Train Journeys – Freak Show – Dream 18-05-2025

Here is this morning’s dream which I had difficulty naming. To note – travel tends to interrupt the dreaming, and we are not long back from Jersey. Trains re-present a socially conditioned state of awareness in that you are complied by the tracks.

The dream starts on a very long French train with a modern looking white/grey aerodynamic locomotive. The train is extensive. We are stopped in the middle of the countryside for no apparent reason. There is no station or level crossing. Just to the side of the tracks and underneath it there is a municipal child’s playground, fenced off at the edge of a camping ground. A road leads via a tunnel under the tracks which are on an embankment.

Several children are playing in the park. They are accompanied by a man wearing a Freddy Krueger style hat and striped Denis the Menace red and black jumper. He also has a white formed facial mask. The wife goes down to investigate and play with the children. The man is rude to her in French and leads the children off. I can see that he has a large, near machete style knife dangling from his belt.

The wife comes back to the train mildly upset. I say what did you expect from the look of him with that horror mask. As she does this, looking upset, I take from my pocket a white tissue in which is the point of the blade from the man’s knife. I have broken it off at a distance and it has shattered into my tissue. I have disarmed him. I throw the contents of my tissue into a rubbish bin, and it makes a metallic clatter.

We then proceed towards the baggage handling car. The train is now moving towards Caen – Ouistreham a destination which we did not book, nor do we have a need to be there. In the baggage car there is a conveyor belt, like baggage reclaim in an airport. A couple, a woman and her husband, start to talk with us in English. They are not “all there” and are making no sense. They split up and head to opposite ends of the train.

Next a being walks into the car. It is a tall female with long dark hair roughly our age dressed in a long green dress. Out of her stomach protrudes the head and shoulders of a balding middle-aged man with a partial comb over. His complexion is ruddy. She is looking one way and he the other. She starts talking to us and he gesticulates with arms that are now visible. They look conjoined and not really of this world. We look on and they exit. We can see that there is a large vintage bustle to her dress as she leaves. The wife and I turn to each other and think/know the words “freak show”.

There is now an officious woman belonging to the train company who insists that we must book through her to get the best deal. I say to her that this is exactly what we tried and have ended up being on entirely the wrong train. The next time we will book through an online broker. She is insistent that we MUST book through her. I think to myself that she has no idea and there is no way I will use her again.

The train pulls up and we exit it. Our mobile home / truck is sat at a weighbridge before boarding. A man is heading at speed with a key to try to unlock a locker behind the driver’s cab. I know that he cannot possibly unlock it but that nevertheless I must beat him to the locker because it is extraordinarily dangerous for him to even try to unlock what he does not know, to open something he does not understand. He is in very deep peril especially if he gets there before me. I hasten to the mobile home and taking a key on the end of a chain around the neck, I insert it into the lock just as the man approaches. He looks disheartened. I do not turn the key simply stand there warding off. Under no circumstance should he try.

Next, I am at a country crossroads in which there is a level crossing barrier across railway tracks. The “road” is dusty and without tarmac. Several of us are stood at the barrier. A train is being pulled by a royal blue steam locomotive it approaches and passes. It is pulling high class vintage pullman carriages with people in period costume inside. The steam train is magnificent. I did not know they had such things still. The train passes and people lift the barrier manually. We are clearly in rural India. There are people with large cattle like animals now crossing the tracks.

I pick up a stick on the end of which Dick Wittington style is a piece of cloth containing my belongings and clothes. I am bare-footed and wearing loose blue cotton trousers. My feet are tanned and accustomed to walking bare foot. I start to walk along the tracks standing on the wooden cross boards. Two young Indian men are whispering. They are going to follow me and attempt to rob me. I know this. They are conspiring. They do not know how long or how fast I can walk. I say to them, “If you want to try to rob me, please feel free to try!”

The dream ends.

Senior Tutor – Waifs & Strays – Great Compassion Dream 13-05-2025

Here is this morning’s dream. I have often thought of my stint as Senior Tutor as a karmic payback caused by my own days of depression and misery.

