Martial Arts Dojo – Dreaming Courses – Dream – 31-01-2026

January 31, 2026January 31, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is last night’s dream had around 5 AM on a night with unbroken sleep until 6.44 AM.

The dream opens in a large martial arts dojo. It is in a hangar like building which has practice mats of good quality in a light lovat hue. There are many people there, maybe a hundred. We are waiting for the instructor. He comes in with a small entourage. He proceeds to engage the crowd in a manner to whip them up and get them excited. It is almost evangelical. I think to myself that this does not bode well. I am there with the wife and we are both in white aikido-gi. The instructor asks who is ready to rumble and take part. They are to stay on the mat the others are to go to the side. I nod to the wife and she stays. I make my way to the front of the hall where there is an un-matted area.

The instructor notices me and asks why I am not going to stay on the mat. I say that although I have had previous experience with a Japanese trained instructor I cannot not take part until I have had a medical clearance, a medical note because I have just had a replacement hip. He wants to ask who I have trained with but does not do so in case that makes things uncomfortable for him. He turns back to the crowd.

Sat leaning against a table at the front are two women whom I know to be acolytes of his. It is not uncommon in some “martial arts” circles for there to be groupie-like fans. The women are club secretary like “officials”. One is early thirties of Asian Indian background with long jet black hair. The other is blonde and more matronly with a certain girth. She is the boss. I see on the table an excel spreadsheet of upcoming courses for the “Shenji” martial arts academy. I see a number of days blacked out. I ask what they are. The younger woman says that they are for dreaming courses that the teacher wants to give as a part of the martial arts training. I say that I have been doing a dreaming practice for 25 years or so and that I have an interest in dreaming. She suggests that I might learn from their courses. I say thank you for the offer but I think that it is very unlikely that they could teach me anything about dreaming. Rather it is they who could learn from me. The Indian woman is slightly interested. The matronly one is not overly pleased. I say that I could probably run dreaming courses but that it is not something which can be taught, it has to be started and then left free rein. In the dream I note that the notion of dreaming courses has once again risen up in the dream.

The scene changes and the teacher asks me to go up on the roof as there are some kids from the school there who need to be gotten down and admonished. I go up to the roof and call them off. They want to play fight with me. I do this putting a wrist lock on one while picking the other up with one hand. They know they have been “naughty” and we go back towards the dojo. In the entrance hall the instructor is there. He mentions that I could be affiliated. There is simply a question of the joining fee, the licence fee and mat fees. I know that he is solely interested in money and that this is not attractive to me. It is more business than school. It is money which is the priority.

The dream ends and I note that again the theme of dreaming courses has cropped up.

Coffee and Memory – Dream Follow Up

January 30, 2026January 30, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

In the dream this morning I was back in an area of London I thought I once knew well around Albemarle Street, Dover Street, Mayfair and St James. I might still be able to navigate all the cut throughs. I have been both to the Royal Society of Chemistry and The Royal Society. I’ll speculate that I have encountered 5% of the jolly good fellows in the latter. I have met presidents of both august bodies. I can claim to have been once associated with three “important” centres of learning in London namely UCL, The Royal Institution and Imperial College.

But clearly the coffee is not all that good.

–

–

There is no acceptable physiological explanation of how memory might transfer between incarnations. There is no scientifically accepted proof that reincarnation happens. Memory in so far as science has it must have some kind of biological explanation perhaps something to do with synaptic frameworks, neural nets and so-called muscle memory.

I’ll speculate that because of what I have done to myself in terms of recapitulation, erasing personal history, dreaming and meditation my “wiring” may no longer be entirely conventional.

Neuroscience talks of emotions; what happens if you have meditated them away?

The idea presented in the dream that memory is counter entropic is not entirely silly. One has to organise a recollection of the perception of observed phenomenon into a coherent {or otherwise} pattern to make sense of it and as an aide memoire in its retelling. Organising anything out of a stochastic chaos reduces the overall entropy. This requires some kind of energetic input. Thermodynamics suggests that organisation always gives way to a less organised status. Keeping anything organised takes effort.

