Entropy in Information Theory and Dreaming

April 2, 2026April 2, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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This from Wikipedia

Entropy { Information Theory}

In information theory, the entropy of a random variable quantifies the average level of uncertainty or information associated with the variable’s potential states or possible outcomes. This measures the expected amount of information needed to describe the state of the variable, considering the distribution of probabilities across all potential states.

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Entropy in information theory is directly analogous to the entropy in statistical thermodynamics. The analogy results when the values of the random variable designate energies of microstates, so Gibbs’s formula for the entropy is formally identical to Shannon’s formula. Entropy has relevance to other areas of mathematics such as combinatorics and machine learning. The definition can be derived from a set of axioms establishing that entropy should be a measure of how informative the average outcome of a variable is. For a continuous random variable, differential entropy is analogous to entropy.

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Introduction

The core idea of information theory is that the “informational value” of a communicated message depends on the degree to which the content of the message is surprising. If a highly likely event occurs, the message carries very little information. On the other hand, if a highly unlikely event occurs, the message is much more informative. For instance, the knowledge that some particular number will not be the winning number of a lottery provides very little information, because any particular chosen number will almost certainly not win. However, knowledge that a particular number will win a lottery has high informational value because it communicates the occurrence of a very low probability event.

The information content, also called the surprisal or self-information, of an event E is a function that increases as the probability of an event p(E) decreases. When p(E) is close to one the surprisal of an event is low, if p(E) is close to zero then the surprisal of an event if it occurs is high.

There is zero surprise when the probability is one.

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Are dreams high entropy?

What happens when p(E) is close to zero?

And do dreams contain information of high informational value?

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On and off over the years I have had “intuitional discomfort” about the notion of quantum superposition states. Is it physics or our description of physics? Are we making an ersatz by making a quantum supposition, a sticking plaster for some deeper physics we do not yet understand. It does look a bit of a hotch-potch.

Quantum physics has a God-like quality which dare not be questioned…

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From Microsoft Quantum

Superposition is a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics, describing the condition in which a quantum system can exist in multiple states or configurations simultaneously. Classical bits can exist in two possible states, typically labeled as “0” and “1”. In contrast, because a qubit is a quantum mechanical system, it can exist in the “0” state, the “1” state, or any state that is a linear combination of 0 and 1.

Mathematically, superposition is a linear combination of “0” and “1” and can be written as:

|ψ⟩ = α|0⟩ + β|1⟩

where |ψ⟩ is the state of the qubit, |0⟩ and |1⟩ are the basis states (or the computational basis states), and α and β are complex numbers called probability amplitudes. The probability amplitudes determine the probability of measuring the qubit in either state when a measurement is made.

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Is the prepared qubit then “natural” or have we imbued it with information which we have decided for it in our labelling. This labelling presupposes no extra physics. A photon might have vertical polarisation, horizontal polarisation or if paired a superposition of both; horizontal and vertical as opposed to horizontal or vertical.

Unless the superposition is somehow aware of our labelling how does it know how we expect it to behave?

If one of a photon pair is measured as horizontal it must communicate that information instantaneously to its erstwhile twin.

Is it physics or information?

A good question.

How much entropy is associated with that information?

If the superposition collapses on measurement then in an idealised physics the probability of the other pair member “knowing” its state is one. It has little informational value as it comes as no surprise.

If eigenfunctions are used to prepare a description of a quantum supposition then they must have a difference in the set of quantum number qualities to be eigenfunctions. They may be energy eigenvalue degenerate in isolation but because of the difference in quantum number that degeneracy must be split, if only slightly under some condition or other, which means that they do not share entirely equal probability on being prepared into a superposition.

The qubit will have a tiny inherent bias.

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I keep getting this sense of discomfort that there is something we are not getting and that we are happy sitting with an intuitionally uncomfortable quantum superposition description…it just seems cobbled together.

It is a bit of a mind fuck…

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Do dreams bring real world information?

If so is it surprising and of high informational value?

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I have just re-read a dream of mine from 2008 in which I see a Breton landscape and am chatting with an extroverted French man who is the spitting image physically and in behaviour of my recent physiotherapist.