The dream starts on a dreary wet grey council estate multistorey housing facility. There are runway balconies connecting the apartments. This is grey and tatty. There is a smell of piss and there are graffiti tags. The feel, the air, is of decay and danger. It is in South London, the rough side of Brixton. I am approaching a red door. There is music and a whiff of skunk cannabis.

I knock on the door and ring the bell. There is some talk inside, someone goes to the net curtain and checks through the window. The music goes off and a young white American man answers the door. He has blonde skanky corn-row dreadlocks. He is both surprised to see me and not surprised at all.

I explain to him that I have come looking for him because he has been cutting classes and not turning up for lab work. I ask if I can come in. He is reticent to let me in. I explain that it is ultra-unlikely that I will be shocked by what I see. I have been to drug dens before, and I will not judge him for a few spliffs.

He lets me in, and we sit in a scruffy lounge area where there is “party” debris. He ushers to his flat mate to leave us alone. I ask him what the problem is. He says that he has some debts and has to earn a little money on the side. He is into some gang related problems. I say that if he wants, I can come to talk with his gang contact. He does not think I can hack it. I explain that I have talked with gang bangers before. They do not scare me.

I say that he needs to find some way of balancing his work at university and his gang activity. He needs to stay off the class A drugs. I suggest that he comes back to college and tapers off his involvement in selling drugs. Otherwise, I will come and talk to the gang. He realizes that I am serious.

The scene changes and I am in an office, my office. It is in a university hall of residence, and I am tutor / warden there. It is late in the evening. There is a knock on the door and a young woman is there. She has been crying. I let her in. She says that the American man from before has suggested that she talks with me. She is highly suspicious and on edge. I invite her in and have her sit in my living room. I say to here that it is my job to look after the lost and the wayward. I have seen most of it. There are few surprises. I deal with boy girl problems, coming out issues, parent problems, depression, hyperactivity. I can advise on finances, condom coming off type problems. I can refer to health services. I deal with handicap and disability. Sometimes I just listen for a while. I can change her tutors if they are being arseholes. As a Buddhist I am well placed to discuss faith from all perspectives and am non-judgemental and widely read. I can hear “confession” if there is something she wants off her chest. Try me I say. I will see if/how I can help. I pass her a box of tissues to dry her eyes. I say that I am not an ogre. She smiles.

A while later in the morning I have another knock on my door. It is a young man a dwarf with achondroplasia.  I let him in. Now I am wearing maroon monk’s robes with a yellow under vest. It is my job to “simply love them” to offer my great compassion. I usher him in, and he plops onto the soda. I ask him about his general health and how his dwarfism may be hindering his studies. He says that he has some thyroid problems which are handled medically and that from time to time the arthritis is his hips plays up. I say that if he runs out, he can have some of my hip arthritis pain killers. I joke that we should go dancing. He says that the girl from before, has by word of mouth, suggested that he talk with me. I ask him how I may help. He says that he needs to get some height aids and a reaching device for high shelves. I say that I will sort it. He has been in trouble with the warden for being drunk and disorderly. I remind him that because of his low body mass he should not try to drink pint for pint with the other students. I will tell the warden he has been to see me.  I say that my door is always open. He notices my rosary on my left hand which is made out of antique yellow-amber beads. I explain to him that I am not easily shocked and am not prone to judgement. He wishes me a good day and leaves.

Next, I am in the corridor outside my flat and another young male student approaches me. He taps me on the shoulder and asks if we can have a word. We go to sit in a coffee bar. He is agitated and keeps glancing over his shoulder. He says that he is in deep trouble. I ask in what way and what his name is. He is sat on a sofa, and I am sat cross legged on the carpet of the coffee shop. He says that he does not want to give me his real name. He gives me his passport name. The one he uses. He is Eastern European / Russian. I ask him to tell me is real name. Anayin, or something like that. He writes it in Cyrillic for me. I know this to be the name of an exiled Russian mafia boss. He is having problems with immigration and the Home Office. His father has a security services protected identity. He says that the officials are being shirty with him. I suggest that for his next meeting I come with him. I can show them my University Identity card and confirm that his application and attendance at university is all in order. He is doing well in his studies. I say that my manner of dress can have interesting effects on uppity officials. It wrong foots them. He agrees and we will keep his familial identity between us. He says that the girl who came to see me before is his girlfriend and that the morning after pill has worked according to her recent self-pregnancy test. I suggest that he needs to be more careful because the last thing that either of them needs right now is a baby. The studies are hard enough. I punch him playfully on the arm.

