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[Sept. 29, 2017]

A particularly vivid dream from a bit ago, with quite a lot of elaborate symbolism and intensity:

Sept. 29, 2017

We are walking through a medium-sized Belgian city late at night; the buildings are around 3-4 stories tall, with an 18th / 19th century character, in modern day. I need to be at a particular place in the city, but there is no fast way to get there using only the streets. There is, however a way to get there which involves walking through back alleyways and cutting through buildings. After crossing a couple corner shops and a few piazza-like spaces, we come to the final leg. We enter a building which has half the feeling of a museum, and half the feeling of a department store. Displays are arranged in a maze-like fashion, so getting through this building quickly is dependent on prior knowledge of the spaces. Some of the spaces are moderately lit, others are a bit dimmer. We probably travel around 150 yards through these spaces when we emerge back into another courtyard, which then opens into a fairly large square, basilican-type space.

This space, as opposed to the contemporary design of the displays, feels more like the 1650's... Jacobean in character. The room is two levels, and we are located on the balcony level which over-looks a lower open level. At the head of the lower space sit two figures. The figure on the right is a young woman dressed as a harlequin. She has a heart-shaped paddle with some message scrawled across it in black script; she is fairly full of figure. The man beside her is dressed as a medieval catholic pardoner, with a crucifix-topped staff; he feels very grave in disposition. There is a full court before them, engaged in conversation amongst themselves. The entire space is lit by dim, flickering candlelight. The walls are composed of densely-packed wooden millwork, laden with cloth banners which draped down from the higher levels. The floor of the space is composed of masonic figures of checkers in black, white, and red patterns, but only barely discernable for color in the light. I walked around the perimeter of this room along the balcony, passing behind the two presiding figures, and gazing down at them. 

As I entered another room just beside this one, my sight blacked out briefly and then I faded back in immediately. I was staring at the same room, but now much darker, and in a hazier state of mind. I felt the room being pulled into a frame at the opposite end of the room. A bell beside the frame began to toll, and suddenly the frame seemed to contain a "hungry portal", that sucked the image of the back of the room into itself. I saw the bell stretching out to infinity as its tolls bent in tone, from full-sounding to something like muffled by water. Another figure beside me shouted to me, as he held onto a column engaged to a wall; his clothing was being whipped around, apparently by the winds created by the vortex ahead of us. He told me that this portal would "lead us to new lifetimes, if we chose it". He let go, and I saw him pulled into the portal, melting into infinity like an object accelerating to the speed of light...an ever-elongating line.

I black out again, and when I came to again, I was back in the same room, the storm over. I reason that I must have been through the portal a time or few... some indeterminate number? The room beside, where the harlequin and pardoner presided earlier was now lit by a bit of light entering from outside, rather than candlelight. It was completely empty. I saw the paddle of the harlequin to remind me they were once there. I passed through the open courtyards, and back through the building that previously held the displays... it was now rundown, and contained furniture from a much earlier age. I passed through a good portion of the city, now completely empty. Eventually a street opened up to a bigger boulevard, and I walked into a corner salon. A few people were there, sitting quietly together. Most of them exuded this feeling of having very little "life force"... like they were not whole people, with conscious experiences, but rather wooden beings. A woman sat with her back to the boulevard windows, with a little light streaming over her. I had the feeling that she in particular was a real, conscious being. She looked on with a stoic, unchanging expression, which none-the-less had a small note of serenity to it. I noted her hair was cut in a medium-length bob- fairly straight and without much extra volume. I asked her how long she had been there. I said... "it must be lifetimes?" She nodded, and said, "yes, 300 years have gone by here." I got the impression the people around her didn't change their situation very often, and that she had spent a good portion of that time sitting here in this same position, engaged in no activity. I asked her if she would like to come away and leave with me... telling her that there were other things to see and do out there, and that she could be happy enough, more than here. She made the smallest of smiles, and agreed to leave with me, and it felt like a massive gesture... like that miniscule emotion was multiplied many-fold by intent and depth of feeling. I remember feeling glad, and remarking that she had quite a pleasant face afterall.

The light from the corner salon seemed to come with her, and enter the spaces we passed through. It felt like she was seeing these places just outside her previous setting for the very first time, and was in awe that there were other places that existed that were so different from the salon.  I took her back to the harlequin's court, and she looked down at the space, seeing the same paddle there. We walked around again to the same room with the portal, and we both faded out again.

https://soundcloud.com/dvarvaro/dreamtheme1

This is sort of a first for me...

I hear songs in dreams very often. And almost everytime, I remember thinking how great they were at the time, but I can't remember them!

This time was different somehow...

I woke up while this song was playing in my dream, and I was able to carry it with me into waking consciousness. It was simple enough, that after I had looped it 7-8 times in my head, I just fully remembered it.

The context was, a choir of nuns were singing a sort of praise song. But there was something amiss... the mother superior had been poisoning a village, and during the song, someone passed her some information. She realized that while no one yet knew what she had done, she had also accidentally poisoned herself in the process. So the scene had this strange discord between the cheerlful character of the nuns and their tune, and the disturbance of the mother superior.

It was mainly the same 4 measures played in repetition, with a very complex intro. I was able to transcribe the looping part more or less accurately as I heard it.

It is sort of a strange song structure... it modulates up to a key a half step higher at one point, which is not that common, and it uses a lot of chromatic accidentals.

It was mainly the same 4 measures being repeated, with new lyrics everytime.

[July 22nd, 2017:]

Hi All!

I just realized, after reading the journals of others (especially the newly returned and modded Selski- three cheers!) that I have a pretty exhaustive record of my own dreams, which are often somewhat novel. I might as well start sharing some now!

I generally have very vivid dreams that tell coherent narratives, and which I make a point to retell to myself upon waking. This step is crucial, because it solidifies the memory of the experience. This is also a common technique to perform after projection experiences as well. I think the theory is that the sorts of memories formed when we are outside the waking state tend to get discarded by our brains, but the retelling of the account once awake can serve to then transform it into a waking memory.

Most of the projection experiences I have tend to be launched from lucid dreams as well... this seems to fit my lifestyle best; but this journal will be strictly for the experiences which are closer to classical dreams.

So here is one recent account to start:

------------------------

July 22nd, 2017:

I don't recall the beginning of the dream sequence, but I recall everything from about the 1/3 point onward. I find myself in what feels like an office building (with fairly generous amounts of walking space, and some large open areas on each floor). There are around 40 other people there, all gathered for an impromptu meeting. There is a lot of tension in the air. The people gathered here (including myself) don't feel like the natural inhabitants of this office building. It feels like we all came to be here in an attempt to hide from something. There is one speaker, and he has the air of a person with advanced knowledge of the situation, more than the rest of us had. He explains that if we take on the appearance of the building's normal inhabitants, and appear to be doing tasks appropriate for the setting, we will be safe. It is sort of implied that there are people watching from outside. The impression I get is that they are armed with long-range rifles and have some means of seeing into the building. They aren't only watching this building, but they are particularly vigilant, and will eventually notice when something doesn't look right.

We waste no time in taking positions, and getting into the rhythm of feigning being active at mundane office tasks. The easiest way to do this is to sit at a computer console and tinker with things on the screen. I casually glance around at many others with the same thought, sort of reflecting on how their docile demeanor while tooling around aimlessly at the computers is so comically different from the mental states they must be experiencing. After a bit of this, I sort of grow bored of it, and decide to walk off to see what other simulated office tasks I can take part in. I walk down an open stairwell to the level below, and I pass a person midway down who is curled up into a ball asleep in a small niche in a wall. I immediately think about how this person is failing at the game pretty hard. I don't stop and stare at them (since that would be out of the ordinary, and it would draw attention to the anomaly), but I start asking myself questions. Can they see that person like that from outside? Are they ruining it for everyone? If they are in fact perfectly hidden, did they just manage to opt out of it all, but in a way that will impact no one? Does this mean I could also sleep in that same stairwell later, because it must be perfectly concealed?

The floor below is much like the one above, but with less computers. This floor is fairly dimly lit. There are a few people standing at consoles, doing the same routine as before... a few others having a quiet conversation in a far off corner. I stand at a workspace, and begin slicing stacks of paper with a hand cropping tool. I start thinking about how long the game will work. Will the watchers kill only those who step out of line? Will they attack everyone after they notice something is wrong up here? After about another 15 minutes down here, I walk back up to the floor above again, and pass the person in the stairwell again. I walk around the floor, taking survey of everyone up there... they are at the consoles again, mainly. Everyone with vacant looks... somehow trying to pretend the images they see on the screens interest them in some way. Things went on like this for a bit longer, more-or-less without major incident, just a stream of sameness. I think the dream felt like it lasted for 40 minutes in this narrative, and stayed pretty stable with it.

It all sounds very grim, but that isn't really how I experienced it. I sort of experienced it all in a very detached way, indifferent to a sense of danger. I knew that I ought to act a certain way... but it wasn't really out of fear, so much as just... "Ok, this is how things are here. I will behave accordingly here." The experience I had more than anything was a state of questioning... trying to piece together what the rules of this world were, and how to pursue my own interests by disguising them with convincing enough-cover acts.

