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I've had myriad lucid dreams, starting with one of my earliest memories in which I became lucid during a nightmare and experiencing an OBE. The dream scape has every bit the weight, value and impact on my sense of self and reality as any events that have occurred in physical reality. In many respects, waking life to me is like a collective dream state, where the impact of intention takes 'time' by our perception due to the vibrational level at which it is experienced. Dreams respond instantaneously to the slightest intention. This first experience dissolved any fear of death before I ever knew what death was... (I was four). It is directly related to my lifelong quest to seek out and explore altered states of consciousness. Currently I'm working on the MCO while dreaming. I've had several successes, mostly becoming aware while already engaged in the MCO, rather than becoming lucid and then beginning the cycle. In recent years, my lucidity experience has been more of the 'aware I'm dreaming' and just going for the ride while aware, rather than impacting the dream scape with direct intention. I view two categories of dreams, small and large. The small are rather mundane, set in very earth-like conditions. The large bend my sense of self and reality beyond words/emotions or even images. I'm endlessly fascinated by dreams...

And have you noticed -- our "real" becomes dream. It's isomorphic... The golden age was real once. Or childhood -- ours or someone else's. I have dreams of other lives, where everything is real except me of this-here life, who is a weird dream to the huntress of some 40,000 years ago, or to a spirit reader for a nomadic tribe, or to a much stranger person who finds me-of-this-life very strange too. Each one of these is a dream "here" but real "there," they have nothing on me, I have nothing on them -- just like a bead on a necklace of pearls has nothing on another bead, many more beads removed -- except the common string they are all revolving around, and the occasional reflections of one another they catch if you turn the necklace in such a way that you can glimpse them.

* Scientists, like everyone else, will have their view on what this universal experience of 'death', is. In a very real way, it is the ultimate mystery for man,.... because it is the gate through which everyone passes, but no one has ever returned to tell us about. (And of course I am aware of the myriad testimonies of Near Death Experiences. But thinking about them a bit more deeply, the very first word says all that is necessary on that count, doesn't it.) So, we all choose the explanation that appeals most to our sensibilities. Some scientists may choose an idea like you've outlined above. Me,... I happen to like most this one below by Richard Sylvester. I guess it just suits my nature : * * Last night I dreamt that I was having dinner in a restaurant with an old friend. We asked for the bill but before it came I woke up. Did my friend have to pay my share of the bill ? It is easy to see that the question about my dream is absurd. It is the same with the question "What happens to me after death ?" The question dissolves when it is seen that I am a dreamed character. Then it is seen that there is no `me' who dies, no `after' because time is created only in the dreamed mind and no `death' because death is simply the awakening from the dream. The mind cannot imagine its own annihilation. Faced with the appearance of death in the dream, the mind creates stories about its own continued existence after death. All of these stories are like answers to the question "Who pays the restaurant bill of the dreamer who wakes up before the bill arrives ?" We are all familiar with so many of these stories. Most offer some variation of reward for a life well-lived, (however that is conceived), and punishment for evil doing. They are both seductive and intimidating, alternately promising us spiritual riches and threatening us with dire consequences. But in liberation it is seen that there is no separate individual before death, so the individual's continuation after death is hardly a problem – it becomes irrelevant. In practice what this means is that generally, when liberation is seen, concerns about death cease to bother us and stories about an after-life cease to interest us. This leaves more attention free to enjoy whatever is happening right now. I like the words of Ramesh Balsekar on death. “What does death ultimately mean? It means the end of the struggle of daily living. It means the end of duality.”

Yes once eyes start to open in the dream ..

Was away for few days ...really interesting Taomeow . Ah , OK . My dreamself doesnt think either , but acts . Infact if thinking starts I wake up , which can be really annoying sometimes . Only in begging of falling asleep there may be a thought of some sort , but this would not be classed as dream but falling asleep period (by me) . It is hard to describe , but if there is thought coming up when deep in dream , even a very subtle one -- I already know that I will wake up . At this point I start using abiltiy to speak with sound in the dream , and everything starts dissolving -- fading away . Last time (and not the only one ) I was having an important converstaion with one teacher whom I do not know , but still remeber his physical and mental picture and place he told me to remeber. He was telling something important but thought came and I knew that I will become more dense and not be able to hear rest unless he hurries up . So I started to appologise and tell him that I will disspear soon and that my voice is going to and urged him to hurry up with what he has to tell. Dream me thought awake me a lot , infact it is through dreams and its connection with waking state that most understanding come . Goes both ways . Yes in comparison everyday "civilised" life can be pretty dry , to refresh the connection with more magical way of being is a true art .

Oh, by the way....soon I will become Padmapani...my current big dream me!itely edit: I LOVE being crazy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! crazy people are on the fast-track to framing artwork in a temple, performing absolutions before Buddha and then eating the string cheese leftovers. 1)Dont waste 2)Take the time to do it right 3)Its an animal planet 4)People should respect the insane, because we are all definitely insane 5)There are people here who like you just as much as I do! Be happy.

Thanks for mention Taomeow. This book gives me a lot to think and to reflect on. I read the book and I think there is the need to see into our society in the moment. Many people now own many different things and also in great variation because of the wealth and the mass consume by making rare stuff avaible to everybody and the result of the different tools to express the individulalty. In addition the possesions (possesive?) have become more information based because of the development of personal computers. Especially I listen attentively when she said that the things we own are filled with our energy and the more we like and use it the more it is filled (german version-my understanding). So a territory we have to look inside is "What is on our PC?" Mostly we have lots of links, bookmarks,musicdata, games, electronic writtings and the things are here and there with lots of pictures and manuscripts and programs. So this would be also a place I would consider to take care about. Especially people who play online games might "forget" their password and leave a game behind and it is useful to formulate a mental command to to let go of the "alter ego" and "the universe of the game" and do a formal ending to the possesion. I think people here have their own ways. Actually I also found after reading a part of this book that I have things I have not touch yet. One are two books about Bagua by Tom Bisio and the other is a set of Bagua Tai Chi and the third is Tai Chi Ruler by Terry Dunn. Arcording my understanding of the books information unfinished and unused stuff or incomplete stuff are draining. I guess I have to read and see the stuff to increase my energy, since it is precious information (which is maybe a trap... that I 'may' need it ) So if one think a bit further it is also ask for more concentration on one theme. Exercising different systems may limit one unconcious. I expirience that if one put a specific amount of effort into whatever it is then I seem to have less for something else. The 100 day Gong as it practise in Zhineng Qigong seem a wise idea. Actually a thing I also ask myself and others. How many things can we remember we have when we close our eyes and 'where' is it? I heard in the past someone said it is best to mediate and practise in a plain room with nothing than the 6 walls having a plain colour - or non colour if one want count white in . The next thing is how much we know the details of the things we have? The thing I understood from reading that book is that the ignoring of something cost energy (especially clutter, things that have to be done) Beside the stuff we have today they have lots of details in form of different fonts. I think be able to remember all the numbers and alphabet on the keyboard you are typing is already difficult. Such Item is an example how complicate things become. This information is back up from some magic book I neither own or know the title but it was about getting an item and observe and then close the eyes and remember as many details as possible, open and seek what was missing and correcting when it was plain wrong. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well I read through chapter 6/22 and have gained such insight until then. Maybe something to add ... I will edit then below the line above. Typing is more time consuming then reading. Update: So I end up reading the whole book yesterday, result in throwing sentimental stuff away, like old video games, cd and mangas and plush and figurines. For videogames I have some word to say. Mostly the theme is "one against all" from the symbolic and for the association it isnt nice to have such theme in life. Also even it is that one start to do things on one own. I read in yesterday something like "being a team isn't just about to protect others getting protected is also a team" quote from a translation in 'Kuroko no Basku'. Shocking was I found even a book I not even remember when I bought it and cds I never listen to. I whole get rid of 40 kilos of stuff in three bags. I found the book until chapter 15 really interesting then it is read like a repetition on 'Simplify My Life'(Good book to organize ones life but has not much of the psychological stuff of space clearing and de-cluttering and its influence on the Feng Shui). So now I look.... Chapter 12 is about Books and this one was hitting me hard. Having Books for substitute for Relationships was said in that chapter. By the idea of to make the book express the momentary development I through some books away. (Imagine someone has in his room 80% free space and still through away 1/2 of the 20%) Well it cut me 4 hour of recompensation sleep from the week, seem to work this decluttering, I had belly ache while throwing the sentimental stuffs away. I have then put all stuff I havent read and listen or experiment with on the same place. I can say its a odd feeling to see such mental distortion when watching it - really pull energy down . Update: Aiya, there where stuff that where so boring I throw them away. Truly one wants a lots things to archieve as it seems to be nice to be able to do that, but well... if one has it and one not use - like drawing Manga. I have a whole set for how to draw Manga, someone who actually draw will inherit them. It was a nice dream.