Was this information, coincidence or my confirmation bias retro-fitting a dream to a current observable?

If dreams do indeed carry information then the implications of this are high.

I personally will trust what my dreams say about a situation over and above what a human being may or may not assert. If there is good physical evidence I will trust that over dream…

This notion of surprise as being a component of information {new} is interesting. The concept of information entropy in a world of fake news and a verbose Trumpian professor, is appealing.

Information and opinion are not the same. It is possible to speak for a long time without giving any reliable information which comes as no surprise. Were there to be anything new {and reliable} that would be very surprising and information rich.

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Any description or model must occlude at least partially an occult reality of some kind. Because we do not know the true and extensive nature of that reality we can at best describe it. Such a description must be informative and allow a measure of prediction as to the measurable evolution of events in space-time. We should be honest that our description is not ultimate truth. Behind all known physics there is always something occult, unseen and as yet unknown. History teaches us this

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Jut kicking a few ideas around ….

Nothing may come out of it…

Solving a “Problem” or Digging a Karmic Abyss?

April 1, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

There is no way that you can convince the cunning and the clever of the existence of karma nor of its consequences perhaps spanning lifetimes. The cunning imagine that they can always get out of gaol free.

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The only way they can learn is by experiencing the karmic consequence of karma themselves. Karma cannot be taught it must be experienced and hopefully understood.

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It is up to you if you think the above is some hippie-trippy shit or not.

At the moment deep malevolence is being visited upon two countries, Iran and Ukraine. The justification for Iran is that the Israelis in particular do not want them to have nuclear weapons. The Americans have gone along with this reasoning.

What they are in fact teaching is the need for nuclear weapons.

“If we had nuclear weapons they would not bomb the fuck out of us…”

The message is crystal clear. Negotiations with the fickle do not work. A nuclear deterrent might.

I’ll postulate that neither the Israelis nor the Americans are winning friends. They do not care overmuch, they have the big arsenals.

It is just possible that in solving the “problem” of Iranian nuclear weapons they are digging a karmic abyss. A sore which will fester for generations to come. A short term “win” may lead to a never ending grievance and problem.

The cunning may think that decapitation works but it may give rise to a hydra.

There is no way that you can ever convince the cunning and the clever of the error of their ways. It is by definition impossible.

So many people seek a reactionary short cut, an ersatz, a convenient band aid solution which buys apparent time. All they are doing is giving time for the so-called problem to evolve and grow. To use the Boris idea of Whack-a-Mole does not eradicate the cause. It merely deals with visible “symptoms”. If you are cunning you would back yourself to be able to keep whacking moles for ever. Eventually you may have way too many plates spinning in the air. The moles may breed.

Often avoidance digs the karmic abyss ever deeper. In the profound darkness of a karmic abyss you can easily lose sight of what caused the problem in the first place. The tendency when in a hole is foolishly to keep on digging. You are committed to the hole, the “solution”.

If you are on a spiritual journey the normal faulty reasoning of society no longer works. A supposed tempting shortcut is not wise, more often than not it is a temptation. A way of looking better and coming up smelling of roses abnegates responsibility something which is karmically poor. Karma does not care about your apparent kudos, importance or reputation.

Karma is about learning the authenticity of your Soul and aiming to live life thereby.

Quite often problems are made up in the mind and can be delusional. Self-importance and arrogance are core ingredients in many so-called “problems”.

Whenever faced with a quandary or a problem a useful question is:

Am I solving an apparent “problem” or am I digging a karmic abyss?

Quantum Reality and Movie Scripts – Dream Follow Up.

March 13, 2026March 13, 2026 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

What happens in the movies does not always correlate with normal measurable life upon the physical plane.

There is zero chance of me being employed in any research institute for quantum phenomena because I have no track record in this field and have not been institutionalized for the last two decades. I am not affiliated to any august institution or any big cheese. There is nobody who can in honesty act as a current referee for me. The only current publication record I have is a recent UK patent grant on a method for generating entangled photon pairs. The last academic paper in a peer reviewed journal was nearly twenty years ago.

No HR department could sanction employing me. I have clocked the car.

