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    Blue_Opossum

    1. The Mandelbrot Source

      by , 12-24-2017 at 12:05 PM
      Morning of December 24, 2017. Sunday.



      The foundation of this dream was totally unexpected, as it was based on a computer program I wrote nearly fifteen years ago and of which I had not thought about for years, before we moved from Brisbane.

      I am in an unknown residence but which seems to be where we are implied to be living. My youngest son and I are looking at a large poster-sized image of surreal imagery. In some sections, there are human-like figures of which were created randomly by a special algorithm with a basis for a more natural choice of which next color and in which direction the line would continue. I remember that the first version of my computer program merely had an equal probability for each next line to continue from its previous point. It was like watching an invisible pencil scribble all over the screen, sometimes with insignificant leaf-like or vine-like (or spaghetti-like) patterns (and of course sometimes going beyond the range of the screen and coming back again, though my second version did not have this potential occurrence). Using probability based on a real drawing or other image was more interesting, though still resulted in surreal images that usually did not really look like much of anything. Bitmap (BMP file) templates had to be used (for gleaning probability of particular values as a percentage of the original total), each template image of course producing different results.

      I begin to consider that it is very strange, yet intriguing, that images that look so much like people standing around were created randomly. I consider altering how the program is running. My “computer” is very large, bigger than my entire desk in real life. The monitor is the size of a large window. The image appears on the screen and I print it out when I see something interesting.

      At one point, I seem to have done something wrong, as when the program starts again, the imagery remains in vertical orientation, looking something like a vine growing upwards, though with “leaves” coming out from each side now and then. I try to adjust it.

      Eventually, something quite unusual occurs, as my program seems to be missing certain subroutines. Sections of written print keep appearing along with parts of a Mandelbrot image. It seems like the parts are coming from the same original image, but in unusual irregular swirls and patches over prior imagery. Now I know something is wrong, but I have the false memory that my original template was a Mandelbrot image above a paragraph or two of writing, possibly from a virtual textbook or database. I am somewhat annoyed that it is not working as it should. (I do not consider that I would not have used an image of printed text for any sort of template to produce new random patterns from.) The area of random imagery selected (to be reapplied) is too large to make anything very unique. (This is an unusual false memory which is not perceived as such - yet my thinking skills are otherwise more present than usual as is my current conscious self.)

      Just as I think of fixing my program, there is ambiguity of being inside and outside at the same time. A nuclear explosion occurs nearby, though mostly only followed by small fireballs overhead. I get Zsuzsanna and our children and decide to go into a close-by underwater bunker, where I think we might be safe. (This is an attempt at dream state reinduction - returning to the essence of water, which represents the dynamics of sleep, as my sleep was slightly restless towards morning due to the extra warm weather.)


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      non-lucid