More Dreams

"Since you've got me on the subject, there was an even neater dream (?) involving a small helmeted figure in the woods. I quizzed my mom about this several years ago. She's convinced it was a dream because she doesn't know when it could have taken place; I would have had to be left alone in the woods -- but *what* woods? I have no choice but to think this was a dream that got 'misfiled.'"

***

"It's not so much strong as lingering. I'm betting it was a dream. Still, it's neat that I was dreaming about "little people" at a young age. (And I'm pretty sure the person in my dream - who never spoke - could levitate.)

Ha! Actually, he *did* sort of look like that. If a dream, he could very well have been modeled after Marvin!

...I've had dreams of archaeological sites appearing locally - specifically, Martian formations suddenly transplanted to Earth - in one case, my backyard!

(The latest was only a few nights ago; I meant to write about it on my blog. I'll put that on my 'to do' list.)"

- Mac Tonnies, 6/26/06

For a more recent dream, Mac posted on PHB, try here.

Mac in the Meme-field and a Dream from the Vault (Updated 6/14)

(click to enlarge)

It's a rainy day in CT but, happily, no funnel clouds are emerging nearby as they were the other day. The perfect day to muse and dream... and remember. In my web travels, I note that two others have "memories" in mind and, in both cases, they regard Mac Tonnies.

The first is found on Paul Kimball's The Other Side of Truth, in which he has a clip of the Radio Misterioso show in which he and the other Cabal members discuss Mac's loss and their friendship.

Over at Intangible Materiality, Bruce Duensing has posted an article, A Theory Of Cetacean Aliens - In Memory of Mac Tonnies and Ivan Sanderson's Work, which gives a different, and most intriguing spin on the indigenous "alien" thought experiment, especially in regards to ultrasound and its effect on the brain.

What particularly struck me is Bruce's correlations of bird song to dolphin communication and psi. He specifically mentions an enigmatic "clicking sound" and I quote:

"Originally I had assumed what I heard outside my window (Summer of 2002) in the first instance (which I was to frightened to confront) was a strange form of bird call, which also incorporated a clicking sound which further disassociated me as to identifying it, however these rather weird "calls" resembled no bird I could possibly think of. When you hear these ultrasonic dolphin calls as recorded below, you will have probably the same reaction as I did when exposed to them, in that many of them sound, oddly enough like birds."

Now, this immediately rang a bell for me, so back to the "vault" I went, and I dug up this old Shadowbride article I'd posted in 2001 - the record of 1996 journal entry of mine - and one I had posted privately for Mac on Araqinta's Gallery of Transmutations under the title of "Timothy Leary Lives" - Altered States: A Holovision:

"Writing to report a weird experience I had early this morning. It was around dawn and I'd just woken up from some odd dream starring a Timothy Leary sort of older man... In it, he and I were driving at night down some long "lonesome" road on some featureless, midwestern landscape... thing is, we were driving the wrong way on a one-way highway and we were doing so deliberately.

Scene switches and I am visiting some strange man and his wife who own a nightclub, but are giving me a tour of the house which the man had built. In any event, the man began discussing my health... apparently I was not feeling well. He asked me if I had ever "fallen"... I admitted I had due to "loss of balance". I was wondering in a lucid way about the significance of this when I awoke.

It was dawn and as I lay there listening to the birds w/ my eyes shut I began to see a weird pattern emerging from the darkness... an almost graphic pattern similar to computer graphics... It looked like chopped meat being criss-crossed by a rapidly moving concentric ring pattern... similar to my cyclocentric* patterns but more intricate. From this emerged what seemed like another darker dimension - again filled with cyclocentric patterns but these were made of various colors of light... and some were large and whirlpooling while smaller brighter patterns emerged... all of them moving and vibrant and living and all of them revolving and forming harmonics by which even tinier glowing patterns emerged. It was as if I was delving into a series of many dimensions... but I could only glance at certain aspects (of the patterns) for milliseconds at a time (as they were) far too complex and enmeshed for human resolution...

...In the beginning I found myself entranced, but it finally became frightening because I was awake, and when I opened my eyes I continued to see the patterns. I thought I might be going mad...that my work with the cyclocentric patterns had triggered some variety of psychedelic experience... Just then, a thrush began to sing outside my window, I willed myself to concentrate on its song which, incidentally, is my favorite birdsong. When listened to closely, however, it is very much like a broken symmetrical pattern... unfinished in some way... as if some of it was beyond the human range of hearing. I hadn't noticed it before but there's this series of clicks at the end of some notes that sound like static - as if, had you slowed them down - they might sound quite different. So, in a sense, I traded one pattern experience for another and was thereby able to stop the visual patterns from firing..."

