Author: quantumdreamer

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White Coats – DNA – Gene Testing – Lab Instrument Dream – 03 -06 -2025

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Here is last night’s dream.

It opens in an ethereal very white laboratory setting in which there are no walls. There are people milling about in white laboratory coats. Most of these are young. Some have pencils and pens in the coat pocket. There is a prevalence of spectacles. I am sat at a large white desk upon which are computer terminals linked into the DNA sequencer machines. I am with two younger women both wearing white lab coats, neither of which are done up. They have name-identity-security cards on deep blue lanyards around their necks. One is blond the other dark haired. They are younger than me and “official”. I am dressed in civvies, black jeans and a black cashmere jumper. My hair has a fresh buzz-cut.

The dark haired woman asks me how the genetic testing was authorised. I explain that my haemoglobin levels are high and that I have a large excess of ferritin in my blood. She nods and gestures for me to open the files on the computer in front of me. These files contain my full DNA results and parts where the study has zoomed into specific genes of concern regarding my blood and health. Before we get to the results there is a screen showing who has accessed these files. There is a list of health professionals in normal black type. Then in a box ringed in bright red and backlit is one saying D. Someone who I once was acquainted with. The files access log says that he has accessed these files illegally and without proper authorisation on a number of occasions. He has been illegally monitoring my test results. The woman asks me if I know who it is. Yes. Somehow, he has contrived illegal access. He has been snooping on my genetic testing and passing them on. It is illegal, he has been unlawful.

The scene changes to an ultramodern biochemistry laboratory on an upper floor. There are wet benches, fume hoods and instrumentation suites. Everybody apart from me is decked out in white lab coats. They are all younger than me and exude and air of quite professionalism going about their business. I enter a glass doored laboratory instrumentation suite. At the “welcome” desk there is a young man and a young woman. He asks how he might help. I explain that I need to run a sample. He shows me into to their latest machine. It is a hybrid mass spectrometer-NMR- separation machine. They are convinced that I know little to nothing about science instruments and mass spectrometry in particular. I say that before I run my sample, I need to assess the signal to noise ratio of the instrument. I inspect it.

When I am ready, I inject my sample using a micro-litre syringe into the septum at the spectrometer inlet. The results will be available in a few hours. Everyone thinks that I am a pleb, who knows nothing. The next day I return and ask to run the sample again. I have left it on the bench to oxidise overnight and that will give me an added insight into the chemical composition. The man is a bit reluctant but lets me run the sample again.

The dream ends.

Inside a Boomer and Assumptions

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A while back when we were trying to sell our house the young estate agent commented that we had loads of DVDs just like his parents. They were umbilically connected to their devices. Their default was to use a search engine instead of think. As an old git I can comment that they had no inkling as to what may or may not be inside a boomer, what that essence may be.

Around 40 years ago at Durham University, during a conference on high resolution spectroscopy of van der Waals molecules, I gave my first oral presentation concerning the paper-worthy results from my first year experiments. It was a tad precocious to speak amongst all those professors dressed in my black ripped 501s with buckled suede Doctor Martens, a short spikey flat top haircut and a Smiths t-shirt.

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My moderate hangover had to be negotiated. I made no mistakes and the talk went well. Later that evening I was “chatted up” by various profs perhaps looking to recruit in due course. My punk “fuck you” attitude was reeled in.

To use the time honoured phrase, the youth of today have no idea what it was like back then. How protest and rebellion were a rite of passage. People do not expect residual punk attitude. I was soon to become an evangelical vegan at that time. Meat is murder!

Last night we watched a short documentary on the Smiths who provided a sound track to various aspects of life, including my mid-nineties depression. “Heaven knows I am miserable now…”

People make shed loads of assumptions; they always have and they always will. There is an expression that “assumptions are the mother of all cock-ups”. {and clusterfucks} I have extended the vernacular so that it is up to date.

Even when people know that making assumptions is foolhardy, it seems that they simply cannot resist making them and assuming their accuracy and applicability. Checking assumptions is for many an anathema. People will assume how others might behave, what they will do.

My mother when asked to come to my second wedding said that it was too far away and difficult for her to come. My assumption was that her assumption was that she would be cajoled into coming.  After sufficient cajoling she would yield as if she was doing us the greatest favour in the entire world. Instead, I said OK fine and left it at that. She may have been waiting for me to change my mind and start cajoling. I did not. The wedding went ahead without us having to cater to her insatiable drama queen tendencies.