* I'm a little apprehensive about contributing this next story to a religious/philosophic forum since it doesn't have the appearance of a 'spiritual story', nor even offer a salutary moral lesson that might possibly act as guidance in our daily lives. But from the first time I read it there was something so irresistibly compelling,... so exalting of the resolute, ‘fearless-yet-compassionate’ side of humanity, that this story was the jewel in the crown, above all others, that I simply had to add here. The story itself arrived by such curious means that it still mystifies me. One day while I was sitting at my desk near the front door, the postman arrived, the letter slot popped open, and a small package dropped onto the floor. After removing the parcel's wrapping, I found myself holding what appeared to be a single chapter torn from the body of a book of stories. There was neither a return address nor a covering letter. I've never since been able to discover who sent it, nor had I previously heard so much as a word concerning the subject matter of the story. Since then I've read and re-read this extract with undiminished pleasure quite a number of times over the years since it first arrived. However, few weeks ago a strong thought came out of the blue,… that I suddenly wanted to find out more about this story. The first step was obvious, (and I clearly should have explored it earlier). But the title of a book is usually written on the top of each left-hand page and, luckily, the torn segments I had followed that literary convention. So I put the title into Amazon's search engine and found that it had been taken from a book called "Seven Wonders of the Industrial World", by Deborah Cadbury. Once I had this information, I straight away ordered a copy of the complete book. And though I must say that the story posted below still remains my personal favourite from the collection,.... Ms Cadbury certainly is an extremely capable writer. If you enjoy her down-to-earth style in this story, I'm sure you would equally appreciate the rest of her most fascinating book. To cut my long-winded intro short, though on the simplest level this could be described as merely a tale of courage and altruistic motivation by a select handful of working British folk of the 1800s,.... I personally feel that its relevance is far more universal. Primarily, I find it an uplifting story about ‘all’‘ mankind. Human faults are so widely publicised in newspaper, TV programme, and in endless accounts of the environmental havoc we've unleashed on all other species by our existence on this planet. Thankfully, after I first read this historical testament, an inner part of me quietly rejoiced. A simple story,… of the 'good' in man. P.S. I've just discovered that it will have to be posted in two parts because there are too many characters. Fortunately there were logical break-points within the story exactly as Ms Cadbury wrote it. P.P.S. All my relatives arrive tomorrow so I imagine I’ll be away from this forum for a week or so, till Christmas is over and normalcy returns. I suddenly thought, a two-part serial of a 19th century tale,… it seemed a perfect Dickensian way to launch the Christmas season ! I hope the coming celebration brings all readers on this forum, every happiness of family, friends and shared enjoyment. * * THE BELL ROCK LIGHTHOUSE PART ONE : * The safe anchorage of the Firth of Forth on the east coast of Scotland has always been a refuge for shipping hoping to escape the wild storms of the North Sea. The safety of this natural inlet, however, is considerably compromised by the presence of a massive underwater reef, the Bell Rock, lying treacherously right in the middle of the approach to the Firth of Forth. It is far enough away from the coast for landmarks to be unable to define its position, being eleven miles south of Arbroath and a similar distance west from the mouth of the Tay. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, when a storm was brewing in the Forth and Tay area, those at sea faced a forbidding choice: ride out the storm in the open sea or try to find safety in the Firth of Forth and risk an encounter with the Bell Rock. Hidden by a few feet of water under the sea, the craggy shape of the Bell Rock lay in wait for sailing ships, as it had for centuries, claiming many lives and ships and scattering them wantonly, like trophies, over its silent and mysterious escarpments. It bares itself briefly twice a day at low tide for an hour or two, and then disappears under the sea at high tide, sometimes its position given away by waves breaking on the submerged rocks and foaming surf over its rugged features. An outcrop of sandstone about a quarter of a mile long, it slopes away gently on the southern side, but to the north it rises steeply from the seabed, an unyielding barrier. For early navigators the greatest danger was to come suddenly upon the northern cliff face. Any ship taking soundings north of the rock would find deep water and assume all was safe, only to learn the fatal error should the ship stray a few yards further south. All on board would listen for the last sounds they might hear of timber being torn and split as wood was crushed against rock. So many lives were lost, along the whole Scottish coast the notorious Bell Rock 'breathed abroad an atmosphere of terror'. For centuries the sea lanes were deserted, their wild highways left unchallenged, but from about the mid-eighteenth century the growth of trade in flax, hemp and goods for the weaving industry saw an increase in shipping and, as a consequence, a growing number of fatal collisions with the massive submerged cliff of the Bell Rock. The heavy toll brought pleas for some kind of warning light, although no one was sure how this could be done so far out to sea on a rock which for most of the time was under water. The local people of the east coast had once succeeded in putting a warning on the rock. In the fourteenth century, it was said, a man called John Gedy, the abbot of Aberbrothock, was so concerned at the numbers who perished there that he set out to the rock with his monks and an enormous bell. With incredible ingenuity, they attached the bell to the rock and it rang out loud and clear above the waves warning all seafarers, an invisible church in the sea. The good abbot, however, had not reckoned on human avarice. Soon after, a Dutch pirate called 'Ralph the Rover' stole the bell, in spite of its miraculous Power to save life by its insistent warning ring. Ironically, he died within a year and must have regretted his act when his ship met bad weather and the great reef and some said a deserving fate, as he and his ship disappeared beneath the waves. From that time, the rock acquired its name and became known as the 'Bell Rock'. The coast of Scotland is long and rugged and has many jagged peninsulas and rocky islets. Even by the late eighteenth century for hundreds of miles, according to local accounts, these desolate shores ‘were nightly plunged into darkness'. To help further the safety of these coastal waters, the Northern Lighthouse Board was established in 1786 to erect and maintain lighthouses. At that time, the warning lights to shipping were often no more than bonfires set on dangerous headlands, maintained by private landowners. When the warning fires were most needed in bad weather, they were usually put out by drenching rain. By 1795, the board had improved on these primitive lights with seven major lighthouses, but progress was slow' They were chronically under funded, though never short of requests to do more by worried ship-owners, and especially to put a light on the Bell Rock. The Northern Lighthouse Board was well aware of the desirability of a light on the rock. Its reputation as a killer lying in wait at the entrance to the enticing safety of the Firth of Forth had travelled well beyond England. However, with little in the way of funds and the difficulties of building so far out to sea on a rock that was submerged by up to sixteen feet of water for much of the day, such a request was improbable madness not even to be considered. There was one man, however, who had been dreaming of the impossible, of building a lighthouse on the hidden reef and allowing the whole bay of the Firth of Forth to be useful as safe anchorage. Robert Stevenson was a man of strong character who by some strange fate had been given the very opportunities he needed to fulfil his ambition. In early rife his chances of success had looked poor. His mother, Jean Stevenson, had been widowed and left penniless when he was only two. Years of hardship followed, but Jean Stevenson, a deeply religious woman, struggled on to ensure an education for her son. In later life, Stevenson always remembered, that dark period when my mother’s ingenious and gentle spirit amidst all her difficulties never failed her'. Jean was eventually remarried in November 1792 to an Edinburgh widower called Thomas Smith who designed and manufactured lamps. At the time, Smith was interested in increasing the brightness of his lamps. A scientific philosopher from Geneva called Ami Argand had recently developed a way of improving brightness by fitting a glass tube or chimney around the wick. Smith was experimenting with taking this work further by placing a polished tin reflector behind and partly surrounding the wick, shaped in a parabolic curve to focus the light. This gave a much brighter beam than conventional oil lamps and the lamps from his workshops were now much in demand. He was soon approached by the Northern Lighthouse Board, who employed him as their lighting engineer. At a time when lighthouses were as basic as a fire or torch on top of an open tower or simple oil lamps encased in glass lanterns, Smith began to design oil lamps with parabolic reflectors consisting of small facets of mirror glass to create a powerful beam. When the young Robert Stevenson visited his stepfather's workshop, he found it a magical place where uninteresting bits of metal and glass were transformed into beautiful precision-made objects. Jean could see where her son's interests lay and, much to his delight, Stevenson was soon apprenticed to Thomas Smith. One of Thomas Smith's duties at the Northern Lighthouse Board was to visit the board's growing number of lighthouses. During the summer months he and Stevenson would set out by boat and appraise the situation, repairing damage and deciding on the position of new lighthouses. By about the turn of the century this responsibility fell entirely to Stevenson. 