The ideas which are catalogued in the dream post earlier today may stand some measure of scrutiny by someone skilled in the art of quantum physics. It would not be for me to say. Maybe someone might take them and fly with them, they are not patented. It is unlikely anyone in that “field” is reading this blog.

Why do people study science in fields?

The science fiction of a being from outer space, say the Sirius system, landing on earth and writing patent applications in order to go home makes for a good movie. Such a being might not be treated well by society.

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The only way I might envisage getting funded for anything quantum related would be from the technology venture sector or some rich technology bro with whom I would have many big ideological differences. AWS are more likely to deliver a parcel with bathroom paint in it than to try to recruit me for a quantum research centre.

In a movie script I might go cap in hand to venture funders or business “angels.” I would get multiple knock backs until I found someone crazy enough to fund me….Then like Rocky I could get back into my training as a boffinacious boffin. There could even be a memorable theme tune. I could write and solve equations; I could align lasers and play with electronics.

With my memories of the quantum mechanics from the peak of the Atlantean civilisations we could revolutionise the world…

It is unlikely that Samsung are following my blog…

I do have to decide whether to cough up a few hundred quid to renew the patent.

Perhaps the best way to stop getting these “quantum” dreams is simply to let the patent lapse…

There is no motivator for me to explore any of the ideas brought up in dreams. It is not my job. It won’t make me any money…

Maybe the dreams are but a glimpse of an alternate reality, an alternate trajectory which hangs ghost like and un-manifested in the aether. They are perhaps of a path not taken, one of many, which has yet to fade completely insubstantial…

Far out man…

The Nature of Consciousness – Roger Penrose Dream 24-02-2026

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

Here is this morning’s dream had between 4 and 7 AM.

The dream opens with me conversing mind-to-mind or telepathically with another being. We are looking down at a gathering of Tibetan Buddhists, lamas. They are dressed in robes and at the edge of the gathering, very much at arm’s length is Charlie, a nagal’s courier.

I say-think, “unfortunately Charlie is not very bright, not very intelligent. He is not intelligent enough to realise that he lacks intelligence and therefore assumes that he knows correctly a lot more than he does. It is a common problem that people are not sufficiently intelligent to understand their own lack of a well-honed intellect. As a consequence there is adamant assertion without open critical thinking.”

“Yes this is true people assume they know and understand more than they do and can be dogmatic.” Is the reply.

I then look again at the gang or committee of lamas.

“The difficulty with the Tibetans is that they have a vested interest in being the world experts in meditation and consciousness. It is a part of their brand. They may indeed have studied Buddhist texts and the Tibetan canon and may be expert thereupon but their thinking is developed only in one area. They have not a diverse nor modern intellect. They are arrogant and not open to external thinking, they want to incorporate things into their perspective solely. It is not a two way street. They may be intelligent but they do not have a far reaching wide knowledge based intellect incorporating science. In short they are a closed shop and stuck in their ways. They are not approachable in any meaningful way because they must be, in their eyes, the experts. They do not understand that they are insular.”

I go on.

“There is a limit to so-called pure consciousness. It needs grounded and generalised via an expansive and inclusive intellect. The latter word inclusive being of great importance. There is nothing you can do when people do not have the intelligence to understand that their intelligence is limited and closed off. You cannot explain to someone something about which they lack the intelligence to understand or encompass. It is by definition almost, an impossible thing.”

“Yes. Sometimes you can only go so far.”

“There are jhanas, states of consciousness and expansive awareness, past what most of these have ever perceived. There is no way that you can convince an expert.”

The scene changes and I am in a medical / dental consultation in Edinburgh. I am with a man who is slightly older than me, his post doc researcher and a couple of younger graduate students. He is a psychologist – neuroscientist and wearing a white lab coat. He has grey wispy hair and spectacles. His postdoc is Hispanic. She has long very dark hair and is wearing blue jeans and a hoody, hood down. They are making some measurements on my brain using electrodes. I am sat in what looks like a dentist chair.

I am explaining to him that the problem with neuroscientists trying to understand consciousness is that they lack the training in meditative technique. They have no understanding personally of the states they are trying to measure. They are measuring like blind men who have never been there. It is like making a map of a land which they have never set foot upon. The intellectual understanding of consciousness is limited therefore to rational supposition. Only a truly great intellect could “hold” and understand these states without direct personal experience of being “there”. A mind would have to be very versatile and expansive yet well controlled and quiet.

