Gedankenexperiment – Quantum Telepathy or Quantum Telekinesis

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In the background I have been mulling over whether to attempt to draft a patent application concerning quantum telepathy as it might be applied to the current groovy quantum area. This morning between a sleep and waking a question appeared to mind, “Quantum Telepathy or Quantum Telekinesis?”

I’ll make an initial comment.

It is safe for me to publicly publish my speculations on-line because in no way can they detrimentally harm any career of mine at some august institution into which I might have been sectioned under the mental health act. I am free to make a fool or an arse of myself because it cannot negatively impact on tenure or promotion.

There has been a lot of interest in things called parapsychology among the public if not academia. Taboos remain. The notions of telepathy and telekinesis have not yet been proven extant, though they are found throughout culture and in some cases religion. We have Professor Charles Xavier and the X-men, we have spoon benders. In Buddhism we have Abhijñā or higher powers.

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Abhijñā

In the Pali Canon, the higher knowledges are often enumerated in a group of six or of three types of knowledge.

The six types of higher knowledges (chalabhiññā) are:

  • “Higher powers” (iddhi-vidhā), such as walking on water and through walls;
  • “Divine ear” (dibba-sota), that is, clairaudience;
  • “Mind-penetrating knowledge” (ceto-pariya-ñāṇa), that is, telepathy;
  • “Remember one’s former abodes” (pubbe-nivāsanussati), causal memory, that is, recalling one’s own past lives;
  • “Divine eye” (dibba-cakkhu), that is, knowing others’ karmic destinations; and,
  • “Extinction of mental intoxicants” (āsavakkhaya), upon which arahantship follows.

From Wikipedia

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Your common or garden scientist is unlikely to have much credulity for these, though the script writer might. There have been experiments to test extra sensory perception using inter alia Zener cards.

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I don’t know about you, but these images a very boring, I could have used the F word in participle here. Who in their right mind would be excited to transmit or receive these? Not me, YAWN.

If you were to construct an experiment on telekinesis without Magneto you might want to start with the tiniest measurable change, something with a vanishing mass something like 1×10−18 eV/c2. In other words photons. If the mind can move anything or change anything then photons are a good starter for ten. They move quick but don’t weigh much.

In the field of quantum technology one branch pertains to spontaneous parametric down conversion. In this a single photon is “destroyed” “annihilated” and two daughter photons are “created”. Momentum of all types ought to be conserved. Under low light level conditions these daughter photons can be created in a quantum superposition state. Where their polarisation is a mix of horizontal and vertical polarisation, that is until said state in measured. If you measure one photon to have vertical polarisation then the other must have horizontal polarisation. The quantum superposition state collapses. The two photons somehow have information about the state of each other. This transfer of information is a faster than  speed of light thing. One photon says on measurement, “hey, I am vertical” and telepathically the other photon knows “I am horizontal.” The photons have a mind of their own and unless they are really clever, they do not know how we label them or describe them.  They do not care what we think or how we describe.

The photons could, to stretch things, be said to be in telepathic rapport with each other.

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At the single photon level the notion of polarisation is a bit tricky. Polarisation is a wave-like, multiphoton, phenomenon.  It describes how a bunch of photons pass through a selective physical device. There is a bit of magic between the descriptions of single photons and the more bulk properties, perhaps a grey area of science in the statistics of low particle count number. A single photon may fail to pass through a polarisation gate which means that its twin photon is allowed to go through, to get past the bouncers and into the night club. If the first photon is not on the guest list, its twin must be.

The physics when carried out over many events predicts well the number of horizontal and vertical photons. The detection of a horizontally polarised photon accurately predicts the arrival in time, and hence path length, of its erstwhile conjoined twin. The first observation operation separates the conjoined twins. One can accurately time bin polarisation heralded photons.

We now have a candidate scenario for a parapsychology experiment which has a miniscule change in terms of mass {momentum} and a binary change in terms of information.

If one was to try to influence the weighting of the quantum superposition state, the entangled state, in the equation above one could perturb the normal statistically verifiable distribution. In the equation above the horizontal and vertical are given equal weighting, 50:50 not ‘phone a friend.

By telepathy one might read and perhaps alter the information, by telekinesis one might rotate the polarisation sate weighting in the entangled pair. Conferring a more horizontal bias to one of the conjoined pair. It would be semantic if it is information or property which is altered.