The dream ends…

Turnpike Inn – Ghost – Hitech – Pink Tablets Dreams – 12-05-2025.

Here are last night’s dreams.

The first dream starts in a 18th century style horse drawn carriage. It is closed and very much like an Adam Ant video. We are heading north to Edinburgh. There is a couple who are well off, myself and my helper / lieutenant. I am dressed casually in white blouson and with my long grey hair tied back in a pony tail. It is getting towards dusk. We will be staying at a large turnpike inn just inside the borders.

We pull up in front of the inn and the horsemen steady the horses and let them drink. We dismount and I am greeted by the landlord who has been waiting for me. He has a lantern and is accompanied by his wife. He has a Scottish brogue. The otherwise bustling turnpike inn is fairly deserted. He has called me north to investigate. There have been a series of haunting /poltergeist like happenings which have scared his customers.

He leads me into the bar and we have a drink out of pewter cups. It is some kind of port. He asks me how I want to proceed. He then comes with me upstairs into a wood panelled suite with a large four poster style bed and a dressing room with commode. He says that this is where most of the “action” is. He puts a lantern, the port bottle and a pewter cup on the table. He backs out nervously.

I know this physical body from before. I pull my pony tail gently. I introduce myself to who/whatever is there. I take a cushion off the bed and put it on the floor next to the wall. I sit there with the cup full by my side. I am getting ready to wait. I can see my pantaloons, the tops of my stockings and my brown leather riding boots.

I say out loud, “Don’t be afraid because I am not. If you wish to materialise, please feel free. I will just sit here. What troubles you, what ails you? I am happy to discus and help put your mind at rest.”

I reach over and blow out the lantern and sit quietly adjusting to the darkness. In the night I can start to see. I note the semblance of fog-like patterns forming. I start to get a very strong sense of camaraderie as if someone/thing has sat opposite me on the floor. It is the ghost. He is now relaxed. We just sit and share each other’s company. He has no need to talk. We just feel.

This segment ends. This more towards dawn.

The next segment starts in a very brightly lit hospital environment. I am on a hospital bed which is raised for me to sit up. In the corner of the room is the large doughnut of an unspecified high-tech scanner. A male nurse is taking a cannula out of my arm through which I have had contrast agent. I know that it is a CT scanner. The nurse is chatting away.

A young girl who is in a wheelchair comes in. She manoeuvres towards my bed curious of me and what is going on. She has a nasal oxygen supply and is wearing a hospital gown. She is hairless and smiling with me. Her parents come in and call her name, Abby. They come over to us and say hi to me.

A female doctor in a white coat comes in with a small retinue of medical students. She hands me a blister of large bright Rhodamine-pink tablets each about the size of the end of my little finger. She gives me a small bottle of medicine. She hands several blisters of pink tablets to the girl’s parents. Her tablets are the size of the end of my thumb. I joke with her that the doctor has mistaken her for a horse or an elephant. She says that she is used to these tablets. I know that these tablets are very high dose steroids. They are on clinical trial. We both have to take them.

The dream ends.

Monk’s Robes – Toilets – Seminar Dream 09-05-2025

Here is this morning’s dream.

The dream starts in my chambers. They are wooden panelled and there is not a great deal of light. It is not long after dawn and I am getting dressed in my monk’s robes. I am being helped by my assistant, a young relatively novice monk. He is fussing over me. The robes which I am putting on are of Himalayan-Tibetan colour with a yellowish undervest. I am putting them on left-handed in that it is my left shoulder which is relatively bare. I am left-handed. I sit on a chair and the young monk helps me to put on some grey part woollen socks to go with my open toed synthetic walking sandals. He helps me stand up because I am very stiff and slow moving in the morning.