On death the chemical factory ceases producing energy and no further work is done.

There is anecdotal “evidence” that some can recall past lives or key events therein. Such evidence cannot ever be proven. My own view is that some kind of realisation or mental training must be required to transfer any non-traumatic memory across incarnations. Wishful thinking and a grandiosity seeking for importance amongst the otherwise mundane might be a motive behind reported recall. Memory recall is probably not a common or garden thing, despite what some might say to sound cool or chat up others.

There is no way memory could be transferred unless one evokes a “thing” some kind of entity which takes on another body.

No entity – no past life recall. The logic is sound. {Thinking only of the measurable physical plane.}

If there is an entity and memory has some kind of molecular basis, a biological basis, then in order to recall this the entity must organise the biology so that physiologically it can be read, by chemical or electrochemical means. That memory may have persistence and longevity or it might fade in a haze of skunk. Somehow the entity “writes” the memory into the new biology.

The entity must influence the biology. A non carnate entity cannot use the computer keyboard. There must be some kind of relationship between the entity and its meat. If there is not an entity then it is just my meat typing here.

If you are convinced that reincarnation does not occur. Then by definition past life recall is impossible and poppycock. Anything resembling such a memory would be found an alternate explanation. One more to taste.

In a past life I seem to remember haunting Mayfair and St James. I seem to remember The Clarence in Dover Street and Tennent’s Extra by the gallon. Nowadays you could probably get a coffee there.

If it is possible to have a past life in a given life, it might be possible to transfer memory from a past life into a new life. I no longer pertain to my old world from London. I have been “reborn” as a hermit in Brittany…

Wet Memory – Intrinsic and Extrinsic Entropy Dream – 30-01-2026

January 30, 2026January 30, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is last night’s dream which is out of the blue and does not relate to the day to day of fence repair after another visit by the wild boars. Where this came from I have no clue.

I am walking through central London, Mayfair Piccadilly. It is a bright sunny day. I notice people converging on an ornate building in light coloured near white stone. It is a hybrid of Burlington House the old Royal Society of Chemistry where I spent many enjoyable hours in the library and of The Royal Society. People are gathering for some kind of scientific meeting. There is a mixture of academics and industry figures. I am not invited to this meeting. Through the doors and in the atrium I can see a reception desk which is being staffed by some women whom I used to know, a generation younger than me.

On a whim I walk in to say hi. They greet me and I ask if there is any chance of a cup of coffee. They get me one and warn me that it is not all that. I see that the conference is on “New Frontiers in Memory”. It has the theme of molecular architectures and memory and is of a think tank type of conjecture meeting. Rob walks in with one of the invited speakers who is a yank around 40. He is some kind of big cheese at the conference. Rob and I recognise each other after all these years. He introduces me to the speaker who is going to talk on protein molecular architectures and memory storage in the brain. He tells me that memory is all about entropy. You have to work against entropy to remember.

Rob invites me upstairs to look around. There are academic posters and a coffee service area. We queue and get a coffee and then stand at a pub style chest height table. In my mind’s eye I can see the way the cheese tries to address a memory array stored in a synthetic gel matrix. It is his way of modelling a wet memory, a mimic of biological memory which he seeks to incorporate into the next generation computers. I say to him that the encoding is of two types and that there are intrinsic and extrinsic entropies. The intrinsic entropy relates to where an individual amino acid is found along a protein chain and the pattern of its neighbour molecules. The extrinsic entropy is related to its local environment, degrees of folding and how space filling it is, how many gaps and voids are incorporated in the macroscopic protein structure. He says that he not previously thought about the molecular location entropy within a given protein strand. It might answer one of the questions he has. I can see in my mind’s eye an address matrix or tensor in mathematical form which defines coordinates for a given amino acid in a 3d protein amongst a wider gel matrix. The intrinsic lack of entropy is how a memory is stored. Memory works my comparing entropy. Anything not expected entropically is a memory. Low entropy is memory.

