Category: Quotations

Martin Luther King Quotes

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“We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

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“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

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“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.”

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“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

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“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

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“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

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“Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”

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“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.”

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“He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

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“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

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“We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war but the positive affirmation of peace.”

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“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

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“Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.”

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“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated. We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one destiny, affects all indirectly.”

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Destined to Occur

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The prophet is not diverted by illusions of past, present and future. The fixity of language determines such linear distinctions. Prophets hold a key to the lock in language. The mechanical image remains only an image to them. This is not a mechanical universe. The linear progression of events is imposed by the observer. Cause and effect? That’s not it at all. The prophet utters fateful words. You glimpse a thing “destined to occur”. But the prophetic instant releases something of infinite portent and power. The universe undergoes a ghostly shift. The wise prophet conceals actuality behind shimmering labels. The uninitiated then believe the prophetic language is ambiguous. The listener distrusts the prophetic messenger. Instinct tells you how the utterance blunts the power of such words. The best prophets lead you up to the curtain and let you peer through it yourself.

– The Stolen Journals [1]

Frank Herbert “God Emperor of Dune” Gollancz, Orion Publishing, London. Page 297 ISBN 0 575 07506 6

An Unfortunate Lunatic

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William Blake, né le 28 novembre 1757 à Londres où il est mort le 12 août 1827, est un peintre, graveur et poète britannique.

Bien que d’abord considéré comme peintre — il a peint quelques tableaux à l’huile, préférant l’aquarelle et le dessin, voire la gravure et la lithographie —, il s’est surtout consacré à la poésie. Il est l’auteur d’un œuvre inspiré de visions bibliques à caractère prophétique. Artiste pré-romantique, son style halluciné est moderne et le distingue de ses pairs, bien que ses thèmes soient classiques.

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Isaac Newton est représenté assis nu et accroupi sur un affleurement rocheux couvert d’algues, apparemment au fond de la mer. Son attention est focalisée sur des schémas qu’il dessine au compas sur un rouleau. Le compas est une version réduite de celle détenue par Urizen dans Le Grand Architecte (The Ancient of Days) de Blake

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Visions

Malgré sa piété et son inspiration évangélique, William Blake fut longtemps cru fou par ses contemporains et y compris des études tardives. Ce n’est que récemment que ses visions sont devenues les sources légitimes de son inspiration et de sa gloire.

Il aurait eu depuis son plus jeune âge des visions. La première intervint dès l’âge de quatre ans quand il vit Dieu et qu’il hurla de frayeur. Aux environs de neuf ans, il aurait vu à Londres un arbre empli d’anges aux ailes resplendissantes comme des étoiles. En d’autres occasions, il vit également des figures angéliques parmi des fermiers. L’une de ses peintures est l’évocation de la vision du fantôme d’une puce (The Ghost of a Flea, 1819–1820, Londres, Tate Britain)

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To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

William Blake

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Robert Hunt wrote the only printed notice (in the radical family weekly The Examiner) of the exhibition and its Descriptive Catalogue, and through his vilification they became much more widely known than Blake had been able to make them. Hunt described the pictures as “wretched,” the Descriptive Catalogue as “a farrago of nonsense, unintelligibleness, and egregious vanity,” and Blake himself as “an unfortunate lunatic, whose personal inoffensiveness secures him from confinement.”

Britannica on line

Blaise Pascal a dit…Citations – Quotations

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Blaise Pascal, né le 19 juin 1623 à Clermont (aujourd’hui Clermont-Ferrand) en Auvergne et mort le 19 août 1662 à Paris, est un mathématicien, physicien, inventeur, philosophe, moraliste et théologien français.

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Se moquer de la philosophie, c’est vraiment philosopher.

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Il est bien plus beau de savoir quelque chose de tout que de savoir tout d’une chose.

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Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.

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Personne ne parle en notre présence comme il en parle en notre absence. L’union qui est entre les hommes n’est fondée que sur cette mutuelle tromperie.

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Le vrai se conclut souvent du faux.

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Le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m’effraie.

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Que sert à l’homme de gagner tout le monde, s’il perd son âme ? Qui veut garder son âme, la perdra.

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Dans une grande âme, tout est grand.

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Deux excès : exclure la raison, n’admettre que la raison.

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La dernière démarche de la raison est de reconnaître qu’il y a une infinité de choses qui la surpasse.

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Les hommes sont si nécessairement fous, que ce serait être fou, par un autre tour de folie, de n’être pas fou.

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Douter de Dieu, c’est y croire.

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Je n’ai fait cette lettre-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.

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Les belles actions cachées sont les plus estimables.

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Nous souhaitons la vérité, et ne trouvons en nous qu’incertitude.

