nmt7 nmt7

-Reddit quote: "mashes ctrl-f in disbelief"-

I had a strange partial dream a few nights ago wherein people who woke up at different times had different accents. Wait, what?

A family member introduced me to this site recently, and since I have no idea what to make of it, I present it to you, my readers, in bewilderment. Perhaps you can figure out what makes it so special?

Reality check. Also, watch The Fifth Element.

a7t at7t

-Context, context, context quote: "I like the ending, but it takes so long to get there." (commenting on the song Point of No Return from Phantom of the Opera)-

I didn't have any particularly interesting dreams this week, although I did have a sort of creepy dreamlike experience. One of the other tenants in the house I'm renting woke up in the middle of the night and had some kind of seizure or something, causing them to suddenly start talking (shouting?) loudly and repetitively. It was one of those situations where it's really obvious that the speaking is involuntary, and equally obvious that it is not normal sleeptalking. Sleeptalking runs in my family, so I know what it's supposed to sound like. Anyway, it was so weird and I was so half-asleep that in the morning I wasn't even sure it really happened. It wasn't until I heard that the tenant in question visited the hospital that day that I realized it had been real.

Well, actually on some level I knew that it had been real because it had a different texture (if that word makes sense here) than my usual dreams. In other words, it was dreamlike in the sense that it was like a dream, but not dreamlike if you stipulate that it was like one of my dreams. That caused me a lot of subconscious confusion when I was trying to figure out how to categorize it... much like, as I talked about last week, the confusion I get when I try to resolve a full mental map with the arbitrary "forward vectors" I assign to locations. The general dreamlikeness asked for it to be put in the "dream" bin, but the lack of likeness to my specific dreams said otherwise.

Interestingly (but not surprisingly, I guess), the part of my brain that was arguing for the "dream" category was the cut-and-dry, rational, verbal bit, whereas my intuition was nagging at me for the alternate interpretation. As usual, the global-thinking, holistic part of my brain was right.

Reality check. I really need to learn to trust my intuition more.

mq mq

-Enigma quote: "I love you. I'll kill you. But I love you forever."-

Had a dream with boring content but an interesting (recurrent) feature. The locations all had a specific orientation; i.e. there was an objective "front" side to every room and area.

The strange thing is that I don't think the "front" directions actually lined up in the dream. It seems like I left one building in a certain direction, and then when next I got a strong sense of directional orientation from an area, it conflicted with the direction that was "forward" originally. I didn't notice this in the dream, but I did afterwards when I was trying to map out the landscape. The "forwardness" turns out to be the strongest motivation for how I mentally map an area, but it's not the only consideration, so I tend to have moments of confusion when trying to reconcile how the areas with conflicting definitions of "front" connect to each other.

Come to think of it, this is really enlightening. I think it explains why I tend to get lost over and over again when I have to navigate new (or even partially familiar) buildings, even with a map. I mentally create a "forward" vector at certain locations in the building, but it often has nothing to do with how the vectored locations line up. However, my brain assigns more weight to the forward tag than to the connections between locations, jumbling my understanding of how the building is really laid out, and confusing me when I go down a staircase and exit from a different wall of the building than I anticipated.

Staircases are ripe for mis-labeling because they tend to double back on themselves or rotate at landings, sometimes multiple times. Also, they are often sparsely windowed and walled off from the rest of the building, isolating stair-walkers from outside reference points. Thus, it is frequently the case that the first floor and second floor of a building will have conflicting forward vectors in my mind, causing disorientation whenever I cross from one to another by a different staircase than the one that prompted the incorrect mapping.

Reality check. Now the real trick is seeing if I have a better sense of direction once I isolate and eradicate the tagging habit.

jf7t jf7t jf7t

-CAKE quote: "I have a heart that's made of wood."-

I may have had interesting dreams this week, but my lack of sleep (my own fault, got myself into a Buffy marathon, and Buffy seasons have a habit of being 20 episodes or more) prevented me from remembering all but a few snatches. Actually, my lack of sleep is probably partially the fault of the weather, because it's gotten to the really nasty, sticky part of summer. You know, the part that's not really that hot, but your body hasn't adjusted to not-spring yet, so it's unbearable? That's the part it's on right now.

For reasons that will shortly be obvious, I've been unusually receptive to music this week. Since that's been the... second-most... interesting feature of this week, I figured I'd share some of the songs that got added to my "background music for work" playlist recently.

CAKE

Satan Is My Motor

Hem of Your Garment

Love You Madly

Wheels

Enigma

Push the Limits

TNT for the Brain

Boum Boum

Reality check. Three guesses on what the most interesting feature of the week was, and the second and third guesses don't count. *dopey grin*