Tag: dreams

Seb – Molecular Magnets – Dream – 27-03-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream.

The dream starts in a very large house, in which there has been a party. There has been little clearance overnight. I am there with Seb and his mother. There are other members of his extended family and the caterers are now in tidying up.

I am in then kitchen with them. It seems that Seb has again fallen unwell and is on the merry-go-round of medical appointments. I ask him what the situation is. He is now a young man. When I knew him last, he was a teenager recovering from severe illness and using crutches to help him walk. He is now walking and dressed in expensive clothing befitting of his familial status. I remember in the dream that his family are complex and very high functioning. I ask him what the problem is. He says that he keeps getting headaches and they do not know what the problem is.

I say that perhaps he needs these. I draw for him a molecule in which an atom of Iron and of Cobalt are joined together by a 1,4 – dicyanobenezene molecule, an electron bridge. The nitrogen atoms act as electron pair donors. Both transition metals are otherwise inside a molecular clathrate cage structure. The overall charge of the molecular magnet can be varied from positive to negative. These are a new type of molecule and can help him with his headaches. These molecules can be made to move, rotate, in an external applied field. These molecular magnets can be therapeutic.

He nods.

His mother says that she has a video tape which she wants us to see. The first part of the videotape is of her buying the video recorder. It is old school VHS. She ushers us into a room where the recorder is set up with a TV. It has on it videos of me arriving at their house and of our tutorial sessions ~ a decade ago.

I remind him of my offer to help in any way that I can. That I may have a clue for him which will help to explain many things.

The dream ends.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Fantasy

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“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1939) is a short story by James Thurber. The most famous of Thurber’s stories, it first appeared in The New Yorker on March 18, 1939, and was first collected in his book My World and Welcome to It (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1942).

Plot

The short story deals with a vague and mild-mannered man who drives into Waterbury, Connecticut, with his wife for their regular weekly shopping and his wife’s visit to the beauty parlor. During this time, he has five heroic daydream episodes, each inspired by some detail of his mundane surroundings. The first is as a pilot of a U.S. Navy flying boat in a storm, followed by Mrs. Mitty’s complaint that Mitty is “driving too fast”. As he drives past a hospital, he imagines himself a magnificent surgeon performing a one-of-a-kind surgery. Later, a newsboy shouting about the “Waterbury Trial” begins Mitty’s third fantasy, as a deadly assassin testifying in a courtroom. While waiting for his wife, he picks up an old copy of Liberty, reading “Can Germany Conquer the World Through the Air?”, and begins his fourth daydream, as a Royal Air Force pilot volunteering for a daring suicide mission to bomb an ammunition dump. As the story ends, Mitty stands against a wall, smoking, and imagines himself facing a firing squad, “inscrutable to the last.”

Popular Culture

The character’s name has come into more general use to refer to an ineffectual dreamer and appears in several dictionaries. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a Walter Mitty as “an ordinary, often ineffectual person who indulges in fantastic daydreams of personal triumphs”. The most famous of Thurber’s inept male protagonists, the character is considered “the archetype for dreamy, hapless, Thurber Man”.

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Something struck his shoulder. “I’ve been looking all over this hotel for you,” said Mrs. Mitty. “Why do you have to hide in this old chair? How did you expect me to find you?” “Things close in,” said Walter Mitty vaguely. “What?” Mrs. Mitty said. “Did you get the what’s-its-name? The puppy biscuit? What’s in that box?” “Overshoes,” said Mitty. “Couldn’t you have put them on in the store?” “I was thinking,” said Walter Mitty. “Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?” She looked at him. “I’m going to take your temperature when I get you home,” she said.

They went out through the revolving doors that made a faintly derisive whistling sound when you pushed them. It was two blocks to the parking lot. At the drugstore on the corner she said, “Wait here for me. I forgot something. I won’t be a minute.” She was more than a minute. Walter Mitty lighted a cigarette. It began to rain, rain with sleet in it. He stood up against the wall of the drugstore, smoking. . . . He put his shoulders back and his heels together. “To hell with the handkerchief,” said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last. 