To meditate  in a dark room with lasers is not to everyone’s taste. It was once to mine, the so-called Zen of laser alignment. It is a good, isolated environment for experimentation.

I think I might have the bones of an experiment which offers more likelihood of success than trying to mind-to-mind boring cards.

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Is America Worth All That Hassle and Unpleasantness?

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In the series “Pine Gap” which we are currently watching the relationship between the USA and Australia is strained. In real life the AUKUS pact and the sale of US nuclear submarines by the arch deal breaker, in under review. {What is in it for us?} Time and again deals are broken and pulled out of. In the series Australia is considering a deal of neutrality with China.

In real life America continues to behave like a teenage bully in the locker-hallways of a high school, gesticulating, boasting and making threats. There are insults and defamations thrown at so-called allies.

America is very hard work as a so-called “friend”. There is so much hassle. It is such a drag and is not a mutually uplifting relationship. Do you really need friends like that, who are such a downer, a whinger, a pain in the ass? Who are so unpleasant?

USA continues to fund the obliteration of Gaza; the American ordnance has killed tens of thousands. It pretends to be a peace maker when it provides petrol for the fire which inflames, maims and destroys. It has thrown tens of billions of dollars at the defence of Ukraine.

If Ukraine has taught anything, it is that Russian conventional forces need not be feared. Yet the propaganda suggests that it is Putin who is the bogeyman, Vlad the Impaler. Iraq and Afghanistan are swept under the carpet. Butter from genetically modified cows fed on pesticide rich feed does not melt in our mouths. We are the land of the Free, the home of the Brave. Here we, armed to the teeth, kick the living shit out of anyone who dares to disagree. We are so brave with our reaper drones and F35s. A level playing field is not for us heroes.

I can understand why popularity need not concern the powerful but endless coercion does never strengthen alliances. Belittling allies does not make them strong or willing. I can understand why Western Europe is the past. I can see that technology rich South Korea and Japan are refusing to procreate enough. This is good news for China. I can see that a few bombs on TSMC in Taiwan could severely disrupt the semiconductor and AI band wagons. The new  FABS in the USA won’t come on line anytime soon. I can see Huawei competing effectively around the world. The embargo has stimulated home-grown creativity. I can see the Maoist cultural revolution against the Intellectuals and Free Press in the USA now in full swing.

If America loses its technological advantage post purge, what then? Will the hordes of the unvaccinated survive?

There are a few more years to go of the Trump presidency. What I have no sight of is what a post Trumpian USA might look like, this especially if he changes the constitution to allow himself  another term. It might be a USA unrecognisable.

Is it really worth all that hassle to deal with and partially rely on the USA. How reliable are the whim prone? Patience has to be wearing thin.

The New Age  – Early and Prepared

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This morning’s Guardian has an interview with Jamie Lee Curtis. In that she is quoted thus:

“I’m always early,” says the actor, deadpan. “Or as my elder daughter refers to me, ‘aggressively early’.”

Jamie Lee Curtis

People who are poorly prepared and struggle to keep to a schedule can see others as being aggressively early. They may resent preparation hoping to wing it through the chaos and quagmire together, make shit up on the fly. They don’t like it if you are very well prepared. Curtis says she likes to get there early, get the job done and leave among the first. No need to dilly-dally for a chit-chat and mutual BS session afterwards.

The notion of THE New Age has been around for a while and there has been a lot of idealism about how that might be. In esoteric terms the Kurukshetra will be the fifth ray of concrete {reinforced with steel bars} mind. The outgoing sixth ray is idealism and devotion, where polarisation among and between ideologies is stark. The incoming ray is synthesis or ceremonial order. This is the ray par excellence of organisation whereby something perhaps a being , a society , a company is organised into life in an ordered way. It is not hippy-trippy peace and love pass the spliff man, nor is it slice off your cock and dress like a woman. The Ronseal word is new and not same old, same old.

If you look, we can see that the three world powers are all heading towards some version of state protected totalitarian capitalism. China and America are not as unlike as propaganda may have us believe. They are converging these days.

There are idealised versions of what a new teacher, a new spiritual leader might look like. They are often predicted beautiful and portrayed glowing. That aura stuff is old hat. Do you really need vegetarianism, the lotus position and flowing wavy hair. Must you do the single pointed cart-wheeling octopus yoga position on your mat in Phuket dressed in your fashionable pink yoga pants? Any ”saviour” might not be as expected.