'The seas into which his labours carried the new engineer were still scarce charted,' his grandson, Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote years later. * “The coasts still dark; his way on shore was often far beyond the convenience of any road; the isles in which he must sojourn were still partly savage. He must toss much in boats; he must often adventure on horseback through unfrequented wildernesses he must sometimes plant his lighthouse in the very camp of wreckers; and he was continually enforced to the vicissitudes of out door life. The joy of my grandfather in this career was strong as the love of woman. It lasted him through youth and manhood, it burned strong in age and at the approach of death his last yearning was to renew these loved experiences.” * From May to October, Stevenson went on his round visiting the board's scattered lighthouses, taking much needed supplies and solving problems. These could vary from the repair of storm-damaged buildings to the question of finding new pasture for the keepers’ cow. Stevenson was also employed to map out the position of new lighthouses and soon found that some of the inhabitants of the remote islands – who supplemented their income from wrecking - were openly hostile to him. On one journey in dense fog his ship came dangerously near sharp rocks of the Isle of Swona. The captain hoped to get help towing the ship away from the danger from a village he could see on shore. The village looked dead; everyone was asleep. To attract attention, he fired a distress signal. Stevenson watched in disbelief as .door after door was opened, and in the grey light of morning, fisher after fisher was seen to come forth nightcap on head. There was no emotion, no animation, it scarce seemed any interest; not a hand was raised, but all callously waited the harvest of the sea, and their children stood by their side and waited also.’ Luckily a breeze sprang up and the ship was able to make for the open sea. During these summer trips Stevenson learned a great deal. He could be impatient, not inclined to suffer fools gladly, but he never lacked confidence in his ability to tackle the most difficult problems. Over these years, as the Scottish coastline and its lighthouses became ingrained on his mind, he was nurturing his secret ambition to tame for ever the awful power of the Bell Rock. The fulfilment of his dream seemed remote. Stevenson was not a qualified civil engineer. As Smith’s young assistant he had little influence with the board. And he was only too aware that the commissioners believed that a light on the Bell Rock was out of the question. Those living on the northeast coast of England and Scotland in December 1799 saw the old century dragged out with a thunderous storm of screaming winds and mountainous seas, which raged from Yorkshire to the Shetlands. All along the east coast, ships at anchorage were torn from their moorings and swept away. Those seafarers who could hear anything above the wind and crash of waves listened for the dreaded sound of wood cracking and splitting as it was thrown against rock - the sound of death. In Scotland, the haven of the Firth of Forth, guarded by the Bell Rock, was ignored. Ships preferred to make for the open sea and take their chances in the storm rather than try to steer their way past the dreaded reef. The storm lasted three days and was to sink 70 ships. The call for a light on the Bell Rock grew louder. If there had been a lighthouse, ship-owners argued, many more ships would have made for the safety of the Firth of Forth. The Northern Lighthouse Board began, at last, to give serious consideration to what they still saw as an insoluble problem and Stevenson was quick to present his own plan for a beacon-style lighthouse on cast-iron pillars. Although there was not a more dangerous situation 'upon the whole coasts of the Kingdom,' he argued, his design would be safe, relatively inexpensive and even pay for itself as the board collected fees from ships taking advantage of its warning light. The cautiously minded board was impressed with the idea of economy, but less sure of Stevenson's design. Despite his experience around the coast of Scotland, Stevenson had not yet managed to set foot on Bell Rock itself and was impatient to do so. In April 1800, he hired a boat, intending to survey the site, but the weather was too stormy to land. In May, as he sailed nearby on a journey north, it lay invisible, even at low tide. He had to wait until the neap tides of October before he could make the attempt again. At the last minute, however, the boat he had been promised was unavailable and no one was prepared to take him out to the rock, not even in calm seas. Time was running out for a landing on the rock before winter and, if he could not find a boat he would miss the favourable tides. Finally, a fisherman was found who was prepared to take the risk; it transpired the man often braved the Bell Rock to hunt for valuable wreckage to supplement his income. Once on the rock, Stevenson and his friend, the architect James Haldane, had just two hours in which to assess the possibilities that the rock might offer before the tide returned and the rock disappeared. It was covered in seaweed and very slippery. The surface was pitted and sea water gurgled and sucked in the fissures and gullies that criss-crossed the rock, but Stevenson was encouraged by what he saw. The exposed area at low tide was about 250 by 130 feet, revealing enough room for a lighthouse. Better still the surface of the rock was of very hard sandstone, perfect for building. There was one problem though. He had thought that a lighthouse on pillars would offer less resistance to the sea, but when he saw the heavy swell around the rock, overwhelming the channels and inlets, pushing its bullying foamy waters into deep fissures even on a calm day, he knew his plan could not work. Visiting boats bringing supplies or a change of keeper would be shattered against the pillars in heavy seas, and the capability of the pillars to withstand the timeless bearing of the waves was questionable, too. “I am sure no one was fonder of his own work than I was, until I saw the Bell Rock,” he wrote. “I had no sooner landed than I saw my pillars tumble like the baseless fabric of a dream.” The two hours passed all too quickly. The fisherman, who had gathered spoils from wreckage on the reef, was anxious to leave as the returning tide swirled around their feet. For Stevenson, finding the Bell Rock and standing at the centre of its watery kingdom, with nothing but the ever-encroaching sea in sight, had been a revelation. It was clear that only an immensely strong tower would have a chance of surviving in such an exposed position - a building higher than the highest waves, made of solid sandstone and granite. With these thoughts in mind, he undertook an extensive tour of English lighthouses and harbour lights in search of a model on which to base his own plans. It was a journey of some two and a half thousand miles by coach or on horseback, which took many months of 1801. He soon found there was only one such stone sea-tower already in existence. It was built on a buttress of rock about nine miles from the port of Plymouth, off the south coast in Cornwall. The Eddystone Lighthouse, so called because of the dangerous eddies and currents that swirled around it, had withstood the fearsome gales blown in from the Atlantic since 1759. It had been built by John Smeaton, a man revered by Stevenson and considered to be the father of the civil engineering profession. Standing 70 feet high, it was made from interlocking solid Portland stone and granite blocks, which presented a tall, smooth curved shape to the elements. It had been inspired, Smeaton said, by the trunk of an oak tree. ‘An oak tree is broad at its base,' he explained, 'curves inward at its waist and becomes narrower towards the top. We seldom hear of a mature oak tree being uprooted.' There had been several attempts at lighthouses on the Eddystone rocks before Smeaton's triumphant endeavour, the most notable being the Winstanley Lighthouse, built in 1698. Henry Winstanley, the clerk of works at Audley End in Essex, was also an enthusiastic inventor and he took it upon himself to build a remarkable six-sided structure on the Eddystone rocks standing over 100 feet high. With charming balconies, gilded staterooms, decorative wrought-iron work and casement windows for fishing, the whole curious structure was topped with an octagonal cupola complete with flags, more wrought iron and a weather vane. It might have been more appropriately placed as a folly on a grand estate, but Winstanley was confident it could withstand the most furious of storms. He was so confident that he longed to be there in bad weather to observe the might of the sea and by chance he was there on 26 November 1703. That night a bad storm blew in with horizontal rain, screaming winds and waves 100 feet high. Winstanley certainly had his wish. At some time in the night, the fury of the sea took Winstanley and his pretty gilded lighthouse and tossed them to a watery oblivion. In the morning, nothing remained but a few pieces of twisted wire. On his return from his trip in September, Stevenson immediately set about redesigning his lighthouse along the lines of Smeaton's Eddystone. He, too, would build a solid tower that curved inwards, the walls narrowing with height and accommodating the keeper's rooms. It would have to be at least twenty feet taller than the Eddystone, which was built on a rock above sea level, unlike the Bell Rock, which at high tide was covered by eleven to sixteen feet of 'water. And if it was to be taller, it would also have to be wider at the base, over 40 feet, with solid, interlocking granite stone that would ensure it was invulnerable, even in roaring seas. More than 2,500 tons of stone would be needed and Stevenson calculated that the cost of such a lighthouse would be around £42,000. He could foresee that this cost would be a major obstacle as the annual income collected by the Northern Lighthouse Board from dues was a modest £4,386. He was right; the board thought the cost prohibitive and also questioned Stevenson's ability to undertake such an immense and difficult project. They felt he was too young and untried for this great responsibility and pointed out that he had in fact only ever built one lighthouse before, a small lighthouse at that, and on the mainland. The board made it clear that they intended consulting established men in the civil engineering profession, men with a body of work and high reputation, such as John Rennie, who was building the London Docks. But Stevenson was a man who stood four-square to an unfavourable wind. The sweet wine of optimism flowed in his veins in generous measure and he took the negative epistle from the board as a simple invitation to his buccaneering spirit to try again. Meanwhile the