Careful with this question, it may mean something different than you might suppose!

This is a question relating to the philosophy of cosmology I have been considering lately.

Why this question arises becomes more clear when we consider the root meaning of the world physical: a physical system is a system with physics- a system who's behavior can be understood as being governed by laws, be they known or unknown.

So with this definition in mind, let's approach metaphysics. Now most of us here seem to agree that the reality we are experiencing does not appear to be base reality, but rather that this reality is "grounded" in something else. In this tradition, this reality is called "physical", and the reality it is grounded in is called "nonphysical". But is this right? For instance, wouldn't we expect this grounding world to behave by discernable laws? If it in fact did behave by laws, it would in effect be physical. And if it did not behave by laws? That is something of an alarming concept. What would an existence which was not governed by any laws be like? I would expect such a reality to be incredibly unstable; if there are no laws of any kind, you basically have bedlam... it would be impossible to predict what would happen, because there would be no causes. Even contradictions could be true, because the rejection of contradictions is itself a law. Now because our physical world is dependent on this grounding world, if that world were to be random, then this physical world would also be unstable, by consequence.

But this is not what is observed. So the very fact that we live in a world with fairly regular and dependable laws seems to indicate that this world is itself grounded in another world governed by laws (and thus physical). The same logic would apply to any world that other world was grounded into, ad infinitum. A possible conclusion then, seems to be that either there is no non-physical world, or else that world is entirely separate from anything even related in any metaphysical way to this world, since its instability would consequently spill into any world it had a relation to.

Since the subject of physical laws is matter / material, a consequence of this line of thinking would be that we are in fact material beings afterall (just not in the sense that mundane materialists might suppose) !

I have known several metaphysicians to personally hold this view, and I don't think I understood it until just recently, having stumbled onto it by accident.

What do all of you think of this concept?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PQ6335puOc

What do all of you think?

Is Arnold right, or is he wrong?

Were the two answers given the same or were they different?

I think this question is both a trap and liberation.

What does everyone feel is best in life?

I thought some of you might appreciate this.

As you know, David Bowie just passed this week. He died of a cancerous malignancy at age 69.

The remarkable thing here though, is that he released an entire album two days before he died, on his birthday.

More remarkable still, with legendary poise, he wrote a whole album about his own immediate death, and his embracing of it. I can't recall another time this has ever happened... where another musical artist has turned the lens of their art to focus on their own imminent death. It truly seems to be a unique and surreal thing, and a priceless gift to be dropped into the hands of such a musical genius.

Bowie even managed to film a video for the titular single:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw

Bowie joins us here as a blind prophet, with substitute button eyes, as a vestal virgin takes Major Tom's jewel-encrusted skull on a pilgrimage, and dancers convulse in spirited rapture. Pretty other-worldly imagery, to put it lightly.  



And then the chorus:

Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
(I'm a blackstar, I'm a blackstar!)

You can read into that what you will.

I choose to see it as a celebration of the act of a musical artist discarding themself, and channeling the universal persona and voice. When you stand up on the stage, the person you were is gone. In your body, is a new being. It is very much a metaphysical ritual. His physical death is thus rendered meaningless, as he already died and was reborn all those decades ago.

I am sure it admits of many other interpretations as well.


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Goodbye Goblin King, and thanks for the sweet tunes!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v--IqqusnNQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRcPA7Fzebw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3qm2tTD_oQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgcc5V9Hu3g

This is a topic I have had in the back of my mind for a while here. I have noticed that there is about a 50-50 divide here on this site. About half here seem to be conscious of this concept, and others may be overlooking it.

People have a built-in mechanism for creating social hierarchies in their head. They want to arrange the people around them on a ladder... some of them below, some above; this may have developed as a helpful evolutionary tactic for helping humans find a mate with the same social standing as they, or just one notch better. But the problem is... how does a person keep score? Evolution did not provide ideas for this. Most people will invent their own variables that they judge others by. Generally, it will be something that they score themselves highly in, so that they can mentally place themselves in a high social standing with respect to most of their peers.

It is easy to see what categories people are keeping score in, based on what they are pursuing in life. Some people keep score primarily in financial assets. There are people really into body building, that will heavily de-value other people if they are not decked out in massive musculature. There are those people who value people by race or ethnicity, and generally every other race is below their own on the ladder. Other people will keep score in the area of "achievements"... things like the portfolio history of an artist or the discography of a composer or musician.

I think that spiritual practice is something like this for many people. They take survey of those around them, and place them on a ladder hierarchy based on how "spiritually advanced" this or that person is. "Achievements" such as mastering projection (as those here are concerned with), developing strong remote viewing abilities, psychic phenomena of various classes, etc, are used as a sort of scorecard to determine that person's worth. You can tell this when some members will look upon other members with deference, rather than treating everyone with the same common courtesy.

Why am I saying all of this?

Well, for me I think that these practices should be about improving one's own life, and their ability to love and serve others around them. The score-keeping aspect can potentially get in the way of all of that.

For instance, are you meditating for 3 hours a day because it is producing significantly more benefit than meditating for 2 hours (of 45 minutes)? Or is it possible that you are meditating this long because, in your mind, it is what "spiritually advanced people do", and you want to be a spiritually advanced person, and thus decide that you ought to be meditating for this long as well?

Have you decided that those experiencing projections several times a day, rather than the monthly projection you have, are significantly more advanced than you, and that you need to learn to have this same degree of frequency in order to be "at their level"?

Have you decided that there is a certain way that "spiritual people" behave, and you immediately apply mental demerits to others that act outside of this image? (JP Sears covers this subject brilliantly in this satirical video, nailing a laundry list of these same points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kDso5ElFRg  ).

I very much fell into this trap when I began spiritual practice around the age of 13. I was very concerned with advancing my "abilities". I had read in books and scriptures about the achievements of the holy people of ages past and present. I wanted to be such a person too. I wanted to be as loving, as balanced, and as distinguished in their abilities as they were. It took me several years to see through my errors, and to realize that the first two are worthy goals, and the third is meaningless. That is when I started to reap the greatest benefit of all from my practices. I quickly learned the joy of mere existence... a kind of quiet rapture that I carried with me always. I learned to become focused on trying to say what is best possible thing for others to hear in any given conversation. Now I have not always been successful in this. But I generally catch myself when I am saying something for non-altruistic reasons, and attempt to recognize these tendencies in myself for the future. 

Now I am absolutely not saying don't set goals. Rather what I am getting at is that it may be worth examining what causes you to set a goal. Am I setting this goal to genuinely help myself or others? Is it possible that I am pursuing goal X at least partially to feel that I have achieved, and that I can count myself as having more worth on the social ladder? What things am I doing throughout the day are possibly only being used as a crutch to support a stronger mental image of myself, or persona to others around me?

I think it is good to be conscious of this concept for many reasons. If we realize that we are valuing those around us by some artificial scale, and then discontinue this practice, it opens up new doors for us to relate to these others directly as people, and without the clutter of titles or ranks (or some similarly formal system in our minds). We may stop mentally penalizing others for failing to meet our own image of what a spiritual person does. We may realize that much of our own practice is actually ego-gratification. We are focused on "achievements" and gaining social value, and this keeps us focused on the abstract future, rather than on being present to experience the brilliance of the current moment, as I think is well-understood here. All kinds of unseen burdens may be instantly removed from an individual. I think many people realize that the more mental attachments and clutter a person is experiencing, the less at ease they will generally find themselves, and potentially the less able to interact with others with the intention of saying and doing what is best for those others at all times.

I say all of this because I think it may be of genuine value to many here to reflect on these ideas, or to remember them again.

I hope this little bit is helpful, and welcome discussion or debate on the subject!

(  I place this here, rather than in the Energy section because I don't frankly have a clue what an energy body is. That stuff is outside of my sphere.  )

Well, I can say now that I may have been visited by one of those peak experiences that defines the heights of what spirituality can offer to humanity, and I feel as though I have been given a glimpse of a sacred gift of the first order.

It happened by accident almost, but for the reader's benefit, and to explain what it was, and what context I have to understand it at all, I will preface with the famous story of Saint Teresa.

Teresa of Avila was a nun who practiced devotional mysticism. She spent much of her time in deep meditation contemplating her idea of divinity in the Catholic tradition that was known to her. The episode of her life for which she is most famous came during a time she fell ill, and during that time her devotional meditation brought her by chance an episode of supreme ecstasy which overcame her completely, which she understood as sexual union with the godhead.

"I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying."

Even as a child, I was captivated by that story, and especially by the overwhelmingly beautiful sculptural depiction of the event by Bernini. Such rapture! Her face is contorted into twisted torsions of joy, and her frame has collapsed from the weight of it as she convulses. Ever since learning of the story, I can say that the idea of such an overwhelming experience- to be visited as the lover of the divine- was one of the most compelling concepts I ever found in spiritual texts.