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Before dawn there is always darkness and there is a saying that it is always darkest just before the dawn, this is not optically true. Metaphorically perhaps it is. There are people who are morning people who awake alert and ready, there are somnambulant hibernating bears who cannot move without a litre of IV expresso.  

Those of a morning disposition prepare the way, cut off the unnecessary burdens and pare to the bone, they pre-pare. There are those who are the prow of the ship who bear the brunt. A truly seventh ray individual would differ markedly, be all about entrepreneurship and organisation. Out of the cauldron of inspiration they would be forever trying to synthesise something new. By human nature and its conservatism, there would be abortion after abortion after abortion. Explorations would go nowhere. There would be dead end after dead end. Pearls would fall among swine. The new would be always and in all ways resisted by the old. Those forerunners would at least dent the concrete structures made hard and fast by reinforced concrete mind. On the Kurukshetra the new would face its enemy the status quo, again and again and again without even asking why.

The keepers of knowledge and education would be the most resistant to and against the ageless wisdom, lest it challenge their intellectual deity and threaten salary. The wagons would circle and the Winchester rifles be loaded.

My own feeling is that humanity is heading towards a dark patch, a deepening stain, a bloody smear. One in which the facts of climate change are negated for profit until the shit really hits the fan. A wake up call of truly massive proportions is incoming. What may rise from the ashes and flood waters is yet to be seen.

Already some of the factors are here. Artificial intelligence is not intelligence; AI driven weaponry may be lethal and preserve the lives of the aggressors using it. But death is death. Each day humanity stares into the pixel master in its hands and pockets, salivating Pavlovian for an incoming beep. Hype and propaganda power are once again more important than truth or fact. Goebbels would smile at the mutating hydra he unleashed.

Often those who see things early are derided and ostracised. 20:20 hindsight is not much use to them in the crematorium. It seems though that this is the way it is and perhaps always will be.

Some people will be early, perhaps too early and they will leave early too.

Stalking Referees and Provenance

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In this day and age it is common to Google someone, almost by instinct. Type their name in and see what the font of all wisdom returns. This is not generally considered stalking though it might be a gateway drug. My name is common and unless you use other key words you won’t find me. I don’t have a LinkedIn, nor any institutionalized affiliation. There is information on ResearchGate, Google Scholar and various Patent listings. It could be said that I have low or spare online presence. My CV is not there. Yet here is a blog of ~350,000 words which might speak more. It is however unverified. Nobody can vouch for it.

There might be a desire to check up on me. What might you do? Well you could contact people at my last proper employer, near two decades ago, to see if there was anyone left alive there who might. have heard of me or vaguely remember me. You could ask me for a referee who might vouch for me and the provenance of whatever knowledge I might have. To which lineage does it belong? Who were / are my teachers?

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My inability to satisfactorily comply would probably downgrade any perception that you might have of me and what I write. The likelihood of me being ignored would be enhanced because nobody can vouch for me, as I am now. There is nobody aside from the wife who could realistically and accurately comment on how I am now. There would be no comforting “blah” from another human to make you feel more secure in / with me. There would be no trail no curriculum.

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This means that because the way the world is now, I am unemployable. There is nobody who could give me a reference. I have zero recent track record. My last “A” level student science tutees were 2017.

If you checked up on me you might not find much overt of use. Of course the security services could view my banking  details, ‘phone and internet use. Because of the sparsity that might even look suspicious in this day and age. Any agent would have a concocted narrative, a plausible cover story, which might bear scrutiny.  But sweet Fanny Adams? Nah, that would stick out too much.

The safest logical conclusion is that I am irrelevant and unimportant. I am a socially disconnected loner who is not “well liked” in the community. Before long I am likely to appear in the news for some unspecified heinous act, to confirm the confirmation biases about people like me held by the socially “well” adjusted.

I do have medical records. Some of which I technically wrote myself by providing the French GP with a list of stuff that has happened. There are medical records in the UK. Now I have dental X-rays so if I went missing and wound up dead, I could be identified by my dental records as the plot line goes.

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When you check up on someone, what is the motive for that?

If you struggle to contain the desire to stalk someone, are you prepared for what you might find?

Why might it be important to have the opinion of some other being, knowing full well that all humans are biased, prejudiced and have agendas to pursue?

Does everything in the world have to have a traceable provenance?