commissioners of the Northern Lighthouse Board realised they would never generate alone the huge sum needed for a lighthouse on the Bell Rock. It would need an Act of Parliament to allow them to borrow the required amount, which they would then repay from the shipping dues they collected. The first Bill was rejected in 1803, but the subject was far from forgotten. The board was still hopeful for some sort of light and made it known that they would give consideration to any sensible plan that was submitted. A Captain Brodie stepped forward with his plan for a lighthouse on four pillars made of cast iron and a generous offer to provide, at his own expense, a temporary light until a Permanent structure was in place. The board quietly shelved the lighthouse on cast-iron pillars but encouraged the temporary lights, which duly appeared, built of wood. And as each one was toppled by careless seas, it was replaced by Captain Brodie with growing impatience. Several budding engineers had proposed plans for a lighthouse on pillars, including one advocating hollow pillars, to be filled every tide by the sea, but the conservative- minded members of the Northern Lighthouse Board remained unconvinced. The years were sliding by and Stevenson embarked on courses in mathematics and chemistry at Edinburgh University and worked on designs for other lighthouses. All the while, he was untiring in his efforts to interest the board in his now perfected design for a strong stone tower on the Smeaton plan. He envisaged a lighthouse standing over 100 feet tall, 42 feet wide at the base, with 2 feet embedded in the Bell Rock, and the whole exterior of the building encased in granite. The board were polite but cautious. If only “it suited my finances to erect 10 feet or 15 feet of such a building before making any call upon the Board for money,” Stevenson declared with growing impatience, “I should be able to convince them that there is not the difficulty which is at first sight imagined.” While the officials procrastinated through 1804, a severe storm blew up and sank the gunship HMS York off the Bell Rock. Sixty-four guns and 491 lives were lost. With the loss of a gunship at a time of Napoleon’s unstoppable progress, the Admiralty at last woke up to the dangers of the Bell Rock. The board, however, still took no action and somewhat dejected, in December 1805, Stevenson could see no alternative but to send his plans to John Rennie seeking his advice. Rennie was a man at the peak of his career, widely recognised as one of the best civil engineers in the country, with twenty years achievement in building bridges, canals and harbours. None the less, Stevenson felt reluctant to share his ideas after all this time, pointing out that the design had 'cost me much, very much, trouble and consideration'. Rennie, however, was greatly impressed by his work and replied by return of post. He confirmed that only a stone building would survive the conditions of the Bell Rock and approved Stevenson's basic plan. He even came to a similar conclusion on the cost of the enterprise. Rennie's approval was enough to unlock the door. Overnight, the Northern Lighthouse Board was transformed and unanimous: the commissioners wanted a lighthouse on the Bell Rock such as Rennie advocated. But first there would have to be a Bill passed by Parliament allowing the board to borrow £25,000. In April 1806, John Rennie and Robert Stevenson went in person to Westminster to explain their case to the Lords of the Treasury and the Lords of the Admiralty. Progress was slow, but eventually the Bill was passed and a date set for work to start on the infamous Bell Rock. The Northern Lighthouse Board, mesmerised by Rennie's reputation and charmed by his charisma, placed him in overall charge, with Stevenson merely acting as his assistant. Rennie himself, who had never built a lighthouse, argued that the light on Bell Rock should be a fairly faithful copy of Smeaton’s Eddystone Lighthouse, which was, after all, a proven success. He based the design of the lighthouse tower on this concept, but with a much greater curvature at the base to deflect the force of the waves upwards. Although a lot younger, Stevenson considered himself far more knowledgeable about lighthouses than Rennie, having now built several, and he was also familiar with the unique conditions of the Bell Rock. So without ever questioning the older man's authority, he became quietly determined to work entirely from his own plan. But no one had ever built a lighthouse where so much of it was underwater. Stevenson could not know for sure whether a stone lighthouse was feasible. There was an awful possibility that the critics were right. Perhaps he was attempting the impossible, endangering life and squandering money. The Bell Rock could so easily have the last word as his imagined sea citadel came tumbling down. *

Here it is; Philosophically the question is not logically answerable. But I liked this little outline: X was Fated to have had a normal life. His Free Will caused him to kill . His Destiny will be prison for the rest of his life. Other snippets of conversation I liked (One is Nungali, another a retired professor of mathematics – he goes first): Free will applies to things we think we may be able to control; fate refers to things which we think are beyond our control Destiny is the sum of our choices but we imagine it in reverse - as is laid out for us already and we are heading to a defined destination (that’s why there seems a discrepancy when what we thought was, or might be destiny, changes by a choice of ourselves or others to interact with us … or others events; ‘happenstance’ - randomness exists. or some such foolish fantasy of the ego, which always tries to occupy center stage. Life is but a dream, but it doesn't necessarily go merrily along like the rowboat in the song. What we call reality is the dream of the Lord Vishnu, iconographically depicted as a Lotus growing out of Vishnu's naval as he sleeps. His dream is not only creative, but is impacted by other entities, such as Shiva and Kali, forces of change, transformation, destruction. If not for destruction, the dream bubble would become too full and burst; the Lotus would topple under its own weight; and all creation would vanish instantly. Meanwhile we (myself included, of course) muddle along with our puny egoistic fantasies of free will and fate and destiny and karma and our illusion of being an autonomous entity of some sort. Whatever happens is in no way dependent on whether one believes in free will or fate. These are just attitudes, no more, no less, just a result of linear thinking. Reality is not linear. In Relativity Theory (which is no longer just a theory) it can even be impossible to distinguish between past, present, and future, nor is it possible to synchronize two clocks in different locations in the universe, since it is impossible for communication to be instantaneous, and the speeds at which the hands of the clocks move are dependent on the relative velocities of the clocks. A Christian told me ; “God gives you free will so that you can learn and grow, but sometimes God comes in and says ‘Oh no that's just too screwed up’ and doesn't let it happen." That’s pretty strange then considering what this Christian God DOES allow ! Yes … well, randomness exists. I have come to some conclusions then; that life is rather random; that fate hinges on the actions of others, whom are in turn influenced by others yet again; that free will puts me to a great extent where I am; d) that my destiny is the sum of my choices; that my karma is to learn what I can from my choices, and the reactions of others to those choices - hopefully to thereby evolve and that there is, I still believe, an element of Mystery present, people seem to ‘bring things with them’ when they are born? Yes ... even genetics seem to 'rule' us more than we realised; the twin girls seperated at infancy, bought up totally different, half a planet apart had an identical hair flicking motion, the twin brothers a continent apart having identical sun spots on their skin. But still ... it IS an interesting question philosophical QUESTION , regardless of us unable to come to a conclusion; If I jump into the flooding river, I am bound to be swept away. If I do it 'mindfully' I may end up exactly where 'I' want to go. I liked the story of the dream of Vishnu but for me, in my land, it's the Rainbow Serpent's dream ... the' knack' is, knowing it IS a dream ... and one's PLACE in that dream. And here ego can be tricky … we cant it here , traditionally and culturally like we are used to … one’s place in the dreaming (the living world now projected from the dreamtime) , traditionally is outlined by law and strict adherence , throughout a myriad facets of life; social contacts, marriage, hunting and food, territory ways of making things .. all set out - with an evolving and improving factor but severely limited, primarily by ecology – relationship to land and place as an integral component of religion and spirituality. But now, in MANY places the land is broken … ‘Broken Song’ so that link is different, even if broken land is part of the dreaming it has changed the harmony between people and law. So there is now a searching for one’s place in the dream because it may not be culturally outlined for you anymore. Maybe that’s why they say ‘New Dreaming’. Now we have new culture; traditional culture/ multicultural/western/global. WE all cant ignore place and location anymore, one of the significant things Aboriginal culture has taught Anthropology is the primal importance of connection to location spiritually for healthy societies and cultures. Find our place in the dream , or be born into it and ‘know it’ … live it out , or find it. Maybe big snake likes a dream more where he hasn’t worked out the ending – ‘experimental theatre’ … and maybe like ‘God’, described in the Christian opinion above , he lets us work it out , but sometimes we get to gross and he takes over ‘Alright you guys …that’s going too far.’ Maybe like when our dreams are a bit much and choose to modify them … or ‘attend to them’? because they don’t want to go in the direction the dream is going? Well then, big snake has some weird dreams too . They weren’t that weird until we came along . Everything was regulated and that was how the dreaming was going. So what happened. I don’t know … something disturbed the dream. Worlds/dreams collided? All part of one dream? If I remember rightly, all the land form to the west ranges and north and south along them was formed by a fight between a giant rainbow serpent and a goanna …. Somehow started by a giant bush turkey going around digging up sacred sites. There’s some food for thought !