(Note: Later that day, May 31, 1996, I was to discover Timothy Leary had, in fact, died at 12 am, on the west coast... a matter of several hours before my dream. I hadn't  given Leary much thought up till then. As it was, he was a fascinating man who led an extraordinary life. He also corresponded with Arthur Koestler, author of The Ghost in the Machine, which was a source of inspiration to me at the time I wrote the cyclocentric material. Go to www.leary.com)

Okay, I'm not saying that all this means anything. It's Friday. Just a thought experiment...

P.S. I think I'm going to dig up one of my old dolphin drawings and scan it in for this post. Actually, speaking of dolphins, and maybe it's just my artist's imagination, but, didn't Mac kind of look like one, in a way?

You'll recognize the end of this video as being related to the Robert Anton Wilson video I posted not too long ago, but Wilson's thoughts on Leary are relevant to my other recent posts, so I felt this video's inclusion here was necessary.

* "Cyclocentric" is a word I used to describe geometrical work of mine relating to the polyhedra (and/or cyclohedra) described here.)

***

Update (June, 2014): The cyber-trolls pulled the video that was originally posted here, but, I've replaced it. In the event the video is pulled again, allow me to redirect you to related YouTube offerings located here and here.

One last note... for those of you unfamiliar with a wood thrush's song, hear several variations here.

Perchance to Dream

I dreamt about Mac this morning. That is, he starred in the dream.

Dreams in general are defined on many levels by different disciplines and various theories - ranging from a mere dumping ground for unconscious brain meanderings to a psychological playground for sexual desires to a passion play constructed of "collective", mythological elements. Neurologists and other scientific theorists generally try to marginalize their importance by lumping all unconscious activity into one easily-accessible (and acceptable) box thereby effectively "dealing" with issues outside of conventional analysis. Which, of course, tells us nothing.

Occultists might say that dreams contain clues of ones "fortune". Mediumistic types claim that through dreams they can communicate with the dead. Artists and writers gather inspiration from their dreams. Others claim that dreams are akin to out-of-body experiences or remote-viewing. I'd have to say, that in my own experience, dreams are actually all of the above... sometimes just a brain exercise, at other times, a lucid and valid experience of the psyche. But, I would also have to say, drawing from my own experience, that dreams are more. The "more" being that peculiar X-factor - i.e. things we have not yet the ability to understand nor fully explore.

The dream I had with Mac was a lucid dream... and for those that occasionally have them, the lucid dream feels very much like an actual waking experience occurring in an actual place in a sort of "dream-time". The lucid dream has an eerie reality about it despite the unlikelihood of its elements. Mac and I were technicians in what seemed to be an underground bio-lab. As neither of us, in reality, are or were "biologists", this might seems strange, but in the dream it seemed perfectly normal. That this bio-lab happened to be on Mars was, in the dream, also elementary. What piqued my interest in the dream was that this underground bio-lab on Mars also was situated in an underground body of water. One literally had to swim under the surface - in a peculiar way; a sort of inverse sensation to that in a levitation dream, if you've ever experienced one - to gain entrance. On the other hand, there seemed to exist a terrestrial entrance to the lab as well but it was off-limits as it seems there was some threat posed by either antagonistic humans or, possibly, an indigenous population. The lab itself, however, seemed to be an international endeavor with a variety of races and nationalities involved.

Apart from the particulars, however, my dream experience seemed to be centered on communicating with Mac. I was so happy to "see" him again, though in corporeal reality we had never met. He seemed healthy and in good spirits... and was discussing his immediate past, which, unfortunately I can't remember. We were also enthusiastically discussing our venture... when, at which point, the annoying buzzing of my alarm clock dragged me out of the dream. I lay there for a long time trying to go back to sleep and re-enter the dream, but it never happened.

In any event, this is the first dream I've had starring Mac after his death that remained clear in my mind upon waking. I know this post is over-long - for this I apologize - and I know, too, how generally bored we are when someone recounts a dream, but I hope some of you appreciated it. I also hope that those of you who have dreamt of Mac or will in the future - maybe my post will inspire a dream (!) - will share it with the rest of us. Maybe in some weird, X-factor way, dreams are a way to keep track of Mac, so to speak, as fantastic and delusional as it might seem. Mac himself, was very aware of his dream-life... and I think he'd approve of us mentioning his dream-appearances... that is, unless you consider your dream divulges personally sensitive material, in which case, you're excused!