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The Introvert Switch Off

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It is not uncommon for an introvert to remain silent when someone is talking AT them. They can wait until the other person stops talking eyeing the door just to get out of there. They have long since stopped listening to and processing whatever the other person is saying. All they hear is “blah, blah, blah” all they think is “how can I get out of here.” Very often the person with verbal diarrhoea may be completely unaware of the introvert switch off. They may even interpret the lack of argument as agreement and support. The person they are talking at has completely disengaged. The person talking may even imagine that they have had a good chat and an exchange of ideas. The introvert is looking to get the hell out of there and will probably avoid any future contact unless they absolutely have to. There has been a huge miscommunication.

On “First Dates” last night there was a classic example of introvert switch off and complete disengagement in a 1:1 dating scenario. People have got to seriously lack self-awareness and any hint of empathy to/for others if they fail to see an obvious switch off. They may continue to rabbit. They may be lost in their own little world, oblivious.

There may be social elements too. It seems to me that people like to discuss things in France. Some kind of discussion is anticipated and expected. I do not often need any form of discussion to come to my own conclusions or ideas. I tend to research. People used to discussion may anticipate someone talking over them in disagreement, which in my book is rude. They may expect an ebb and flow of conversation. When there is none, it can confuse.  In my case if I want to understand spoken French I have to concentrate. If for example the wife and I are talking with someone and they start to speak to the wife. I switch off because it is not for me, I do not have to engage with whatever it is that is being said. People may be unaware assuming that I am still participating in conversation when I have already opted out. They may assume they are talking with both of us, I have switched off.

I have recall of a large number of conversations mostly in English when someone has said something which is wrong and which I disagree with. I have not felt the urge to verbalise. There has been no “push back “ from me. I have no idea what the other person has made of it. It is not my problem. I have a few anecdotes when some have reported me saying something when I have said nothing. The mind can do weird things. The lack of negation may have been seen as affirmation. It wasn’t. I was bored and disengaged. I was hoping for the “conversation” to finish quickly.

I suspect that there are a quite a few introverts out there who recognise some of the above. There may be quite a few extroverts who are completely unaware of the introvert switch off. After all the sound of their voice is magnificent and the world benefits enormously from their erudite opining.

Candle Vigil – Koyaanisqatsi – Jaguar Shaman – Strange Group Dream 25-07-2025

~ quantumdreamer ~ 1 Comment

Here is last night’s dream, strangely out of context with our current life and way of living.

The dream starts in South America on the mainland, perhaps Western Caribbean, on the connective peninsula. I am walking along a path cleared into the jungle at dusk / early night. I come upon a sunken built structure which has downward going stepped stone seating, a bit like a Greek theatre

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The construction is totally circular and the “stage” area is of the same grey stone at the rest of the amphitheatre. The construction is ancient South American, Maya or Aztec or some such. The radius is about 50 metres and there are at least half a dozen seating rows. It seems very familiar to me. On each step / seat is spaced a circle of lit candles in tumbler size glasses of various shapes and colours. There are hundreds of them. On the stage there are concentric circles of similar candles around a central circle empty void. The candles flicker lightly in the wind. I know this place to be a reliquary of living souls, each candle a spark of life. They have gathered to meditate on the state of the world. Against the darkened backdrop of the surrounding noisy night time jungle, here is a sanctuary.

The scene changes and I start to see scenes like from the film Koyaanisqatsi where rushing images of “normal” hectic life with its chaos and destruction are playing out on a “screen” in the mind’s eye. I hear chanting of Koyaanisqatsi over and over in a deep low voice as per the film. I know beyond any doubt that the world is badly out of balance, out of whack and out of kilter. The madness of the human “dream” is in full flow, justified to itself and thoroughly destructive. Unaware and largely uncaring. Caught up in a ceaseless rhythm of hectic.

The scene changes and I am now in a large open native kayak. There are two boats. We are paddling along the shore past jungle and two large settlements. It could be the sea or it could be a wide part of the Amazon River. We are around twenty metres from the “beach” and the jungle behind. I know we are being tracked and I catch sight of a magnificent jaguar easily keeping pace with our boats, jogging slowly in the forest. She is watching and observing. I can feel her muscles and see through her eyes. She is a totem of THE jaguar shaman, a spirit of the jungle, free and untrammelled. I see back through time to a ritual in a clearing of the jungle where I am enacting the convergence of the jaguar shaman. I have a jaguar pelt on my shoulders. As I enact I become and am the jaguar.