Sometimes assumptions can backfire “biggly” to quote Herr Trump.

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One of the assumptions in our modern day is that everyone is contactable, that they have contact details and because of the fear of missing out, they will never be incommunicado. People are eternally at “beck and call”. When I say that I do not use ‘phones people do not believe me. They think I mean “much” but I don’t. My mobile has had two calls in six months both of them test calls by the wife. Someone once said to me, that if I had any questions, I could call them. He may have imagined that I might. I “filed” his card without even looking at it…In my mind we would never speak again.

I suspect that in a cross generational sense we do not understand nor appreciate the difference in essence. Even within a generation a beige or a plastic may not get a goth, a punk or an indie. As part rasta in orientation I may not subscribe to the 80s “Wolf of Wall Street”. When I sat in the board room at Fleming Family and Partners in Dover Street Mayfair to discuss million pound funding deals none of the suits knew where I was coming from, nor did they care overmuch.

It is funny your true colours are on the inside and not the outside.

Former Imperial Colleagues – Big Japan Trip Dream – 01-06-2025

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Here is last night’s dream. Out of the blue. I have not spoken with any of the people in it for ~ twenty years!!

The dream starts in a small seminar room. It has a London, Imperial College feel. The décor is bland with diffuse bright overhead lighting. There are multipurpose tables at which are set two people, each. The tables are arranged in a U-shape and I am at a table by myself at the focus of the U-shape.

Sat around the tables are various ex-colleagues from Imperial College. They are all professors and some are now “big-cheeses”. They are all from the age cohort slightly younger than me. My direct age equivalent ex-colleagues are noticeable by their absence. The “job” has been handed to the younger incumbents. They are mostly male, with a few women. I had no “problem” with any of them historically. They have the brief to find a solution and make amends. Something has been cobbled together, some suggestions. This they have just presented to me. I cannot recall what.

I say to them that I am in no way interested in what they have just suggested. That they have the wrong idea about where I am coming from and what I might want. Which is close to nothing. That they are looking at things solely from their perspective. I am not like them and do not share their motivations.

There is a faint ripple of unease. I say that I am leaving and walk slowly, relaxed, out of the door, which is behind me.

The scene changes to a London airport terminal. I have been booked along with others for a big high profile visit to Japan which includes some technology and some cultural things. I am not keen from the get-go. I notice that my chest is wheezy and take a Ventolin inhaler. It remains a bit wheezy. I decide that it would be mad for me to travel to Japan for a long high profile visit. I know that the tour organiser will be at the airport well before all the others might arrive. Implicit is some of my age equivalent academic peer group. I make my way there.

I approach the woman who is young and smartly dressed with dark hair. I explain that she had better cancel my flight and all the other things associated with the trips in order to get as much as a refund as possible. She is unconvinced. I wheeze for her. She says that for the insurance she will need a medical opinion. A doctor is summoned and they concur that is it is unwise for me to travel. She cancels my ticket. She asks me to try to buy a ticket to find out what the going rate is. I go to the British Airways desk and inquire. The price is multiple thousands of pounds because it is cherry blossom season. I go back to the woman with this information. She is in a video call with a Japanese restaurant chain cancelling my meal plan for the week, which amount to tens of thousands of Yen. She cancels my suite at the hotel in central Tokyo. I say that I made a private reservation at Langham’s restaurant where I have been before and ask her to cancel this. She does.

There is some time before all the others get there. She tells me to buy a ticket to London which I do. I do not know where the airport is now. I sit down at a computer terminal and start doing a Japanese language quiz. One of her colleagues comes over to me and is surprised that I am doing so well on the Japanese. I explain to him that I have been many times before and spent time with a man and his family in Sendai. He suggests that the man was gay. I say not because I have been around quite a few gay men and understand them well. He is upset that I am not going on their carefully organised trip. I say that I am too unwell to travel and that in general my health is very poor. People do not understand how bad it is.

The dream ends.

Lifting up – Drone Overview – Colours – Dream 31-05-2025

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Here is this morning’s short dream which replayed a number of times.

The dream starts in a normal city setting in which people are going about their business in a semi-frantic manner. They are rushing about. They are sat at home watching TV, playing computer games and glued to their devices. There is much toing and froing. The colours of life are not vibrant and there is enmity. People are convinced that they are right and living THE life. Like a speeded up Koyaanisqatsi film time lapse, life whizzes by.