It would be so grand if we could rejuvenate our soil to higher brix values. Vegetation high in brix value does not get targeted by insects, as they are high in mineral content and are unappealing. These vegetables are brimming with phytochemicals that are vital for good immune function. One of the predatory quality checks held by nature, the low mineral content soil grows vegetation that appeals to insects. The insects clear out the vegetation and things get a chance to recalibrate to a higher mineral content. We'd require far fewer pesticides if we'd grow more in accord with nature and on a smaller scale. That is unfortunately just a pipe dream given the nature of conditions here and now. I've spent some time on water fasts and a couple of various detoxes and can relate to you on the emotional experiences related to various food types. Not to mention the state of intention/mind of the one who prepares what I eat, that can be really profound! I hadn't ever considered the emotional dampening affect of fat deposits. Huge impact on the ability to take in, move and express subtle energy. That really rang the bell for me. Thanks!

Another take: Excerpt from K.G. "That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined. Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones? And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt that building your city and fashioned all there is in it? Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else, And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound. But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well. The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it, And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it. And you shall see And you shall hear. Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf. For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things, And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light..." :high-lights by me

The Farewell And now it was evening. And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken." And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener? Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he reached his ship and stood upon the deck. And facing the people again, he raised his voice and said: People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you. Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go. We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered. Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken. But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will come again, And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak. Yea, I shall return with the tide, And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding. And not in vain will I seek. If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts. I go with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down into emptiness; And if this day is not a fulfillment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise till another day. Know therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return. The mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but dew in the fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in rain. And not unlike the mist have I been. In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses, And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all. Ay, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams. And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains. I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires. And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams, and the longing of your youths in rivers. And when they reached my depth the streams and the rivers ceased not yet to sing. But sweeter still than laughter and greater than longing came to me. It was boundless in you; The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews; He in whose chant all your singing is but a soundless throbbing. It is in the vast man that you are vast, And in beholding him that I beheld you and loved you. For what distances can love reach that are not in that vast sphere? What visions, what expectations and what presumptions can outsoar that flight? Like a giant oak tree covered with apple blossoms is the vast man in you. His mind binds you to the earth, his fragrance lifts you into space, and in his durability you are deathless. You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconsistency. Ay, you are like an ocean, And though heavy-grounded ships await the tide upon your shores, yet, even like an ocean, you cannot hasten your tides. And like the seasons you are also, And though in your winter you deny your spring, Yet spring, reposing within you, smiles in her drowsiness and is not offended. Think not I say these things in order that you may say the one to the other, "He praised us well. He saw but the good in us." I only speak to you in words of that which you yourselves know in thought. And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge? Your thoughts and my words are waves from a sealed memory that keeps records of our yesterdays, And of the ancient days when the earth knew not us nor herself, And of nights when earth was upwrought with confusion, Wise men have come to you to give you of their wisdom. I came to take of your wisdom: And behold I have found that which is greater than wisdom. It is a flame spirit in you ever gathering more of itself, While you, heedless of its expansion, bewail the withering of your days. It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave. There are no graves here. These mountains and plains are a cradle and a stepping-stone. Whenever you pass by the field where you have laid your ancestors look well thereupon, and you shall see yourselves and your children dancing hand in hand. Verily you often make merry without knowing. Others have come to you to whom for golden promises made unto your faith you have given but riches and power and glory. Less than a promise have I given, and yet more generous have you been to me. You have given me deeper thirsting after life. Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain. And in this lies my honour and my reward, - That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty; And it drinks me while I drink it. Some of you have deemed me proud and over-shy to receive gifts. To proud indeed am I to receive wages, but not gifts. And though I have eaten berries among the hill when you would have had me sit at your board, And slept in the portico of the temple where you would gladly have sheltered me, Yet was it not your loving mindfulness of my days and my nights that made food sweet to my mouth and girdled my sleep with visions? For this I bless you most: You give much and know not that you give at all. Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone, And a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse. And some of you have called me aloof, and drunk with my own aloneness, And you have said, "He holds council with the trees of the forest, but not with men. He sits alone on hill-tops and looks down upon our city." True it is that I have climbed the hills and walked in remote places. How could I have seen you save from a great height or a great distance? How can one be indeed near unless he be far? And others among you called unto me, not in words, and they said, Stranger, stranger, lover of unreachable heights, why dwell you among the summits where eagles build their nests? Why seek you the unattainable? What storms would you trap in your net, And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky? Come and be one of us. Descend and appease your hunger with our bread and quench your thirst with our wine." In the solitude of their souls they said these things; But were their solitude deeper they would have known that I sought but the secret of your joy and your pain, And I hunted only your larger selves that walk the sky. But the hunter was also the hunted: For many of my arrows left my bow only to seek my own breast. And the flier was also the creeper; For when my wings were spread in the sun their shadow upon the earth was a turtle. And I the believer was also the doubter; For often have I put my finger in my own wound that I might have the greater belief in you and the greater knowledge of you. And it is with this belief and this knowledge that I say, You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields. That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind. It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety, But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether. If this be vague words, then seek not to clear them. Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end, And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning. Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal. And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay? This would I have you remember in remembering me: That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined. Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones? And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt that building your city and fashioned all there is in it? Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else, And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound. But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well. The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it, And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it. And you shall see And you shall hear. Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf. For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things, And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light. After saying these things he looked about him, and he saw the pilot of his ship standing by the helm and gazing now at the full sails and now at the distance. And he said: Patient, over-patient, is the captain of my ship. The wind blows, and restless are the sails; Even the rudder begs direction; Yet quietly my captain awaits my silence. And these my mariners, who have heard the choir of the greater sea, they too have heard me patiently. Now they shall wait no longer. I am ready. The stream has reached the sea, and once more the great mother holds her son against her breast. Fare you well, people of Orphalese. This day has ended. It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own tomorrow. What was given us here we shall keep, And if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver. Forget not that I shall come back to you. A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me. Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you. It was but yesterday we met in a dream. You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky. But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn. The noontide is upon us and our half waking has turned to fuller day, and we must part. If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song. And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky. So saying he made a signal to the seamen, and straightaway they weighed anchor and cast the ship loose from its moorings, and they moved eastward. And a cry came from the people as from a single heart, and it rose the dusk and was carried out over the sea like a great trumpeting. Only Almitra was silent, gazing after the ship until it had vanished into the mist. And when all the people were dispersed she still stood alone upon the sea-wall, remembering in her heart his saying, A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me."

Thanks for the warm privet into the thread! My waking self and my dream self are also similar, the way the map and the territory are similar... The waking self thinks about stuff and observes and muses and, more often than not, decides against any action. The dream self doesn't think -- she acts. The waking self sees the dust settle after the fact, when the dream self is done and gone. And thinks, "wow, did I do that? I wouldn't.. I wouldn't dare... wasn't me..." Lots and lots of indigenous peoples have always believed that events of the waking world are arranged and planned in the dreamtime. In my case it's not a uniform spread -- some things my dream self does not intervene in at all. My waking self is supposed to work them out without any "supernatural" help, probably because they are things, events and entities of the artificial world, as un-anchored and random as the rest of the non-magical, civilized human stuff which has no roots in the miraculous and therefore is blown about with no rhyme or reason. But the dream self has her pet peeves, things that she will never let slide into the wasteland of the random and meaningless. On those, she acts close to one hundred percent of the time -- with repercussions in the waking world.