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C’est une maladie naturelle à l’homme de croire qu’il possède la vérité.

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Les hommes se gouvernent plus par caprice que par raison.

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Significant and Normal

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Many people might wish to fit in and be “normal”. That is comply and not be the sore thumb of life. These may seek to blend with a peer group if they are not normal in the populace at large. Geeky McGeekface is more at home with others of similar persuasion and not comfortable being with the popular plastic fantastic.

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I will speculate that I am not within two standard deviations of the peak of the normal distribution of intellect. By this I am already slightly abnormal. It is not really significant because there are many way further out. They will have a higher IQ according to how these things are measured and be much better at conventional examinations than me. I am not normal but not significantly abnormal either.

On other metrics I may be more of an outlier or anomaly. It is not my ego or desire to be weird which is suggesting that, rather a detached observation. I don’t particularly want to be special or different, but I am or appear to be, a bit odd. Socially I am not a mixer and socio-politically I do not play the itchy back game so enamoured of by many. Because I am less easy to leverage by “what is in it for me” people may deem me less tractable to control and/or ready manipulation. I do not play “the” game. I am not one of “US”. I am not “good people”.

My bones have osteoporosis so they are among the 0.5% too thin for my age and sex. This is significant enough for the medics to want to medicate me in case I end up in A&E with another fracture.

What each of us finds significant depends upon our terms of reference and the world which we perceive and assimilate. Thousands watched “the Lionesses” on The Mall this afternoon. They are mostly normal in this respect. I watched a bit on TV. Does that make me normal?

Life circumstance has me/us where we are, living the way we do. Our impact on the outer world is minuscule because we do not interact overmuch. In the grand scheme of things human we are not significant. Though in the past we have both changed and facilitated many lives. Our life circumstance and health in particular, limits us. Because there is no fairy godmother our life circumstance is very unlikely to change and even it did, there is no dynamic reserve of time and energy to offer. To an extent we are spent.

Put me in a car on the M25 and I may not cope. I can no longer hack the outside world. A few glancing interactions perhaps and that is about it. Even if someone wanted it otherwise, it isn’t and cannot be. I have not been in a proper city for more than a week or so in the last six years and that for hospital / health reasons. I am a bumpkin these days…Life circumstance has me away from the crowd. It is better for me and probably for them too.

Here is an aphorism pertaining to the rule of the three pronged nagal from the Toltec Teachings by Théun Mares

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This is not a normal example or tract of text. The question might be, “is it significant?”.

As is so often the case, it depends upon context. It sounds grandiose and might fleetingly captivate the attention. To the vast majority of people it has no personal significance and at best might be a curiosity. People are concerned with Facebook, Insta and TikTok. This type of thing would be abnormal to them. It is not abnormal to me.

I think it fair and accurate to speculate that what is normal and significant for/to me is abnormal and insignificant for others.

Thus we are in the subjective. Normality and significance are not objective, people make {personal} judgments which may or may not be rational concerning these notions. At the moment its seems normal to bomb the fuck out of Gaza and starve the people. This is normal for some but abnormal, brutal and evil to my eyes. The Palestinian death toll is more significant on Al Jazeera, less so on the BBC.

So-called normality is not always a strong recommendation for being better. Significance can depend upon prejudices and alliance.

If I was a mosquito, I would be grossly insignificant, unless I were in your bedroom of a hot summer night, and a bit peckish. Then for a few hours I could be significant.

Significance has a temporal component. It was once normal to have slaves. Slavery was more significant for the slaves than for the masters. That normality is now shunned and people are asked to accept the significance of their past slave ownership. Nothing can undo the abuse and torture.  A few quid here and there, a public apology, does not change one single lash of the whip.

Being normal may not be all that it is cranked up to be!

Normality has a checkered past…

Who knows what is normal for you, right now, may in time be seen as a misguided travesty. But for the time being you have the comfort of your peer group to tell you, “We concur old chap” and that everything is just dandy.

I am not sure that anything normal has brought about progress, ever. In that sense being normal is largely insignificant.

Dhyāna

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From Wikipedia

In the oldest texts of Buddhism, dhyāna (Sanskrit) or jhāna (Pāḷi) is the training of the mind, commonly translated as meditation, to withdraw the mind from the automatic responses to sense-impressions, and leading to a “state of perfect equanimity and awareness (upekkhā-sati-parisuddhi).” Dhyāna may have been the core practice of pre-sectarian Buddhism, in combination with several related practices which together lead to perfected mindfulness and detachment and are fully realized with the practice of dhyana.

