Recent DJ Posts

2022 May 20th

Fragment:

Mix of NMS and Satisfactory. Exploring planets and looking around. Some general funkiness of generation clipping into itself. Then I build some gas tank thing on a planet and see about building a smoke stack on top, I think H is commenting something to me about this.

Then I'm in the bathroom with H sharing a (false) memory of how they're going to add warp rifts and super drills and I figure they'll let you get infinite resources from procedural planets in this way. (I partly live some of this as I imagine the false memory)


2022 May 22nd

Dream:

Some bit in a town. Dawn, or dusk, clear sky, quite beautiful colours. Slightly Arabic feel to the area, buildings painted fully in white. I'm walking around, or sort of spectating as an observer perhaps. There's a king who has a knight, possibly me. The knight has reached some kind of seniority and they talk as they walk together. Some kind of relationship subtext? Holding hands together?

Then some bit in a fortified area, like a castle or barracks in the middle of this town. False memory of having trained here and such. I think it's night at the moment. There are many devices and traps part of the training course. Some bellows that are pumped with your feet that you must stand by or jump on? I talk to H about them (as if outside this area?)

(recall gap)

Like Freelancer now. The spacescape is more realistic and reminds me of remastered Homeworld. Most of space is dark in this area. There's a nebula nearby, large orange glow coming from inside. There are remnants of large framed mega structures insides, made more obvious by shadows cast by the glow, despite the otherwise foggy nature of it all. There's other debris in there too. I fly towards the nebula in first person on a ship. I fly past one of those asteroid stations, possibly like Ruiz base, in Omega-41? I don't think too much of it, but something is weird.

I notice there's a clone of the base very close by, the name on the clone sounds like the right name, while the first one had a name like Event Spawner 03, which makes me think of something having gone wrong with a story or mission script. As I go into the nebula and into or through one of the mega structures, I start noticing some bio-metallic creatures, very geometrically shaped. They're small and start approaching me in numbers, turning into swarms eventually, starting to seem dangerous now as they keep approaching. So I turn around and head towards the station from before. I try to dock, but I get confused with the asteroid base entities. Anyway, after I manage to dock, it looks like a Rheinland station inside, and I walk around and maybe look at some equipment and stuff.

(recall gap)

Then something at a very different place, much more fantasy like. (unfortunately, recall was lost)



Notes:

- Two space dreams. At the time I had been playing or had recently played NMS after a long break from it, so that was a likely cause for them.

- Dreams based on Freelancer and generally spun off general space sci-fi stuff I am particular about remain amongst the most interesting non-lucid dreams I have, certainly when discounting any further analysis like symbolisms and such. The general feeling of reality in these dreams tends to be fantastic and despite any weird stuff that might happen (such as the clipping, which happened in another space dream too, possibly after these), I often get a really strong urge to want to revisit these. I don't know what it is about them exactly, but I think part of it is that they are so refreshing when I think about stuff I have otherwise already mapped out fairly well in my head, especially in the case of Freelancer where I know most of its "Sirius sector" universe like the back of my hand.

- On that note, having fully played through the remastered Homeworld a couple of months ago was a great contribution to this mental content, as the reworked spacescapes are just perfect for me, especially tonally.

- I made a 3D scene of the mega structure part and the nebula, but I have not made a render of it as I was not satisfied with shadow-casting yet. I'll still tag this with the bonus image tag anyway.
-- The little swarm creatures were not made for the scene, but I also sketched them and they resembled some little enemy things from Strafe.

- The first part to the second dream was interesting. I have had a few other such dreams that have less focus on myself as a dream character, and they tend to have interesting themes, though I need to make the time to introspect on them a bit at some point, as I never do.

9th May

Dream:

I was in Texas or Arizona or such. A hot and arid place in America at any rate. I remember only a few details from the end. I could see through a panoramic view of an online maps thing; I was looking up Niagara falls. To my surprise there was a city there. It was grand, modern and overall beautiful. The water courses ran under and through the city. It was a sunny day in the view.

Then the next thing I remember, I was packing up or something, to walk there from where I was. There were others doing the same. One of them was a Turkish or Arabic man, not much older than me. We knew each other vaguely. As we said goodbye as we both got ready to leave, he said to me "may God be with you in your travels". I simply replied "goodbye", and quickly regretted it. I realised I could have said goodbye in my own language and not in English, as it would have had a more similar meaning to his own, longer, expression.

I walked through a flat and rocky, dusty area. There were rock cliff faces to either side, or perhaps ancient ruined buildings. I came to a Y shaped road junction in the middle of the desert; this bit had a few hills but was mostly flat otherwise. Cars went by. I remember noticing a car drive past and I noticed the driver somewhat clearly, a woman, medium length hair, tied at the back. The car was a faded cerulean blue and quite old and blocky-looking. I was getting ready to cross and I looked towards the horizon beyond the road. Big red canyons, piled up in an abnormal way. Dream ended shortly after.