I say that maybe I should talk with Roger Penrose about the nature of consciousness. He perhaps might understand and get the gist. If one verbalizes a state of consciousness well one can “take” another mind “there” at least partially. One can build a “picture” which might be partially shared and imagined.

The guy is initially interested.

I ask him that given he is a psych-neuro would he like to collaborate with me and Roger Penrose on a book? He no longer has to worry about his career as he is essentially emeritus.

He thanks me for the invitation but he does not believe that I can add anything beyond what “they” the neuroscientists already know. He declines. He thinks that I am waffling.

I think that he does not know that he does not know. His intellect will not understand how limited his understanding is nor where his knowledge ends...

I awake; the dream ends.

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.

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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…

Dream Yoga or Milam – Waking Up In The Dream

December 30, 2025 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I’ll kick off with a speculation. This is that many people encounter their own personal room 101 in the dream state and experience that as a scary nightmare.

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This morning I had imagery in the dream state which might have unsettled me. It did not. It is more likely to cause others to metaphorically “shit a brick”. If you are fully aware {and confident} of the fact of dreaming there is no need to fear. This skill can be transferred in to “real” life (IRL). You can face fears in your dreams and thereby realise that most of them are made up and nearly all of them are distinctly out of proportion.

I’ll speculate that dreaming practice can be used to face the illusory quality of many fears.

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Dream yoga or milam (Tibetan: རྨི་ལམ་རྣལ་འབྱོར་, Wylie: rmi lam rnal ‘byor, THL: milam naljor; Sanskrit: स्वप्नदर्शनयोग, svapnadarśanayoga)—the Yoga of the Dream State—is a suite of advanced tantric sadhana of the entwined Mantrayana lineages of Dzogchen (Nyingmapa, Ngagpa, Mahasiddha, Kagyu and Bönpo). Dream yoga consists of tantric processes and techniques within the trance Bardos of Dream and Sleep (Standard Tibetan: mi-lam bardo) Six Dharmas of Naropa. In the tradition of the tantra, the dream yoga method is usually passed on by a qualified teacher to his/her students after necessary initiation. Various Tibetan lamas are unanimous that it is more of a passing of an enlightened experience rather than any textual information.{{In Tibetan Buddhist traditions, dream yoga is often taught alongside the practices of the illusory body (gyulu) and the clear light (ösel). Classical sources such as the Six Dharmas of Naropa describe these as interconnected methods within a single cycle of tantric training, aimed at maintaining awareness across waking, dreaming, and deep sleep states. Contemporary teachers likewise present them as complementary practices: daytime illusory-body training supports lucid dreaming at night, and both practices are considered preparatory for recognizing the luminous nature of mind in clear-light meditation.

The ‘dream body’ and the ‘bardo body’ have been identified with the ‘vision body’ (Tibetan: yid lus):

In the bardo one has…the yilü (Wylie: yid lus), the vision body (yid, consciousness; lus, body). It is the same as the body of dreams, the mind body.

In the yoga of dreaming (rmi lam, *svapna), the yogi learns to remain aware during the states of dreaming (i.e. to lucid dream) and uses this skill to practice yoga in the dream

Bon

Mi-lam, also known as dream yoga in the Tibetan tradition, is a method for remaining aware during the dream state in order to realize the emptiness of dreams & apply this realization to both dreams & waking life. In Bön, dream yoga is part of Dzogchen teaching, which stresses the clear light nature of the mind, while inducing lucid dreaming and conscious transcending of dream imagery.

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Excerpted from Wikipedia

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The Six Dharmas of Nāropa (Wylie: na ro’i chos drug, Skt. ṣaḍdharma, “Naro’s six doctrines” or “six teachings”) are a set of advanced Tibetan Buddhist tantric practices compiled by the Indian mahasiddhas Tilopa and Nāropa (1016–1100 CE) and passed on to the Tibetan translator-yogi Marpa Lotsawa (c. 1012).