In the later commentarial tradition, which has survived in present-day Theravāda, dhyāna is equated with “concentration,” a state of one-pointed absorption in which there is a diminished awareness of the surroundings. In the contemporary Theravāda-based Vipassana movement, this absorbed state of mind is regarded as unnecessary and even non-beneficial for awakening, which has to be reached by mindfulness of the body and vipassanā (insight into impermanence). Since the 1980s, scholars and practitioners have started to question this equation, arguing for a more comprehensive and integrated understanding and approach, based on the oldest descriptions of dhyāna in the suttas.

In Chán and Zen, the names of which Buddhist traditions are the Chinese and Japanese pronunciations, respectively, of dhyāna, dhyāna is the central practice, which is ultimately based on Sarvastivāda meditation practices, and has been transmitted since the beginning of the Common Era.

Etymology

Dhyāna, from Proto-Indo-European root *√dheie-, “to see, to look,” “to show.” Developed into Sanskrit root √dhī and n. dhī, which in the earliest layer of text of the Vedas refers to “imaginative vision” and associated with goddess Saraswati with powers of knowledge, wisdom and poetic eloquence. This term developed into the variant √dhyā, “to contemplate, meditate, think”, from which dhyāna is derived.

According to Buddhaghosa (5th century CE Theravāda exegete), the term jhāna (Skt. dhyāna) is derived from the verb jhayati, “to think or meditate,” while the verb jhapeti, “to burn up,” explicates its function, namely burning up opposing states, burning up or destroying “the mental defilements preventing […] the development of serenity and insight.”

Commonly translated as meditation, and often equated with “concentration,” though meditation may refer to a wider scala of exercises for bhāvanā, development. Dhyāna can also mean “attention, thought, reflection.”

The jhānas

The Pāḷi canon describes four progressive states of jhāna called rūpa jhāna (“form jhāna“), and four additional meditative states called arūpa (“without form”).

Preceding practices

Meditation and contemplation are preceded by several practices, which are fully realized with the practice of dhyāna. As described in the Noble Eightfold Path, right view leads to leaving the household life and becoming a wandering monk. Sīla (morality) comprises the rules for right conduct. Right effort, or the four right efforts, aim to prevent the arising of unwholesome states, and to generate wholesome states. This includes indriya samvara (sense restraint), controlling the response to sensual perceptions, not giving in to lust and aversion but simply noticing the objects of perception as they appear. Right effort and mindfulness calm the mind-body complex, releasing unwholesome states and habitual patterns, and encouraging the development of wholesome states and non-automatic responses. By following these cumulative steps and practices, the mind becomes set, almost naturally, for the practice of dhyāna. The practice of dhyāna reinforces the development of wholesome states, leading to upekkhā (equanimity) and mindfulness.

The rūpa jhānas

Qualities of the rūpa jhānas

The practice of dhyāna is aided by ānāpānasati, mindfulness of breathing. The Suttapiṭaka and the Agamas describe four stages of rūpa jhāna. Rūpa refers to the material realm, in a neutral stance, as different from the kāma realm (lust, desire) and the arūpa-realm (non-material realm). Each jhāna is characterised by a set of qualities which are present in that jhāna.

  • First dhyāna: the first dhyāna can be entered when one is secluded from sensuality and unskillful qualities, due to withdrawal and right effort. There is pīti (“rapture”) and non-sensual sukha (“pleasure”) as the result of seclusion, while vitarka-vicara (“discursive thought”) continues.
  • Second dhyāna: there is pīti (“rapture”) and non-sensual sukha (“pleasure”) as the result of concentration (samadhi-ji, “born of samadhi”); ekaggata (unification of awareness) free from vitarka-vicara (“discursive thought”); sampasadana (“inner tranquility”).
  • Third dhyāna: upekkhā (equanimous; “affective detachment”), mindful, and alert, and senses pleasure with the body.
  • Fourth dhyāna: upekkhāsatipārisuddhi (purity of equanimity and mindfulness); neither-pleasure-nor-pain. Traditionally, the fourth jhāna is seen as the beginning of attaining psychic powers (abhijñā).

The arūpas

Grouped into the jhāna-scheme are four meditative states referred to in the early texts as arūpas. These are also referred to in commentarial literature as immaterial/formless jhānas (arūpajhānas), also translated as The Formless Dimensions, to be distinguished from the first four jhānas (rūpa jhānas). In the Buddhist canonical texts, the word “jhāna” is never explicitly used to denote them; they are instead referred to as āyatana. However, they are sometimes mentioned in sequence after the first four jhānas (other texts, e.g. MN 121, treat them as a distinct set of attainments) and thus came to be treated by later exegetes as jhānas. The immaterial are related to, or derived from, yogic meditation, while the jhānas proper are related to the cultivation of the mind. The state of complete dwelling in emptiness is reached when the eighth jhāna is transcended.