Dream:

Again remember little of the dream's start. I remember being at the foot of a mountain, then teleporting or entering some dark place. Then there was fighting as I was going through this cramped and strange factory place. It did some laundry of mine as I went through it. Some pants and hoodies, they became a warmer colour as they were made ready for me. Some boys, two twins I think, got my attention and they lead me out from the place. I think I was getting stuck on some mechanism when they started talking to me. The place had many traps anyway, when I first got in, there were flying needle darts and other things.

The reality and history of this place were just somehow known to me to be different from normal. I didn't realise I was dreaming even so, but it was like a mix of Trigun and Path of Exile. I remember then being in a shack of some kind, made up of corrugated panels. There was an old man? Some gadgets scattered about. I remember we talked for a little while about this world of theirs. I made some surprised remark about how they had all this technology but seemed to live otherwise primitive lives. I don't remember his reply but he was amused I think.

Then I remember being in a basement of some other shack place. It was night time, but I think I had walked there. It was in the middle of a town of sorts. This woman owned it and we talked. As I stood next to her at surface level, there was some kind of dust storm outside and I could see people in sorts of brown power armour. There wasn't much light and so through the dust I mostly just got glimpses of things, even though I think I'd seen the surrounding area earlier in the dream.

The woman told me a story about how she got this bit of land, and then I could "see" a memory; not far at all from us, less than thirty yards away, the vision began with a medieval gate to a different area of this town, with a cliff to the right. It was day time, and this little girl, no older than eight, walked toward the gate with her dog. They looked cartoony. A massive castle tower fell from the high cliff, crashing on the gate. The impact made a small shockwave and the girl and dog were blown back a small distance, the dog landed in some deep water and yelped and drowned, the girl crying and trying to save him. This vision made me sad and the feeling carried through when I woke up later.

The woman told me that the girl was her friend when she was younger, and that she didn't know where she was anymore. She seemed sad for not knowing, but she also seemed to convey the feeling that maybe the other girl didn't want to be friends with her anymore. The woman's face seemed to imply regret and guilt (from inaction?). I remember we walked outside for a bit in the area in front of the gate, it was sunny and clear.

---

Notes:
- Although the second dream did so very allegorically rather than in a literal sense, it reflected a lot of my thoughts at the time of these dreams. Firstly how we all live in a world of technology, but we are otherwise primitive without it because it is not a part of us. Also in the same way, technology did not necessarily makes these peoples' lives any better and this reflected my trend of thoughts about how many of us simply take what we have for granted.
- It was odd that I was aware of the dream-world to be a different one from the waking one, but I did not come close to any thresholds of pre-consciousness, as far as I can recall.
- It is not often that a feeling within a dream carries on into waking except when it was the last thing felt, which wasn't the case here.
- My regret about not saying goodbye to the Arabic man in the same manner comes from the value I put on words sometimes and also reflects how I struggle with not being able to say what I actually wanted to have said to someone.

Sunday,14 September 2014

Moon Cycle: 66% Waning Gibbous in Gemini
Tarot Card: The Emperor
Mayan Calender: Blue Resonant Storm

Dream:
I find myself on a large open patio of Tara's house(an old friend, overlooking the garden.
We lounged around relaxing and vegetating after some party celebrations from the previous night.
On a far bookshelf I see something glinting and shining,which immediately catches my eye.
On closer inspection I find a leather bound book with a green band across the front cover.
Inscribed on the spine is a large fonted "PEACE" along with other symbolic markings and languages written alongside, all in luxurious golden leaf print.

The book resembled some kind of ancient Egyptian scripture or pre-historic Bible, with paper similar to that of papyrus,very ornate and sacred looking.

Opening it up and examining it closely, I recognize the text to be a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic...with various English translations.
Many symbols, such as the star of David and various others which I cannot identify are printed in rows along the horizontal plane of the page above the body of text, circled on golden ink/leaf.
"Was this the book that would bring Peace to the Middle East?"I pondered to myself, hopeful.

Good morning, everybody.

Dream #1

I was in an audience, probably on the far left side, a few rows back from the front, in a zoo-theatre. On the stage were two workers, one at the front of the stage and one at the back. The one at the back of the stage wore a white jumpsuit and cap and may have been mopping the floor. The one at the front stood before two "polar bears."

The two "bears" stood up and were on the right (my right) side of the stage. The stood next to each other, side to side, so that it was hard for me to see the one in the back. The one toward the front, however, did not look much like a real polar bear, but like a mix between a polar bear and the huge, shaggy dog on Sesame Street. It was all shaggy, and its face, except a huge, black nose, was covered over with shaggy fur.