I am sat on a small grassy hill nearby. In my hand I have a flying drone controller with which I initially pilot a drone over their life. I turn on the camera and cast the images to their devices. I lift the drone which is white with four silent propellers up out of the scenery to show them the beauty outside of their world. I take control of the drone with my mind and project a world with less enmity and stress. It is relaxed green and pastoral. I show them what they are missing. The colours are bright and vivacious.

The scene starts to replay. As I start to lift the drone out of their normality they set dogs on the drone. The dogs jump and try to catch the drone in their mouths. They are egged on by their owners. Who do not want to see. They, the owners, have high animosity towards me because I am trying to show them another, higher, wider perspective on their lives. No matter how hard the dogs try they cannot catch the drone and I continue to cast “higher” to their devices. I am not in any way thanked for my efforts.

The dream ends after several repeats.

The Loony Quiz©

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To find out if you are a loony or not tick one box in either column A or column B, for each question.

 AB
Do I get impatient often?yesno
Do I lose my rag in traffic jams?yesno
Do I feel offended quite often?yesno
Do I think “life is not fair?”oftenrarely
Am I prone to over reaction?yesno
If I don’t get my way do I sulk?oftenrarely
Do I bear grudges?yesno
Do I seek to get even?yesno
If someone does better than me, do I get upset?yesno
Do I try to pull others down to feel better about myself?yesno
Have I ever had a bout of cranio-rectal disease?oftenrarely
Am I special?yesno
Does nobody appreciate me?yesno
Must I always be busy?yesno
Does silence scare me?yesno
Must I always be the winner?yesno
Do I always know best?yesno
Am I always right?yesno
Do I enjoy opining upon things I don’t really know?yesno
Do I enjoy gossip and trust it?yesno
Am I impressed by the unproven opinions of others?yesno
Am I genuinely opened minded?noyes
Are people who don’t believe the same things as me?crazysane
Is my belief system the only correct one?yesno
Is advancement better than happiness?yesno
Is kudos the be all and end all?yesno
If I win prizes / competitions does that make me feel better than?yesno
Am I a grand person or one of the little people?grandlittle
Do rules apply to me?noyes
Is material plane status important to me?yesno
Am I a bit of a tense motherfucker?yesno
Am I happy and at peace with the universe?noyes

Now count up the number of As and Bs.

In your best judgement are you a loony or not, what do you think?

Reasons to be Cheerful – Iron Two and Three

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We heard on the news today that Netanyahu had a colonoscopy this morning. This means that he would have been on an industrial grade laxative protocol last night and this morning. He will have a sore sphincter and maybe, just maybe, he is now less full of shit. He has quite a few comorbidities. He is not renown for joviality, good will or a good sense of humour so the indignity of shitting his entire arse off may not have appealed to him. Laid out on a table with a metre long endoscope up your arse it is hard to be tough, macho and aggressive spouting bellicose propaganda.

Did you know that a single article in the Lancet can cost you forty quid!!

It turns out there is specialist research interest in excess bodily Iron in Rennes, particularly for rare Fe related genetic diseases. We just took the car to the garage and there was an advertising card “Jardin du Fer” so we are back roaming the streets and chanting “any old Iron” like pikeys in a white flatbed truck.

One of the guys from Rennes is a co-author:

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One of the problems and benefits of having been a researcher in a previous incarnation is the ability to scan-read to spot gaps in knowledge and then zoom in, on the off chance there may be a research proposal lurking. The primer paper suggests the following diagnosis flow chart. I am on the far right pathway. All genetic testing is expensive.

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On the basis of this I am possibly due an Iron MRI. Apparently, the presence of Fe changes the T2 nuclear relaxation time and by using various pulse echo sequences one can measure Fe content in the liver. One can also image Fe content relative to the spleen. The latter is more widely used.

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The Fe build up could be genetic, alcohol related or caused by primary or metastatic cancers. The gastroenterologist said they stopped following liver for metastatic disease five years after colon cancer. This being the most likely hang out for colon metastatic disease.

The corporeal symptom of hemochromatosis are given below.

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Hepatomegaly (Enlarged Liver) An enlarged liver is a symptom of underlying disease. It means that your liver is larger than normal. This may happen in response to an infection, advanced liver disease or cancer. Healthcare providers treat an enlarged liver by treating what’s causing it.

I have joint pain and have just added Osteoporosis to the fun list.

The default cause will be ethanolic, followed my smoking with my being a lard-arse a close third.

Maybe I am not special…maybe it really is that simple…

My research instincts say there may be something we are missing and have yet to find out about.

Reasons to be cheerful… Iron two and three.