The four arūpas are:

  • fifth jhāna: infinite space (Pāḷi ākāsānañcāyatana, Skt. ākāśānantyāyatana),
  • sixth jhāna: infinite consciousness (Pāḷi viññāṇañcāyatana, Skt. vijñānānantyāyatana),
  • seventh jhāna: infinite nothingness (Pāḷi ākiñcaññāyatana, Skt. ākiṃcanyāyatana),
  • eighth jhāna: neither perception nor non-perception (Pāḷi nevasaññānāsaññāyatana, Skt. naivasaṃjñānāsaṃjñāyatana).

Although the “Dimension of Nothingness” and the “Dimension of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception” are included in the list of nine jhānas taught by the Buddha they are not included in the Noble Eightfold Path. Noble Truth number eight is sammā samādhi (Right Concentration), and only the first four jhānas are considered “Right Concentration.” If he takes a disciple through all the jhānas, the emphasis is on the “Cessation of Feelings and Perceptions” rather than stopping short at the “Dimension of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception”.

Nirodha-samāpatti

Beyond the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception lies a state called nirodha samāpatti, the “cessation of perception, feelings and consciousness”. Only in commentarial and scholarly literature, this is sometimes called the “ninth jhāna“

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And from Wikipédia

Dhyāna

Dhyāna (sanskrit : ध्यान (devanāgarī) ; pali : झान, romanisation, jhāna ; chinois simplifié : 禅 ; chinois traditionnel : 禪 ; pinyin : chán ; coréen : 선, translit. : seon ; zen (禅) ; vietnamien : thiền ; tibétain : བསམ་གཏན, Wylie : bsam gtan, THL : Samten) est un terme sanskrit qui correspond dans les Yoga Sūtra de Patañjali au septième membre (aṅga) du Yoga. Ce terme désigne des états de concentration cultivés dans l’hindouisme, le bouddhisme, et le jaïnisme. Il est souvent traduit par « absorption », bien qu’étymologiquement il signifie simplement méditation ou contemplation. Le terme méditation est utilisé aujourd’hui comme un mot désignant de nombreuses techniques en occident, il s’apparente à la vigilance en psychologie ou en philosophie. Historiquement et pour le sous-continent indien, dhyana en est le plus proche.

Patañjali, le compilateur des Yoga Sūtra, en fait une étape préliminaire du samādhi. Les deux termes sont interchangés pour désigner ces états de conscience « transcendants ». Par exemple, les traductions Ch’an en chinois, Sŏn en coréeen, Thiền en vietnamien et Zen en japonais sont des noms d’écoles de dhyāna bouddhistes, dérivées les unes des autres, où dhyāna prend ce sens fort de samādhi.

On rencontre plus souvent, en bouddhisme, le terme pāli jhāna, parce que les enseignements qui y sont liés sont plutôt une préoccupation de l’école Theravāda.

Therāvada

Atteindre les jhānas correspond au développement de la tranquillité et de la sagesse (voir Samatha bhavana). On distingue cinq jhānas de la forme ou de la sphère physique pure, et quatre jhanas dans la méditation sur les royaumes immatériels. Anapanasati est la principale technique d’accès aux jhānas, la méditation metta en est une autre. Ces jhānas sont différenciés en fonction des « facteurs » qui les caractérisent :

  • Application initiale (mouvement de l’esprit vers l’objet de méditation) : vitakka ;
  • Application soutenue (saisie de l’objet par l’esprit) : vicāra ;
  • Joie, ravissement : piti ;
  • Bonheur : sukha ;
  • Concentration en un point : ekaggata ;
  • Équanimité : upekkha.

Pour être atteints, les jhānas nécessitent la suppression de cinq empêchements :

  • le désir des sens (kāmacchanda) ;
  • la colère ou l’animosité (vyāpāda) ;
  • la paresse ou la torpeur (thīna-middha) ;
  • l’agitation ou le remords (uddhacca-kukkucca) ;
  • le doute (vicikicchā).

Les cinq jhānas du monde de la forme comportent tous des facteurs différents ; leur nombre est souvent réduit à quatre (en ne tenant pas compte d’un état intermédiaire entre le premier et le deuxième, dépourvu de vitakka, mais avec un reste de vicāra) :

  1. premier dhyâna : vitakka, vicāra, piti, sukha et ekaggata (le monde des cinq sens est complètement transcendé) ;
  2. deuxième dhyâna : piti, sukha et ekaggata (il n’y a plus d’action, de mouvement du mental, sont seulement ressentis la joie et le bonheur).
  3. troisième dhyâna : sukha et ekaggata (seul le bonheur demeure).
  4. quatrième dhyâna : upekkha et ekaggata (pure équanimité, il y a arrêt temporaire de la respiration dans cet état).