Another name for the six Dharmas is “the oral instruction transmission for achieving liberation in the bardo,” or “the Bardo Trang-dol system”. Bardo here, refers to the three bardos of waking, sleep and dying. They are also referred to as “the path of means” (thabs lam) in Kagyu literature. They are also sometimes called the Six Yogas of Nāropa (though not in the traditional literature which never uses the term ṣaḍaṅga-yoga or sbyor-drug)

Lineage

The teachings of Tilopa (988–1069 CE) are the earliest known work on the six dharmas. He received these from various teachers. According to Glenn Mullin, Tilopa’s lineage teachers were the mahasiddhas Nagarjuna (not to be confused with the Madhyamaka philosopher), Lawapa, Luipada, Shavari, and Krishnacharya. Furthermore, the sources for this compilation of tantric practices were said to be the Guhyasamaja Tantra, the Hevajra Tantra and the Chaturpitha Tantra.

Nāropa learned the six dharmas from Tilopa. Nāropa’s student Marpa taught the Tibetan Milarepa, renowned for his yogic skills. Milarepa in turn taught Gampopa, who wrote various meditation manuals (khrid chos or khrid yig) on the six dharmas, which are collected in the Dakpö Kambum (The Manifold Sayings of Dakpo) in a section titled “Meditation manuals on the six dharmas of Naropa” (na ro ‘i chos drug gi khrid yig). From Gampopa these teachings were passed on to the various Kagyu sub-schools and lineages where they remain a central practice.

Excerpted from Wikipedia

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I’ll speculate that it is possible to consider me reasonably skilled at dream yoga and without doubt, prolific at it.

A recent dream excerpt suggested familiarity with Naropa.

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“The scene changes to some kind of school / dharma centre. There are a number of children playing there and they are under supervision. There is a teaching hierarchy and embedded method. I arrive with a couple of people and go through to look at the day book which records what happens. It is clear that I am there to teach more than just the children. I sit in the “staff room” and add a few elements to the book, specifically my dream about the Snow Tiger. A woman teases me that I will need to use shorthand and not full text. The centre is up in the mountains and has a great view over the valley below. I open up the blinds some more to look out. They are all wondering what it is that I will do.

I am joined by a tall woman with long blonde hair. She has a faint American accent and is heavily pregnant. I ask her how long she has got left. Not long. I say that she could have it on the 30^th of August and have the same birthday as me. That way the kid will always be a bank holiday baby. She asks what it is that I am interested in. I say that I have an idea around Naropa and that I am well placed to speak on Naropa. In my orb are some things related. For some reason I have a distinct sense of familiarity with the woman. The young man from before will be joining us as some kind of understudy to me.”

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In the context solely of dreaming I am perhaps well placed to speak upon such things. It is clear to me that the so-called “spiritual” dream yogas may have little to do with the psychological approach to REM based studies and Western {psycho} interpretation. The aim of yoga being liberation and not having a groovy far-out time {man}. Nor is it about getting research papers published. An instrument based upon electromagnetism is not necessarily well-suited to the study of consciousness phenomena.

The basis {and goal} of dream yoga can be said to be waking up in the dream. That is waking up to that fact that you dream both at night and during the day. The “reality” in which you propagate your life is a largely social-political mental construct replete with wildly swinging emotions. What you think is real is illusion. That fear of missing out, is just some shit you made up. Yet somehow you place importance on something made up. Hence the endless cycle of rebirth.

If you can be lucid in your dreams at night, it follows that you have experimental evidence that you can be lucid in your dreams during the day. IRL…

If you know you are dreaming then you are less attached, less obsessed and a tad more free. To be aware and passive during dreaming is to observe in a detached manner. One can in this sense be mindfully aware of the dream as it evolves, reel to reel, on the inner screen. Thus one can transfer an operational observational mindfulness onto the apparent events and happenstance of the day. One has a clear mind, a clear light. One sees the folly of the day to day; one has to interact but can do so without obsession. After all it is only a dream. You have to live. You do not have to be so utterly beholden to what you imagine to be happening.

Dreaming loosens obsession and reduces the gripping clinging interpretations made of concrete mind. Things are less polarised, less black and white and adamant.

Dreaming above all opens mind to new perspectives and knowledge. It is never by way of what I call portcullis-mind.

