I just got my own motorcycle helmet. Adrian insisted, since I have finally started riding more with him. He got a new bike this January with a back rest on the passenger seat, I've been surprised at how I am actually able to relax and enjoy the ride instead of being able to think about nothing other than falling off on the pavement and dying. We went for a ride to the Xeriscape gardens. It was late in the day - as soon as I got off the bike I noticed that my shadow looked like an astronaut! Then I turned around to see a swath of yellow... Daffodils! Or “Dooffydells” as Adrian prefers to call them. I announced that we had landed on planet Doofydell, and we proceeded to explore the gardens. :)
Today has been a very interesting day. I had the distinct feeling that life is a joke, and I just got the punchline! I can’t explain it to anyone though, it’s just one of those things you have to see for yourself - and the experience of “getting it” so individually is a big part of the fun (all punctuation in this paragraph should actually be read as riotous laughter).
Between getting my helmet and going to the gardens, Adrian studied for his Security+ exam, and I read from one of my library books: Architecture in the Garden, by James Van Sweden. At some point, my mind began to wander, to a topic which is a frequent destination of my sojourning brain: What if I could live my life over again? I was thinking how great it would be if I could have started my own small business, before the age of 10, making DIY Fashionista items (based on designs from library books, like so), and selling them at consignment stores. If I had successfully started a business at that age, and had a stream of income to experiment with, I think I would have been better off for it.
Perhaps this interest in “doing it over again” is part of what got me interested in the subject of time and time travel, and caused me to major in physics? Well, there were many contributing factors to that... However I always thought that it would be cool to create a time machine and a robot that could do brain surgeries, then you could go back in time and implant your adult brain in your childhood body and live your life over again, while having some idea what would come next. At least it would make an interesting sci-fi short story (A friend of mine once informed me that Nietzsche had a similar idea: the eternal recurrence). However, today I had something of an epiphany: there may be no need for such complicated external apparatii. We already have very complicated internal apparatii. If Einstein is to be taken literally when he says “For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion - albeit a persistent one”, then the insinuation is that the passage of time is merely a psychological phenomena. If this is true, it ought to be within our control (arguments about entropy as the arrow of time, notwithstanding). This thought, combined with stuff I’ve been reading from Steve Pavlina about subjective reality, lucid dreaming, etc, plus a previous interest in holonomic brain theory as an explanation of the non-localization of memories, gives me the idea that perhaps the time machine and robotic brain surgeon aren’t strictly necessary.
I’ve never had a lucid dream before, but I got a book from the library (which I haven’t started yet), the title of which claims to be able to teach me how to control my dreams... I haven’t had too many dreams over the past year or so (about the time I started my new job), but I used to have quite a few. I always found it interesting that a large proportion of my dreams took place at my old house in Oklahoma that I grew up in. The idea that all of past experiences are in fact accessible to me through memory - even in my dreams - and my dreams are under my control... is a fascinating prospect for a personal laboratory!
However, since reading Steve Pavlina's essay about Life - The Ultimate Game, I did have an almost lucid dream. For some reason I was accompanying a friend (I don't remember anything about this friend, even whether or not it was a he or she) to their first day of work, at the UCCS Physics Laboratory where I used to work one summer, which was run by one of my former professors who gave me a C- in one class, and who I always found to be particularly intimidating. I hesitated at the entrance to the lab, thinking "I'm not going to work here, there's really no need for me to go in and perhaps meet my old professor - I should just leave now." But then I thought? What am I so scared of? I am a grown adult, I don't work for this guy anymore, I already graduated and got my degree years ago, and I bet my husband even makes more money than he does now. He has no power over me, there is nothing to be intimidated about now. Then I remembered Steve Pavlina's conjecture about life as a game (and how it had impressed me that I ought to take that approach to life more often), and I started thinking: I should just go in, and see what happens. What's the worst that could happen? Why don't I just go in as an experiment? That's what laboratories are for, afterall... soon after that I woke up. I don't remember actually going in, but that is the closest I have come to lucid dreaming so far.
Something else interesting happened recently: I had two pairs of jeans rip in the past week! Actually, they were my last two wearable pairs of jeans. Last year (that is, January 2011) one of my New Years resolutions was to wear more skirts. I have several but just never wear them. It is difficult to explain why not, I can make practical sounding excuses, but really I think it comes down to a matter of courage. Why should it take courage for me to wear skirts? I don’t know really, but for some odd reason it does. Anyway, I have decided to not replace my ripped jeans just yet. I will be forced to wear skirts (and non-denim pants) for the forseeable future.
I was worried about turning 30, and getting older. But actually, this is turning out to be the most interesting year of my entire adult life so far. Thirties might actually be really exciting...
Oh, and another thing that just occurred to me, if I were to start re-editing my past in a continuous manner while dreaming, and dream-time does not have to be in sync with real time (like Narnia time), then it would be possible for my dream self to - at some point - surpass my current self. A continuous feedback loop... what happens then? Death? Prophetic dreams? ...the possibilities are intriguing...
But for now, as the title of this blog proclaims, I have just arrived on Planet Dooffydell. I intend on staying a while ;) "Hey you with the pretty face, WELCOME TO THE HUMAN RACE!" - ELO, Mr. Blue Sky
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