Ces deux facteurs, équanimité et concentration, resteront présents dans les 4 jhānas du sans-forme ou non physiques.

Les quatre royaumes immatériels de la méditation sont :

  1. la sphère de l’espace infini
  2. la sphère de la conscience infinie
  3. la sphère du néant
  4. la sphère sans perception et sans non-perception

Circle Game – Merry-go-round

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There’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Joni Mitchell

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This morning I had yet another scan, a CT scan to test MY diagnosis of diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH). This based on my interpretation of a lung CT scan which included data on the spinal column.

“Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) is a type of arthritis that affects tendons and ligaments, mainly around your spine. These bands of tissue can become hardened (calcified) and form growths called bone spurs where they connect to your bones. DISH can also cause bone spurs in your hips, knees, shoulders, feet and hands and harden bones throughout your body. 

DISH, sometimes called Forestier disease, often doesn’t cause symptoms and is usually found when you have an imaging test for another problem. Some people have pain and stiffness in their  back that may get worse over time.” 

The GP has asked the radiologist specifically so we should get a specific answer. It will then be on record and “official” if indeed the formal diagnosis is made.

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This brings to the end a flurry of medical appointments and scans. Perhaps there will be a hiatus. I have a GP appointment late next week to pull threads together. Then I have a urologist “finger” appointment to discuss my elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) level in early August. They may order a biopsy {yippee}, but perhaps we are not there yet.  

I am due a CT cardio angiogram at some stage before the hip operation.

A number of the threads will probably go nowhere, be left with no actions.

Of late I have been wondering, “does modern medicine with its endless testing and so-called preventative measures {like statins} actually make you ill? Is it some weird self-fulfilling prophecy?”

There certainly is tendency to obsess about health engendered thereby. What are my cholesterol levels like today? Have I had too many units of alcohol?  Will I die of health related anxiety or a stress induced hypertensive episode? Is the world getting a tad obsessed by medical metrics?

Buggered if I know…

What it looks like is maybe an autumnal new hip, perhaps followed by a second in early spring assuming I can hack it. Which means in summer ’26 I might have a little less pain and a little more flexibility. I am not expecting much.

Off-compound interaction is likely to remain low and we will have to sell the house to get something smaller and more suitable. The blighty or Brittany question will raise its head. Aside from that I do not see any great shakes. I have emailed a couple of people about dreaming.

In general people are vey busy, they have lots on their plates and I am functionally irrelevant to the wider world. I am an anomaly to the mainstream. No biggie…

A recent dream has pointed at some kind of engagement with mental health. Implicit in this has to be anglophone. I am not sounding a trumpet call of excitement. The world out there is a minefield. If someone can get sacked from their high profile job for a single racist jibe whilst half pissed, it is a strange and disproportionate place. Best to say fuck all then. That is the take home message.

I know that I am largely out of touch with the younger people. I do not have any personal data on how people younger than 40 think, because I have not interacted with any. It looks such a  dangerous minefield out there and it makes me so glad that I am not in my erstwhile role in “pastoral care”.

The dreaming has not dreamed in, any vision of the future. I note that in the year 2015 when I had my colon cancer operation there were precious few dreams. Maybe as I approach surgery later, they will cease in a similar manner.

Maybe the painted ponies have stopped going up and down for a while, a brief respite, while other merry-go-round users climb aboard. Soon the garish music will start anew and the ride will begin again….

The Cubic Centimetre of Chance

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“All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time. The difference between an average man and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this, and one of his tasks is to be alert, deliberately waiting, so that when his cubic centimeter pops out he has the necessary speed, the prowess, to pick it up.”

― Carlos Castaneda

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With this quote who has the chance / opportunity can be down to perspective. Some feel that they may be holding and offering the chance to others unaware that it is they who are in fact missing out. The perception as to who has power may have more than one interpretation. It is not always obvious.

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I have noted elsewhere in this blog that in general I observe that people feel the need to “teach” me. They tend to extrovert and I do not often argue because my assessment is that there is little or no point. Rarely, very rarely, do people inquire.

When we have the chance to profess or the chance to learn, many choose to profess, often from their soap boxes. People like to be heard and sometimes admired. They like to be seen as knowing, expert even. There is kudos therein.

In the common view of the world opportunity is seen for advancement and material success. Applying for and getting a job at a top university, although difficult to achieve, could be seen as seizing the cubic centimetre of chance. Quitting the highfalutin could be seen as the opposite, though it could be the chance to get off the endless hamster wheel of the slippery pole rat race.

It terms of perspective chance differs. What is on offer, what is the opportunity, what is in it for me? Is philosophically opposite to emptiness and not striving. In the respective frameworks one offers material success and social kudos, the other a kind of pared back freedom. Many would struggle to seize such a gap to freedom were it to materialize. They would not like a life so lacking in accoutrement.