If you can wake up in the dream at night, you can and must wake up during the day…

That is the inner logic of dreaming.

Karma Quotes

December 28, 2025 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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Like gravity, karma is so basic we often don’t even notice it.

Sakyong Mipham

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I want revenge, but I don’t want to screw up my karma.

Susane Colasanti

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You cannot control the results, only your actions.

Allan Lokos

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How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

Wayne W. Dyer

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Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

Eckhart Tolle

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If you’re really a mean person you’re going to come back as a fly and eat poop.

Kurt Cobain

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Even chance meetings are the result of karma… Things in life are fated by our previous lives. That even in the smallest events there’s no such thing as coincidence.

Haruki Murakami

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Is Fate getting what you deserve, or deserving what you get?

Jodi Picoult

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Dear Karma, I really hate you right now, you made your point.

Ottilie Weber

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Strange things conspire when one tries to cheat fate.

Rick Riordan

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I guess one of the ways that karma works is that it finds out what you are most afraid of and then makes that happen eventually.

Cheech Marin

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Karma, when properly understood, is just the mechanics through which consciousness manifests.

Deepak Chopra

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There’s a natural law of karma that vindictive people, who go out of their way to hurt others, will end up broke and alone.

Sylvester Stallone

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To go from mortal to Buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.

Bodhidharma

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I am what we call a ‘karma yogi’ in Sanskrit. A karma yogi is somebody who believes in data. I collect a lot of data.

N. R. Narayana Murthy

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Whether or not we believe in survival of consciousness after death, reincarnation, and karma, it has very serious implications for our behavior.

Stanislav Grof

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With some things, karma is good enough. Lessons come back in different ways, you know what I mean?

Big Narstie

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Being vegan just gives you such great karma.

Alicia Silverstone

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As long as karma exists, the world changes. There will always be karma to be taken care of.

Nina Hagen

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Archaic Deity – Archaic Iconography…

December 15, 2025December 15, 2025 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Many depictions of deity are a tad dated. They arose in times when the power of kings and emperors was quasi absolute. The iconography has “radioactive” halos around sainted beings, chariots, swords and thrones. There are arguments about who stands or sits around the throne and on which side various beings are to be found. There are crowns and often a patrilineal succession of power. Humanity obsesses about organisational flow charts of the heavens and in the past who had career advancement amongst the Gods depended upon level of obedience and sycophancy. The celestial “human” resources department had severance packages to negotiate.

Fear of God put bums on seats and pennies on the collection plate.

These days the power of kings is much diminished. We don’t drive roman chariots all that much. The machete has replaced the short sword. The Heckler and Koch automatic has replaced the spear. The ultimate symbol of mundane power is a ginormous nuclear powered aircraft carrier equipped with stealth bombers. Thrones are old hat.

In constructing a deity and a pecking order of them, whether that be of Gods and angels or Buddhas and bodhisattvas, the notions are related to the mundane order of things. The iconography perhaps an aid for the illiterate. In many cases the “clergy” asserted power over flock and encouraged supplication therefrom. The “clergy” encouraged a notion that they were higher, perhaps better and more revered than the lay. The churches and temples extracted wealth and called it meritorious. It might help your journey in the afterlife to fund the claret of a bishop. It was a good pitch. People can read and think now.

I am not sure older notions of Gods and Buddhas wash as well these days. Despite what fragrances Unilever might add. Subscription to religious providers it probably falling all over the world.

There is a glaring difference in iconography between the seated tranquil garden statue Buddha and the tortured crucified Christ bleeding from his crown of thorns. This despite much similarity in their teachings. Man has emphasised the suffering of Jesus over his peaceful message. It prefers to show images of internecine cruelty and suffering rather than brotherly love. In our time there is much need both for tranquillity and for love.

Religious iconography is very often chavvy and overly ornate. It is showy and “look at me”.

“We have shit loads of gold! We the clergy must be powerful! Kneel pleb!”

Modern military power does not lend itself to very personal, even familial iconography. There is no big hearted daddy on the throne. Rather a couple of old men, fingers above a red button, ready to embody Shiva the destroyer aspect of deity. It is not an image of fatherly love. It is one of pendant wrath and nuclear winter.

