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The goal of this blog is to motivate myself and others for further practice as well as provide details that might explain what's going on..


Sunday, November 26, 2017

Robotex 2017

We got the AR demo working, yays!

My nose gave birth to some mutant blemishes, especially for the event. Cheers for looking like an ugly witch. Nothing I could do about it, so I paid little attention to it. The place was pretty noisy, so had to shout throughout the day, for 3 days in a row.

Interesting people. A couple of kids hanged around for a whole day, always coming back with more awesome questions. Kids are really amazing these days. I hope I managed to amplify the enthusiasm of one of them with a brief description of what drove me to study physics .. and look into astral projection and psychokinesis. :: me imagines me looking like a witch with a large bulge on my nose, while having a creepy smile on my face and talking about psychokinesis experiments ::

Old man with gray hair


For 3 years, there has been a gray-haired old man (probably in his 70s or 80s) talking strange stuff. He has not been very coherent .. keeps hopping from one topic to another, often using incorrect terms and coming off with illogical arguments. I have taken him as a practice of patience .. whether there are other people waiting or not, I try my best at deciphering this old dude, his ideas and problems. It does not matter who says things, or how they say things, there is always the possibility that it contains pearls. Often the person speaking does not see the pearls by themselves. Also, some of these pearls are difficult to spot, unless one listens attentively. This old man is interesting because at his age, he is very enthusiastic about learning new things. Each year he has researched things that I have told him the previous years. He also puts forth an effort in explaining his challenges in my terminology (though, he often makes mistakes). Anyway, he's very difficult to decipher but he's a really interesting guy.

On Friday, I witnessed another student put up a display with a webcam and neural nets demo. The setup looked dangerous - likely to fall over. On Saturday, the old man accidentally tipped the screen. At the same time, a kid was looking at the display and caught it. Together with the old man, we then managed to set it back up but in the meantime, the kid got scolded by his dad -.-

Regardless of us saving the setup, the students forgot to switch it off in the evening and the system (actually its X server) had crashed by the next morning.

11 hours of sleep


Finally got to sleep a reasonable number of hours on Friday night. Forgot the dreams by the morning, though. What I do remember though: I was in some kind of a realm with beautiful scenery and unearthly creatures.

The rest of the dreams are from Saturday night.

Dream: Burning plant


Read goosebump-inducing stories on reddit before going to bed. One of them happened to be creepy as well - related to some kind of a dark pagan cult rituals somewhere.

In the dream, I popped up at the summerhouse, approaching the yard from the seaside / pasture. Most of the family was waiting for me at the well. All of them were in black clothes with red ribbons (I think). Many of them held red roses for this event / occasion. I did not have a red rose but someone mentioned that a candle would also do. Did not have a candle, either, so I plucked a "flower" that had caught my attention. It was a strange one. It didn't look particularly pretty, it reminded me of a typha only that it had thorns like a rose and there was a small flame on its tip (not sure if the flame appeared when I touched it or if it was there before). One of the family members asked: "Why did you pluck this one? It typically cuts up the skin pretty bad." I replied: "That's not a problem because I have gloves on. See?" and showed them my healthy hands with very simple white gloves on.

Held the plant in my right hand (the hand that I plucked it with), waiting for the event or somesuch. The plant caught fire and started burning top-down. It burned pretty fast, and when the flame was about to touch my hand, I let go of it. I was standing on a slab of limestone, so that it could burn the way it wanted without damaging anything. Well, it missed the limestone and with a tiny piece of glowing coal it lit the grass, which also caught fire. Quickly extinguished the grass and woke, covered in sweat and feeling a bit too warm to sleep properly.

Dream: White rooms


Shallow dream about exploring a building full of completely white rooms with white doors, white floors and ceilings. Actually, there were 3 of us exploring the building, trying to avoid being caught. The other 2 more like looked around without moving much. Noticed a janitor through a door with a glass window. Fled through the nearest door only to realize that was where the janitor had come from. This place had no shadows, nowhere to hide. Haven't had hide & seek dreams for a while.

Dream: Discussion on hacking networks


Popped up at a room with people discussing stuff. There was a young self-taught dude who described his methods and amazement at how easy it is. Looked like an interview or some friends discussing things. Totally lacking experience and theoretical knowledge in security, I floated around and listened with great interest. Also, I was surprised at how clear and detailed his facial features were. He stood in front of a window, and while the rest of the surroundings were dark and blurry, he himself was very clear.

Remembered the dream at a random moment today.

Synchronous geisting?


Listened to music with headphones on the way back home. The friend who was driving, was listening to a podcast. ::my music stopped and his podcast started glitch-looping:: Friend waits for it to recover but it does not, so he timeouts and reloads the podcast. An hour later, a stress-inducing song comes on and his car's on-board computer goes blank. He tried different things, but eventually waiting for all the systems to stand-by, then locking the car, unlocking it and restarting all the systems helped.