Inherent in the cubic centimetre of chance is the 99% rule. The rule states that 99% of people think only of themselves 99% of the time. People caught under the umbrella of this rule are nearly always unaware of the cubic centimetre of chance when it appears fleetingly before them.

Castaneda stresses the need for speed, for quick and decisive action, carpe diem on steroids. Afraid of looking foolish and worried by risk, many throw away cubic centimetre after cubic centimetre. In trying to control every aspect of life they fail to grasp that which might be of most  benefit to them in the long run. The problem is that effort and hard work are often unattractive though nearly always the most fruitful at harvest. Short termism wins out frequently. The gift horse is examined and found dentally wanting, it is wastefully jettisoned. Convenience is often detrimental to evolution. That which is familiar and convenient cannot bring change. This 7/11 choice is the most commonly made, stay the same.

The blinkers of expectation and desired outcome can often hide these cubic centimetres. They do not look like they should or ought according to rigid preconceived ideas. They may not have the fancy clothes of institutional affiliation; their track record or CV may be non-standard. That is why exactly they may be the cubic centimetre of chance. The wrapping is however unacceptable. The potential gift remains unopened.

People are often not very alert and as the saying goes, “Britain needs lerts”.

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Have you ever failed to seize a cubic centimetre of chance offered kindly to you by the universe?

Did you only notice in hindsight?

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Castaneda and Neuroscience

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Prompted by the dream the other day I have been having a little look into neuroscience. It seems that there is much interest in using hallucinogens to {perhaps} help with mental health. There is interest in the crossover between dreams and hallucinogenic activity. This from “Frontiers in Neuroscience”.

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In the books of Castaneda, don Juan introduces him to peyote (lophophora williamsii), jimson weed (datura) and magic mushrooms (psylocibin). Castaneda describes some of his outlandish experiences whilst off his trolly. Castaneda wrote a book on “The Art of Dreaming” which perhaps tacitly lies aback much of the Lucid Dreaming genre. One could suggest that Castaneda had an effect on neuroscience and the psychology of dreams. If you look at the graph below from the above article the similarity of psychoactive experience and dream lucidity is correlated with the don Juan substances of choice. Only LSD outperforms the “natural” substances. Cannabis comes close. {Man}

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When I was ill, I was prescribed the MAOI phenelzine which had no psychoactive effects, as far as I could tell. I had one hypertensive crisis at a business dinner in Japan, something iffy with tryamine in the seaweed. Those Nitrogen atoms look receptor ready…hydrogen bonding to the fore.

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“Phenelzine, sold under the brand name Nardil among others, is a non-selective and irreversible monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI) of the hydrazine family which is primarily used as an antidepressant and anxiolytic to treat depression and anxiety. Along with tranylcypromine and isocarboxazid, phenelzine is one of the few non-selective and irreversible MAOIs still in widespread clinical use.”

I used this for probably one year. It is a MAOI to the right of the graph.

I have had limited exposure to magic mushrooms and LSD, over thirty years ago and I stopped smoking week in 1999.

Obviously if one is doing research, it must seem pukka and thoroughly scientific. I doubt anyone acknowledges Castaneda though some may have read him…

Dreaming during anaesthesia – selected abstracts

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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Dreaming during anaesthesia is defined as any recalled experience (excluding awareness) that occurred between induction of anaesthesia and the first moment of consciousness upon emergence. Dreaming is a commonly-reported side-effect of anaesthesia. The incidence is higher in patients who are interviewed immediately after anaesthesia (≈22%) than in those who are interviewed later (≈6%). A minority of dreams, which include sensory perceptions obtained during anaesthesia, provide evidence of near-miss awareness. These patients may have risk factors for awareness and this type of dreaming may be prevented by depth of anaesthesia monitoring. Most dreaming however, occurs in younger, fitter patients, who have high home dream recall, who receive propofol-based anaesthesia and who emerge rapidly from anaesthesia. Their dreams are usually short and pleasant, are related to work, family and recreation, are not related to inadequate anaesthesia and probably occur during recovery. Dreaming is a common, fascinating, usually pleasant and harmless phenomenon.

Leslie et al.  “Dreaming during anaesthesia in adult patients”

Best Practice & Research Clinical Anaesthesiology

Volume 21, Issue 3, September 2007, Pages 403-414

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BMC Anesthesiol. 2016 Aug 2;16:53. doi: 10.1186/s12871-016-0214-1

“Dreaming under anesthesia: is it a real possiblity? Investigation of the effect of preoperative imagination on the quality of postoperative dream recalls”

Judit Gyulaházi et al.