The scene changes to an urban setting; there are a group of people seeking to join or affirm their membership in a wider group. People have been accepted but must now make their public telephone call with their “mentor”. The sense of people wanting to be a part of is strong. I see one black man roughly my age make his call which we can all hear. In that the mentor slowly gets him to submit verbally. I think that this is coercive. Others make their call to belong to the “wonderful” organisation. The do decamps to a large pub near Hampstead Heath. People are queuing out of the door to buy their drinks. The black man is there and his mentor is going to buy him a drink, in a wait your turn fashion. I walk straight up to the bar and buy two pints of beer from one of the bar staff who know me well. I usher to the black man to join me in the beer garden. He follows and I explain that this has been cult like behaviour and he had better get the out sharpish.

The scene changes and the images of and sounds of Koyaanisqatsi close out the dream in a repetitive sequence.

The dream ends.

Hello Langley!

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

–

Sister Gwyneth Pritchard

from Abergavenny

says they don’t wire tap

NHS hospitals

well at least, not that many

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Like her colleague

nurse Blodwen Jones

she doubts that

they are interested

in my mobile phones

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The firewall here is intact

says my friend Fireman Sam

they don’t hide mikes

nor fisheye cameras

on that woman, with the pram

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And when I meet on Monday

with the well-known august Dr Brain

he says that Mossad

are not here for me

they camp in the grounds, just to train

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The FSB have now long since left

says the man in the bed next

they know he knows

all their codes

as he has sent them to Putin, in a text

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Still, we count everyday

the visitor’s umbrella stand

just to be certain

and be sure

for strange isotopes, might be at hand

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And when the server goes down

it is just a gremlin not the Kremlin

the CIA and FBI

do not listen

to the words we send

it is of course, all pretend

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Sister Gwyneth Pritchard

from Abergavenny

says they don’t wire tap

NHS hospitals

well at least, not that many

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Ah but what about the Alien horde?

They can’t wait, to get me aboard

my organs are precious

can’t you see?

They want to experiment on me

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Hush now baby don’t you fret

and don’t you worry

tonight, we have a chicken curry

and before the lights go out

we can watch the X-Factor show

and even Langley will never know.

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The Uncanny Ability of Being Ignored

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Before I get into this. I have had a nagging question of late. Why are there so many people called Pam in the USA?

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Last night we started to watch a TV series called “Pine Gap” about an American led listening post / command and control centre for satellites and drone strikes near a town like Alice, Alice Springs in Northern Territory Australia. The said base exists in real life and you can find it on Google maps using satellite view. Alice is about 1200km by road from Mount Isa where I lived as a child. The scenery was a partial motivator for starting the series.

What the hell would the locals in Alice make of a bunch of septics and septic spooks to boot?

In the dramatization they listen in to mobile ‘phone conversations and monitor internet traffic. The notion of an all seeing NSA / CIA Palantir is invoked. People may be crunching meta data to point at internet traffic of interest.

The implication is that someone could be monitoring this blog. Though they would probably die of boredom. On a whim some dude could fire a drone attack through my office window. But I suspect that they would struggle with a cost benefit analysis.

I have noted that I have developed an uncanny ability at being ignored. People can discount what I say, ignore it. It is really noticeable with Jean-Jacques and Marie-Claire. They just talk at high speed in French. I say nothing and they don’t even notice. As a consequence we have just received a quote which does not match what we were seeking. It is weird being talked at. I tend to switch off. People don’t notice.

Over the years I have made quite a few inquiries of people, professionals, in the “scientific” dreaming community. Almost without exception they have been ignored. Were, I still institutionalized it might have been a different story. Sat where I am, with my knowledge, they have missed a huge opportunity, from my point of view. But of course I will never fit into a rigidly defined funded programme. I am ignored and not crucial to the furtherance of their {current} agendas. No biggie.

I did not for one moment expect to be listened to or taken seriously.

I also approached various people with my quantum optics ideas. Again I was very largely ignored.

It is my supposition that my increasing handicap with walking makes it even easier to ignore me. I am not only a “grey” but according to the rules and metrics, an obese man, who limps. This renders me not only easy to ignore but almost invisible.

I have a kind of camouflage in which I am not seen, not noted and am ignored. I am not taken into consideration.

