British Science Academia

I’ll preface this with a comment. There is a tendency in some circles to believe the opinion of someone simply because they hold positions of power {and presumed responsibility?}. This tendency is unwarranted. It is like asking Trump or RJK for a medical opinion and expecting an answer which does not come from some geezer they met down the golf club. What they say is the sort of thing that people gob off to each other about but has no scientific or factual basis. People do gob off to each other a lot.

This dream comes not long before we head back to France.

The dream starts. I am observing some kind of grouping of people / task force / inquiry asking around about me. They are asking various figures in English academia about me and trusting the answers they are getting. They speak to one let’s call him prof T. He is “senior” and perhaps known to government. T is suggesting that I am after power, positional power and influence. He is worried in case I somehow and mightily weirdly challenge his power base. Way back I remember that he considered me some kind of political threat in an academic context. He was out to undermine me. People are listening to him and buying the narrative that I am seeking power. In the dream I think that they are Garry Glitter- my gang – numpties. Nobody has any current knowledge of me and at best what they say is old, back from when they were trying to make it. They are in a weird time warp. It is an English power trip maya-illusion.

The scene changes and I am in some kind of academic setting. They want me to give a presentation on my Ph.D. thesis to an audience and in front of a panel “gang” of academics. They are behaving like a boy’s club and having low degree mutual pissing up the wall point scoring banter. I have not prepared; it is a long time ago but start to present some of the work from my thesis on hydrogen bonded molecular clusters. The idea being that under certain circumstance we might enable gas phase proton transfer in a system tractable for study at ab initio quantum chemical levels. I quickly get into my stride and thought pattern As the talk progresses, they interject to show their cleverness. They are pre-emptive because the next steps in the talk answer the questions. They are trying to show off and put me down, in my place. I decide that this is silly so add a comedic part to my delivery which the audience enjoys and engages with. They are being pompous. I finish my talk. The audience are jocular and enjoying the comedy

Someone else is going into the room to present. I wish him luck. I note that he has not taken his overhead projector marker pens.

As I come to, I am reminded of how clubby and cliquey things can be, how those in the club think they “know” but are very mistaken in their jocular chumminess. Back slapping is not wisdom. ….plus ça change

The dream ends…

Last night I was wearing the apparatus to measure the sleep-state with a view to investigating sleep apnoea. The wrist based device was held in place with some medical elastic gauze as was a pulse oximeter on my left index finger. I had a nasal cannula and two microphones stuck to my chest. It was a warm night. I consciously avoided doing any meditative practice whilst wearing the gizmo. I sometimes do this meditation if I wake up during the night and am a tad bored.

On and off during the night and whilst asleep I was consciously aware of the gizmo attached to my body, in particular the spring on the oximeter was clamping down on my finger. I had the vision of ET with his illuminated finger from time to time. The thought form, “ ’phone home, ‘phone home” amusingly popped into mind. A bit like a Rick Astley song.

I started to get strong visual images of various members of British Science Academia with whom I have had past interactions. None of these physical plane interactions were more recent than a decade. There were “chemists” from Imperial College London, Oxford University and Durham University. Some of the Oxford people were from way-way back pertaining to the molecular spectroscopy community I once interacted with in the last century. There were some from the van der Waals crowd.

Next, I was at some kind of camp in the woods with undergraduate students in wooden chalets. One of whom was very concerned about a patent she had in Germany. I gathered the students around all of whom had invested in her. I said we will call the European Patent Office in Munich the next morning. In the meantime I would take them out for a fire-pit and shamanic drumming in the woods. I picked up my shaman’s drum and we set off.

The scene returns to British Academia. There are now very senior figures only a few of whom I have ever met. I know of them vaguely. There are those in power, VCs and the like. Some are in the quantum area of expertise and there are some from the generation preceding me who must me in their 80s or thereabouts.

There is a sense of much toing and froing, of discussions behind the scene with some handwringing and indecisiveness. There is a sense of gossip and debate about what if anything to do.

The pace of the dream snippets and their interchange is hectic and breathless. It is far from rest full. I am aware during this sequence of the gizmo in my nose, on my finger and stuck to my chest.

I wake up around 6 AM for a loo break.

Back now in the dream and with the students. They are in the chalets with me and warning me that the academy does not like me doing drumming on courses for students and that my motives are very misinterpreted. My helping of the young woman with the patent is mis-construed as a sexual relationship because we appear too close, friendly and not distant enough. The students say that I am being judged. We gather together and start to call the patent office with the land line phone on speaker. I know that the call and the dream is being monitored by technical experts at MI6. They are highly technical and have methods of surveillance of which I am unaware.

In the dream I wonder how this whole shebang is going to be recorded on the medical device.

I wake up and the dream ends. I am keen to remove the micropore tape holding the gizmo as quicky as possible.

Tag: British Science Academia

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