We go to the communal wash facilities in which there are showers and toilets. I use the toilet and come back to the line of washbasins in front of a mirror to wash my face and clean my teeth. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche is there as a younger man maybe around forty years of age. He is smiling. He notes how the novice and I play fight a little. He jokes that he has seen quite enough of our kung fu and that we should be serious. I say that it is not a good idea to always be so dour. Something which all of us find hysterically funny.

Today I am going to give a seminar at a London university. As I approach the lecture halls / seminar block I come upon an open office scenario with cubicles for side offices. Throughout the office, on slightly raised pedestals, are isolated “Armitage Shanks” style WC toilets without cisterns. They are antique with wooden seats and lids. Several of my erstwhile colleagues from decades ago are in the office. They do not seem to notice the more than half a dozen toilets. They are fixtures. I go into one of the side offices and someone is sat upon the “throne” mid dump. I apologise and back out.

I move down the corridor and into the seminar rooms / lecture theatre. There are more Buddhist monks with me now one of whom is quite senior and bespectacled. I go into the seminar room and pick up an overhead projector which I take to the lecture desk at the front. I comment than in addition to computer slides I sometimes like to scribble.

The senior monk stands up and says that it is important not to try to take notes as handouts will be given. He says that it is particularly important to note whatever it is that Rinpoche writes down by hand. I am holding a marker pen in my left hand as he speaks. The monk says that Rinpoche’s annotations are key-like and important.

A young female member of the audience who knew me from before as a senior tutor asks me why I am wearing robes. I say that I have not yet been fully ordained and that these are by way of an experiment to see how people respond to me during the course of this three days long seminar. I say that tomorrow I might wear a business suit or sports gear.

I say to her that ordination is a bit like semantics. I am very aligned with Buddhist thinking and don’t really need a “certificate”. I say the difference between vegetarianism and a plant-based diet is also semantic. If you eat a fully plant-based diet as a vegan you are already a vegetarian and don’t need to prove your veggie status. Whereas some veggies are insistent about the virtue of their diet, a true vegan just does. Deeds are more important than words.

The dream ends.

My Five Buddhist Incarnations – Dreaming

In around 2003 whilst living in London and working as a lecturer in Physical Chemistry at Imperial College in London I started having waking visions of myself dressed as a Buddhist monk / priest. These visions overlaid normal day to day reality and I was able to lecture to a theatre full of ~one hundred students on chemical reaction kinetics or in smaller groups, chemical applications of group theory, whilst these visions were resident. They persisted on the crowded Victoria Line tube trains. I had repeat visions of om mane padme hum tattooed in Sanskrit on my inner forearms. Accompanying these images was/is the sensation of tattoo. These visions lasted on and on for over a year.

I did not mention this to anyone because I thought it would not go down well in the Chemistry department. I thought human resources might not appreciate this and occupational health might be consulted.

I however was pretty sure that this was past life recall.

Obviously, it is impossible to prove scientifically, that any past life recall is real. At best there can be what the courts call, circumstantial evidence. Dreaming comprises some of this kind of evidence.

In 2009 I had a series of visionary telepathic conversations, early in the morning, walking in the woods near Tring with the master Djwhal Kuhl. He told me of five of my previous lives, two of which were Buddhist. He said that I had been a very close disciple of Siddartha.

The dream yesterday has added Nāgārjuna to the list of possible life-candidates.

Irrespective of accuracy or otherwise the theme of scholasticism and scholar runs through all the/my putative incarnations as does the theme of entrepreneurship. I am “on” the second ray, of the Elephant dreaming class and conditioned by love-wisdom, the teaching ray.

One dream suggests that I was Bakula a close disciple of Siddartha who came late to the path after a scholarly life.

Yesterday’s dream suggests some six hundred years later Nāgārjuna. Who was a “founder” of Mahayana and may have taught at Nalanda university.

Another dream has pointed at a saffron trousered Muay Thai trained Burmese / Thai incarnation, a monk/priest/protector.

Then there is dreaming evidence of a Japanese Vajrayana monk incarnation, with poetry.

{The feeling for me is that I also had a Japanese Zen life but no dreams as yet}.

The next two lives were not substantially Buddhist.