This means that I could do all sorts of stuff under the radar, if I were arsed so to do. No bugger would cotton on.

The other weird thing I get is the notion that from time to time people are waiting for me to make a move. They will probably be waiting for a long, long time.

How can people ignore me yet wait for me to make a move at the same time?

Life is odd … people make some weird shit up in their minds…

Iridium this morning was a bit odd…

Radiation – Dying Inside – Iridium – Radiant Dream 24-07-2025

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Here is last night’s dream, a night when I made it all the way through to 5:20 AM without being woken  by my body’s grumbles.

The dream starts in a shop / storage unit which is choc-a-block with scientific instrumentation of various ages and types. They are piled high  and it is difficult to walk down the aisles without tripping over some cable or other. There is a man in a light brown linen overall behind a service desk there. He is in charge of the store. He encourages me to explore and offers me an extension lead distribution box with four UK plug sockets. I can test any instrument that I want.

I find what looks like a seismograph with several needles and data tracks. There is some chart paper in it. I go to plug it in and the paper advance works. I lower one of the data write ink heads. At first there is no line drawn but then the pen starts to work and the needle moves back and forth a little with the channel noise. There is ink. The signal level starts to decrease and decay. In the dream I know this to be a toxic radiation within the heart of someone I thought I knew. I was acquainted with this person but we have not spoken for around twenty years. Something in his heart is decaying and eating him up from the inside. The radiation in his heart is slowly deadly and his inner beingness is dying and decaying because of it. He kind of knows it but is unwilling to do anything about it.

I continue my walk around the store and set off a radiation detector tube. It has some residual power. I take the detector and power supply to the front desk and plug it in. The radiation detector goes off at a high count rate. The man says that I am radioactive and that is why people don’t want anything to do with me. I literally glow and radiate. They do not understand that this is good, light, radiation. He says that it is because of a special isotope of Iridium which I have in me. This isotope was a part of an interstellar meteorite which I found as a young boy. I was out walking in the desert-bush and came upon the Iridium rock. I touched it and incorporated the Iridium. Ever since I have had a radiant radioactivity. I am made of stardust – interstellar Iridium. People are afraid of my radiance.

In my mind’s eye in the dream. I see a young boy finding a small shiny “rock” in a red-brown earthy cupped palm shaped depression in the land. He is wearing a light blue-white checked sleeveless shirt and dark navy-blue shorts. His socks are pulled up to the knee. He picks the rock up and examines it. I know that he too will incorporate the irradiance. As he starts to incorporate, I put my hand on his shoulder and say to him that he is not alone.

I am now back in the shop. The man behind the counter shows me a radiation trace of me versus time. The radiation instead of decaying over time is in fact growing. I am becoming ever more radiant.

The dream ends.

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From Wikipedia

Iridium is a chemical element; it has the symbol Ir and atomic number 77. This very hard, brittle, silvery-white transition metal of the platinum group, is considered the second-densest naturally occurring metal (after osmium) with a density of 22.56 g/cm3 (0.815 lb/cu in) as defined by experimental X-ray crystallography. 191Ir and 193Ir are the only two naturally occurring isotopes of iridium, as well as the only stable isotopes; the latter is the more abundant. It is one of the most corrosion-resistant metals, even at temperatures as high as 2,000 °C (3,630 °F).

Iridium was discovered in 1803 in the acid-insoluble residues of platinum ores by the English chemist Smithson Tennant. The name iridium, derived from the Greek word iris (rainbow), refers to the various colors of its compounds. Iridium is one of the rarest elements in Earth’s crust, with an estimated annual production of only 6,800 kilograms (15,000 lb) in 2023.

The dominant uses of iridium are the metal itself and its alloys, as in high-performance spark plugs, crucibles for recrystallization of semiconductors at high temperatures, and electrodes for the production of chlorine in the chloralkali process. Important compounds of iridium are chlorides and iodides in industrial catalysis. Iridium is a component of some OLEDs.

Iridium is found in meteorites in much higher abundance than in the Earth’s crust. For this reason, the unusually high abundance of iridium in the clay layer at the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary gave rise to the Alvarez hypothesis that the impact of a massive extraterrestrial object caused the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs and many other species 66 million years ago, now known to be produced by the impact that formed the Chicxulub crater. Similarly, an iridium anomaly in core samples from the Pacific Ocean suggested the Eltanin impact of about 2.5 million years ago.

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