Dream Theatre: Phantasmagoric Performance Art

Vivid Dreaming - Alternate title



Behind the stage was a room where one could go to alter the performance at the front of the stage. By pressing together the films of light into an ever-smaller wad of wax a hole could be plugged between the conscious and the subconscious.



On the stage were colorful dancers and screens with real-time cityscapes that flickered as the light from the city itself dimmed.



Madonna appeared at the edge of the state and looked at the director and asked him, "how long do I have to keep his smile on? I'm tired of gyrating endlessly and I'd like to stop if you'd let me."



To prove that one could alter the performance itself by thinking about it from behind the stage, I whispered greek letters, e.g., alpha, beta, gamma, to the director to prove to him that we were not in a dream. It is said that one could not be conscious of being in a dream while one was in it. In order to prove it, one either looked at one's hands or recited letters of a foreign alphabet.



Night after night we all frequented this mind and body series of performances. It was the high point of our life. Someone announced that all performances had been released on dvds, about eight hours worth and that future performances would also be released. We eagerly awaited the continuation of these vivid theatrical dreams as well as the release of the dvd sets.



It was difficult to describe to others the sheer joy and wonder of witnessing these performances night after night as the sunset invaded the screen and sent the dancers into the very skies of New York City.



It must have been near Lincoln Center for the buses drove by and then appeared on the panoramic screens at the corners of the stage.



Summer never let up and the colors of dream theatre and music never died.

Super delegates Switch over to Hillary Clinton

At the eleventh hour those super delegates who had been sitting on the fence, as well as others, who got off the fence earlier than anticipated, came forward and gave their votes to Hillary Clinton. With the democratic nomination now under her belt, Hillary claims victory and heads toward November with greater confidence than she had demonstrated throughout her campaign. By her side are her husband, President Bill Clinton, and their daughter Chelsea, who knew that in the end it would be Hillary who would still be standing.

Success goes to those who persevere even when others believe otherwise.

Disclaimer: The above is an example of anticipatory journalism. It expresses the desired outcome of a near-future event on the part of the writer. It is intended in the best possible way. If such outcome does not materialize, time then becomes important as to determine the eventual realization of the desired reality.

Hillary Clinton Wins Presidential Election

For the first time in American history a woman is elected president. The campaign was long and hard, but in the end, well worth the wait.

Having won all major primaries after having won Texas and Ohio, it was only inevitable that she would clinch the democratic nomination and, months later, the national election.

Disclaimer: The above is an example of anticipatory journalism. It expresses the desired outcome of a near-future event on the part of the writer. It is intended in the best possible way. If such outcome does not materialize, time then becomes important as to determine the eventual realization of the desired reality.

Hillary Clinton Wins Big

Senator Hilary Clinton wins big in both Texas and Ohio. While it was not completely impossible for Clinton to win in both states, the previous weeks had indicated that it was not to be. However, recent events in the other candidate's campaign had created enough doubt in the minds of voters to change the outcome of a highly anticipated primary election.

It is hoped that the campaign promises made by both candidates will continue to influence American politics for many years.

Disclaimer: The above is an example of anticipatory journalism. It expresses the desired outcome of a near-future event on the part of the writer. It is intended in the best possible way. If such outcome does not materialize, time then becomes important as to determine the eventual realization of the desired reality.

Virtual Physics Lectures

How I would have wanted to have attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology years ago. Well, not really. It wasn't until the 21st century that I became fascinated with Physics, Astrophysics, etc.

If I had broadband--another reason to put up with the extra expense--I could sit in on Physics lectures for nothing. I understand they are becoming the rage, worldwide.

When I get broadband, I can come back to MIT Physics lectures and enjoy one dazzling idea after another.

Maybe the new year will find me sitting in front of the broadband LCD panel in my living room soaking up lecture after lecture, while the sun rises and and sets while I take no notice of the passing of time.

How to Become Part of the Machine

Some of the mind-intensive activities or experiments outlined in this recent New York Times article have been selected below:

"Go to Google Image Labeler (images.google.com/imagelabeler) and you are randomly matched with another bored Web surfer — in Korea, maybe, or Omaha — who has agreed to play a game. Google shows you both a series of pictures peeled from the Web — the sun setting over the ocean or a comet streaking through space — and you earn points by typing as many descriptive words as you can. The results are stored and analyzed, and through this human-machine symbiosis, Google’s image-searching algorithms are incrementally refined. . . .