Have you ever suspected that your dream-self is up to something that she doesn't bother to inform your waking-self about? I often have. My dream-self seems to have a completely unbridled version of many of the traits my waking-self has suppressed, so much so that I sometimes suspect the waking-self is the dream, and the dream-self is reality. The waking-self has been taught to be, well, civilized. The dream-self, no. Hell no. What sometimes worries me is that some impulses of the waking-self that civilized life deems mandatory to inhibit may be acted upon by the uninhibited dream-self and affect the waking reality. But she does not inform the waking me because the waking me would freak out. However, I get some indirect evidence... ...does anyone know what I'm talking about?..

* Last night my wife and I watched one of the most wonderful documentaries I've ever seen. It struck me this way because it was about someone whom I regard as one of the most heroic champions of every form of living being on our planet that our modern age has ever produced. Who else, but .... David Attenborough. It was the first show in a retrospective of his life's work to bring visual and mental awareness of the phenomenal beauty, (far beyond almost any one person's ability to conceive), of our living planet. Attenborough's growing and constantly evolving dream was to be able to share his discoveries and insights about nature with any person who had access to the medium of television. For me, the film footage of his 60 years of nature programs was touching, heart-warming, and profoundly inspiring. Amongst those scenes was one that unexpectedly re-activated a long-buried memory of the most gripping short story of my early high school days. In English one year we were obliged to read "Leiningen Versus the Ants". In last night's program, one of Attenborough's short clips showed the terrifying reality behind this insect army on the march and led me to search for this old, half-remembered story on Google. Luckily, against any logical expectation, someone had placed a copy of it there. I re-read it, ( found myself once more immediately gripped by the same powerful adrenaline rush of mind-paralysing fear and desperate efforts to survive),.... and decided to paste a copy here for anyone who might not have had the good fortune to be forced by their own teachers to expand their reading experience into this previously unimagined domain. It's a bit long, but what the hell. Cyberspace is limitless, and the thrill is 'intense !' : * * Leiningen Versus the Ants by Carl Stephenson (1893-1954) * "Unless they alter their course, (and there's no reason why they should), they'll reach your plantation in two days at the latest." Leiningen sucked placidly at a cigar about the size of a corncob and for a few seconds gazed without answering at the agitated District Commissioner. Then he took the cigar from his lips, and leaned slightly forward. With his bristling grey hair, bulky nose, and lucid eyes, he had the look of an aging and shabby eagle. "Decent of you," he murmured, "paddling all this way just to give me the tip. But you're pulling my leg of course when you say I must do a bunk. Why, even a herd of saurians couldn't drive me from this plantation of mine." The Brazilian official threw up lean and lanky arms and clawed the air with wildly distended fingers. "Leiningen!" he shouted. "You're insane! They're not creatures you can fight--they're an elemental--an 'act of God!' Ten miles long, two miles wide--ants, nothing but ants! And every single one of them a fiend from hell; before you can spit three times they'll eat a full-grown buffalo to the bones. I tell you if you don't clear out at once there'll he nothing left of you but a skeleton picked as clean as your own plantation." Leiningen grinned. "Act of God, my eye! Anyway, I'm not an old woman; I'm not going to run for it just because an elemental's on the way. And don't think I'm the kind of fathead who tries to fend off lightning with his fists either. I use my intelligence, old man. With me, the brain isn't a second blind gut; I know what it's there for. When I began this model farm and plantation three years ago, I took into account all that could conceivably happen to it. And now I'm ready for anything and everything--including your ants." The Brazilian rose heavily to his feet. "I've done my best," he gasped. "Your obstinacy endangers not only yourself, but the lives of your four hundred workers. You don't know these ants!" Leiningen accompanied him down to the river, where the Government launch was moored. The vessel cast off. As it moved downstream, the exclamation mark neared the rail and began waving its arms frantically. Long after the launch had disappeared round the bend, Leiningen thought he could still hear that dimming imploring voice, "You don't know them, I tell you! You don't know them!" But the reported enemy was by no means unfamiliar to the planter. Before he started work on his settlement, he had lived long enough in the country to see for himself the fearful devastations sometimes wrought by these ravenous insects in their campaigns for food. But since then he had planned measures of defence accordingly, and these, he was convinced were in every way adequate to withstand the approaching peril. Moreover, during his three years as a planter, Leiningen had met and defeated drought, Hood, plague and all other "acts of God" which had come against him-unlike his fellow-settlers in the district, who had made little or no resistance. This unbroken success he attributed solely to the observance of his lifelong motto: The human brain needs only to become fully aware of its powers to conquer even the elements. Dullards reeled senselessly and aimlessly into the abyss; cranks, however brilliant, lost their heads when circumstances suddenly altered or accelerated and ran into stone walls, sluggards drifted with the current until they were caught in whirlpools and dragged under. But such disasters, Leiningen contended, merely strengthened his argument that intelligence, directed aright, invariably makes man the master of his fate. Yes, Leiningen had always known how to grapple with life. Even here, in this Brazilian wilderness, his brain had triumphed over every difficulty and danger it had so far encountered. First he had vanquished primal forces by cunning and organization, then he had enlisted the resources of modern science to increase miraculously the yield of his plantation. And now he was sure he would prove more than a match for the "irresistible" ants. That same evening, however, Leiningen assembled his workers. He had no intention of waiting till the news reached their ears from other sources. Most of them had been born in the district; the cry "The ants are coming!'" was to them an imperative signal for instant, panic-stricken flight, a spring for life itself. But so great was the Indians' trust in Leiningen, in Leiningen's word, and in Leiningen's wisdom, that they received his curt tidings, and his orders for the imminent struggle, with the calmness with which they were given. They waited, unafraid, alert, as if for the beginning of a new game or hunt which he had just described to them. The ants were indeed mighty, but not so mighty as the boss. Let them come! They came at noon the second day. Their approach was announced by the wild unrest of the horses, scarcely controllable now either in stall or under rider, scenting from afar a vapour instinct with horror. It was announced by a stampede of animals, timid and savage, hurtling past each other; jaguars and pumas flashing by nimble stags of the pampas, bulky tapirs, no longer hunters, themselves hunted, outpacing fleet kinkajous, maddened herds of cattle, heads lowered, nostrils snorting, rushing through tribes of loping monkeys, chattering in a dementia of terror; then followed the creeping and springing denizens of bush and steppe, big and little rodents, snakes, and lizards. Pell-mell the rabble swarmed down the hill to the plantation, scattered right and left before the barrier of the water-filled ditch, then sped onwards to the river, where, again hindered, they fled along its bank out of sight. This water-filled ditch was one of the defence measures which Leiningen had long since prepared against the advent of the ants. It encompassed three sides of the plantation like a huge horseshoe. Twelve feet across, but not very deep, when dry it could hardly be described as an obstacle to either man or beast. But the ends of the "horseshoe" ran into the river which formed the northern boundary, and fourth side, of the plantation. And at the end nearer the house and outbuildings in the middle of the plantation, Leiningen had constructed a dam by means of which water from the river could be diverted into the ditch. So now, by opening the dam, he was able to fling an imposing girdle of water, a huge quadrilateral with the river as its base, completely around the plantation, like the moat encircling a medieval city. Unless the ants were clever enough to build rafts. they had no hope of reaching the plantation, Leiningen concluded. The twelve-foot water ditch seemed to afford in itself all the security needed. But while awaiting the arrival of the ants, Leiningen made a further improvement. The western section of the ditch ran along the edge of a tamarind wood, and the branches of some great trees reached over the water. Leiningen now had them lopped so that ants could not descend from them within the "moat." The women and children, then the herds of cattle, were escorted by peons on rafts over the river, to remain on the other side in absolute safety until the plunderers had departed. Leiningen gave this instruction, not because he believed the non-combatants were in any danger, but in order to avoid hampering the efficiency of the defenders. "Critical situations first become crises," he explained to his men, "when oxen or women get excited " Finally, he made a careful inspection of the "inner moat"--a smaller ditch lined with concrete, which extended around the hill on which stood the ranch house, barns, stables and other buildings. Into this concrete ditch emptied the inflow pipes from three great petrol tanks. If by some miracle the ants managed to cross the water and reached the plantation, this "rampart of petrol,' would be an absolutely impassable protection for the besieged and their dwellings and stock. Such, at least, was Leiningen's opinion. He stationed his men at irregular distances along the water ditch, the first line of defence. Then he lay down in his hammock and puffed drowsily away at his pipe until a peon came with the report that the ants had been observed far away in the South. Leiningen mounted his horse, which at the feel of its master seemed to forget its uneasiness, and rode leisurely