Notions of deity need updating in a manner more suitable for modern mind, modern living. And no I do not mean a Marvel escapist universe. The sublime needs divorced from the family drama and the incestuous and the Machiavellian.

Spirit and consciousness needs to evolve away from the zoomorphic whilst retaining the feelings and value. A new form of understanding might spring from where we find ourselves now, so very obsessed with corporeal image and public relations spin-bullshit. Petabytes of images are quite a quagmire for the minds of mankind.

Yup…I think the old forms of iconography and depictions of deity are looking rather dated and may no longer be fit for purpose.

We may even need a thorough review of what we imagine deity and/or a God to be.

I wonder how might we imagine and create a God 2.0 ?

Following the footsteps of a rag doll dance…

December 1, 2025December 1, 2025 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Not all cultural references are directly transferable some are “time of life” and others are “time of man” related. I personally view myself as being on the conservative side in that outwardly I am not outlandish. It always used to amuse me how the “goths” had less of an idea of the shadows than I did.

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But Siouxsie et al. were definitely a part to the soundtrack of my life.

In the “A Discovery of Witches” TV series the notion of the main protagonist being spellbound has come to the fore. In which her parents cast a spell which both hid and prevented the usage of her powers. She was literally bound by spell or spell bound. The narrative suggests that this practice was usually reserved for insane witches and that it was a harsh thing to do, to prevent the person from living to their full potential, to inhibit and otherwise hinder them. The back story is that the “creatures” are forced to hide from the discriminatory humans and their notions of normality. Humans are depicted as prejudiced. The story also has “time-walker” as a top echelon witchcraft skill. A lot of the plot revolves around “powers” of a magical and special kind. Power ever being the motivator for political intrigue, shenanigan and skullduggery. Somehow Diana is able to summon an old text which may or may not hold the secret(s).

In physics a lot of stock is made upon observables and making an observation. If one in any way makes an observation one changes the system. For example if one “observes” a photon using a detector that photon changes the energy state of an electron. The photon ceases to be. The energy has been transformed from one thing to another. At a very local and very tiny level every act of observation changes the system. Science rhetoric is less explicit as to the nature of interpretation and subsequent assimilation caused by the observation, the act of observation. One could say that the observation of a “handful” of particles in a science experiment can have a truly dramatic and wide ranging impact because of interpretation and assimilation to or with a previously held thought form or model. I might infer that a photon is the witness to an act of proton transfer. My observation hints at a physical process. Any observation changes the system and it cannot be undone. If I talk about it down the pub that handful of photons triggers synapses and a train of thought heads off on whichever trajectories.

I have always had a few problems with the notion of time travel because of observation. It is impossible to travel back in time without altering its forward propagation. Although pleasant as an artistic and entertaining notion it is philosophically tricky. {Ok there may be some time reversal events at sub atomic levels that I am unaware of but these may be mathematical legerdemain}. In terms of karma time travel is also problematic.

In my mind it raises an interesting thought line. “Does reminiscence alter the past or merely our recollection and narrative assimilation thereof?” We do not travel back in time to the acts of perception but how we retell what we “remember” does change our futures because our basis for world interpretation has altered if only slightly.

If for example you held a view that I was a complete bastard and you hated my guts, then any future interaction would be coloured by this framing. If on reminiscing you decided I was only a partial bastard then you have already changed the future. Your change of mind changes the future(s).

Time-walking may be seen as a reinterpretation of events previously observed. Bearing in mind that the apparatus of observation must of course be error prone and never 100% accurate. Not all instruments are sensitive nor well calibrated. We do not actually go back in “physical” time rather review our mental registers of how we have constructed the time evolving narratives. We could re-consider, re-view and possibly re-perceive. Much like an astronomer may apply correction factors to space telescope raw data. There is some “algorithm” which enables (perhaps) a more reliable assimilation. We may refuse to apply said algorithm because we are stuck in our ways and like to cling to old perceptions, prejudices and world views.

The quantum mechanics of a 75kg lump of wet proteins and fats going backwards {or forwards} in time do not seem plausible. Perception and “mind” however are clearly much less physically tangible. In a sense these may be able to travel along what might be called time-registers. In the absence of matter time has no meaning. In a sense time as it is measured is a property of matter (vibration or time to travel between spatial coordinates). How we currently measure time is by the observation of photons in a fancy physics rig.