Of late there has been increasing “evidence” for a 20th century incarnation as a Tibetan Buddhist. So far there is no evidence of a named individual. If it was a sequential birth then they need to have died before or in early 1964. If it is a shared emanation then there is no strict constraint of time frame.

It is not for me beyond the realms of possibility that I have had five {six} incarnations with a dominant Buddhist flavour and of a non lay orientation.

It is not going to detrimentally affect my career prospects to write about this here and now.

I can just be some crazy eccentric old git living like a quasi-hermit.

“Look at the twp boy over by there…”

.

Dream Follow Up – Nāgārjuna

The first obvious thing to note is that the dream from this morning contrasts significantly with the one about semiconductor clean rooms the day previous.

Nāgārjuna is a highly significant figure in the development of Buddhist thought. He has an entry in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.

Nāgārjuna

There are numerous scholarly articles on him and he is represented often on water

Here he has a seven snake halo/aura, is on water and with lotuses.

At Samye Ling of the Karma Kagyu in Scotland he is like this, protected by the Nāgāraja king cobra.

Our pond looks like this and in a few weeks, we will again have full flower.

Given that we watched Helen Fry on Motorways, an episode of Annika and 24 hours in A&E on the TV last night, there is no obvious “reason” as to why I should be dreaming of a named Buddhist from ~ two thousand years ago.

In my putative chronology of incarnations there is a gap around Zero AD.

The mantram associated with the heart sutra:

gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā

Gone gone, gone beyond, gone beyond the beyond, hail the great awakening.

I once had a blog called “aum parasmagate”

——————–

It is a little strange and for sure this is the first time explicit mention of Nāgārjuna has occurred in my dreams.

The wife asked, “what do you do with dreams like that?”

There is nobody to tell about them. I can put them up on the blog and make a mental note. That is about it.

Lightning Tree – Rainbow – Karmapa – I Ching – Windhorses – Nagarjuna Dream – 05-05-2025

Here is this morning’s dream / vision.

The dream starts with a view of a large, gnarled tree with many visible roots. The tree is effectively dead with no foliage or growth. I know it to be a bodhi tree which has been struck by lightning.

The tree is in the middle of a temple / monastery courtyard. It is in a square shaped flowerbed sectioned off with stones. The courtyard is very foot worn. Around the edge is a quasi-covered walk way on all four sides. There is one entrance and one exit corridor. The feel is very Tibetan / Himalayan. This tree has lain dormant ever since it was struck by lightning, by a thunderbolt, dorje. There is sun on the tree and despite its state it is tended and looked after.

This morning a young novice monk to whom the job has fallen is weeding and watering the tree. He notices significant new growth which has appeared overnight. There is growth on some of the roots and higher up in the tree. That growth has been caused by me and my arrival on the planet. The young monk is very excited and runs to find someone to tell. Soon there are a few monks there looking and chattering excitedly. They look up to the sky and to the South they can see a rainbow just below the clouds. The rainbow is feint but persistent. There is much excitement, which increases.

I wake up for a loo break it is 4:30 AM.

In between sleep and wake, I become very aware of the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa in my full visual and mental field. It is as if we are some how joined twinned or connected. The feeling is guttural. They have started some kind of pre-dawn / dawn ritual in honour of the Parinirvana of Siddhartha. They are in a planetary sense to the East of me. There is chanting and those awful horns. I can hear and feel the ritual as if I am there in the hall with them. The visual image of the 17th persists and it is even here slightly as I type. It is clear that something is up / happening. I wonder if the Dalai Lama is dying but search for him and can still find the feeling of him, so am reassured. The ritual goes on and I know in one sense it is connected with me.

I drift off.

I am shown D whom I knew ~ 20 years ago. He is bloated and unwell. He is filled with anger and even hatred towards me. I can see his bloated bare stomach upon which are written the positions by number of each of the 64 I Ching hexagram numbers. They are medical points. I know that he has misused Dao and that he has been taught dark Dao and it has taken seed in him and others. The only chance that they have is to use the I Ching medically to reverse and impede the spread of bad-Dao. I am the key.