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Fantasy-prone personality (FPP) is a disposition or personality trait in which a person experiences a lifelong, extensive, and deep involvement in fantasy. This disposition is an attempt, at least in part, to better describe “overactive imagination” or “living in a dream world”. An individual with this trait (termed a fantasizer) may have difficulty differentiating between fantasy and reality and may experience hallucinations, as well as self-suggested psychosomatic symptoms. Closely related psychological constructs include daydreaming, absorption and eidetic memory.

History

American psychologists Sheryl C. Wilson and Theodore X. Barber first identified FPP in 1981, said to apply to about 4% of the population. Besides identifying this trait, Wilson and Barber reported a number of childhood antecedents that likely laid the foundation for fantasy proneness in later life, such as, “a parent, grandparent, teacher, or friend who encouraged the reading of fairy tales, reinforced the child’s … fantasies, and treated the child’s dolls and stuffed animals in ways that encouraged the child to believe that they were alive.” They suggested that this trait was almost synonymous with those who responded dramatically to hypnotic induction, that is, “high hypnotizables”.

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Fantasy (psychology)

In psychology, fantasy is a broad range of mental experiences, mediated by the faculty of imagination in the human brain, and marked by an expression of certain desires through vivid mental imagery. Fantasies are generally associated with scenarios that are impossible or unlikely to happen.

Conscious fantasy

In everyday life, individuals often find their thoughts “pursue a series of fantasies concerning things they wish they could do or wish they had done … fantasies of control or of sovereign choice … daydreams.”

George Eman Vaillant in his study of defence mechanisms took as a central example of “an immature defence … fantasy — living in a ‘Walter Mitty’ dream world where you imagine you are successful and popular, instead of making real efforts to make friends and succeed at a job.”

Other researchers and theorists find that fantasy has beneficial elements — providing “small regressions and compensatory wish fulfilments which are recuperative in effect.” Research by Deirdre Barrett reports that people differ radically in the vividness, as well as frequency of fantasy, and that those who have the most elaborately developed fantasy life are often the people who make productive use of their imaginations in art, literature, or by being especially creative and innovative in more traditional professions.

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Narcissistic personality disorder

Two characteristics of someone with narcissistic personality disorder are:

  • A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior)
  • A preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

Gelugpa Wrasse – Dreams and Snippets 21-02-2025

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The first thing to say here is that what follows is inordinately difficult to verbalize.

Leading up to the last few days and despite numerous appearances of Tibetan based themes in dreaming I have been fairly certain that I have never had a Tibetan-Bhutanese-Nepalese incarnation. In whatever visions or dreams I have had with a Buddhist flavour I have never been wearing the maroon robes of that locality and certainly never any groovy hats.

Nevertheless, the tulku {or nirmāṇakāya} phenomenon has been resident at the periphery. I have never had the Mahayana urge or thought form pertaining to a bodhisattva training journey of coming back for the benefit of all sentient beings, to teach and to aid. This idealised wish form projected onto would be bodhisattvas seems a human thing and potentially prevents beings from leaving when they ought to be exiting the wheel of rebirth. “Please don’t leave us”, is not an empowering or enabling sentiment.

A few days ago, in the twilight between sleep and wakefulness I had a few images of me dressed in maroon monks robes with a yellow hat characteristic of the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. I was surprised. It was a “turn up for the books” and does not fit with my hypothetical chronology. The only Tibetan stuff I have felt akin with are the tales of Chögyam Trungpa though I met at a distance Akong Rinpoche. Their relationship was complex if I understand it correctly. I have a hypothesis as to why Trungpa resonated.

What is safe to say is that the thought-forms associated with and to centuries old Buddhist traditions, studied and recited by thousands are firm, almost solid. The lineage has a “mind” all of its own, nurtured by devotees of and with a ruthless and tireless devotion. It exists in the mental and emotional space of humanity. People reciting and chanting for centuries make something almost tangible in a physical sense. The traditions and practice are kept vital and alive by regular enactment, quasi-archaic though they may be. They are alive.

Newtonian mechanics dominated the human psyche to be improved upon around a century ago for microscopic systems. Yet Newton is useful to this day in our everyday reality. These mechanics are a part of the mental space of humanity. They have merit. They work. There is a loose analogy.