Not to mention, I have always admired how, even amongst the sexual repression of the Catholic Church, Bernini was able to tell the unabashedly immoderate story of how human sensuality is a gift for understanding and communing with the infinite! What a curiously surprising thing for nuns and school children to see enshrined in a Catholic Cathedral.


 


The next thing I will preface with is that I have always had great love for the Hindu Upanishads. They were my first experience of spirituality, and a powerful first introduction to meditation, trance, and altered states. I discovered them as a child, maybe only 12 or so. I delighted in the idea that there were these ideas and experiences that normal people never got an opportunity to experience, that you could unlock merely by understanding your body and gaining control of your mind. I took away from those experiences many great gifts even then: an overriding love for the world and all of its inhabitants, a wonderful stillness of mind that brought me both joy and the mindfullness to be in control of my own thoughts, and the concept that the body and sensuality are a gift that is the birthright of humanity.

I am not certain if I am just pre-disposed to be a sensual person, or if it is life experiences like that, but it is worth pointing out that sense experiences (paintings, music, literary imagery) can be extremely powerful for me. Very often music that resonates with me will send waves of feeling over my skin, and pulses through my spine.

So on to the experience itself.

I have for a little while been revisiting the exercises and techniques I recall from the Upanishads. I had decided that where I am now in my life, I have more perspective to understand them, and to apply what I learned then with what I know now. And that turned out to be miraculously true.

Many people here will be familiar with the Chakra system concept. I have my own views on what this system is, but I won't go into those here. Those familiar will know the concept that the base chakra is the root of the body's energy, which is heavily sensual in nature, and gets transduced into other forms. At least that is the Hindu understanding, and what many practitioners believe today. Suffice to say that the exercise I was following from memory dealt with this transduction.

Many people may also be familiar with the concept that the yogis will never explain their full techniques, or put them into writing, because they are believed to be incredibly dangerous for untrained eyes to find. I am also of this belief, and so I will not here publish the exact thing I was doing, for fear that others may find it at the wrong time on their path and do themselves harm; I am incredibly sorry to be such a tease with something this sublime, although those of you who want more details can discuss it via PM. I can say I am of the belief that with the right knowledge, likely any healthy and fit person can experience what I experienced then. But it would be irresponsible of me to post such things here.

Suffice to say, I was on my back, after having entered heavy trance, and was in the process that the yogi's understood to be the transferance of energy from the low center upward. My reasons for following these exercises was to explore the effects, and note the sensations from my current life perspective. Note... the sensations. These words proved very weak for what happened next. With very little warning, there was a sharp contraction in my abdomen, and a surge of sensation shot along my spine. These sensations repeated and quickly intensified. Soon I was arching my back, and massive waves of sensual feeling were surging through my limbs, neck, face, extremities... the motions were the semi-voluntary means to flow with the feeling, but they soon became near involuntary. My entire form was wracked with force of such great intensity it filled every nerve with hyper-peak excitement, and it was impossible not to gasp and vocalize very strongly with the overwhelming force of it all. My shoulders, as they took on the weight of my body as my spine arched into the air fiercely, throbbed and pulsated as though being massaged by angels. My toes curled as far as they could move. I think the female readers will have some context for partially understanding these sensations, but their magnitude was astronomical.

As I have remarked, I am an extremely sensual person. I feel most things far more strongly than most. Up till now, I would rate the highest intensity my nervous system has ever responded with at a 12 out of 10, lol. This was a 50 out of 10. It was outside of anything I expected human forms capable of experiencing. It was a perfect union of agony and electrifying full body response. It lasted for what I surmise was a few minutes, but was an eternal moment, and it left me unable to move or do anything but rest for a long time afterward. As my form writhed and shrieked, it was for a moment an extinction of self and a union with everything. I was the bed, I was the air, I was creation itself, and I was burning with the power of a star. When it "ended" (I am not sure it even has yet) I was both flooded with joy and filled with relief to have come through to the other side of it. It was every bit the supremely exhilerating visitation from the godhead, and the effects are as much emotional as they were physical.

The event itself is something that has lasting echoes as well. I still feel tingling nerves playing over my limbs for large parts of the day, even a week later now. It is as though a powerful amount of energy has been transduced into pure joy that animates my entire life. Walking is like dancing. While I have always felt a strong connection between myself and the natural world while outdoors, now it is like I am part of a chorus. Running is like sex. I feel waves of feverish heat still flowing over my body as aftershocks. I get the impression that even though I know how to make it happen again in theory, that I would be ill-advised to try, because I am still coming to terms with the effects of it having happened even once. I don't even know how long these effects will be with me... if it is like my childhood, maybe forever.

I very much understand now why the Hindus feel base Chakra energy is the fire that fuels everything, and that its transduction is a supremely powerful action. Perhaps this is what people refer to as "Kundalini" these days, although for me the experience was very spinal, but without that painful twisting people report of that event. Even so, I don't think it is wise for me to follow further down that path, because the bodily effects are profound, and are clearly outside of my control. It may be years before I feel up to allowing it to happen a second time. I feel like a thimble that was asked to hold a river. In fact, the shock of it all prevented me from expressing it here until today. Even now, I feel my shoulders throb and heave. I have long overflown.

English is a powerful, powerful language, but there is only so much you can express in words. Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa above is a much greater attempt at the concept than I can provide. I can't help look at her image now, and think to myself, "Yeah, I get it Sister."

I hope this helps someone, in some way!

We all know there are billions of stars in our galaxy, but lets face it, billion is not a word I understand. I can intellectualize the concept, but my mind can't provide me with any picture of what a number on that scale looks or feels like. Here is a recently made video I happened on depicting only the 1776 then-known planets of two months ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw_KfDEypTY

Most of those are the ones that are so close to us we can't miss them with our new tools, such as  the Kepler Space Telescope.

The images I get of vast oceanic worlds full of arthropod life, endless forests known only to snails, and of gentle and warlike cultures is phenomenal.

If you concentrate, you can see Vulcan and Kronos go by.


------------------


To compliment and expand on that, with a very recent article:

http://www.universetoday.com/112265/there-might-be-100-million-planets-in-the-galaxy-with-complex-life/

The figure came from studying a list of more than 1,000 exoplanets for metrics such as their density, temperature, chemistry, age and distance from the parent star. From this, Irwin's team formulated a "biological complexity index" that ranges between 0 and 1.0. The index is rated on "the number and degree of characteristics assumed to be important for supporting multiple forms of multicellular life," the research team stated.
Assuming that Europa (a moon of Jupiter believed to have an ocean below its ice) is a good candiate for life, the team estimated that 1% to 2% of exoplanets would have a BCI that is even higher than that. So to translate that into some estimates: 10 billion stars in the Milky Way, averaging one planet a star, which brings us to 100 million planets minimum.


The figure came from studying a list of more than 1,000 exoplanets for metrics such as their density, temperature, chemistry, age and distance from the parent star. From this, Irwin's team formulated a "biological complexity index" that ranges between 0 and 1.0. The index is rated on "the number and degree of characteristics assumed to be important for supporting multiple forms of multicellular life," the research team stated.
Assuming that Europa (a moon of Jupiter believed to have an ocean below its ice) is a good candiate for life, the team estimated that 1% to 2% of exoplanets would have a BCI that is even higher than that. So to translate that into some estimates: 10 billion stars in the Milky Way, averaging one planet a star, which brings us to 100 million planets minimum.

100 million planets with things at least as complicated as jellyfish or tardigrades probably inhabiting them. There are wonders just out of our current reach, I am sure of it. Probably lucky for them we can't reach them yet.

This particular projection really stood out for me, because it is the longest I can ever recall having had by a LONG margin.

Most of my experiences these days are ending up being lucid dreams where I escape the dream narritive for a full-fledged projection. This is mostly because being rather busy of late, I don't have the liberty of disrupting sleep with setting up early morning attempts as usual, but I seem have a knack for gaining lucidity in normal dreams.

What the particular dream was to start with I don't really recall, but after I "snapped into it, I found myself wandering briefly through various geometric light environments which were dazzling but bewildering (can't really say what that was about... sort of a hypnogaugic thing in some sense). Immediately after this, I was in the middle of what appeared to be a musical practice room. There were a few people sitting around in an arc, and the instructor was teaching someone to play a pedal harp (I think this was my own projected image, because I have always found that a fascinating instrument). I came to understand that we were all pupils in a sort of school, and we had many lessons which were sometimes interesting, and sometimes sort of "boring inflictions" upon us, lol. They weren't like life-lessons per se that I could see, but sort of basic accademic things. I got the impression that it wasn't the material that we were so much supposed to be learning from, but the environment of being there, with one another.

I got to know the other pupils very well, because they were my only peers (the instructors being cold and mechanical affairs; I got the impression it wasn't so much they didn't care about us, very much the opposite was the case, but I felt they were obligated somehow to be stern).

After some days of being there (and it was days literally) I began to get strange thoughts I hadn't had before. I sort of realized it was as though I had passed over the "River Styx" or some such... I couldn't remember what came before at all, or how I came to be there, and that disturbed me. Up to that point I had been caught up in the routine of lessons and sleeping and socializing and more lessons that I hadn't even considered questioning it all. I decided I must have had temporary amnesia or something, and that if I just continued on it would all work itself out somehow.