Saturday, November 18, 2017

Dream: Languages

Pretty random - spent most of the night / morning studying Japanese for an exam.
Woke tired. Tried to meditate for a few minutes in the morning but cat didn't let me - started chewing on network cables each time I sat down. Not the brightest of days.

Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Quick OBE

Focused on relaxing the stomach. Peeled off layer after layer of tension, some of the knots I moved up to the crown. Felt the effects propagate throughout the nerve system. Started feeling pretty lightweight and floaty eventually.

Started seeing the ceiling through closed eyelids. At some moment I noticed the pulsation of a high pitched sound - as if two sounds of different frequencies were been added together. Focused on a particular point on the ceiling, observing the sound. I guess a standing wave of psi was formed, and the amplitude kept increasing. One of the audible frequencies appeared to be modulated by psi density so that the pulsation frequency increased as well. Continued building up psi density until I realized that I didn't have a good idea what to create or manifest. Instead of releasing it I decided to gradually decompress the psi until it was easier to manage and pull it back. Ended up being pulled from the body. Looked back as I flew out - didn't look like my body. Looked around as well - although very similar, it didn't look like my room. It had two walls covered in bookshelves. Seems like a good idea, so I might eventually redesign my room like that. Downside is dust, tho. Books love dust, I don't. Anyway, ended up shifting through the wall. Skidded and turned back towards the body again. Orbital dynamics FTW.

After that I couldn't sleep for a couple of hours. Heard the cat play with the water bowl again. Decided to remove the bowl for the next day (he / it prefers drinking from the toilet anyway). Then had regular dreams.

Monday, November 13, 2017

Focus inward

Still wondering about that owl about a week ago, I realized that I'm worried about someone else's dreams whereas I should really focus on my own issues first. Ought to be more selfish and pursue my own path without always trying to drag anyone else down the path. Also, I noticed the uncanny similarities between us - I've also been downplaying my family relations. He helped me realize that it's an impossible task. No matter how alienated I may feel, I'm still a part of my family and I'd better take it into account.

Then bumped into a redditor who offered help in interpreting dreams. Many thanks to nova029 for the enlightening words:
... you were in this projection with this teacher to make sure you dont fall into the same trap. figure out what logic he is missing and dive into it

Without nova029, I would've missed this point of view.

Anyway, after about a week of focusing inward each night, I started having problems sleeping. Tried to leak jing on purpose - has typically helped. This time it did not .. caused me to feel tired but still couldn't sleep (red eyes throughout the day). This helped me re-realize something else. I've gotten way too lax and comfy in everyday life. I know that it's my counter-reaction of compulsory service. However, lax and comfy seems like the inverse of focus and concentration. Instead, should specify rules for myself and follow them. This would be a lot more efficient in helping me tame my own mind. Perhaps that's the point of order? Naturally entropy is always increasing, so decreasing the entropy would be more of a challenge.

It's small things like always sitting with a good posture, properly cooking meals instead of just snacking, acting polite, sleeping in a vampire posture and so on..

This has been occuring for months, but I haven't really mentioned it much thus far. Today I attended a meeting in the morning, then had to go to the office ~20 km away. Asked a colleague if they're going as well. She didn't plan to, had lunch together and then she thought she would take me there. In the evening I asked another colleague if she could drop me off at a specific place in the town. "Uhm, that would be quite far from where I'm going. No, I almost forgot, I was supposed to pick up my son so I would be going down the same road anyway." Just that this has become more and more frequent.

Watched pirated editions of Dreamscape and The Fury yesterday.

Dream: Passing storm

Not kidding, actually had a dream this morning (~6 AM, just 1.5 h before the alarm).

Most of the family is together at the summer house. Although a bit cloudy, it's a lovely day and I'm chatting with one of the uncles in the front yard. ::Although I remembered the topic in the morning, managed to forget it during the day::. I suspect it might've been about another really inspiring student project that's going on in the country - student formula. I had more-or-less finished when it started raining lightly. I went inside, whereas he and others preferred to stay outside. From the inside, I saw the wind pick up, and it quickly transformed into a heavy storm. The doors and windows were banging as the storm hovered straight over the building and faded as quickly as it appeared. I stepped to the back yard. With great enthusiasm, father explained that I had just missed an awesome sight. He said it was not a storm like any other - it was some kind of an alien spacecraft that caused the peculiar weather phenomena as it flew over.

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Staring owl

Last night for the first time, I visited a particular colleague. Actually no longer a colleague, either. I've never actually visited him. On Saturday I think I accidentally caught a glimpse at his soul. A very thick mask that seemingly sets him apart from his family.