This morning, I had a brief dreaming sequence in which I encountered a fish in a tank. The tank was large, beautiful and with coral. The fish was an ocean going wrasse. It introduced it self as a Gelugpa Wrasse. It told me that even if I had been previously associated with the Gelug, there was no place for me therein in this life. Such a thing would be way too disruptive. The wrasse was calm and relaxed. It was just conveying without colouration.

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It said that way back in the 1990s in Switzerland there had been a possibility but life circumstances had scuppered that. “Not to worry”, it said. It showed me some images of Bern.

I struggled to hold more of the dream but the wrasse part remained clear. Fish is the dreaming symbol for awareness or the need to be wide awake. The wrasse was pretty enough though contained in a tank. It was not free.

I am not sure what to make of it.

Last night we watched the Netflix programme “Adolescence” in which life for a family changes dramatically overnight. It was very good and left one with a breathless reminder of how normality can be completely flipped in a matter of hours.

We have had a few flips over the years.

Freaky Friday, an equinox talking with fish again…

Qubit Coherence Time Dream 20-03-2023

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This dream came after watching Roger Penrose discus “before the big bang” on YouTube. He suggested that in a thermalized black body compliant universe evidenced by the cosmic microwave background energy spectrum where E=hν = mc2, time or inverse time, frequency, does not exist in the absence of matter. “Time” can be curved to “before” the big bang of our current universe. Similarly at an infinitely expanded universe full only of radiation, photons, time again has no meaning without mass.

The dream starts in the refreshment area or bar off a hall full of poster presentations at a “perimeter” conference on quantum and quantum computing. I am talking with a “famous” prof in his early forties and he is holding court to some post docs and post grads. He is skinny with a beard and unruly hair. He is white. As far as he is concerned, I am a nobody.

I say to him that if I have understood it correctly the biggest drawback for quantum computing is qubit coherence time and thereby quantum fidelity. He says yes.

I say that a qubit is a counter-entropic state artificially manufactured in matter in many systems. In these matter based systems tremendous cooling is required to prevent coupling to the nearby thermal bath states which tend to bring about dephasing and lack of fidelity for the prepared qubit. He agrees.

I say that is why they need fuck off big fridges to get close to absolute zero, which is again a counter entropic state when viewed more than locally. He agrees.

That dephasing happens on a temperature and proximity dependent time scale.

I say that thermodynamics is a property of matter and hence time, without matter entropy as no meaning, nor does thermodynamics.

I ask him why nobody is pursuing fast or ultrafast time domain quantum computing? He does not reply.

I say to him if the prepared qubit state is addressed before dephasing occurs, we can use time to outwit or outpace thermalization to bath. Time domain quantum computing could be the answer.

He nods.

I say that the other problem stems from the cycle time of write to zero of the matter involved in the prepared qubits. It should be possible to use a second pulse similar to the state preparation one to reset the qubit clock on a hundreds of megahertz laser repetition rate. We then have a prepare and subsequent write to zero even if the qubit state has been used or partially used in computation. The matter is then ready for us to contravene entropy by writing a qubit.

As the dream ends, I think that it is a fair way from Guru Rinpoche.

Termas, Tertöns and Toltec Time Capsules

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During the evening before I had my dream with a blue manifestation of Padmasambhava in, we watched “University Challenge” and “The Crying Game” on TV neither of which has much to do with Guru Rinpoche who is fundamental to Tibetan Buddhism. Over a decade ago I participated in a Guru Rinpoche empowerment given by Akong Rinpoche Tulku at the Kagyu Samye Dzong London. It looked mightily shamanic to me as I had been engaged in prior shamanic rituals.  Something happened. I do not know what. Yet I have used the tantric generating mantra “blessings of the diamond master born of lotus” in deep voice chanting on and off since then, but not for a long while. I instinctively knew this to be utmost Vajrayana, tantric vehicle and have always treated it with great respect.

{Note: this has nothing to do with trendy tantra sex practice.}

The hagiography of Guru Rinpoche has him as a second Buddha and leaving treasures, teachings as terma, {gter ma – གཏེར་མ } time capsules of hidden treasures, waiting for discovery when the time was right and ripe. These can be texts often written in Dakini script, or mind-forms waiting for a suitably susceptible recipient {Tertön} to download into conscious thought.  It is all a bit “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and I am a little surprised that Hollywood has not yet cottoned on. It would make a good movie and Richard Gere might produce it.