The scene changes and I am in the garden outside my office here. I can hear some noises up by the purple rhododendron. Out of sight I can hear munching. I catch sight of a grey spotted foal and her mother a dark brown horse. So as not to scare them I move very quietly. I know they are windhorses or lungta. They jump up and run along the top of our hedges down towards the river. The foal stops and takes a snack on the maple. As they approach the river they are joined by two more white adult horses. Together all four of them ride off along the tops of the French oaks by the river. They are not touching the oaks but flying and galloping in the air.

I am now in communication with some being which says that I am of Nāgārjuna with the j being specific. That I am of the nāgas and nāgarājas.  That is my source and my belonging. I am of Nāgārjuna. The role of the nāgas is not yet understood.

The dream ends.

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Notes:

Nāgārjuna (Sanskrit: नागार्जुन, Nāgārjuna; c. 150 – c. 250 CE) was an Indian monk and Mahāyāna Buddhist philosopher of the Madhyamaka (Centrism, Middle Way) school. He is widely considered one of the most important Buddhist philosophers.

Nāgārjuna is widely considered to be the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy and a defender of the Mahāyāna movement. His Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Root Verses on Madhyamaka, MMK) is the most important text on the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness. The MMK inspired a large number of commentaries in Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, Korean and Japanese and continues to be studied today.

From Wikipedia

Deep UV Lithography Concept – Wine Blend Marketing Dreams – 04-05-2025.

Here are this morning’s dreams perhaps relating to a previous incarnation in this life.

The first dream starts in the sub-floor of an ultra-high class semiconductor clean room fabrication facility {FAB}. This FAB is state of the art and ultramodern. I am dressed in appropriate kit for a clean room suited, masked and with a yellow see-through plastic visor. I have booties and gloves on and am with two other men one of whom is a senior manager of the FAB.

They are showing me all the sub-floor gas, chemical and liquid supply lines with mass flow controllers and blinking green LED status lights. They show me that the metal-organic supply modules are plug and play, when one of them empties you pull the module out and fit new one. The modules arrive on weight bearing “rails” suspended from the FAB sub-floor ceiling. The modules slot in.

They show me the bank of lasers which supply, via light tubes, the lithography apparatus upstairs. The ultraviolet excimer lasers are each double hermetically sealed in case of failure and corrosive gas leakage. They then take me upstairs to show me the 200, 300 and 450mm Silicon process lines with onsite dielectric growth.

They show me the current deep ultraviolet {DUV} lithography tools and how they fit into the wafer process lines. We get out a plasticised non-shedding engineering diagram of my lens-mirror beam conditioning design which fits to the penultimate stages of beam delivery optics in the DUV tools. This is patented by me.  I am confident that the protype we have made is retro-fit able to current tools sets. They agree. We decide to try it out on their pilot research line which can be found elsewhere in the FAB campus facility. The anticipation is that we will use it first on the 13 nanometre node test rig and then if it works to specification, introduce it into production.

The dream changes scene and I am at an up market conference facility. I am running a challenge team training course for three groups of diverse people. I have set them into teams each with their own breakout room base and kitchen. In each kitchen is laboratory style equipment and several bottles of wine from different origins within the same country. Their task as a team is to make a blend for mid-high market sale and develop a marketing strategy together with a launch pitch for their blend / brand.

There is some grumbling about getting their hands dirty and having to make a blend taste it and market it. One of the team leaders is a woman and she asks to be excused from tasting because she is a disqualified driver who lost her licence for drink driving. I say that she can lead up the market/launch sub grouping for her cohort. They have 24 hours.

There is a large hubbub and two teams have red wine and one white. They also have to design labelling and to bottle up six of the product for the launch stand. The wine will be tasted by a small panel of “experts”. As time is running out, I go around to check the branding ideas. The white wine concept led by the woman is “Earth Berry” and is based on a Sauvignon Blanc ultra-dry crisp gooseberry finish. It smells good and clean. One of the teams “led” by a fairly corpulent man with dark hair in a pin striped suit is in disarray and squabbling. I remind them that this is not just a game and that their jobs depend upon performance. They are resentful, in that team, that they have do this task as they see it as below them. The man is pompous and arrogant. There is ill will towards me.

The dreams end.