I say that the coffee is poor and that I hope they enjoy the meeting. I am off in search of a Starbucks, Costa or Caffè Nero.

The dream ends and I think WTF was that…

A Death – Strasbourg – German Police – Dream 24-01-2026

January 24, 2026January 24, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is last night’s dream. It is of a different kind, what might be third person observer dreams especially in the last part. It feels like an end of chapter. Where I have tied off whatever current loose ends there are my end concerning other dreams. The dream does not readily fit with any other sequence though it points at a time in life which I might choose to review {again}.

The dream opens with a woman sat on a chair. She is facing a large window in a room with high ceilings. The room is antique ornate but I know it to be present day. Around now. The chair she is sitting on is a wooden dining table chair with a red leather inlaid cushion. There are burnished dark metal tacks holding the leather cover to the cushion. She is sat with her hands in her lap and with a straight back. She has a pose of someone meditating. Though I know that she is dead. She has not long died.

I can see that she is my age or a little older. She is thin with close short curly grey hair. She is wearing a dark dress with a tiny inlaid bright coloured pattern. She is white and untanned. She has on a light grey knitted cardigan which has a small pattern in the knit. The cardigan is open. She has a small golden necklace and the bridge of her nose is accustomed to spectacles. She has died facing the window as she wished. Although dead she is still around and unsurprised to experience me. She is in Strasbourg in a room in a large house which belongs and has belonged to her family. There is wealth and history. She has known of her death for many months and is relieved at its arrival.

The scene changes and I am at arrivals at Strasbourg airport. As I pass through the gates I am met by three colleagues from the German police. There is a woman and two men. She is the senior officer. “I” have come to help them investigate the death. I can see the British policeman and through his eyes but I know that I am not him. We greet and head off into Germany and to the police station where an incident room has been set up. The woman who has died is very wealthy and the will contentious. Around “me” they are speaking a mixture of German and English. I say that provided they speak slowly German is fine by me.

On the table is a large ~ 30 cm lens / mirror it is convex and looks to have tiny fracture lines. They ask me to pick it up and place it on the table to clean. I do this placing it on a large blue plastic cloth. I start to gently rub the optic and it shatters into many pieces. My German colleagues react with a start. I apologise.

We then go back into Strasbourg. I will get some cash out to pay for the optic. Before we get there we pass a nightclub by the river. I say that the last time I was there I went into that club. They suggest that we go there for lunch. The driver pulls up and all four of us go into the club. The inside is not as I remembered. It has become red and a bit garish as opposed to traditional. We take a seat in a booth. The police woman asks me what happened when I was last in Strasbourg. I am unsure as to the timescale of her inquiry.

As the dream fades I am left with a fading image of the dead woman sat on her chair.

Coming to I recall two visits to Strasbourg in this life and know that it was not the train station which I arrived at. The last visit was at a European Semiconductor conference just before I flew from Zurich via Milan and Palermo to a conference in Erice.

Holy Relics and There Must Be Miracles

January 23, 2026January 23, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Following up on the theme of relics of Buddha yesterday, it is clear that they are a big deal and very important to many people. Hundreds of thousands turn up to have a walk by. These come for at best a glimpse. For me wanting to preserve goes against the doctrine of non-attachment and impermanence. For others there is a notion of sanctity and something out of the ordinary. Perhaps a kind of beacon, a beacon of hope. They are emblematic and touch something primordial and core deep.

As an erstwhile chemist and materials scientist I understand that bone phosphate and tooth enamel might survive a cremation at an unknown al fresco cremation temperature. But these fragments will be brittle and may not last with structural integrity for two and a half millennia. That being said they may well have been cared for with devotion and care. Some were buried under stupas.