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Way back Théun Mares used to bang on a little about Toltec Time Capsules. These are hidden teachings from the hay-day of the Toltecs {Atlantis?}. They are {allegedly} secreted around the globe waiting to be discovered and opened. They can be a bit of a Pandora’s box.

Needless to say, both ideas are prone to a glamour, excitement and a sense of salacious secrecy. Hidden treasure is “sexy” and promises a quick fix, a kind of magic. Like the Philosopher’s Stone promises immortality and the Alchemist changes base metal into gold. Which would be handy right now given the Trump effect on global gold prices.

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People are prone to imagine some kind of physical tangible artefact. Terma play an important role in the evolution of Tibetan Dzogchen and Buddhism. They are an integral part of the canon. This may seem odd to a Western mind, but Christianity has it saints and their divine visions, and Islam The Prophet.

Teachings from “on high” are a part of most religions /philosophies. The structure of benzene was revealed in a serpentine dream!

Quite why I am getting a blue Guru Rinpoche, here, in rural Brittany, is unknown and a bit odd. I have not seen Lara Croft or Indiana Jones hanging out at the local bar or market. There are no time travelling Nazis with Schmeissers or Lugers yet….

Fingers crossed it remains that way…

Padmasambhava – Blue manifestations

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looking a little into this and from RigpaWiki

Guru Sengé Dradrok (Skt. Siṃhanāda; Tib. གུ་རུ་སེང་གེ་སྒྲ་སྒྲོག་, Wyl. gu ru seng ge sgra sgrogs; Eng. ‘The Lion’s Roar’) — one of the Eight Manifestations of Guru Rinpoche.

From A Great Treasure of Blessings, page 30: Guru Rinpoche challenged and defeated five hundred upholders of wrong views in debate at Bodhgaya. He reversed their magic with the aid of a wrathful mantra given him by the lion-faced dakini Marajita. He is known as Sengé Dradok, ‘The Lion’s Roar’.

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and

Guru Orgyen Dorje Chang (Skt. Guru Oddiyāna Vajradhara; Tib. གུ་རུ་ཨོ་རྒྱན་རྡོ་རྗེ་འཆང་, Wyl. gu ru o rgyan rdo rje ‘chang) is one of the Eight Manifestations of Guru Rinpoche. This aspect of Guru Rinpoche is sometimes visualized at the centre of the field of merit in the Nyingma tradition. Orgyen Dorje Chang is in sambhogakaya form, with its specific ornaments; holding vajra and bell and his legs in full vajra posture, he embraces white Vajravarahi.

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More on the roaring lion Senge Dradog

Senge Dradog Thank

and more on the sambhogakaya Urgen Dorje Chang not necessarily counted in the normal eight.

Urgen Dorje Chang Thank

These are the two “blue” manifestations here is a thangka:

Padmasambhava – 8 Forms: Orgyen Dorje Chang

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Chemical Leak – Surgery – Padmasambhava – Floods – Drinks – Dream 18-03-2025

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This dream comes after many days with very unsettled sleep due to intensely painful gout(?) in my right knee. I had 60mg of Codeine in co-codamol in order to get off to sleep.

The dream starts in a very modern building used for chemistry and science. The building is unknown to me. It is in London. On an upper floor where there are chemistry laboratories with fume hoods there has been a major incident. There are youngish people lying on the floor wearing white lab coats. Some of them have safety spectacles and purple nitryl plastic gloves on. They are not moving and are dead. There has been a leak of gas a chemical leak. The gas is an organometallic tin compound, a stanyl. It is volatile. Apart from being dead they look well. I am alone on the floor and immune to the leak. Slowly I drag the bodies out on to the landing and start to pile them into a heap ready for collection. From the landing I can see the entrance atrium which is rather grand. There is a glass banister topped with a hand rail. The bodies are both female and male. They are still warm to the touch yet floppy and lifeless. The work is easy and they do not feel heavy. There are well over a dozen bodies. I pile them up easily.