It was like I had come in in the middle of the worker's act. He was telling everybody how he could freeze a polar bear so that it wouldn't hurt him, even when he got close to it. He was now standing right in front of the front polar bear (which towered over him), repeating the words, "Don't move, don't move." He may also have been stroking the bear's right arm.

The bear didn't move, and it only seemed to be slightly annoyed by the zoo worker. The zoo-worker then said that this was all a matter of training, and that on some days the training still didn't work. So it was kind of a dangerous thing to do.

The bear now turned toward us in the audience. I was now in the very front row, on the very far right side, very close to the front polar bear. The bear, turning to us, made a weird motion with his arms, like a magician's gesture, and made a "sshha!" sound, which was also supposed to be magic.

Nobody reacted to the bear. I don't think anybody knew or cared what it was doing. But I understood. The bear wanted to hypnotize and freeze somebody else. He wanted the hypnotizing relationship to be reciprocal, so that he could feel he had a little control over the situation. So I did my best to act hypnotized and frozen, to make the polar bear feel good.

The worker was now over at the left side of the stage. He lifted a baby polar bear out of something like a cradle or one of those clear hospital beds for newborns. The baby bear looked like an actual animal. But it was long and greyish, like a seal, with arms and legs like a polar bear.

The worker said the baby bear was just at the beginning of its training, so that the worker's ability to freeze the baby bear would be less predictable. But the worker thought he could do it. But as soon as he tried, the baby bear took a swipe with his sharp claws at the worker's mouth.

The worker said, "Whoa!" and put the baby bear back in its bed. He then told the audience, "Yeah, I don't think we can do it today. The baby bear isn't being agreeable."

Dream #2

I, possibly as someone else, was in a small boat in something like a Venetian (?) canal at night. I saw myself as if from behind and separated by ten meters or so.

The canal was much wider than usual, and it was in the midst of a town that looked almost as if it were made only of wooden frames and scaffolding. The whole thing was very still, and it was lit from above with something like stage lights.

My small boat was close to a small, wooden dock, at which knelt a kind of young, handsome, Arabic man. The man had a moderate mustache and a slightly stubbly face. He wore robes and a small, wrapped headdress. He had given me some kind of advice, which I accepted. I was now rowing, or simply drifting, away in my boat.

I was now in an airplane, possibly with my brother. The plane was crashing into the ocean, not far from some small island.

There was some kind of narration over the event, possibly as a memory from a female passenger. She said something about how everybody was acting okay as the plane crashed. But, she said, once the plane flipped upside-down, it was extremely difficult for everybody to stay composed. It was even painful.

I hadn't remembered the plane flipping over. I thought, Is that really how it's going to happen? I don't know if I can take it!

But the plane flipped over and crashed into the water. As it flipped over and crashed, I seemed to be separated from the whole situation, as if only imagining in my head all the different painful possibilities of being flipped upside-down in an airplane, crashing my head against the ceiling, etc.

There was a lot of panicked feeling, but it all kind of faded away. The scene faded into my brother and I floating in the boat on the canal. We had drifted out toward the center of the canal. We sat up and began rowing our way back to the sides.

There had been some huge storm and flood in the canal. My brother and I had barely survived. But the water levels were now back to normal. Things were calm.

We were rowing our way to a portion of the canal that was light with morning light, not dark, like the previous portion of canal (still) was. We rowed in the water between two long, wooden docks. On the platform at the end of and between the two docks stood the Arabic man. I realized that the advice this man had given me had saved me and my brother.

I somehow left my brother on the front end of the left dock. I rowed back toward the end.

I approached the man. He either reached out or bent over to help me up to the dock. He also had an object in his hand. It looked like some kind of NERF toy. It was a hot-pink circle outline against a black circle of fabric, like some kind of pad for catching velcro balls.

I was very grateful for the man's advice. I wanted to prove it in a really personal way. So I asked the man, "How do you say 'thank you' in Arabic?"

The man asked, "Arabic?" He stood up and looke a little confused, maybe even uneasy. I noticed that a couple other men were with the Arabic man. They were all doing some kind of work in the city behind them. The city may have been white stone buildings or more of the wood-frame structures. The whole scene was bathed in gentle, yellow sunlight.

I was worried the man wasn't Arabic. But he finally answered something like, "Meretas," or, "Muhretas."

I was still in the boat, rowing back toward the front of the dock. The man walked alongside me, or a little behind, on the left (as I had approached them) dock. The man and I were discussing something.

I was working a little too hard to make the man feel at ease. I still felt like I had somehow offended him by asking him how to say "thank you" in Arabic. I felt like he now also regarded me suspiciously. I was trying to prove I wasn't suspicious.