My scepticism suggests that not all relics, Buddhist and Christian, can be as claimed. A relic has a totemic power in the psyche. It can confer right to kingdom; there are elements of ritual magic like with the stone of Scone. Whoever holds the cup which held the blood of Jesus has totemic power and bragging rights. Wars can be fought over relics. The grail stories are embedded in the collective consciousness and mythos. There are relics here in Brittany. My science mind asks the question, “just how many fingers did these holy people have?”

It is a part of religious logic that there must be miracles. Miracles are the proof of the pudding of deity and sanctity. Without miracles deity or Buddhahood cannot be invoked.

Back then nobody could have envisaged the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

It is well known that with each telling a story changes and that embellishment to encourage audience participation and appreciation is common. Recently I have heard re-tellings of the story of Ceridwen and Taliesin. I am familiar with the source code but the text gets dramatically enhanced for a You Tube audience. It is reasonable to suggest that human nature has not changed hugely in that any story is prone to exaggeration over time. Which means that the use of sodium chloride is recommended, a pinch at a time.

It does not mean however that the spirit, the underlying meaning, should be lost. Take out the baby before pulling the bath plug.

In looking at ancient text it is helpful to be mindful of the use of parable and metaphor with out being dogmatic about verbatim meaning. To search for an illustrative metaphor as if it were fact is a fool’s errand. Though it does make good box office. My mother’s maiden name was Jones. According to 23andMe Indiana is a distant cousin of mine. I have a genetic predisposition to treasure hunting and finding sacred totems in a deadly race against the baddies.

It is a weird thing a part of society needs, wants to see, miracles as proof. Another part wants to disprove and pooh-pooh. Why must there be miracles?

In the context of relics, objects of faith, power and magic are embodied therein. A sight, a touch, a prayer may ease whatever ills and plagues one. Those who control such totems may control access and have power over any would be pilgrim. These days they may even charge an entrance fee.

Human religious creed and dogma developed by the clergy always diverges from the core scriptures. The socio-political practice veers away from the simple and the ideal. The basic messages are watered down and room for manoeuvre and excuse are built in to what the Sacerdotes profess. I remember that all religion is by way of a business too.

I struggle to reconcile how something corporeal, physical and object can carry the spirit, the magic, the essence. Once vacated matter remains matter. It is no longer animated or organised. As a meditative totem it may work, but having an inherent power of its own, I am unconvinced.

If a relic works as a meditative aid, then it is useful. If one imagines all the good things of a Buddha focussed therein and uses this as aspirational, that is good. Wanting to rise lotus like out of the mire of corporality is no bad thing.

My own take is that seeking a miracle or two, seeking something special, detracts from the mundane reality of here and now. Which is where all the “work” needs to be done. Seeking the miraculous and the showy is not where “it” is at. There is a kind of sword from the stone glamour in a miracle.

I suspect that the truly miraculous is seemingly insignificant and does not attract any attention. It is so not showy, that it goes unnoticed. People do not see it nor appreciate it when it is a simple sublime. The complete invisibility of the simple and uncomplicated is quite miraculous.

Cremation and Relics of Siddartha – Dream Follow Up

January 22, 2026January 22, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

From the – Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta

——————

29 Now at that time four Mallas of the foremost families, bathed from the crown of their heads and wearing new clothes, with the thought: “We will set alight the Blessed One’s pyre,” tried to do so but they could not. And the Mallas spoke to the Venerable Anuruddha, saying: “What is the cause, Venerable Anuruddha, what is the reason that these four Mallas of the foremost families, bathed from the crown of their heads and wearing new clothes, with the thought: “We will set alight the Blessed One’s pyre,’ try to do so but cannot?”

“You, Vasetthas, have one purpose, the deities have another.”

“Then what, venerable sir, is the purpose of the deities?”