More lessons (history, musical practice, literature, botany ad nausium) filled most of the waking hours, and the time just seemd to flow by. But I started speaking to the others a bit more about my amnesia, and what it meant. They explained it eventually wore off, but that wasn't the worst of it. They told me near as anyone among them could see, that we must all be dead. Surprisingly that didn't bother me, I just sort of accepted I was dead, and that was that. I asked them if they had met their family members, but I immediately realized that was the exact wrong question. A desperate gloom settled over everyone present as someone simply explained that was all any of them wanted to do, and no one could really figure out how. A powerful wave of pity crept over me in that instant for the indescribable loss they all felt, and oddly I didn't seem to really seem to worry that I was in their exact position with them. I guess for them to be in that position was as immediate to me as myself being there. I guess I sort of have to explain at this point that conversation was mostly verbal, but that a manner of telepathic emotional resonance was present between all of the pupils as well, and this might account for that empathetic sharing.

I had no real way of counting time, because there were no calenders or weeks or any such thing, despite there being a wake / sleep cycle, so I really can't say how long this all continued, but in my mind, based on how many lessons had gone by, and how accustomed to it all I became, I feel like it must have been 3 months or so in our time.

I started to wonder what all these lessons were for afterall, but we were kept in childlike ignorance of the wherefores. The instructors carried on mercilessly and with purpose, while a mild frustration with not knowing what it was all for took hold. Another day after we finished lessons and were sitting in a sort of lounge without any sort of activity to occupy us, I asked a question of one of the others (I think his name was Peter, and I always thought of him as a fisherman, but I think that was another personal projection because of my knowledge of the biblical Peter"). I said, " You know, how long do I have to be here? I feel like I have been here for months (which was accurate) and I would really like to know when I can just move on. How long have you all been here?"

The reply, to paraphrase, was something like, "That isn't very long at all. We have all been here for so long we can't even put a number on it. This is the world to us and we have been here far longer than we have been any other place we can recall. We would ALL like to know when we will be released of this."

I replied, "That is a terrible thing to be sure."

He went on, "Well, this isn't the worst place to be. It just is what it is. Perhaps we should be thankful we are here because maybe it is among the best places one could be. But we would all like to know what else there is..."

The terrible thing for me in that whole exchange was combining that new knowledge with what was said earlier about how they all missed their families so much and had no knowledge of them... thinking about how long they had been in such a severed limbo. And everyone understood what I was thinking and all contemplated the terrifying weight of all that ceaseless longing. I understood then that that was why no one ever seemed to want to do anything when they weren't taking lessons... they were crippled with loss, and nothing in this environement could really take their mind off of that for long. We were thrown into this place of unending drudgery that only seemed temporarily to take their mind off of their own inner sufferings. I didn't really seem to share their lot to the extent that they all were so totally immobilized by it, but I got the impression that maybe that would change with time. But at the close of that conversation, It was as though I had overflowed. I was so consumed with the bottomless depth of their emotional suffering that I receded into myself, and in that very moment I came back to waking reality.

I have to say I am really drained for the emotional exertition that place and experience cost me. I haven't a clear idea what it was, but I suppose it may be the same sort of "rest area" that some projectors have experienced as hospitals; the people there are dead and are in the process of moving on, but in some sense are emotionally damaged or traumatized. If the place really exists as I think it does, I wish there was something I could do for those occupying it, but I haven't been able to return.

Have any of you experienced similar, or had one of these overwhelming projections that compress months worth of experience into a few physical hours?

I had heard such long projections happened, but this the only one near that length I have ever had.

http://blogs.discovery.com/animal_news/2012/05/52-hertz-the-loneliest-whale-in-the-world.html

This is an interesting story I found. Aparently a while back one single Humpback whale was found who traveled completely alone. Humpbacks are known to be extremely social, and quite dependent on pod-mates. They were not sure why this whale had no companions of any kind, until recently, when they figured out that the whale sings outside of the range that other whales can hear well (this one is singing around 52 hertz), and thus no one else can hear the songs. He is the only one that sings in his high range at all. He is thought to possibly be an accidental hybrid of two species of whales.

Seems like poetic novelty to me.


--------------


Here are some examples of Humpback whale songs:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=PNPyzzDGIa8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WabT1L-nN-E


And here is an example of this individual's typical songs:

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/acoustics/whales/sounds/whalewav/ak52_10x.wav

The Sun is about to cause a Pole-shift... in itself. Not what you came here for? Too bad 

This is something I have to admit I was completely unaware of; the Sun apparently goes through an 11-year cycle in which its magnetic poles hold one polarity, then quickly shift to the reverse for the next cycle. The next pole reversal the sun will undergo is in a few months.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=34gNgaME86Y

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/uk-internet-filter-block-more-than-porn_n_3670771.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

I think this should be a pretty good indication of the dangers of state censorship because it hits pretty close to home here.

Cameron's recent move to "tidy up the internet" for Brits began with the default blocking of pornographic materials in the UK internet. Regardless of how you feel about that choice, I think it sets a dangerous precedent of state censorship and ethical dictation to any population; and not content to allow those implications to merely remain implications for long, the next phase has been introduced, where they state they have intentions to block anything the government thinks people can't handle: smoking advertisements, anorexia discussions, sucide discussions, all web forums, politically radical viewpoints, and esoteric materials such as this website (which also happens to be a forum). Brits will be able to possibly deactivate these filters by contacting their service providers, but you can bet you will end up on a "watched-list".

To me, not even a British citizen, the movement is reprehensible. Governments do not have a right to regulate what ideas a person is exposed to, and the attempt to do so is major progress towards yet more encroachment into the private dealings of "free" citizens. Perhaps this is a small matter to some of you, but to me any legislation of what people are allowed to know is extremely suspect.

After discussion in a previous thread, I think I realized I have never spoken music much here on the forums... which is funny... if you were to know me in real life, haha.

When I think of the things that have the most profound and lasting influence on my life, powerfully for the better, I think of the people I have known, music, the natural world, meditation and spiritual practice, and books, in that exact order. And for me Music is probably the most religious experience I have had by far in waking life, and the easiest and most accessible thing to share with others. For me, it is absolutely uncontainable, I simply overflow 

I thought it might be nice for us to share some playlists of some of the music we all liked; I could honestly go on for hundreds and hundreds of songs, and it would still only be the highlights, but I will keep it under 30 at least to start! I can always share dozens more if anyone is interested!



"Don't Wanna Pray"- Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyOP1CXxryo

"Blue Ridge Mountains"- Fleet Foxes    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m8CkxXhPtw

"You Want Alchemy"- Kate Bush    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EM3M509P7c

"Suspended in Gaffa"- Kate Bush    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lr2acDdfbvY

"Waiting for the Moon to Rise"- Belle and Sebastian    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8DDDEotEmc

"Poor Boy"- Nick Drake    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdYJyp4EIbI

"Postcards from Italy"- Beirut    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X61BVv6pLtw

"River Man"- Nick Drake    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idcaRTg4-fM

"Peace like a River"- Paul Simon    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAmPfEMI16g

"Adios Hermanos"- Paul Simon    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtABhCcTFjM

"China Town"- Destroyer   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zCJwn3Ym7g

"Solider of the Heart"- Judee Sill     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN9shdXDnNU

"Yasashisa ni tsutsumareta nara" (Japanese folk song)- Yumi Arai    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBLhPR8Qk44

"California"- Joni Mitchell    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q4foLKDlcE

"500 Miles"- Joan Baez    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_K6z3HiRAs

"Water is Wide"- Bob Dylan and Joan Baez    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np1jIde44vE

"Tiny Dancer"- Elton John  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0aRyxNRMn0

"Crane Wife"- The Decemberists (the intro is funny... he is asking for requests, and of course someone picks this 20-minute song, lol) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPOMHM6waxk

"The Working Hour"- Tears for Fears    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja4qxbu7eio

"Goodnight Song"- Tears for Fears    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QZTFcLPTBQ

"On Fire"- Bruce Springsteen    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBTtRL8g_C4

"Thunder Road"- Bruce Springsteen    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMB3M43AEpc

"Life on Mars"- David Bowie   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C0RmRGTePw

"Isobel"- Bjork    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1PPGlqVWXc

"Roof of the World"- Dido    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnsn0GMv9RE

"Nothing Gonna Break my Strike"- Matthew Wilder (the video on this one is incredible, haha) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28KobNbbI2s

"Blood of Eden"- Peter Gabriel and Sinnead O' Conner    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuwgLkcPESQ

"Slegehammer"- Peter Gabriel    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g93mz_eZ5N4

"Another Day in Paradise"- Phill Collins    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt2mbGP6vFI

"And You and I"- Yes     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-rdL2KkvzY

"Exiles"- King Krimson    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWAbNIMsveI

"Aqueous Transmission"- Incubus    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQK7KSTQfaw

"Esme"- Joanna Newsom    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a9VeFnn2hM


What sorts of things do you guys connect with? Would love to hear it!