To extrapolate wildly by measuring time we are changing our futures.

Expansion of Consciousness and Letting Go

November 15, 2025November 15, 2025 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Before I get into this I will take a little diversion. It is to do with karmic “debt” which is another way of simply saying imbalance. If you take more than you give that is unbalanced and ultimately unsustainable. If we “wrong” someone we may feel guilty especially if we are socially caught in so doing, found out, reported to teacher. We may be socially required to say “sorry” even if we do not mean it. It does not change the “wrong” one iota. It is the sort of thing our mothers might require of us if we stole our sister’s Maltesers. It is a social “peace” keeping. It does not change the karma one tiny bit. Until such time we feel it in our hearts to be wrong, we will continue to accrue karmic debt from similar acts. Were the scales to fall from our eyes one fine day we might want to change our ways. We might re-orient our behaviour towards our fellow human beings, try to stop being selfish bellends and do some nice self-less stuff for a change. We would not do this for “show” or PR. Karma does not give a toss about PR. We can never undo a wrong we have meted out to someone nor can we “make it up to them”. What we can do is ensure that we do not inflict that behaviour on others.

Say for example you were to slag me off. You could never undo that. What you could do is make a general effort not to repeat this behaviour, not to inflict it on others. You could strive to be generally more positive and less derogatory. You could balance out your unpleasantness by being more pleasant generally. In so doing you would start to balance your books with the universe. There is no requirement to do anything in respect of me, rather a more general debt to the universe. I personally am unlikely to feel aggrieved or owed. So to try to make it up to me would be silly and probably disingenuous.

Here we have an example of a consciousness expanded away from the petty and personal to the wider and universal. At the moment it seems Trump takes everything personally and vindictively so. His focus is centered on him and does not have a wider universal view. It is all about his personality and his sense of self. He feels hard done by a lot of the time and is prone to playing angry victim.

This sense of victimhood is shared by vast tracts of humanity; they bemoan that life is unfair and complain that things are not as they should be. They imagine life a burden forced upon them. They try to have life on their own terms. If they don’t like how they look they will pay a plastic surgeon to surgically disfigure them. Their consciousness is not expanded beyond their perception of how the meat looks. They are fixated on something arguably silly.

In the blue books opus the Tibetan discusses initiation as a sequential expansion of consciousness, here diagrammatically represented.

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In the diagram, the scale is reconfigured at the end of each open cone. The diameters represent the breadth of consciousness and width of inclusiveness. Each successive cone is an order of magnitude increase in breadth of consciousness. The scale is perhaps logarithmic.

According to the text the consciousness of a fifth degree initiate differs very markedly from your normal common or garden human. What might concern them is not the same as the house home heart wallet and genitals of normal people. Normal people worry about a host of mundane things which in the wider evolutionary scheme do not matter very much. Your much sought after promotion in job is of no consequence in terms of your spiritual evolution.

If you think of a snake as it grows and evolves it has a tendency to shed its skin so that it, no longer constrained, can grow. A similar view can be had here. As a person evolves the ways and thought patterns of the old life must be shed. Let go of. So that a newer nascent consciousness can expand unburdened by the habits {bad} of the past. The fresh new skin does not need the scaly old ways to constrain it. This letting go can mean relationships which drag you down or they can simply need recalibrating. Old habits die hard and these are the detritus that needs letting go of.

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Being obsessed with little trite details can prevent the expansion of consciousness. One needs to move from the petty and personal to more universal and joined up. To recognise there is but one life to which we all pertain.

To the would be initiate expansion of consciousness and spiritual evolution are the only goals of merit. They seek to rise above the mundane and not remain trapped in the mire which is often petty and of a deeply personal nature.

Letting go is vital in order to enable expansion of consciousness. Mental skin, rigid self-image must be shed again and again.

You cannot expand your consciousness by keeping the same view of the world you currently have. It acts as barrier to evolution, a ghetto wall which keeps you constrained.

Letting go is a truly vital component to the expansion of consciousness. Letting go vivifies.

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