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“The relationship between different bispectral index and the occurrence of dreams in elective surgery under general anesthesia: protocol for a randomized controlled clinical trial”

Yufei Zhang, Bijia Song & Junchao Zhu

Trials, volume 24, Article number: 205 (2023)

Abstract

Introduction

Dreaming reported after anesthesia remains a poorly understood phenomenon. At present, there is a hypothesis that dreaming occurs intraoperatively and is related to light or inadequate anesthesia; thus, in order to further verify the hypothesis, we choose elective surgery under general anesthesia to observe whether the generation of dreams is related to the dose of general anesthetics maintenance.

Introduction

Dreaming is a familiar and mysterious mode of cognitive function, and we involuntarily return to this mode every night. Dreaming during sleep is defined as “any type of cognitive activity that occurs during sleep” and is “a subjective experience that can only be obtained through the dreamer’s memories after waking up.” Despite more than a century of scientific exploration, dreams continue to arouse the interest of sleep scientists, but they are still not fully understood [1, 2]. Moreover, its rigorous scientific exploration is a recent development, dating back to the discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in the 1950s. When this stage of sleep was first described in humans, researchers quickly noticed that people who awakened from REM sleep often reported dreaming (in 74% of cases, only 17% of non-REM [NREM] sleep). Therefore, dreaming is equivalent to rapid eye movement sleep, and this concept seems to be consistent with the electrophysiological characteristics of this sleep stage: closing the eyeballs under the eyelids, as if the sleeper is watching an animated scene [3, 4]. General anesthesia causes a drug-induced state of unconsciousness and is a non-physiological process that is similar to natural sleep. Its purpose is to create a state of sensory deprivation wherein patients are unresponsive to stimuli and thus leads to explicit amnesia [5]. Dreaming is also a common, long-lasting, and fascinating part of the anesthesia experience, but its cause and timing are still elusive. Patients usually report that they dreamed during anesthesia, but the actual time of dreaming during anesthesia is unknown. Dreaming during anesthesia can be defined as “any experience (excluding awareness) that a patient is able to recall and which he or she thinks occurred between induction of anaesthesia and the first moment of consciousness after anaesthesia” [6]. Patients receiving propofol for general anesthesia often report a higher incidence of dreaming compared with patients maintained with volatile anesthetics [7]. One explanation is that propofol and volatile anesthetics have different pharmacological effects in the central nervous system [8, 9]. Another explanation is that propofol can wake up from anesthesia faster than the volatile anesthetics, allowing patients to report their dreams before they are forgotten [10]. Why is the investigation of dreams during anesthesia important? Dreaming is one of the most common side effects of anesthesia, but it is still puzzling and requires explanation [7, 11]. Dreaming can sometimes make patients feel distressed and may reduce satisfaction with care [12]. Some patients who report dreaming worry that their anesthetic is insufficient; their experience is actually consciousness. At present, there is a hypothesis that dreaming occurs intraoperatively and is related to light or inadequate anesthesia; thus, in order to further verify the hypothesis, we choose elective surgery under general anesthesia to observe whether the generation of dreams is related to the dose of general anesthetics maintenance.

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“Dreaming during gastrointestinal endoscopy under propofol, ciprofol, or remimazolam anesthesia: study protocol for a parallel-design double-blind, single-center trial”

    Le-Qiang Xia et al

Trials, volume 25, Article number: 2 (2024)

Abstract

Background

Dreaming sometimes occurs during sedation. It has been reported that factors such as different anesthetics, depth of anesthesia, age, sex, and preoperative psychological state may affect dreams. Ciprofol and remimazolam are novel choices for painless endoscopy. Herein, we aimed to investigate dreaming during gastrointestinal endoscopy under propofol, ciprofol, and remimazolam anesthesia respectively.

Methods

This is a prospective, parallel-design double-blind, single-center clinical trial. Three hundred and sixty subjects undergoing elective painless gastroscopy, colonoscopy, or gastroenteroscopy will be enrolled. Eligible subjects will undergo propofol-, ciprofol-, or remimazolam-induced anesthesia to finish the examination. Interviews about the modified Brice questionnaire will be conducted in the recovery room. Incidence of dreaming is set as the primary outcome. Secondary outcomes include type of dreams, improvement of sleep quality, evaluation of patients, incidence of insufficient anesthesia, and intraoperative awareness. Safety outcomes are the incidences of hypotension and hypoxia during examination and adverse events during recovery.

Discussion

This study may observe different incidences of dreaming and diverse types of dreams, which might lead to different evaluations to the anesthesia procedure. Based on the coming results, anesthesiologists can make a better medication plan for patients who are going to undergo painless diagnosis and treatment.