Now a site run by Amazon.com, the Mechanical Turk (http://www.mturk.com/), asks you to lend your brain. Named for an 18th-century chess-playing automaton that turned out to have a human hidden inside, the Mechanical Turk offers volunteers a chance to search for the missing aviator Steve Fossett by examining satellite photos. Or you can earn a few pennies at a time by performing other chores that flummox computers: categorizing Web sites (“sexually explicit, “arts and entertainment,” “automotive”), identifying objects in video frames, summarizing or paraphrasing snippets of text, transcribing audio recordings — specialties at which neural algorithms excel. . . .

How do you categorize Wikipedia, a constantly buzzing mechanism with replaceable human parts? Submit an article or change one and a swarm of warm- and sometimes hot-blooded proofreading routines go to work making corrections and corrections to the corrections."

Click on the title of this post to read the entire article. (Free Registration may be required at New York Times site.)

The Multiple Lives You Are Living

If Quantum Mechanics really does suggest an infinite amount of parallel universes or realities existing simultaneously, then this changes what you perceive as everyday reality.

If we create our reality by our intentions and choices on a minute-by-minute basis, then even though it defies understanding, we are constantly stepping into and out of the ever-flowing river of time and reality.

Let me give an example. So much of what happens to us depends on what we envision as happening to us and as what we remember that happened to us in the past. I have been looking for a good friend from college for about 17 years with no success. Last week I recalled an incident that happened to him and his family and I commented on it on the following blog, Divergence. Hours later, I was exploring the Invisible web (the Deep Web) and accessed http://www.pipl.com/ and, to my utter surprise, I was able to find my friend's phone number in a database that had forever eluded me. I was able to talk with him and catch up with all that had transpired during those 17 years. One comment he made chilled me. He said he always felt that I'd contact him again when he turned 50 which happened last week.

I had always felt that I'd never find him again--that he was forever beyond my reach. I even thought he had died and that was the explanation as to why he was not in any of the databases that I had used to find countless friends from the past. It almost felt like I was never supposed to find him again in this life. My suspicion is that had we both not had that intention to find each other after two decades, we probably would not have done so.

Now this is the chilling part. Each of us is experiencing to some degree a different universe or reality than what we experienced even a day or an hour ago from the one we had been experiencing even a day or an ago earlier. The people we meet and the experiences we have are not the same ones we would have met or experienced had we continued existing in the previous universe or reality. Of course some things stay the same, you continue living in the same home from day to day. You continue in the same job from day to day. You stay married or related to the same spouse or love interest or friends from day to day, but there are slight changes that occur to you that are not integral to the life and world you were previously living in.

In other words, reality is always changing, perhaps subtly, but changing nevertheless. In other realities I could have lived in, I would still be looking for my elusive friend with no known address or phone number. In another universe he would still be looking for me, as well.

A good film to explore this concept of ever-changing reality is Dark City, a SciFi film that is like no other in that it explores a Matrix-like alternate reality, but one that continues changing from day to day.

Are we Living in the Afterlife Now?

If this is the afterlife, we had better make the best of it. This life has a heavenly quality for some people. For others, the experience is more hellish than heavenly. There are all the variations in-between, as well.

I'm not saying there is no Afterlife. The traditional view of some other reality after death, or at some distant point in the future after one dies, may very well also be a possibility. Nevertheless, if this present reality were to some significant degree a kind of afterlife, as perfect or as imperfect as it may seem, then the next question arises. What was the previous life like? Was it as imperfect or perfect as this one? Was it almost a mirror of this reality? Or was it slightly different in some important way?

This may sound like the reincarnation that Hindus believe with no end in site until one achieves, or doesn't achieve Nirvana or Benign Oblivion. On the otherhand, this life-after-life-after-life may simply be the different alternate realities that String Theory and M Theory postulate as existing side by side.

What if life were one long series of opening doors that are always opening or closing in a long corridor of eternity? You go through one and open another one for all eternity. This endless opening of doors does not sound like such an imperfect reality, provided one is equally healthy and happy. There will always be new doors to open and close along that endless corridor of time.