Cat's been reading books

Randomly took a "hobby" project on Saturday and worked on it the way I enjoy working on things. Learned a lot, and I think it gave more meaning back to my life. It restored motivation at the cost of sleeptime.

Had some interesting dreams last night.

Dream: Bus stop

I arrived at a bus stop and for some odd reason, I decided to spend the night there. I had always wondered what it would be like to chill on top of its glass roof. While I knew it was fragile and wouldn't withstand much weight, I still wanted to try it. Some entity told me not to, but I think I still did. Nice spring weather but it was raining, so it wasn't too pleasant to spend the whole night there. Regardless, the bus stop was just underneath a tree (birch, maybe) and I enjoyed the small branches moving around in the slight breeze.

Dream: Chick and cat

Cat approached me with a question. It showed me a picture on a book on the bookshelf. It asked what was the size of this component (strange terminology, I know), and pointed its paw at the picture of a yellow chick. I wondered how I could answer it, for the cat would've had no idea of the SI units. With all its ingenuity, the cat took the shape of the chick and started shrinking. Then all I had to do was to take it on my pawn and say "It's about the size that you are now," when the cat was about the size of a chick.

Dream: Crocodiles

I was traveling with someone. We reached a beach (in Japan, I thought) and I said something (probably "awesome" or "would you look at that" or somesuch) to my companion. As I did, I noticed a peculiar echo.

The echo was highly nonlinear, it changed in pitch and in intensity. It was as if the environment interacted with our presence there and it did not like being disturbed. I've witnessed such places before but I've never really figured out what they're about.

I whispered to the companion about the nonlinearity and that we should probably leave.

Someone else came, speaking very loud. This caused a pretty bad echo and the environment reacted. A couple of crocodiles darted towards the beach and at least one of them was chasing me.

Flew off as fast as I could (about the same speed that I had when tailing the helicopter the night before). After maybe 5 km, I was still having difficulties shaking it off my tail. Though, soon after it stopped chasing me. I was very surprised at how fast the crocodile was.

Today

Not a dream.

Apparently it did rain during the night, and it rained today during the day as well.

Something about me was different today. Got so absorbed in work that I didn't notice anything else around me. Apparently a really dark cloud had popped up for rain. A moment later the sky was clear again and sun was shining.

Happened to make a joke but then at some point I realized its philosophical and linguistical depth. I was sincerely surprised.

When a colleague asked me about something at the canteen, I had a flashback from what couldn't have been the past.

Cattle herder

One day I missed a bus back home from work. That's because the bus went the other way - in the opposite direction from home and then turned around after a large circle. Then one day I took the bus to see where it goes. All sorts of interesting places with amazing scenery. Even though I still had urgent work to do, I really enjoyed just sitting there and letting the bus take me to random places. Lakes, valleys, a field with ostriches, nice houses. Then in the meantime I figured out the bugs in the code. Work done as well, yay.

That day I also realized that I had been trying to focus on the wrong chakras (heart or crown, both of which had "run dry"). It matters which one of them is blocking the most (has the most tension). I had semi-subconsciously piled up tension in my stomach. Focusing there for even just a moment suddenly released a sense of compassion, warmth and love. Psi then moved up to the next chakra, so that continued focus in the stomach no longer helped again.

One other day I missed the last bus back home. Apparently the last bus also goes the opposite way. Went back to work, then came back and tried hitchhiking. There were hardly any cars going towards the town that late. In any case, none of them stopped. A beautiful evening actually .. a clear sky and warm air. Felt almost like walking in a witch's forest. Tried visualizing myself home, then back some times though nothing happened yet. So I camped on the office floor again. Second time already, so it felt comfortable enough to actually sleep.

Must've fallen asleep in a strange position, blocking a vein or something. At least that's what I suspect for causing a very awkward dream. I'm somewhere random when a couple of aliens appear. Everything about them seems funny. They look like soft toys, their movements are cartoonish and they take everything through love and humour. Or rather, from their perspective, the universe itself isn't very serious. They are not afraid of anything and take things the way they are, or perhaps even less seriously. Just a second after their arrival something is released and I feel my head flowing full of blood. They give me an octopus-like hat that relieves the blood pressure spike in the head. They then ask me to come with them. They go upstairs where I spot a sink. I take the octopus hat off and pour it empty into the sink. They ask me to come with them into the other room. The room is dark, can't see much in there. Almost like an attic of some sort. These two funny fellows point at a strange creature in the corner. To me, the creature seems dangerous. However, then I realize that it's no more dangerous than the octopus hat anyway. The funny fellows say something along the lines of "a cow needs personal treatment". Random, eh? Not for me.