The scene changes and I am with G, R and T all of whom were / are academic chemists. We are waiting in turn to be operated on. We are to have sebaceus cysts removed from our faces. The man doing the operating is completely naked and devoid of any bodily hair. His genitals are visible. He is wearing blue plastic surgical gloves and nothing else. It is my turn to be operated on. I ask him why he is naked. He replies that it is a lot easier to clean up, the blood washes off. I understand the logic. He starts to cut out two cysts from my face. One of them is deeper than the other and he makes a slight mistake. He is worried that I am angry. I say that I am not in the slightest concerned with my appearance and that a scar of the right side of my face will match the one from the basal cell carcinoma removal on the left side. I suggest that he stitches away. This he does with a dark-black thread of a thicker than usual thickness. I get out of the operating chair and leave. The others are waiting nervously.

I am now walking around London with Padmasambhava, Guru Rinpoche. The atmosphere between us is fraternal as if we go way back. He is in a dark royal blue manifestation. We get into a right hand drive old Mk3 Ford Cortina in white. I drive us down to the embankment then we get out. Rinpoche puts his right arm around my right shoulder. He points with his left hand at the Thames water level. He says that in due course it will flood London. The water level rises and as it rises, we retreat uphill. Soon large tracts of land near the embankment are flooded. We work our way up towards Victoria and then Kensington. As we get to the north side of Kensington High Street, he shows me how much of London has been inundated by the sea level rise. He comments that much of this might have been stopped but it was not. There is a feeling of bond between us as we survey.

The scene changes and I am in what once was the Norfolk Arms but now is a hotel. It is very late well after closing time. I am in the bar with G, R and T. There is a young woman decked out as a waitress with a white apron and a black waistcoat. She is drying glasses with a towel. T orders a round of drinks from her and brings them over to us. There is some conversation about the chemical leak. The time comes and it is my turn to buy a round. For some reason I forget G. He feigns upset. I buy him a drink and the woman asks if I have any change, loose coins. She says that we always run out. I pull out coins from my trousers pocket to pay for the round. Her colleague, a male comes over and counts them out. He adds them to a small metallic coin-change box. He gives me back three coins. These coins I/we know are antique, they have a patina of age upon them. The others then go off to bed in the hotel and I sit at the bar with the waitress and her senior colleague. The night is our time, we are creatures of the night.

The dream ends.

The Wrong End of the Stick Dream 16-03-2025

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An English idiom meaning to get something wrong by one’s approach by making stupid assumptions. To think that something you’ve been offered is the opposite of what it is. To confuse left and right. To turn an ability into a disability, a solution into a problem.

From the Urban Dictionary

Overnight I have had another dream in which some people get the very wrong idea about my “relationship” with them and on the basis of that make incorrect assumptions about what I must and will do for them, to help them out and otherwise clear up a mess which is entirely of their own making. They, in the dream, imagine that I am a bit like one of them, on the same level and with the same motivations. Which I am not.

The dream prior to that says that in some things I have no choice. I simply cannot do what might be convenient because it is evil.

This recurrent theme of somebody else’s mess has occurred numerous times over more than the last decade or so. It is not my mess, I cannot clear it up, nor can I like a fairy Godmother rescue them. Bonnie Tyler may be singing a song but it does not refer to me, sorry. I cannot offer any advice because it would fall on deaf ears.

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It is said that a warrior lives by challenge. I have found increasingly that the challenge for me is non-intervention, to leave well alone and to let others have the opportunity to learn. This notion of stepping back did not initially sit well. It turns out not getting involved or conflated into the drama of others, is both relaxing and economic. In the midst of some soap opera or other everything seems very important, with detachment that looks more like emotional over reaction. Some people like drama and thrive thereupon. They stoke it and feed.

I have learned that it is impossible to explain to someone caught up in and obsessed by their social conditioning, what things are like, and how they look, when that conditioning has nearly completely gone. It is one of those things that has to be experienced. No verbalisation can convey.

This may sound arrogant, as if I may be looking down. Is that real or your reflection which you see in the mirror I hold up for you. Am I haughty? Or have I at least partially risen above the soap-opera-plane?

Poor me, I am so misunderstood…

It that my being victim or a truth of sorts.

I do not feel victimised rather inured to, accustomed with, bored by, an experience I have had often in my sixty years.