in the direction of the threatening offensive. The southern stretch of ditch--the upper side of the quadrilateral--was nearly three miles long; from its centre one could survey the entire countryside. This was destined to be the scene of the outbreak of war between Leiningen's brain and twenty square miles of life-destroying ants. It was a sight one could never forget. Over the range of hills, as far as eye could see, crept a darkening hem, ever longer and broader, until the shadow spread across the slope from east to west, then downwards, downwards, uncannily swift, and all the green herbage of that wide vista was being mown as by a giant sickle, leaving only the vast moving shadow, extending, deepening, and moving rapidly nearer. When Leiningen's men, behind their barrier of water, perceived the approach of the long-expected foe, they gave vent to their suspense in screams and imprecations. But as the distance began to lessen between the "sons of hell" and the water ditch, they relapsed into silence. Before the advance of that awe-inspiring throng, their belief in the powers of the boss began to steadily dwindle. Even Leiningen himself, who had ridden up just in time to restore their loss of heart by a display of unshakable calm, even he could not free himself from a qualm of malaise. Yonder were thousands of millions of voracious jaws bearing down upon him and only a suddenly insignificant, narrow ditch lay between him and his men and being gnawed to the bones "before you can spit three times." Hadn't this brain for once taken on more than it could manage? If the blighters decided to rush the ditch, fill it to the brim with their corpses, there'd still be more than enough to destroy every trace of that cranium of his. The planter's chin jutted; they hadn't got him yet, and he'd see to it they never would. While he could think at all, he'd flout both death and the devil. The hostile army was approaching in perfect formation; no human battalions, however well-drilled, could ever hope to rival the precision of that advance. Along a front that moved forward as uniformly as a straight line, the ants drew nearer and nearer to the water ditch. Then, when they learned through their scouts the nature of the obstacle, the two outlying wings of the army detached themselves from the main body and marched down the western and eastern sides of the ditch. This surrounding manoeuvre took rather more than an hour to accomplish; no doubt the ants expected that at some point they would find a crossing. During this outflanking movement by the wings, the army on the centre and southern front remained still. The besieged were therefore able to contemplate at their leisure the thumb-long, reddish black, long-legged insects; some of the Indians believed they could see, too, intent on them, the brilliant, cold eyes, and the razor-edged mandibles, of this host of infinity. It is not easy for the average person to imagine that an animal, not to mention an insect, can think. But now both the European brain of Leiningen and the primitive brains of the Indians began to stir with the unpleasant foreboding that inside every single one of that deluge of insects dwelt a thought. And that thought was: Ditch or no ditch, we'll get to your flesh! * Not until four o'clock did the wings reach the "horseshoe" ends of the ditch, only to find these ran into the great river. Through some kind of secret telegraphy, the report must then have flashed very swiftly indeed along the entire enemy line. And Leiningen, riding--no longer casually--along his side of the ditch, noticed by energetic and widespread movements of troops that for some unknown reason the news of the check had its greatest effect on the southern front, where the main army was massed. Perhaps the failure to find a way over the ditch was persuading the ants to withdraw from the plantation in search of spoils more easily attainable. An immense flood of ants, about a hundred yards in width, was pouring in a glimmering-black cataract down the far slope of the ditch. Many thousands were already drowning in the sluggish creeping flow, but they were followed by troop after troop, who clambered over their sinking comrades, and then themselves served as dying bridges to the reserves hurrying on in their rear. Shoals of ants were being carried away by the current into the middle of the ditch, where gradually they broke asunder and then, exhausted by their struggles, vanished below the surface. Nevertheless, the wavering, floundering hundred-yard front was remorselessly if slowly advancing towards the besieged on the other bank. Leiningen had been wrong when he supposed the enemy would first have to fill the ditch with their bodies before they could cross; instead, they merely needed to act as steppingstones, as they swam and sank, to the hordes ever pressing onwards from behind. Near Leiningen a few mounted herdsmen awaited his orders. He sent one to the weir-the river must be dammed more strongly to increase the speed and power of the water coursing through the ditch. A second peon was dispatched to the outhouses to bring spades and petrol sprinklers. A third rode away to summon to the zone of the offensive all the men, except the observation posts, on the near-by sections of the ditch, which were not yet actively threatened. The ants were getting across far more quickly than Leiningen would have deemed possible. Impelled by the mighty cascade behind them, they struggled nearer and nearer to the inner bank. The momentum of the attack was so great that neither the tardy flow of the stream nor its downward pull could exert its proper force; and into the gap left by every submerging insect, hastened forward a dozen more. When reinforcements reached Leiningen, the invaders were halfway over. The planter had to admit to himself that it was only by a stroke of luck for him that the ants were attempting the crossing on a relatively short front: had they assaulted simultaneously along the entire length of the ditch, the outlook for the defenders would have been black indeed. Even as it was, it could hardly be described as rosy, though the planter seemed quite unaware that death in a gruesome form was drawing closer and closer. As the war between his brain and the "act of God'' reached its climax, the very shadow of annihilation began to pale to Leiningen, who now felt like a champion in a new Olympic game, a gigantic and thrilling contest, from which he was determined to emerge victor. Such, indeed, was his aura of confidence that the Indians forgot their stupefied fear of the peril only a yard or two away; under the planter's supervision, they began fervidly digging up to the edge of the bank and throwing clods of earth and spadefuls of sand into the midst of the hostile fleet. The petrol sprinklers, hitherto used to destroy pests and blights on the plantation, were also brought into action. Streams of evil-reeking oil now soared and fell over an enemy already in disorder through the bombardment of earth and sand. The ants responded to these vigorous and successful measures of defence by further developments of their offensive. Entire clumps of huddling insects began to roll down the opposite bank into the water. At the same time, Leiningen noticed that the ants were now attacking along an ever-widening front. As the numbers both of his men and his petrol sprinklers were severely limited, this rapid extension of the line of battle was becoming an overwhelming danger. To add to his difficulties, the very clods of earth they flung into that black floating carpet often whirled fragments toward the defenders' side, and here and there dark ribbons were already mounting the inner bank. True, wherever a man saw these they could still be driven back into the water by spadefuls of earth or jets of petrol. But the file of defenders was too sparse and scattered to hold off at all points these landing parties, and though the peons toiled like madmen, their plight became momentarily more perilous. One man struck with his spade at an enemy clump, did not draw it back quickly enough from the water; in a trice the wooden shaft swarmed with upward scurrying insects. With a curse, he dropped the spade into the ditch; too late, they were already on his body. They lost no time; wherever they encountered bare flesh they bit deeply; a few, bigger than the rest, carried in their hind-quarters a sting which injected a burning and paralyzing venom. Screaming, frantic with pain, the peon danced and twirled like a dervish. Realizing that another such casualty, yes, perhaps this alone, might plunge his men into confusion and destroy their morale, Leiningen roared in a bellow louder than the yells of the victim: "Into the petrol, idiot! Douse your paws in the petrol!" The dervish ceased his pirouette as if transfixed, then tore of his shirt and plunged his arm and the ants hanging to it up to the shoulder in one of the large open tins of petrol. But even then the fierce mandibles did not slacken; another peon had to help him squash and detach each separate insect. Distracted by the episode, some defenders had turned away from the ditch. And now cries of fury, a thudding of spades, and a wild trampling to and fro, showed that the ants had made full use of the interval, though luckily only a few had managed to get across. The men set to work again desperately with the barrage of earth and sand. Meanwhile an old Indian, who acted as medicine-man to the plantation workers, gave the bitten peon a drink he had prepared some hours before, which, he claimed, possessed the virtue of dissolving and weakening ants' venom. Leiningen surveyed his position. A dispassionate observer would have estimated the odds against him at a thousand to one. But then such an on-looker would have reckoned only by what he saw--the advance of myriad battalions of ants against the futile efforts of a few defenders--and not by the unseen activity that can go on in a man's brain. For Leiningen had not erred when he decided he would fight elemental with elemental. The water in the ditch was beginning to rise; the stronger damming of the river was making itself apparent. Visibly the swiftness and power of the masses of water increased, swirling into quicker and quicker movement its living black surface, dispersing its pattern, carrying away more and more of it on the hastening current. Victory had been snatched from the very jaws of defeat. With a hysterical shout of joy, the peons feverishly intensified their bombardment of earth clods and sand. And now the wide cataract down the opposite bank was thinning and ceasing, as if the ants were becoming aware that they could not attain their aim. They were scurrying back up the slope to safety. All the troops so far hurled into the ditch had been sacrificed in vain. Drowned and floundering