This was an interesting one.

In an early morning projection, I ended up in an environment that resembled a non-descript school; I don't remember well what preceded it. I walked into a classroom from the outside, and settled down to see what would be taught. There were a few other people there too. It looked a bit like a class where hightschool math might be taught (I am often ending up back in highschool in dreams too, so it seems like a theme for me). The instructor was roughly human, with a well built frame. After what must have been around a 10 minute lesson in calculus, someone asked him if he would sing today again; he said, "sure, alright, how about this?" He burst into 70's era Bruce Springsteen, and sang an entire song, and segued smoothly into another.  He sang remarkably well, probably as well as the genuine article. The third song is really the only one I recall very well. It wasn't exactly one of Springsteen's, but it had very similar chord structure to Springsteen's song "The River". This particular song I will call "Diehard Believer", because that was the refrain in the chorus. I remember that one well enough that I could write down the words and musical notes of the chorus at least. I guess listen to "the river, and imagine if it was more upbeat and major, lol, and you will get the idea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Jpq4QDWE0

After he finished his three numbers, people started making requests, now that he was singing Springsteen, haha. I suggested he sing "Thunder road" 

He just smiled, as if to say, "If you think about it, I gave a lot- that will do."

I tend to take my more narritive experiences like this one to be metaphors. I suppose this one might have been the greater reality reminding that is has many faces, and shows up everywhere, because being in the presence of this multi-talented "teacher" was was very much like chatting with some great ascended master. He sort of radiated strength and understanding at the same time.
Almost like the universe was saying... yeah, I remember when I was Springsteen... wanna see him again?

This topic has been moved to Welcome to Members Introductions!.

http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/index.php?topic=41445.0

I thought this was a pretty well-told story. This old man is living 45 miles from the epicentre of the Fukoshima disaster; his entire village was evacuated due to the extreme levels of radiation present; he chose to return to his village alone in order to feed his animals. He felt it was cruel to kill them or allow them all to starve for no reason at all, so he felt forced to forgo his own safety to return and care for them, regardless of the fact that they are of no use to society anymore.

When he was scanned, the doctors claimed that he was the "most radioactive man in Japan", although they also said he might live for another 30 years.

I hope you guys enjoy the piece as much as I did, because I think the journalists did a stellar job covering this vivid character and the remarkable life he lives, and there are quite a few insightful things the man has to say.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llM9MIM_9U4&feature=player_embedded

http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/new-pope-chosen-argentine-jorge-mario-bergoglio-who-becomes-pope-francis-i-1.1193437

He is the first pope to choose for himself the name of Saint Francis as far as I know.

He is also appropriately the first from Latin America, the largest single block of Catholics, and among the most oppressed.

Here's hoping he can use the formidable resources and clout of the Catholic church for the best possible humanitarian purposes.

Hi all, this is something that happened yesterday that took me a bit by surprise.


An issue that is in my family for the moment is my brother's decision to become engaged soon to a woman he met a few months ago. Everyone one of us who knows her mostly likes her, but she is also a bit controlling of his time, and has some complicated details in her life. I told my brother I felt ok with him proposing, but that he should wait a year or so till they know one another better, so they don't rush into something; my brother isn't the kind to wait and think things through though sometimes, haha, so I don't think he seriously considered those statements.

So the friend received us yesterday very warmly, and eventually asked to see a photograph of her.

She then said, "Lovely, may I read it?"

I didn't know what she meant by that, and I was wondering if something was perhaps written on the back of the photo, lol. Instead she took it between her hands and stood with her eyes closed for a minute or so.I am part of this little circle we all share here on the Pulse, so it wasn't that unusual to me what I was seeing, but I was of course taken aback because it was unsolicited and unexpected. She then nodded her head knowingly, and related about 20 facts about her, some of which were general, and some were quite specific, such as the fact that she had an Intra-utero-device that was causing her trouble, which my brother later confirmed with her. She spoke of some mental disturbances due to an abusive history, and also congratulated my brother for the great positivity the relationship held with her. She ratteld off small fact after small fact, but the remarkable thing in it all wasn't these, which were unecessary in their number after the first few very close matches, but overwhelming sense that she knew this person as surely as though they had been life friends, all in that moment.

I have a feeling I was "intended" to be there as surely as he was, because a lot of what she said asuaged and allowed me to set aside my misgivings with him moving forward so fast.

I jokingly asked her "where she learned to do that", haha, and she gave the expected answer that she just always had it, since being a child. I didn't press her for any more details, as I didn't think they were important.

The dream started with me speaking to some officious-looking people, who seemed like they were part of some major government institution no one knew about. They kept saying that I was not allowed to talk about what happened to there to anyone, and that what I was about to see was real and genuine. I sat down in a chair in a university-type lecture room, with a panel of chairs facing a much larger audience; I was on the panel side.

After some more discussions, suddenly a figure emerged from the other side of the room, through the crowds, and there was a chorus of gasps. As he approached, the authorities I was speaking with earlier assured me that yes, this was in fact the real president Lincoln.

He came to rest at the head of the panel, and stood there expressionlessly, gazing over the audience; I got the impression that age had somehow sucked the vigor and passion completely out of his face, but that he was still quite full in his faculties. A wave of shock came over me as I contemplated what it could possibly mean for Lincoln to be standing before me at this time, but never once, with the characteristic credulity my dreams normally have, did I question that he was the real deal, or that this could possibly be an actor.

I sort of had a world-view questioning moment as he began to speak after sitting down. He was answering questions the audience was posing him in their awe. He answered everything matter-of-factly, without changing expression, as though he was gripped by a soul-crushing sadness.

I was asking myself what this could mean... how could be possibly be here today? Were people capable of living much longer than we had believed? Was this a result of world-class medicine at work? Was being shot just a ruse to get him out of the public eye? Was this some sort of display of "illuminati" mega-technology? Someone asked him directly, finally, how it was possible for him to still be here. He sort of turned his head sideways, and said, "Well... you know..." as though it should be obvious what this meant, lol. Of all things, I chose to ask him what his childhood experience was like, growing up mid 19th-century... what his day was like then, what his dreams and apsirations were like, that sort of thing. He simply laughed and said, "Well ya know, sonny..." and declined to answer that one further either, lol.

And that is how the dream commenced... for some reason this dream moved me somehow... like I had met the Buddha or something, lol... reverence seemed to be what the situation demanded of everyone, and what people gladly supplied. It is sort of funny comparing how I would actually recieve that situation to how it went down in the dream... since in the dream I had no question he was real, and in reality I would have no question he was an impersonator, lol.

Stookie's recent dream, and other comments made in that topic reminded me of a dream I had myself.

I was back in highschool (what is it with dreams and highscool, lol), and I was in a classroom with two other people- a quiet young lady, and someone with a big coat. I think I started some sort of conversation with coat-person, and his immediate reply was something like... "Do you know how many satellites are watching my country at all times? Do you know how hard your people have made it for us?" I asked where he was from, and he responded that he was from Egypt (although I would not have guessed, because he was somewhat fair-skinned, with an East-Europe complexion). I said that there were many things my government did I was ashamed of, and that I had no doubt in what he was saying. He said that was kind, and he walked over, and showed me what was inside his coat. He had a set of chains and padlocks around him, and attached to these was a set of tubes rolled in blue-electrical tape. I nodded my head, and said I underestood, but also added, "But why here, at this moment?" He returned to his previous seat about 15 feet away. He ignored the question, and asked instead, "Do you know how many hits my bomb-site gets a day?" I said, "Not sure, maybe 120?" He responded, "25." I had the urge to chuckle, and smile a little, because he had so much pride in this, but decided it was better not to.

I thought to myself, "So this is the day... guess I will make the best of it".

He started toying with what looked like a makeshift detonator in his hand, and I nodded again. I said something along the lines of, "I could really care less about myself, but think about what happens outside this room. This incident is only going to cause suffering in the world at large, and will be the excuse for future atrocities- you should consider the wider consequences here." He did not seem too interested in that line of thought. I told him that unless he had something pretty exotic there, he did not have enough material for an explosion much larger than the room. I said that if he let the young lady leave, we could push the button together. He agreed, and he handed me his detonator-thing.... I felt strangely honored and trusted. I handled it back and forth, and then passed it back to him, and we pushed the trigger together, and I woke up.

I actually thought it was a good dream, haha... it had a sort of unexpected serenity to it for the subject matter.

I will preface this with a sort of disclaimor, as I have done in the past with matters relating to chakras.

I am agnostic with respect to the metaphysical concept of the chakra system; chakras "are" something... I have felt them all very powerfully, but I feel I don't have enough information, and probably never will, to make an accurate theory as to what they truly are and what their place in the grand scheme of things are. Maybe there are merely sensitive nerve ganglia, or perhaps they truly are the energy vortexs contemporary metaphysicians talk about... I can't say I can make up my mind about that matter without it merely being a belief though.