Dream: Owl

We chatted for a while in the darkness (well, it was night so it's normal that it was dark), then he showed me where I could spend the night in the living room. He happened to glance at one of the windows and said "Oh look, an owl!" Anyway, spent the night on the couch. He always wakes up early in the morning, so I woke up too. He went to make tea and some breakfast. Started putting socks on and stuff, noticed how difficult it was. The dream / astral body is not really used to clothing, I guess. He came to the living room to ask me what I would like for breakfast, I guess. Then he happened to glance at the window again, froze and said: "WtF, the owl is still there, staring!" The owl was not my creation (it was as if only he noticed it), so I tried to normalize it: "Perhaps they have a nest there or something?" A bird nest appeared above the window due to the positive feedback loop. I disappeared. Projection clock said some minutes past 4 AM. Yep, he wakes at 4 AM.

I wonder what the owl was about. It just sat there on that branch, looking into his apartment. Basically, the owl was the only symbol with a meaning in the otherwise mundane dream. It seems that dream dictionaries disagree about whether it symbolizes just wisdom or whether it's a bad omen. I assumed the former but judging by his reaction, for him it might've meant the latter.

Dream: Eyes

Woke up somewhere, checked a mirror. Eyes looked very unrealistic. Probably because I semi-subconsciously expected them to (realistic eyes are supposedly difficult to model in an astral body). Difficult to verify anything with all the positive feedback loop going on.

Monday, November 6, 2017

Hackathon

Although I was a mentor, I still lacked sleep. Not because I lacked time for sleep, but because I found it difficult to relax the racing mind.

Other than mundane coordination and quickfixes, managed to teach willpower and concentration to one guy, I think. Accidentally also helped one guy learn the lesson that "being really someone" amounts to nothing during a hackathon.

The last evening I handed over some leaflets to the winners and decided to catch up with others from our gang. They were taking rollups from ground floor up to our room, which was on the 6th floor on the other side of the building (two corridors and an elevator). Walked up to the corridor, looked around and since they were reaching the other end of the corridor already, I decided to run to catch up with them. Previously I have observed the aerodynamics of the posters on the walls, and I know that there is one door that opens into the corridor (dangerous for running) but there's most likely nobody in there. Felt like the typical physical limitations wouldn't apply this time. Started running, then accelerated, accelerated more and went just slightly beyond the typical physical limits of the body. I was in socks, without shoes and would've been silent if I hadn't had the large backpack with things moving around inside (as well as posters flapping on the wall behind me). At some moment, the Jiu Jitsu girl looked back and "Holy sh*t, did you see that?" Stopped and started braking, or, basically just slid with the socks on the polished concrete until I had closed the gap. They took the elevator, I ran up the stairs (though, nothing abnormal about that) because the elevators are slow.

TL;DR: Sometimes I've had the feeling that I could run abnormally fast (no air drag, fast motorics, barely any effect on stamina). It's a small feat before the almighty light-stepping, floating, levitation .. and probably blowing around like the wind.

Thursday, November 2, 2017

Ringing

A small detail that I've wanted to b-log down but it hasn't really fit anywhere.

Last Friday it felt as if something came from the left. My ears started ringing and at the same time, the trash bin at my right made the sound as if something had hit it.

An entity through the head?

TwOBE

Was tired. Failed to extract cat from the room. Closed the door and went to bed anyway. Somewhere through sleep I remember sister opening the door and letting the cat out.

I guess I had caught some cold. Stomach was at dis-ease, due to which I woke up at around 3 AM again (same thing happened yesterday). Focused on the central channel, which got psi flowing again so that food would digest and I could resume sleep. Felt better.

Felt lighter. Semi-subconsciously produced a squeak-like sound and lifted off the bed by perhaps 50 cm. Slowly descended back to bed, shifting slightly away from the pillow .. afraid to hit the back of my head against the plank at the head of the bed. Very smooth but I suspect that the body plunged into deep sleep right after comforting the stomach, so that I basically just levitated out of the body. This also explains the squeaky sound - ejecting from the body often tends to produce an astral (non-physical) sound. Moreover, I didn't notice a blanket while levitating - so, I must've gone through the blanket which should be far easier without a body. Interestingly enough, the realm seemed identical to reality, which had not happened that often during my OBEs. Was so happy for a moment .. well, sigh.

Another very specific sound - like breathing in through a half-shut throat. Woke out of body. Stood up, looked around the room and touched things. Similar to but not quite my room. Like a messy pull request between my old bedroom and the storage room that is there at the moment. Anyway, stepped over things on the floor and looked around for a mirror. Sister had removed all of them. Well, raised my hands and looked closely at my palms, then. Very realistic, and persistent as well. Shifted my palms relative to each-other, until I found that the vein patterns formed a shape that should be easier to remember and verify against the physical body. Returned to body for shallow dreams.

Took a shower at work and checked the veins on my palms. The veins are not as clearly visible as they were in that dream / OBE. But it's pretty clear that the vein patterns did not match. In the physical body, the vein patterns make a bit more sense. Haven't really looked at the palms from such a perspective.