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Discussion

In recent years, the amount of painless gastrointestinal endoscopy has been increasing. It was reported that approximately one-fifth to one-quarter of them experienced dreams during painless gastrointestinal endoscopy [5, 19, 20]. Xu et al. [20] observed that among the dreamers, approximately one-third reported pleasant dreams. Studies have demonstrated that the main factors influencing dreams during anesthesia include the kind and dosage of anesthetics, depth of anesthesia, sex, and preoperative psychological pretreatment [4, 5, 20,21,22,23]. Furthermore, Yoshida et al. [24] found that a less than 11 depression score of the HADS was highly correlated with positive dreams.

In the present study, we intended to investigate dreaming during painless gastrointestinal endoscopy under propofol, ciprofol, and remimazolam anesthesia respectively. The primary aim of this study is to analyze the incidence of dreaming in the three groups. Since the duration of examination and recovery is short, we did not choose complicated scales. Instead, we selected the modified Brice questionnaire which has been widely applied by researchers to determine whether there is a dream or intraoperative awareness [3, 25, 26]. For those who have a dream, patients simply need to tell pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent to evaluate the quality of the dreams.

To minimize the mentioned confounding factors, we plan to take some measures. First, we will test the HADS for the patients. In this way, some patients with severe undiagnosed anxiety and depression can be excluded. Second, the Narcotrend index will be monitored for its good consistency between sedation depth and propofol or benzodiazepines [27, 28]. Considering that the stimulus intensity of gastrointestinal endoscopy is relatively mild, sufficient anesthesia is defined as grade C of the Narcotrend index. This is similar to a previous study in which no intraoperative awareness was observed even though quite a few Narcotrand values were above 70 [29].

There are some limitations in the study. On the one hand, we do not prescribe a limit to the category of endoscopy. Gastroenteroscopy is more likely to take more time and drugs than gastroscopy. However, these two factors are not the outcome parameters. On the other hand, we do not administer the anesthetics in a continuous way, which may cause fluctuations in sedation. Since it is difficult for us to predict the duration of endoscopy, continuous administration may lead to explosive suppression of the brain. In addition, this is a single-center trial, and multicenter studies are still needed.

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Anaesthesia Dream Therapy

Link Here

Inside the emerging world of anesthesia “dream therapy”

“The amount of interest is enormous,” says anesthesiologist Boris Heifets. “People are dropping in and coming out of the woodwork, trying to understand how to do this.”

Key Takeaways

  • Anesthesia-induced dreams, once considered random side effects, are being studied for their therapeutic potential.
  • Stanford researchers Harrison Chow and Boris Heifets are exploring how these dreams, which often feature hyper-vivid and structured narratives uncharacteristic of “normal” dreaming, may help ease anxiety and trauma.
  • Big Think contributor Saga Briggs recently visited the Stanford team to explore the origins and future of this emerging field — and the curious parallels between anesthesia dreams and psychedelic experiences.

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American Journal of Psychiatry Volume 181, Issue 6 ,June 01, 2024

Pages 461-564

ARTICLE

“Reduction in Trauma-Related Symptoms After Anesthetic-Induced Intra-Operative Dreaming”

Laura M. Hack, Pilleriin Sikka, Kelly Zhou, Makoto Kawai, Harrison S. Chow and Boris Heifets

To the Editor: While dreaming during anesthesia is common (1), it is not known whether this phenomenon differs from normal dreaming or has post-surgical benefits. We present two cases of female patients who experienced rapid and sustained reduction of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms immediately following anesthetic-based EEG-guided intraoperative dream induction. Both patients underwent surgeries and received propofol/opioid-based anesthetics. Upon finishing the surgery but before emergence, we maintained a pre-emergent anesthetic state characterized by specific frontal cortical activity for several minutes: reduced alpha power and enhanced beta power (2). Based on previous findings showing that dreaming during anesthesia is associated with more high-frequency frontal power before emergence (3) or as compared to connected consciousness (1), we believe this cortical activity reflects dreaming while being sedated. Patients were interviewed immediately upon emergence, and both reported having had vivid dreams.

Both patients were identified as part of a quality-improvement program to enhance recovery after surgery, which includes informing patients of the possibility of dreaming without priming content, minimizing likelihood of emergence agitation through use of intravenous rather than inhalational anesthesia, minimal sensory input during gradual anesthetic emergence (4), and assessment for intraoperative awareness and dreaming immediately on emergence using a modified Brice Questionnaire (5). After identification, both patients provided informed consent for retrospective psychiatric diagnostic interviews. Patients were not identified preoperatively. Anesthetic adjustments, assessment, and diagnostic interviews adhere to established standards of care, received approval from the IRB, or fall under IRB exemption (IRB exempt protocols #54043, #59783, #65538, #67245; informed consent provided on IRB protocol #67399).

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