With that out of the way, the crux:

For the last couple years of projection practice, simarly to what was happening when I first began about a decade back, I seem to get this extremely accute pressure in the third eye region, more-or-less spontaneously. To describe what the sensation is like... I suppose you could imagine taking a chopstick, and pressing the tip of it directly into the middle of your forehead, with a fairly large amount of pressure behind it. The sensation comes to a point in a very small region, with very great intensity. At its height, it is a kind of searing pain that is challenging to endure, especially without moving during a projection attempt... in fact it can be one of the most intense pains I have ever felt... it almost feels like a test, sometimes... often I can get by, but other times I must put a tiny amount of tension in my cheek muscles, which instantly relieves it, but brings me a bit further away from a projection state.

I was curious to see if any other projectors have experienced this situation...

This is fairly uncommon for me, in that I don't often have lucid dreams, because I do not pursue them.

Last night, maybe around 4 am, I had the classic "signed up for a class, but forgot to attend it all semester" dream that a lot of people seem to have. Suffice to say, this one was set in highschool, with some faces that were familiar, and others that were not.

I woke up from this dream around 5 am or so, and fell back asleep, this time to have a similar dream. In it, I was walking to a highschool classroom in order to take a generic standardized test. I sat down in the appointed room, and the scheduled proctor, an older lady, was taking roll. When she got to my name, she said, "Oh, I'm sorry. I see that you have been rescheduled to take the test with Mr. Hellion." At this moment, I pounded my fist on the table, and demanded, "Who the hell is Mr. Hellion, and how do I even find him?" The lady seemed startled, so I added, "Don't worry, I am not upset with you, my dispute is with the institution (lol)."

As I was walking out of the classroom to go find this other room, I realized... hey wait... this is the second time tonight I have been back in highschool... haha; I had the typical dream-awareness moment then, and realized that I was in total control of the situation. I passed some people in the hall who told me to take a left for Mr. Hellion's room (without even being asked). Instead, I decided I would walk to the doors on the right, and fly out into the air. When I fly in dreams, as opposed to projections, it is generally a sort of "moonjump" affair, where I fly pretty high, and glide back down, in a sort of bounding fashion. This is more-or-less what happened then. A few people called out to me to come back, and I said, "Nope." Toto's "Africa" began to play ambiently, and I flew off into the distance, following a highway. My clothing flew off, and I just continued, lol. I feel this exhilerating flight probably lasted about 20 minutes, as eventually the sky grew dark at an unnatural rate, and I faded out again.

This one was nothing super-fancy, but it sure beat a dream about taking a standardized test, lol.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47031923/ns/technology_and_science-science/


This is new this week.

A study on systems complexity patterns in the data from the viking-probe Mars-measurements in the 70's suggests to some that bacteria and perhaps slightly higher life are probably present on mars.

Granted this is a pretty far interpretation, since the evidence is not in the form of actually encountering life, but rather encountering data which some now believe is indicative of life, it still seems like a promising development in the search for non-earth-bound life.

I for one think that the first non-terristrial life we actually encounter will either be bacteria-like or in the form of intelligent machines.

What a strange coincidence that is... it feels like fate, haha... as though I am intended to visit...

I definitely feel I should drop by there soon and interact in some way.

As I have felt often these years, I don't know what to make of it.

Has anyone here been before?

Well, here is a device that charges your phone with... your breathing:

http://now.msn.com/living/0312-aire-mask.aspx

I am glad they have the energy crisis all figured out.

Now we can move on to the bigger issues!

This has been something I have seemed to experience for more than a decade, and I am not sure what to attribute it to, be it chance, some quirk of evolutionary psychology, or some more metaphysical explanation.

The situation goes like this:

-I see or experience a datum somewhere in my environment: it can be a new and exotic word I am sure I never consciously encountered; it can be a very old song I would only hear by chance, and never heard before; it can be a novel idea which suddenly I thought of, or was exposed to; it might also be a piece of art that was new to me ( the common thread is that the datum is new and novel ).

-The next thing that happens, after a lull of hours, or days, or sometimes a week, is that I will in uncany fashion encounter several instances of that same datum, which I believed I had never encountered before in my life, in rapid succession, one after another.

For instance, the most recent one that happened to me, is that I saw a shirt someone was wearing that was representing a visit Johnny Cash made to Folsom prison. I knew Johny cash, but did not know about the Folsom prison, or his connection to it, so that was the novel part. No more than 8 hours later, I see a home video posted on MSN about 2 toddler's dancing to music made on that occasion. So the only two instances of that datum I encountered in my life happened within mere hours of one another.

Similar instances of that occurence happened when I learned the word "tenebrous" (in shadow); I saw no less than 5 or 6 instances of it all in the same week or so, in film, in books, etc.

I have been fascinated with this phenomenon for a while now. From time to time I get the fanciful idea that these may be intentionally unlikley happenings built into reality to tell me something about the constructed nature of our experience if I am attentive to details/hints like this.

What do you guys think?

http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1108/1108.2455v1.pdf

   This is a paper that has been getting alot of press lately. It was produced by the New-England Institute of Complexity, which is a group of computer scientists, physicists, and engineers who use the concepts of complexity theory (earlier known as chaos theory) to solve problems in science. The institute began studying the recent riots in the Middle-east, North Africa, and London, however, and applied some of their same methods to economics and social statistics; they were looking for correlations between all of these political movements, and the common conditions, and they were startled to find one common point all the riots had in common: the underclasses in those areas were at that time on average making below sufficient wages to feed themselves with the rise of food prices, while living a normal lifestyle for the given area.

       From this data, they reasoned that the major catalyst in all of these cases was approaching mass hunger; the riots were generally occurring in places where people were dissatisfied with the autocratic dictators presiding over them, but in which people had too much to lose to protest vigorously or violently. When enough people were nearing the point of approaching starvation, however, there were enough people desperate enough to disregard their own safety to make bold stands againts their rulers. And in every on of the riots identified, it happened right near a peak of a curve relating wages to buying power and food prices. The same was also found to be the case in London, where a large disenfranchised class struggles to meet the massive cost of living, and is becoming increasingly desperate as wages and food prices change disproportionately.



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     If you look at a chart of the data of this index (relating wages to food prices), you can see that most of the rioting occured near 2 distinct peaks in that value, around the recession doldrums of 2008, and recently in 2011, as food prices soared this summer. From the past data, and the rates of change, these resarchers are predicting that another massive peak will occur during the summer of 2012, and a mightier one still during most of 2013. And another frightening figure is that more than 70% of the world, including the US and Europe, has enough people in a low enough economic state that the pre-conditions for rioting will occur near universally. These researchers predict that 2013, or even earlier, may be a year of profound social violence, and a stacatto of constant revolutions all over the developing world on a scale which was confined to merely the Middle East in 2011, which will dangerously disrupt world-commerce and stability.

When I first read of the story of the Norwegian tragedy, I think the most important thing for me in the whole article I read was the minor detail that if convicted, the gunman would face a maximum sentence of 21 years.

Let's step back a moment. If the same incident occurred in the US., with a single gunman bombing an executive government building, and murdering 100 children, an American Jury would be likely to vote to unanimously execute the individual. In fact, you can get a 20-year sentence merely for possessing enough marijuanna or other scheduled substance.

I was thinking this about a week ago, and about the implications of the approach of these two countries, and their mindsets; then today, I found this wonderful story. This story pleased me very much, in that classic "shock the bourgeoisie" line of humor that challenges middle-class value systems.:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/07/25/the_super_lux_super_max?page=0,0

The intent of the article is pretty clear- it seems targeted to generate a sense of "moral outrage" at the ammenities which are provided to the prisoners- jogging track in a park setting, pesonl trainers, flat-screen televisions in cell, encouragement to pursue creative activities and music, a recording studio for musicians, a rock-climbing wall, private bathrooms, etc.

I think what this article hammers home though, is the fact that the Norwegian legal system has lost faith in the idea of "justice".

In the US., it is believed that in order to provide a sense of "just fairness", it is necessary to visit the wrongdoings and sufferings criminals cause back onto themselves; people who cause harm should be harmed. Let's look at some of the realities, however. People who commit violent crimes, in nearly every case, fit into three categories: those who are mentally ill, those who were themselves victims of terrible acts in their childhood, and those called by poverty or socially traumatic environments into a mindset that one must steal or fight in order to make it in their situation.

The first set is curious in a way, since our legal system is lenient on the mentally ill, understanding that if a person is not in full control of their faculties, they cannot be counted on to act in a way that makes sense from our view of reality; oddly enough, however, I think our system tends to ignore this mitigating circumstance in violent crimes, and punishes people for merely being mentally ill. Likewise, I think our system tends to ignore the violent past many of these people have, that helps to shape them into becoming the person who commited the crime. And finally, not only does our mindset not make allowance for the fact that some feel forced into the lifestyle by circumstances they can't control, it is actually considered an aggravating factor to commit an act in a gang setting, when the reality is that gang members view their peers as their final social support group.