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We’re only making plans for Nigel
We only want what’s best for him
We’re only making plans for Nigel
Nigel just needs that helping hand

And if young Nigel says he’s happy
He must be happy
He must be happy
He must be happy in his world

We’re only making plans for Nigel
He has his future in a British steel
We’re only making plans for Nigel
Nigel’s whole future is as good as sealed, yeah

XTC

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Via Gambetti – Letter – Via Marchese – nagal Dream 11-03-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream it has a distinct Italian theme.

The dream starts with me sat at my desk. The desk is small and ornate. It is designed for writing and has stationery and quills. The feel is late 18th or very early 19th century. I am wearing pantaloons which button just below the knee, they are of a golden colour. A man comes in he is bearing a letter on a metal silver coloured tray. The tray is slightly ornate. The letter is addressed to me though I cannot see my name. I can see “Via Gambetti” as the address. I sense a silent “h” as in Gambhetti. I open the letter with a paper knife. The letter is written in a deep royal blue ink with a slanting italic script. I have been waiting for this letter for some time. It is written in Italian.

The scene changes to modern times, and I am in an Italianate piazza off which is a modern exposition building. The address of which is “Via Marchese della…” or “Via del Marchese…”. I go into the hall and a young woman hands me a conference programme entirely in Italian. I read and understand it. There are many high technology exhibitors with stalls and rooms placed around the large atrium. I start talking to some young people in a group. A man is a posh suit and his PA approach. He puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “ciao, we are glad you came. Will you help us judge the best exhibit and most promising technology?”

I go off with them and enter a booth / room which is full of large screens and computers. Someone is playing a game / simulation. The simulation is a mix of military and aid, some kind of logistical clean up operation. The idea is all about logistical delivery and monitoring. I ask a young man to explain his work to me, because I am out of touch and out of date, Jurassic even. He says that he is very pleased to meet me and starts to explain.

We move on to “judge” various other exhibits. I am totally surprised in the dream that anybody would be pleased to see me or welcome my input.

At the back of the exhibition area is small seminar room which I know that I have used before. I make my excuses and nip in there to have some time to myself away from the hubbub. On the green-black rotary blackboard written in white chalk are the words “nagal exposed”. On the rotary white board amidst a multicoloured patch of marker pen is the word “nagal”. It is in relief, not coloured in and the colour of the white board behind.

I take a blackboard eraser to the white chalk and rub it out. I take a piece of blue paper towel to the white board and rub that out. I am very surprised to find these here. When I have finished, I roll both the white board and green-black board over to clean areas.

The dream ends.

Sanskrit at The Royal Institution of Great Britain…

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This morning I had a dream concerning Sanskrit at The Royal Institution. I did research there 1985-88 for my Ph.D.

In 1861 and 1863 Friedrich Max Müller gave lectures there whilst Michael Faraday was director on the science of language.

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One of these was on Sanskrit the Indo-European mother tongue.

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In 1870 he gave a series of lectures on the Science of Religion when John Tyndall was director.

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Back then people may have been more open minded and less strictly subject specific in orientation.

Friedrich Max Müller

(6 December 1823 – 28 October 1900) was a British philologist and Orientalist of German origin. He was one of the founders of the Western academic disciplines of Indian studies and religious studies. Müller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology. The Sacred Books of the East, a 50-volume set of English translations, was prepared under his direction. He also promoted the idea of a Turanian family of languages.

Academic career

In 1850 Müller was appointed deputy Taylorian professor of modern European languages at Oxford University. In the following year, at the suggestion of Thomas Gaisford, he was made an honorary M.A. and a member of the college of Christ Church, Oxford. On succeeding to the full professorship in 1854, he received the full degree of M.A. by Decree of Convocation. In 1858 he was elected to a life fellowship at All Souls’ College.

He was defeated in the 1860 election for the position of Boden Professor of Sanskrit, which was a “keen disappointment” to him. Müller was far better qualified for the post than the other candidate (Monier Monier-Williams), but Müller’s broad theological views, Lutheranism, German birth, and lack of practical first-hand knowledge of India spoke against him. After the election he wrote to his mother, “all the best people voted for me, the Professors almost unanimously, but the vulgus profanum made the majority”.

Later in 1868, Müller became Oxford’s first professor of comparative philology, a position founded on his behalf. He held this chair until his death, although he retired from its active duties in 1875.