“The purpose of the deities, Vasetthas, is this: ‘The Venerable Maha Kassapa is on his way from Pava to Kusinara together with a large company of five hundred bhikkhus. Let not the Blessed One’s pyre be set alight until the Venerable Maha Kassapa has paid homage at the feet of the Blessed One.'”

“As the deities wish, venerable sir, so let it be.”

30. And the Venerable Maha Kassapa approached the pyre of the Blessed One, at the cetiya of the Mallas, Makuta-bandhana, in Kusinara. And he arranged his upper robe on one shoulder, and with his clasped hands raised in salutation, he walked three times round the pyre, keeping his right side towards the Blessed One’s body, and he paid homage at the feet of the Blessed One. And even so did the five hundred bhikkhus.

And when homage had been paid by the Venerable Maha Kassapa and the five hundred bhikkhus, the pyre of the Blessed One burst into flame by itself.

31. And it came about that when the body of the Blessed One had been burned, no ashes or particles were to be seen of what had been skin, tissue, flesh, sinews, and fluid; only bones remained. Just as when ghee or oil is burned, it leaves no particles or ashes behind, even so when the body of the Blessed One had been burned, no ashes or particles were to be seen of what had been skin, tissue, flesh, sinews, and fluid; only bones remained. And of the five hundred linen wrappings, only two were not consumed, the innermost and the outermost.

32. And when the body of the Blessed One had been burned, water rained down from heaven and extinguished the pyre of the Blessed One, and from the sala trees water came forth, and the Mallas of Kusinara brought water scented with many kinds of perfumes, and they too extinguished the pyre of the Blessed One.

And the Mallas of Kusinara laid the relics of the Blessed One in their council hall, and surrounded them with a lattice-work of spears and encircled them with a fence of bows; and there for seven days they paid homage to the relics of the Blessed One with dance, song, music, flower-garlands, and perfume, and showed respect, honor, and veneration to the relics of the Blessed One.

—

42. And the king of Magadha, Ajatasattu, son of the Videhi queen, erected a stupa over the relics of the Blessed One at Rajagaha, and in their honor held a festival. The Licchavis of Vesali erected a stupa over the relics of the Blessed One at Vesali, and in their honor held a festival. The Sakyas of Kapilavatthu erected a stupa over the relics of the Blessed One at Kapilavatthu, and in their honor held a festival. The Bulis of Allakappa erected a stupa over the relics of the Blessed One at Allakappa, and in their honor held a festival. The Kolis of Ramagama erected a stupa over the relics of the Blessed One at Ramagama, and in their honor held a festival. The Vethadipa brahman erected a stupa over the relics of the Blessed One at Vethadipa, and in their honor held a festival. The Mallas of Pava erected a stupa over the relics of the Blessed One at Pava, and in their honor held a festival. The Mallas of Kusinara erected a stupa over the relics of the Blessed One at Kusinara, and in their honor held a festival. The brahman Dona erected a stupa over the urn, and in its honor held a festival. And the Moriyas of Pipphalivana erected a stupa over the ashes at Pipphalivana, and in their honor held a festival.

So it came about that there were eight stupas for the relics, a ninth for the urn, and a tenth for the ashes.

And thus it was in the days of old.

43.

Eight portions there were of the relics of him,

The All-Seeing One, the greatest of men.

Seven in Jambudipa are honored, and one

In Ramagama, by kings of the Naga race.

One tooth is honored in the Tavatimsa heaven,

One in the realm of Kalinga, and one by the Naga kings.

Through their brightness this bountiful earth

With its most excellent gifts is endowed;

For thus the relics of the All-Seeing One are best honored

By those who are worthy of honor — by gods and Nagas

And lords of men, yea, by the highest of mankind.

Pay homage with clasped hands! For hard indeed it is

Through hundreds of ages to meet with an All-Enlightened One!

——————————–

Maha-parinibbana Sutta: Last Days of the Buddha

translated from the Pali by

Sister Vajira & Francis Story

———————————–

Eight measures of relics there were of the seer,

Of the best of the best of men. In India seven are worshipped,

One measure in Rāmagāma by the kings of the nāgas.