Going further, let's see what the fruits of this system of punishments is: rather than being counseled and treated for mental conditions, and helped to address their problems and deal with them internally, our system in the US. produces people who have been forced to live in a dangerous and hostile environment for decades, suffering rape and being forced to participate in racial-violence, and learning that the only way for them to be safe on a day-to-day basis is to show violent aggression to any who would challenge them. We take traumatized criminals who have committed violent acts in society, and we place them in a hyper-traumatic, hyper-violent environment for countless years, and then marvel that they come out even more violent and desperate.

And the premise that all of this is built on is the idea that people are responsible for their actions- we feel it is just to punish someone for doing ill if they had the ability to make another choice, and still chose to do wrong. But then, are we entirely sure people are even making choices, and are capable of more than one action in any situation? The prevailing scientific paradigm is materialism, and materialism overwhelmingly implies philosophical determinism. If determinism is true, then no one is truly "responsible" for anything they ever do, good or bad. They did not make the choice to act in the way they did- the universe and the conditions and physical laws governing them produced the outcome, not any illusion of choice a person made. So there is clearly a cognitive dissonance in what we believe about the universe (scientific materialism, which implies determinism), and what we think about people and their actions (that people are responsible for what they do and think, even though determinism would forbid this).

So if all of this is true so far, we have a legal system which visits vengence upon criminals, and for actions they may not even be technically responsible for according to our science, and which produces individuals who are rendered even more dangerous to society by their sufferings. Rather than allow them to explore their mental issues, and to work through their problems and become stable individuals who are far less likely to commit desperate acts of harm against others, we allow quasi-religious fallacies about "justice" to prevent us from doing what is best for the criminals and the society they must later interact with.

So oddly enough, rather than being morally outraged about the treatment the Norwegian gunman may receive, I would go so far as to say it is the laudable example of a superior society of people who have had the mental discipline to see through ideas like social vengence, and the foolishness of the idea of punishment, and to take the course of action which rather than vicitimize criminals themselves, is able to see them as victims of their own past and situation, and to help they become greater than they were.

http://www.tibetexpress.net/en/news/exile/5133-2011-02-14-11-03-39


This was a funny one to me. Apparently the Chinese government, in order to further its claim on Tibet, has signed into effect a law that forbids the Dalai Lama and other Tibettan clerial dignitaries such as the Panchen Lama (whom the Chinese government abducted when he was a child, and holds captive) from returning to Tibet in their next incarnation.

As usual, I think it is safe to say the Chinese government is out of touch with reality again.

The Dalai Lama himself has recently denied his own relavence in Tibet's struggle for independence, and has said the movement will continue regardless of whether he is present or not.

I generally have very vivid dreams, and can recall almost all of them.

I had another dream with a strong narrative to it last night, that was sort of interesting.

When the dream started, I was building a house entirely out of gypsum-board (stuff that goes behind paint but in front of insulation in walls). I went to take a nap in the dream, and when I woke up, there were two people sleeping in two separate rooms of my constucted home; they both had a handgun with them. I tip-toed into the first room, and silently picked up the revolver the sleeping woman had beside her bedside; I then took the revolver, and walked into the other room, where the man was now awake, and I disarmed him at gun-point. He gave up a glock-looking pistol, which I also pocketed. Then for some bizzare reason I walked away, and left them alone, lol. I procured a cell-phone, and called "911", to ask for the police.

The phone dispatcher asked for the address, and I said it was at the corner of "Rues and Stiles Street". The dispatcher said he didn't know where that was, and that he couldn't help me. I said that should not be an issue, as he had his computer system to search; he said it did not work that way. I said that was alright, and started listing other adjacent streets, and alternative ways to get there. He kept saying that I should hang up, and that he couldn't help people like me. As he said this, I saw the two people from before through a window, walking into my house, and carrying computer equipment and other items out, lol; the man was also re-armed with another pistol. I told the operator that I phsyically saw people committing violent theft in front of me, and he said it was not their problem, haha. I continued to look for ways to get him to help, trying different arguements, as I saw them emptying my house of all its contents one by one, lol. The dispatcher began to get surly, and said that other people's problems were not his concern, and that the 911 service was only for people whom it was meant to serve. The couple then came in, and shot me 7 times; the dispatcher told me not to call ever again, and then I died, and woke up.

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If I had to interpret the dream, based on the emotions it generated at the time, I think it has something to do with thinking society is not meeting my needs, and that it is not for "people like me"; I think there is probably an air of truth in that, is I generally seem to take a view that our social structure is dominated by people with interests alien to mine, with political agendas and coporate controlling interests making all the decisions and holding all the power. I think the dream was reflective of my belief that our system victimizes the masses in favor of a few people who receive all the benefit.

You read the title correctly. The RIAA is supporting 13 record companies in their attempt to sue Limewire, a peer-to-peer file distribution service, for 75 trillion dollars. That is about 1.5 times the value of the entire world's GDP over an entire year. Some say that is more money than even exists in the entire world. This sum was arrived at by multiplying the $150 maximum infringment penalty for an individual download times the total number of instances a song was downloaded across all time on limewire.

While the record companies may have a claim of some kind, I think this is great evidence that production companies are out of touch with reality, and that the RIAA has proven itself to be an absurd organization. I think this is also evidence that copyright law needs to be revised to reflect the real-world situation today. We have laws on the book that related to theft and reproduction of printed media in the 19th century now protecting copyright of digital media that can be copied as data with physical copy anywhere in the loop; the laws don't reflect reality or equity anymore, and they don't apply in the same way to contemporary issues. The way music is transmitted and experienced in our culture is not analogous to previous forms of media, and we clearly need to envision modern methods of ensuring that the creators and distributers are justly compensated, while taking note of the part music and digital copies play in our culture.


http://www.geekosystem.com/limewire-sued-75-trillion/

I tend to have pretty sophisticted dream recall for the most part, but I was actually able to recall about 2 hours or so of somewhat humorous dream narrative I had in late stage REM last night.

The first cohesive part I can recall surrounded the concept that I had discovered a mouse in my home. The home I was living in does not resemble any house I have ever stayed at, but I recognized it as my own in the dream. The plan I hatched in-dream with to put a baseball mit on, and use that to hold the mouse so it could not bite me as I took it outside; for some reason, I had extreme difficulty putting the mit on, as I kept mis-picturing the structure of my hand, and mis-aligning the glove itself, such that I could never figure out which orientation to put the mit on, and my thumb seemed to keep changing position on my hand, as my mental image of my hand changed to reflect the difficulty I had in putting on the mit. After literally minutes of trying, I resigned to putting on the mit backwards, and I quickly scooped up the mouse and carried it outside. It bit me on the wrist anyhow as I was putting it down, leaving an outline of teeth that were more akin to a general herbivore's mouth, than a mouse with long incissors. After this, I faded out until the next REM stage.

The next portion of the dream, I am in the same house (which I called my own), and which was then revealed to be quite extensive in the number and size of rooms. Shortly after this sequence began, finding me in my bedroom, a large group of German people came and literally appropriated my home in a militant fashion. They were not dressed as soldiers, and did not seem to have a military command structure, but they were rather dressed in upper-class formal attire. Although they did not seem to be military, I somehow knew they were well-armed, and they seemed to comprise some sort of para-military group. They seemed to lose sight of me at some point, and I began to covertly wander the home, looking for a way to escape. I saw some maids they brought with them cleaning up the home, polishing everything to near-mirror finish, and bringing in aristocratic-looking furniture, as though they were rendering the home suitable as the base of operations for a high-ranking group of people. I attempeted to remain unnoticed as the menials wnet about improving our former home, and I htink I slipped out when the German para-militants came under fire from another group.

The third sequence was about traveling through a ruined city. I was in possession of some sort of device which was capable of altering the laws of reality, and of completely changing history by some parallel means. I was walking around the desserted ruins, intermittently using this device, and watching the results as reality changed to reflect whatever alterations I made. At some points, a river sprang up where once there wasn't one, the laws of mathematics were altered, to curious results, and the structure of the buildings changed drastically, as the history of the civilizations living there changed.

The fourth and final sequence seemed to blend out of the third one, and revolved around the trip an indigenous-looking bronze-skinned woman was making with her two small children up a winding river; I watched the action from a third-person perspective, as her journey progressed. The funny part about this last sequence was that I woke up in the midst of it, and walked to the living room to find that a family member had left the television on all night to the Discovery Channel or something; the program that was on was about the New Guinea natives who first took a boat-trip with the intention of colonizing Australia thousands of years pre-history. I found it humourous how the dream seemed to be structured around hearing this program in the other room, and wondered if that was also true of the earlier dreams in some way.

This effect also reminds me of when I have fallen asleep with the radio or some music playing, and my dreams have these transcendent soundtracks to them, where I am partially hearing the music in waking life, and my mind makes improvements and modfications to it, and fits it to the situation.

I thought this was sort of a curious show, featured by National Geographic. It might be interesting, I will see if there is someplace online I can see it later.

The information about overview, episodes and some video footage here:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/when-aliens-attack/5357/Overview

It is interesting... perhaps a response to all of the fictional media depicting aliens attacking major cities on a world-scale.

