Tag: learning

Chemistry Degree Course – Knowledge & Compliance Dream 14-03-2026

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is this morning’s dream

The dream opens in a Chemistry undergraduate teaching laboratory. Myself and a dozen or so others are getting back our Chemistry degree first year examination papers. The faculty, all younger than me by decades, are wearing white lab coats. The exam results are generally poor, the idea being to shock us into study. I get my paper back and look at the marking and comments. I can see a couple of proofs which I sketched out but did not finish because I knew the answer from that point. I get to the end and see that my mark is fifty one out of a hundred. Appended is the comment “one of the top marks for this exam”. Various of my peer group have done less well in the exam. I know that reason I have done better is because of my stint teaching “A” level Chemistry. I know that to get marks answers must correlate to the marks scheme provided only. There is no scope for even correct deviance. The people who have answered at “degree” level as it was two decades ago have been marked down and wrong. I understand that this is because the knowledge has changed a bit and that the acceptable answers have become more rigidly defined.

I go to the library and thumb through a modern edition of Atkins  “Physical Chemistry”. I note that it has changed with bizarre “knowledge” boxes and artificially highlighted “take homes”. I am then back in the teaching lab. I ask one of the faculty what text books we need. He hands me a PDF which is entitled “how to pass courses”. It is a guide on how best to give the expected answers to exam questions. He says that the details of how to get the text are on the course materials.

I ask him if the course might accept that it is not right in all cases, that it is a simplification. I explain that I once bought an achromatic lens which was marketed as truly achromatic. I explain that using Nd: YAG wavelengths of 1064 and 532 nm the focal points differed at even moderate laser intensity. The lens was achromatic only at very low laser fields. The manufacturer would not listen to my findings. The faculty member says that this is irrelevant. There are only the accepted answers to the course. He is mildly threatening. “If you don’t answer the questions as we set them and provide the accepted answers, you will not pass the course.” There is an element of coercion and exercise of power over. “If you do not comply you will not pass. You will fail. You will not get the accepted qualification”. He is unaware of my level of knowledge and adamant that he is right. I must comply with him (them) and what they deem right and complete.

In the dream I know that there is a problem. Because of course metrics courses and answers are designed in such a way that they can be measured. The guidebooks on how to pass are there to ensure that students get good grades and thence the course providers and examiners get good teaching feedback. I note that there is a circular delusion about improving standards and qualities. I note also that compliance is a problem when it comes to what knowledge is accepted and acceptable. In the dream I think they are kidding themselves about what they know and about knowledge. I suspect that they are wholly unwilling to accept this.

The dream ends…

Groups Souls – Dalai Lama – Cloying Awareness – Exquisite Sculpture – Dream 01-11-2025

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here are last night’s dreaming snippets. Sometimes when I need a “cheer me up” the dreaming provides.

The dream opens at a sea-side town-village. It is like Tenby or Tobermory with pastel coloured brightly painted houses.

–

–

I am with my group of souls or beings. The place could also be Denmark or Scandinavia. It is impeccably tidy and ordered. The light is light and bright without blinding. We are young in age, children and dressed in colourful togas. We often incarnate together en masse. We have known each other for aeons. This is the group to which I belong. We are beings made out of light each of their own colour witnessed by toga and not skin. There is a sense of primordial innocence to us. We are going in and out of each other’s houses enjoying the fluffy clouds which surround us.

I awake for a loo break a little after 4 AM.

As I drift off I have a strong mental image of H.H. Dalai Lama who fills the entire perceptual field. I sense he is deep in contemplation and sit there in that state with him silently for a length of time about 15 earth minutes. It seems much longer. We are happy and serene in contemplation together. A part of that visual remains as I type now.

I fade out and into sleep.

Sat at a pavement café in central London is a man of roughly my own age whom I had acquaintance of. He has bought me a glass of Coke with ice lemon and a straw. He is sat at a table there. He gestures for me to sit down with him. I cannot. I say that I have nothing personally to resolve with him, nothing to solve. I cannot be near his cloying preserving awareness. It is heavy and seeks to enfold and keep things the same. His awareness is like a cloying quagmire, it is old, ancient, dark and borderline evil. He gestures for me to sit again. I walk past. I have nothing to solve.

I walk off into a part of London I do not recognize. It is early morning, a little after dawn and the restaurateurs and bar owners are clearing up and setting up. It is warm maybe summer. The doors are open. I walk into one pub and put the Coke down on the bar counter. The owner is polishing the bar and tables and is happy to take the Coke. I admire the stained glass windows and period doors. I walk through into the next door pub which he also owns and out of the door back into the street.

I now come upon an Italian style restaurant which has a large ornate orangery-greenhouse attached. The manageress is there in her black and whites with a low apron on. She is organising tables in the orangery. The windows of the building are leaded in, like cathedral windows. The clear uncoloured glass is warped by the flow of age. The lead is painted crimson red. The overall effect is magnificent with interesting patterns of light refracted on the floor. I say to her that the light is truly wonderful. She concurs. She has a clipped English upper class accent. She say that it a pity that “he” the owner keeps rejigging the tables  because she likes the feel of Sicilian palace which it currently has. There are plentiful succulent plants. She is chuffed that I like “her” orangery so very much. It is her labour of love which she does not need to do. She suggests that I should visit the garden out back.

I follow her advice and enter a light walled garden with water features and wall alcoves with plants. In the centre is an exquisite sculpture / water feature. She says that it is OK for me and me alone to climb it. The stairway to the feature is made out of carved open books. The books are carved out of what looks like pewter, there is relief of binding and pages. They are joined together by a single metal rod/rail. Each book is by way of a step. In some the page writing is etched in relief. They are a testament to learning and library. The languages of the books are diverse. The staircase mounts a large globe of the Earth which has all the continents and oceans cut to scale. The globe is several times my size. I climb the “ladder”. Out of the North Pole a drinking fountain flows. Its flow is lightly pulsing and the water trickles downs wetting every side of the world. The water is collected in a fish pond in which the globe sits. The ladder passes over the pond. In the pond are ornamental koi carp. The manageress encourages me up and to taste the water. I do and the water is cool and refreshing nectar like in quality. Some of it runs down onto my white linen shirt. The morning light illuminates the garden and orangery.

The dream ends.