just one of those challenges we have to tackle on our paths in order to grow. How could we possibly grow if everything was just loving and sweet and compassionate? (Sharks like me have very little use for such fluff.)

We are consciousness, and consciousness is fundamental. But we are definitely NOT "one"! We may once have been one, as we all have sprung from the same source, but in my opinion the whole purpose of the game is individuation. As I have laid out in an earlier post, we all have grown from the same substrate, but the goal is to separate and become more differentiated, just as the goal for a child is to become an independent individual, instead of "merging" back with her or his parents.

I'll still have to watch part 3 of the lecture.

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.

The Guardian of the Gateway

On Good (Evil) Friday I had a bit of a ball as is proper, although I didn't dance as I should have - I remembered only later having read that explicitly public dancing on this day had been prohibited which is quite hilarious and reason enough to do it with a vengeance. Instead I listened to my favorite Good Friday song which is about the resurrection of Christ     (although in an alternate version here wandering around without his head), had two nice chicken steaks, and later some red wine while watching my certain sacred movie   once more.

On Saturday I went to this year's first big flea market, which is always a happy occasion when the season starts again, and I also met some friends there again. On the way home I still had to pass by at a bookstore because unfortunately I had to return the "Journey to Ixtlan" by Carlos Castaneda although I love the book - but after page 208 it suddenly ceased to make sense, which was no wonder because the next page had the number 177. All the pages up to 208 repeated and then it continued at 245. I was lucky to have ordered this one at the store because they readily took it back upon seeing this major defect and even returned the money to me for now. They re-ordered it for me too, but of course it's going to take a while again, I expect at least 2 or 3 weeks, so I'll have to read something else in the meantime.

The rest of the weekend was jut business as usual and I used the time (besides workout) for cleaning and hunting down all the Easter dust bunnies.

I'm getting a lot out of Castaneda's books and the teachings of the wise Indian shaman don Juan Matus, as I am also walking the Path of the Warrior - in so many ways. Most people doing sports like me are very different, which is probably why I've never made close friends with any of them. I think the main reason is that, like don Juan, I've always more or less lived in the presence of death. Don Juan says, Death is an adviser, reminding us that our time here is indeed very brief and that whatever we do we should it count. This is what I try to do best as I can, also when doing my workouts.
Death is who I will do battle with, but I've never seen Death as the enemy. I see Death as the guardian of the gateway to the next world, a world we can know nothing about, and the nature of which may well depend on how we have fared in this life. Death is the professor who will take your final exam, in a way, and determine what your next world will be, as there may be many. I accept that it is unknown but which means there are infinite possibilities.

Why is it that people can't see that what is unknown amounts to so tremendously much more than the tiny fraction of what is known?!

Death and the unknown are what most people don't want to think about though. But how can you move forward in life if you always stick with the known only and deny the inevitability of future transcendence? The answer is, not at all - you just won't move forward then. But apparently most people prefer this stagnation, out of fear and despair. I have been through fear and especially despair, but for very different reasons - I've despaired over the meaningless and less than mediocre existence they once offered me for a "life" and which they tried to make believe was the only possible way - when it was an absolutely impossible way.

And while I struggled to break free I would for years set all my hope in Death. I tried to force the guardian to open the gate for me to be free from this unacceptable existence. But I had not passed the assignment of this world, I couldn't leave yet... Those initial battles I had to go through were exceedingly grim, but eventually I would finally grow stronger and choose my own battles.
This world is so very much more than they tried to make believe... but they still keep trying.

Negative mass & wet bed sheets

This morning I was reading once more in one of my books about how the expansion of the universe first was found to be accelerating,in the late 90's, which led to the revival of Einstein's cosmological constant, and how unsettling and unbelievable the finding of the acceleration was to scientists around the world. It gave the appearance that the universe contained a negative amount of mass.

To me, these findings appear far less puzzling though. They're still interesting and fascinating, but after all, the physical universe is only a secondary phenomenon. It could turn out to be anything therefore - because in the end, matter will turn out to be just an illusion. An extremely persistent illusion for sure - especially at times when you're cold, or in some other ways miserable or in pain, as I was on this bitterly cold morning,struggling to get myself ready to leave for the gym.

I remembered how I once heard about an absolutely stupendous exercise performed by some Buddhist monks: They would go out to a lake side on a winter evening, and wearing only their underwear they would each drench a bed sheet in the water and wrap the wet sheet around their shoulders, and then in the freezing cold night they would just sit there by the lake side and dry the sheets with the heat of their bodies.
I have only heard about this story, I don't remember where, but I believe they can do this.I even have a pretty good idea as to how they might do it. I think they may be "visualizing" (it involves more than vision, of course) to be sitting under the glaring heat of a radiant desert sun instead, or something similar, and they have the mental power to have this visualized reality supersede the one outside.

Unfortunately, knowing how something may be done doesn't mean you can do it, and so I was still freezing miserably in my room. Only later after starting my workout I felt better as I was finally warming up a bit. I'm hoping to finally get a grip on these things soon, I think it would among other things also help me to deal with my physical problems, such as my intolerance to the brutally cold German climate.
No experiments with wet bed sheets anytime soon though!