I can't help but think of something Wernher Von Braun (a father of rocketry)  is often quoted with, saying that in the coming years those with a deep-seated agenda for militarization of the world and its reasources would, after they had exhausted talking about more local threats of world nuclear opponents, use the suggested threat of potential alien invasions to persuade the public into giving them the backing they need to carry out their militant wishes. I can't help but see a fraction of truth to this view, considering statements like this are attached to the show's overview:

"Small nuclear missiles like the W-54 warhead might be humanities best shot at fighting an extra-terrestrial ground invasion force."

There are some people who address the "Fermi Paradox" (If intelligent life is so mathematically likely to be common, why don't we see evidence of it?) by saying that perhaps there is a good self-preservation motivated reason for alien civiliations not to seek contact, and maybe alien civilizations even surmise that if they themselves have never been contacted, that their peers must also have good reasons not to seek contact. If this is so, perhaps there is indeed great danger in possible contacts; there is no way to know for certain, however.

It is quite unclear to me what potential motivations an alien civilization might have in seeking contact of some kind or another, and they may make contact for either violent and aggressive reasons, or more altruistic ones, but it does seem to me the one is depicted far more readily than the other...

[sponsoring a competition to visit the moon.]

Well, they are now taking the preliminary steps, at least.

This may be old news to some, but Google has been sponsoring a competition to visit the moon.

Yes, you read that bold and underlined part correctly. They are offering 30 million dollars in prizes to the first private teams which build a rocket and send a roboticly-manned vehicle to the moon and travel for 500 meters or more, while sending high-def footage; additional prizes given to a team that travels for 5 kilometers or more.

Registrations closed late last year, with 29 qualified entrants.

This is one of the first moves, I believe, toward privatization of space and spacetravel, which will be an important step in the future energy economy of earth, with vast potential being discussed in space-based solar harvesting fields.

I hope they also visit the darkside, as we all know the fables about what is over there 


http://www.googlelunarxprize.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Lunar_X_Prize

Since a rare mood has come over me this morning, I thought maybe we could do something different. Re-reading the Dao de Jing again, after a comment someone left on the forums, and considering all the unfortunate ways in which the book was scrambled, mistranslated, re-arranged, and possibly mixed with other scrolls, I was really admiring the impenetrable density of language, and how it can mean anything to anyone, at times, to the point where a pithy work like that can still be pondered and respected as great wisdom, when its actual words may have been diametrically reversed in meaning through the ages.

Another philosopher of another age, Arthur Schopenhauer felt that the arts could be arranged in a scale to which they represent the divine creative will of the cosmos, and its features. The furthest from the Will were the arts like architecture and sculpture, which were physical and depicted specific physical things in a determinate world. Closer to the Will was paininting, since it is a depiction, rather than a thing in itself, even if its medium is physical, and it is open to multiple meanings and interpretations. Closer still is literature, for it exists only as ideas, with great range of interpretation. Closest to the Will of all is music, being composed of nothing but relationships between events, and representing not ideas, but pure feeling, and open to an extremely broad spectrum of meanings and feelings, meaning many different things at various times to various people.

I was thinking that perhaps some language has the ability, through simaltaneous meaning and inanity, sort of like a koan possesses, to claim for its own this property of music, and to enter the realm of multiplicity of possibility, and pluralistic indeterminacy. So I thought perhaps in this topic we might look for phrases and sentences which possess meaning and indeterminacy at the same time. These phrases can have many legitimate meanings, but none presents itself as primary.  Here is one of my very own crafting :

The man of the hill was a woman with few noses, with as many names as children, as many children as noses, and names as plentiful as water in the ocean.

Give it a shot 

The situation has intensified at the Fukushima Nuclear plant in Northeast Japan, one of two major facilities who's stability is in question at the moment following the 8.9 earthquake, and the subsequent explosion there Saturday the 12th.

There are now 2 cores at the facility believed to have undergone partial meltdowns, and a third which shows signs of following suit. The situation as it stands is as serious as the Three-Mile Island incident in Pennsylvania, and has the potential to become as serious as the Chernobyl accident if a full meltdown occurs.

Sea water and boric acid is being pumped into the cores in an attempt at cooling and radioactive absorption, and Iodine radioactive inocluations are being handed out.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42044156/ns/world_news-asia-pacific/?GT1=43001

Well, not much to say. This MSN article gingerly treats of the possibility of Sarah Palin running in the 2012 U.S. election by stating that McCain rejects the certainty of the notion, lol. But in doing so, it also unwillingly asserts the idea that it is a possibility that she may.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39846252/ns/politics-decision_2010/?GT1=43001

It seems like this is the last person whom should ever be elected to such a position; she makes Bush seem like an honor student. But should she be given the chance, I have faith that the same vote-tampering, weapons of mass distraction, gerrymandering and electioneering machine that managed to elect Bush twice will place her firmly in the oval office.

At which point, before she takes command, Jesus will spring from the womb fully formed, and decapitate her during a CNN live interview, and the emissaries of the galactic trade federation will come steaming in from the Proton belt to destroy planet X, disable the HAARP facility, spank the lizard people, and bring in some good vibrations. Glen Beck and Michael Moore will shake hands. Sylvia Brown will predict the sun will rise that day, and it does. James Randi will reveal that he has laser vision given to him by the Buddha, but that he wasn't able to tell anyone, as he was forced by a coalition of the Illuminati led by John Kerry and Jerry Springer to propogate a campaign of disinformation about the glorious metaphysical reality he is the cenerpiece of.

I think I know what is going to happen afterall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB_RtFV-l-A

This is an interesting debate/exploration taking place between several major representatives of theories of consciousness. I found it quite relevant to this site, since it outlines many of the discussions taking place on the astralpulse, and the viewpoints they corespond with. It was exciting to me, since it deals with the area of mind-body philosophy I specialized in, but I think it should be meaningful to most others here too, since it gives a basic overview of what the major issues being thought about in area are today..

The speakers:


Robert Kuhn- The mediator. I think he has a balanced approach, while not letting any of the panelists get away with unsubstantiated nonsense.

Barry Beyerstein- Was not familiar with this one. "Straight arrow" reductive materialist... doesn't really have much to say, and doesn't really engage the ideas being thrown around by the others.     

John Searle- Big name mind-body philosopher; we read his books in school. He is an important figure, since his views are well-defined and thus easy to engage, and he makes up the majority opinion. I think that although he claims distance from reductive materialism, since he accepts that consciousness is a first-person, non-material phenomenon, he is best thought of as a reductive materialist by another name, since he still feels that neuroscience will reveal how matter can cause awareness. I tend to disagree with his main views, since he entirely ignores (and pig-headedly in my opinion) an idea called the Hard Problem of consciousness, which in a nutshell is the idea that it remains to be seen how a material substance like the brain can be causally responsible for the existence of our non-material first-person awareness; there is no logical explanation materialists have given so far as to how this should be possible, and until this is addressed, materialism must be an incomplete picture (most of us here would say incomplete because it does not address the full nature of reality).             

David Chalmers- Another big name mind-body philosopher. The philosophical creator of the "Hard problem of consciousness
mentioned above, and other ideas regarding the specturm of awareness, and it's scientific consequences. I tend to like Chalmer's ideas alot, since while he acknowledges anecdotal and research evidence suggesting properties of consciousness not possible under materialism, he attempts to refute reductive materialism at the most fundamental level, trying to show that, as his hard problem states, no causal link has been demonstrated between material states and first-person experiences, merely correlations between brain states and experiences. Chalmers feels this trend in knowledge of consciousness only as a correlation will continue, and he believes that in order to avoid this problem, your worldview must on some level incorportate conscioussness as a primary feature of reality, be it a fundamental feautre of matter (panpsychism), or as a fundamental substance of the universe (dualism or immaterialist monism). This is necessary since he believes he has demonstrated that it cannot directly be reduced to material states, and I tend to agree.
                                 

Marilyn Schlitz  - She is an anthropologist, and probably the one on the panel who best approximates most visitors of this site. She integrates the anecdotal evidence of altered and new states of conscioussness, and reasons about what the consequences for accepting this data as factual must be for the scientific community. She get's into a little discussion with Searle about this, and in conjunction with the mediator, flatly shows him somewhat thick in my opinion, as well as exposing the fundamental lack of will of most modern materialists to engage all relevant data today.   

             
Alan Wolf - Theoretical physicist. His ideas about metaphysics are somewhat airy-fairy, since he does not go about giving explanations for what he thinks, but I think he still have important things to say about the possible construction of the universe.

http://colorvisiontesting.com/what%20colorblind%20people%20see.htm

I thought this was interesting. Not particularly new or anything, but I always wondered how the world appeared to colorblind people.

The idea makes sense- for a red-green colorblind person, it is like going into photoshop and desaturating the red or the green part of the spectrum. They variance between them fades into a single hue and only value and intensity can be used to distinguish.

Sort of funny that they would totally miss a red berry bush out in the wild. Must have been a terrible disadvantage in hunter-gather days.