One tooth, too, is honoured in heaven, and one in Gandhāra’s city,

One in the Kāliṅga realm, and one more by the Nāga race.

“Through their glory the bountiful earth is made bright with offerings painless…

For with such are the Great Teacher’s relics best honoured by those who are honoured,

By gods, nāgas, and kings, by the noblest of monarchs

Bow down with clasped hands!

Rare is it to meet a Buddha through hundreds of ages!”

—-

An Exposition of The Mahāparinibbāna Sutta

Bhikkhu Pesala

Inspecting Budda Relics Dream – 22-01-2026

January 22, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is last night’s dream which finished around 3 AM but which was subsequently revisited on going back to sleep.

The dream starts in a brightly lit room. There is a sense of subterranean of basement and of vault. The overhead light is bright like a fluorescent light but there is no hum. I am sat at a very large lab-bench like table but which is large boardroom size. I am on the only chair in the room. The table is a work table for inspection of artefacts. It feels forensic and museum like. The air is treated for humidity and is slightly warm but dry.

The door opens and in walks a man and woman. They are younger than me and wearing a dark olive green curators uniform with trousers and short sleeve shirts. The uniforms have been immaculately pressed. They are both wearing white jeweller’s gloves. The woman has curly blonde hair held back in a clip and the man is dark haired. The man places an object in front of me. I know this to be a reliquary containing pieces of Buddha’s body or so the narrative goes. The box is the size of a tissue box. It is on four curved ornate legs which have an animal {query lion} foot finish. The whole thing is made out of an exquisite light yellow gold carved in a motif of India query Sri Lanka. The pattern is exquisite, fine. The box is surprisingly light. I know that it has a mechanism whereby the lid can be rotated to reveal two compartments. One of these is smaller than the other. Without opening the box I know that the compartments have a red “felt” lining. I inspect the box from the outside. The workmanship is impressive. The woman looks at me for permission and then picks the box up and together they leave the room.

They return. This time the woman is carrying a small cloth bundle. It is square shaped with a depth of a couple of inches. The cloth is folded over and over to make a parcel. She handles it with reverence. The cloths are heavy and exquisitely woven with a fine shiny silken thread running through it. There are layers of a purple-ish base fabric cloth and a rich red-magenta cloth. The cloth is luxury. She places the bundle in font of me on the table. I know that it is Tibetan-Himalayan in origin and that it too contains a relic of the Buddha. I pick the bundle up and inspect it from all sides, paying particular attention to the bottom. I am holding it in both hands just above my head inspecting.

{This relic is “privately” owned and on loan.}

As I do this I see a “wall” to a room or cave. The wall is made of a grey sandy granular sedimentary rock. In my mind’s eye I touch the rock and it starts to crumble and flow away leaving a couple of small pillars about 20 cm tall. There is an opening in the wall about 40 cm wide and 20 cm tall with pillars of a few centimetres thickness and a void or opening behind. There is a sense of a store or a cache behind the wall. In the dream I know that in this space are other relics pertaining to Buddha and his corporeal. I can see that the cache extends to both the left and the right of the opening in the wall.

I return from the vision and place the unwrapped bundle back on the table. The man signals to me and I nod. He picks the bundle up and they leave the room.

They return and this time the man is carrying a clear plastic sample storage drawer. It is around 10 by 10 cm on the front face and has a depth of about 30 cm. There is a catalogue card with number and content written in German. There is an acquisition date and I understand it to be a museum piece kept under preserving conditions and attributed as a Buddha relic considered by some a part of Buddha. They place it on the table in front of me and nestled on a bed of tissue paper and with a moisture absorbing paper silica sack is a small bundle of jet black felt cloth held together with a thin golden drawstring. It is a small bundle.

The man and the woman, the curators, stand back behind me one on either side of me and against the wall.

Category: #dreamyoga