At that moment I realized a few things:

1. In my dreams, the symbol cow = body.
2. By letting cattle into the pasture and expecting them to do their job is ignorant of their traits, personalities. Now, that's exactly how I've treated this body for most of the time. In fact, that's how most people do it. They don't care about the body for as long as it does its job. And when it no longer does, they run for a doctor to see which screws need to be tightened.
3. Like any domesticated animals, cows need taming before they can be reliably subjected to man's will. Same holds true for the body. Walking, talking, etiquettes, etc. This has a side-effect, though - it severs the connection between the body and the mind. It makes it very difficult to notice any signals that the body might be sending about its status, needs and desires. A bit sad.
4. Each body has its own personality and traits. Almost like training a dragon or practising out with a new sword - the master must learn to know their weapon like themselves. Or the other way around.
5. A lot of what we think are bodily urges or feelings, are constructs of the mind, materialized in the body. The body can be thought of as a live scaffolding on which the mind imprints programs. Perhaps human soul is not native to human body? Perhaps the human body is designed to be hosted by a human soul, designed to have barely any functionality without it?

All in all, body is not a tool. A tool is a well-tamed body. Over-taming and lack of compassion lead to cruelty. Cruelty, not asketicism.

The Onion

Happy New Year!

There's something that I didn't post from the previous year. Just before finishing Steve Richards' "Traveller's Guide to the Astral Plane," I saw the seven layers of this body one by one. I was a bit too fascinated by the images though - didn't focus on most of them properly. Regardless, I realized the imbalance - quite a bit of strength in the low and the high layers but almost nothing on the middle layers.

Also realized that due to my preconceptions, I had previously mistaken the lowest layer for something else (something inherently pure or clean). I saw a black slimy humanoid crawling. The lowest layer is all dirty, fleshy and with very basic instincts. It grows from earth and it will become earth again. I've ignored a lot of that - because I've been certain that's not who I am. Both true as well as false - having acquired a body, it's my responsibility to take care of all its layers, to feel all its layers, to become one with them. It's as if human souls were injected into a realm several layers below their natural habitat, to inhabit bodies that belong there. This makes it possible for the souls to become acquainted with, and to acquire the sensation of the lower realms which would otherwise be too far off.

Thank you @ the authors of the caving story, Steve Richards and X-Files for this realization.

I'm pretty sure the 7 layers are a rather coarse interpretation but having just a few of them makes it possible to envision, categorize and analyze them with the rational mind.

Necromancy?

Tried detox foot patches last night. Not sure if it was those plasters or something else, but in addition to feeling the effect, I also had some rather strange dreams.

A fairly normal dream, where I visited Mom .. or she visited me. She gave me another book, and said she has reached the stage where she's almost constantly both in as well as out of body. I was impressed and happy for her. I told her that sister is also improving very quickly and will soon be at that stage as well. Though, I wasn't as happy about my own progress. C'mon, it's years and I still haven't reached even the stage I used to be at all these years ago. Sigh.

I suspect that the author of the book might have been an old acquaintance or something. Anyway, the next dream was about a long drive to the place of an old acquaintance. Eventually got there. This guy came out of his house, greeted us and warned us not to freak out due to the strange stuff happening at his place. He was still as friendly and still looked as young as ever. Respect. But then his wife came out to greet us .. headless. Instead of her head, there was just a bump with a mole on it. She tried to speak but at some moment realized she had forgotten her head .. so she went back inside. We followed her. Inside, I happened to walk past a large bed, which hosted many bodies, all of which were partial but alive and perfectly healthy. In fact, he had his parents and grandparents there. The head of his grandpa was perhaps the oldest in the collection. It looked as if they were watching TV. His wife now had her head installed and was busy with something. I looked at what she was doing. There was a foot on the counter next to the large bed. She was cutting its toes with scissors .. so that they would regrow. None of these things were probably physical, so there was no blood or gore. No eerie feelings or anything .. as if all that was routine.

Still .. DAFUQ?!

Haven't seen anything remotely similar in any previous dreams. Nor have I recently played any video games, watched movies or anything of such. Swamped with homework and scramming for exam, that's all.