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R: I’ve read the first 10th of Penrose’s book and am thrilled by the way he seems to be following what my dad once told me, “A good speech is one written so that an 8th grader can understand it.” That seems to be (so far) Penrose’s approach to mathematics in his book and that is perfect for me as 8th grade was about when I stopped learning math. Anyway, I like that he is explaining everything so carefully, though, just glancing through the book, well, if I end up able to follow what looks to me like some pretty advanced stuff, I’ll be even more thrilled.
M: Great. Perhaps it will be a process of discovery for you.
R: With the “peace,” I’m not clear that you are suggesting that I write it as an exercise, and I still find it uncomfortable to write so I will conduct the reverse of the experiment. It seems to me from what you wrote: “Experiment that leads to understanding is precisely an important mechanism of this process,” that not writing it would be equally valid.
R: Thank you
M: Correct!
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R: Michael, are you able to “tune in” to my thinking? You have indicated something similar at times and I was just wondering as your emails of late have seemed to be following my mood/thinking somehow.
M: Yes. It’s not always consistent IF there are distractions moving me at the time, but usually, “yes”.
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R: It has been a few months now since I’ve had any volitional dreams, let alone any, what I suppose I might start calling, double dreams. That is, dreams involving my double, if that is what it is.
M: Glad you clarified the statement. Double dreams sometimes mean a dream within a dream.
R: It started with a regular dream in which I met a boy, one of my son’s friends from a few years ago. In the dream the boy informed me of his having Alzheimer’s disease (my mother has it and is now forgetting who I am when I call). The boy began to explain to me that Alzheimer’s was in fact an expansion of the mental ability at such a rate that information was virtually spread out so thinly as to no longer be accessible; as if one’s whole memory bank was the surface of a deflated balloon which suddenly became fully expanded thus disjointing all memory.
M: Well said: like broken connections …
R: I told him that I understood completely and began to explain to him the workings of a universal Turing machine as an analogy and somehow I knew that that was the explanation of what he had just told me. I woke, wondering if it could be that my mom has actually had an expansion rather than a loss of memory. I also was aware that my explanation of a universal Turing machine was not really that, but rather the beginning basics of it that I’ve understood so far in my reading of The Emperor’s New Mind. That dream was in the area of a volitional dream for realness, but without the accompanying knowledge that I was dreaming as I’ve talked about in past emails.
M: At least it seems to have setup a prototype of a manner of explanation for you, and it was to this point, developmental. The Turing machine (by the way, a play was written about Turing, called “breaking the code” – I’ve seen it performed because Turing had ultimately a tragic life). Back to the point – it was developmental because you were using it as a prototype to explain possibilities within the framework of study that is new to you – Turing et al. Good!
R: However long of a time later it was, I’m not sure, but next I “awoke” (after again falling to sleep) to find a liquid like muddish ceiling above me about arms length away. For about the first second I accepted it as normal as I was lying there awake, but then quickly realized that I was again in my dreaming body (I’ve described before how I once believed that the “real” me was having my head massages and holding the hand of something unseen only to, about 4 months ago, make the distinction that that was my dreaming body in the same location as my “real” body). So anyway, I reached up with my left hand and put my finger into the mud and it acted like the liquid wall of a sci-fi movie. So fine, I put my right hand up to touch it and the wall receded and, I guess, disappeared.
M: So far, it sounds from the description a lot like the beginning of the “fog” that CC discusses where the fog sets up a boundary as the beginning entry point of the second attention – plasticity and all.
R: I was still lying there thinking of what I wanted to experiment with and recalled that moving was simply a matter of intending it. So I intended my arms to make a symmetrical pattern in the space above me and did that effortlessly. I noticed then that my legs, more especially from my feet, were about four inches off the ground and that fact became a sort of reference point for my making the distinction between the “real” me lying there and my dreaming body lying there. I mention that because it is a bit confusing to be thinking as you normally think, but in your dreaming body. The tendency is to think you are back awake in the “real” you.
M: They are – both states – “real”. It’s pointless to make a distinction between the “dreaming body you” and what you’re calling the “real” you.
R: Well, that was that for a while, maybe as much as two or three minutes and then I was touched again by something producing the physical sensation on my right foot of a course sand paper; not pain, just not pleasant, and I jerked my foot away. I then woke up.
M: If you could have “stayed with it” you might have learned more from the experience.
R: Often there is a sensation at the back of my head where I’d guess the spinal cord reaches the brain of a, not exactly tingling … but … not exactly a slight grinding tingling … but … it’s not at all unpleasant, when it occurs I always know that I’m going back into the double experience (if I’ve just come out of it) or into a volitional dream, or, if I don’t go into one of those upon feeling it, than I assume that I was close to going into it and couldn’t because I couldn’t quite down my thoughts enough.
M: Suggest remembering that the partition between the “real”, that is the physical you, and the double you, is only a matter of intent. At this point you seem to need the “security” of having the physical you close by. When the “double” you can move about without this reference then you will discover travel to one extent or another.
R: I can’t help wondering about the three experiences about four months ago that occurred over a short span of days in which, with the last one, I was actually holding what seemed to be a whole other’s body as if someone was wholly with me, and how at the end of that experience that body moved over me from one side to the other and disappeared (physical sensation wise as there was no visual). Now last night, to have had the physical contact be so — sort of rude — with the rough brush on my foot. I didn’t like that.
M: It was just a test of you willingness to leave the human form of self importance behind. This conclusion is yielded by the “didn’t like”, an “I” statement, and the “sort of rude” as if contact with allies had some protocol of being “polite” or a protocol of following an agenda and/or approach that YOU would find appropriate or acceptable – another “I” statement.
R: But anyway, I have the sense that this dreaming experience has begun again out of an expanding sense of impeccability. I’ve been “with” my kids more for one thing when I’m with them. That is, I’m listening to them instead of reacting quite so much.
M: Good.
R: If there is any light which you could shed on these things (especially the dreaming body/dreaming part) I’d be very happy to have it.
M: What CC calls “the double” is actually your sentient consciousness, separating itself from the physical body.
R: I feel a bit guilty for not using “Peace” as an ending. I don’t know why I still don’t feel authentic with it. Perhaps it’s that I feel somewhat guilty for being sceptical of you at times. Actually, that’s why I asked if you could read my thoughts. I’ve even imagined, since Bob wrote of meeting you, that he was a set-up. That you’d had him as a student all along and had him email me as a test. That I passed it by referring him to you and therefore you switched to closing with “love.” And that then I went back into my self-important doubting of you when you used what seemed to me to be harshness when you said “not an encouraging statement” about another expression I’d made of my discomfort with the word “peace.” I considered that you were following intuitively my doubt of you and therefore dropped any endings at all and became very brief with your notes.