insects eddied in thousands along the flow, while Indians running on the bank destroyed every swimmer that reached the side. Not until the ditch curved towards the east did the scattered ranks assemble again in a coherent mass. And now, exhausted and half-numbed, they were in no condition to ascend the bank. Fusillades of clods drove them round the bend towards the mouth of the ditch and then into the river, wherein they vanished without leaving a trace. The news ran swiftly along the entire chain of outposts, and soon a long scattered line of laughing men could be seen hastening along the ditch towards the scene of victory. For once they seemed to have lost all their native reserve, for it was in wild abandon now they celebrated the triumph--as if there were no longer thousands of millions of merciless, cold and hungry eyes watching them from the opposite bank, watching and waiting. The sun sank behind the rim of the tamarind wood and twilight deepened into night. It was not only hoped but expected that the ants would remain quiet until dawn. "But to defeat any forlorn attempt at a crossing, the flow of water through the ditch was powerfully increased by opening the dam still further. In spite of this impregnable barrier, Leiningen was not yet altogether convinced that the ants would not venture another surprise attack. He ordered his men to camp along the bank overnight. He also detailed parties of them to patrol the ditch in two of his motor cars and ceaselessly to illuminate the surface of the water with headlights and electric torches. After having taken all the precautions he deemed necessary, the farmer ate his supper with considerable appetite and went to bed. His slumbers were in no wise disturbed by the memory of the waiting, live, twenty square miles. Dawn found a thoroughly refreshed and active Leiningen riding along the edge of the ditch. The planter saw before him a motionless and unaltered throng of besiegers. He studied the wide belt of water between them and the plantation, and for a moment almost regretted that the fight had ended so soon and so simply. In the comforting, matter-of-fact light of morning, it seemed to him now that the ants hadn't the ghost of a chance to cross the ditch. Even if they plunged headlong into it on all three fronts at once, the force of the now powerful current would inevitably sweep them away. He had got quite a thrill out of the fight--a pity it was already over. He rode along the eastern and southern sections of the ditch and found everything in order. He reached the western section, opposite the tamarind wood, and here, contrary to the other battle fronts, he found the enemy very busy indeed. The trunks and branches of the trees and the creepers of the lianas, on the far bank of the ditch, fairly swarmed with industrious insects. But instead of eating the leaves there and then, they were merely gnawing through the stalks, so that a thick green shower fell steadily to the ground. No doubt they were victualing columns sent out to obtain provender for the rest of the army. The discovery did not surprise Leiningen. He did not need to be told that ants are intelligent, that certain species even use others as milch cows, watchdogs and slaves. He was well aware of their power of adaptation, their sense of discipline, their marvellous talent for organization. His belief that a foray to supply the army was in progress was strengthened when he saw the leaves that fell to the ground being dragged to the troops waiting outside the wood. Then all at once he realized the aim that rain of green was intended to serve. Each single leaf, pulled or pushed by dozens of toiling insects, was borne straight to the edge of the ditch. Even as Macbeth watched the approach of Birnam Wood in the hands of his enemies, Leiningen saw the tamarind wood move nearer and nearer in the mandibles of the ants. Unlike the fey Scot, however, he did not lose his nerve; no witches had prophesied his doom, and if they had he would have slept just as soundly. All the same, he was forced to admit to himself that the situation was far more ominous than that of the day before. He had thought it impossible for the ants to build rafts for themselves--well, here they were, coming in thousands, more than enough to bridge the ditch. Leaves after leaves rustled down the slope into the water, where the current drew them away from the bank and carried them into midstream. And every single leaf carried several ants. This time the farmer did not trust to the alacrity of his messengers. He galloped away, leaning from his saddle and yelling orders as he rushed past outpost after outpost: "Bring petrol pumps to the southwest front! Issue spades to every man along the line facing the wood!" And arrived at the eastern and southern sections, he dispatched every man except the observation posts to the menaced west. Then, as he rode past the stretch where the ants had failed to cross the day before, he witnessed a brief but impressive scene. Down the slope of the distant hill there came towards him a singular being, writhing rather man running, an animal-like blackened statue with shapeless head and four quivering feet that knuckled under almost ceaselessly. When the creature reached the far bank of the ditch and collapsed opposite Leiningen, he recognized it as a pampas stag, covered over and over with ants. It had strayed near the zone of the army. As usual, they had attacked its eyes first. Blinded, it had reeled in the madness of hideous torment straight into the ranks of its persecutors, and now the beast swayed to and fro in its death agony. With a shot from his rifle Leiningen put it out of its misery. Then he pulled out his watch. He hadn't a second to lose, but for life itself he could not have denied his curiosity the satisfaction of knowing how long the ants would take--for personal reasons, so to speak. After six minutes the white polished bones alone remained. That's how he himself would look before you can--Leiningen spat once, and put spurs to his horse. The sporting zest with which the excitement of the novel contest had inspired him the day before had now vanished; in its place was a cold and violent purpose. He would send these vermin back to the hell where they belonged, somehow, anyhow. Yes, but how was indeed the question; as things stood at present it looked as if the devils would raze him and his men from the earth instead. He had underestimated the might of the enemy; he really would have to bestir himself if he hoped to outwit them. The biggest danger now, he decided, was the point where the western section of the ditch curved southwards. And arrived there, he found his worst expectations justified. The very power of the current had huddled the leaves and their crews of ants so close together at the bend that the bridge was almost ready. True, streams of petrol and clumps of earth still prevented a landing. But the number of floating leaves was increasing ever more swiftly. It could not be long now before a stretch of water a mile in length was decked by a green pontoon over which the ants could rush in millions. Leiningen galloped to the weir. The damming of the river was controlled by a wheel on its bank. The planter ordered the man at the wheel first to lower the water in the ditch almost to vanishing point, next to wait a moment, then suddenly to let the river in again. This manoeuvre of lowering and raising the surface, of decreasing then increasing the flow of water through the ditch was to be repeated over and over again until further notice. This tactic was at first successful. The water in the ditch sank, and with it the film of leaves. The green fleet nearly reached the bed and the troops on the far bank swarmed down the slope to it. Then a violent flow of water at the original depth raced through the ditch, overwhelming leaves and ants, and sweeping them along. This intermittent rapid flushing prevented just in time the almost completed fording of the ditch. But it also flung here and there squads of the enemy vanguard simultaneously up the inner bank. These seemed to know their duty only too well, and lost no time accomplishing it. The air rang with the curses of bitten Indians. They had removed their shirts and pants to detect the quicker the upwards-hastening insects; when they saw one, they crushed it; and fortunately the onslaught as yet was only by skirmishers. Again and again, the water sank and rose, carrying leaves and drowned ants away with it. It lowered once more nearly to its bed; but this time the exhausted defenders waited in vain for the flush of destruction. Leiningen sensed disaster; something must have gone wrong with the machinery of the dam. Then a sweating peon tore up to him-- "They're over!" While the besieged were concentrating upon the defence of the stretch opposite the wood, the seemingly unaffected line beyond the wood had become the theatre of decisive action. Here the defenders' front was sparse and scattered; everyone who could be spared had hurried away to the south. Just as the man at the weir had lowered the water almost to the bed of the ditch, the ants on a wide front began another attempt at a direct crossing like that of the preceding day. Into the emptied bed poured an irresistible throng. Rushing across the ditch, they attained the inner bank before the slow-witted Indians fully grasped the situation. Their frantic screams dumfounded the man at the weir. Before he could direct the river anew into the safeguarding bed he saw himself surrounded by raging ants. He ran like the others, ran for his life. When Leiningen heard this, he knew the plantation was doomed. He wasted no time bemoaning the inevitable. For as long as there was the slightest chance of success, he had stood his ground, and now any further resistance was both useless and dangerous. He fired three revolver shots into the air--the prearranged signal for his men to retreat instantly within the "inner moat." Then he rode towards the ranch house. This was two miles from the point of invasion. There was therefore time enough to prepare the second line of defence against the advent of the ants. Of the three great petrol cisterns near the house, one had already been half emptied by the constant withdrawals needed for the pumps during the fight at the water ditch. The remaining petrol in it was now drawn off through underground pipes into the concrete trench which encircled the ranch house and its outbuildings. And there, drifting in twos and threes, Leiningen's men reached him. Most of them were obviously trying to preserve an air of calm and indifference, belied, however, by their restless glances and knitted brows. One could see their belief in a favourable outcome of the struggle was already considerably shaken. The planter called his peons around him. "Well, lads," he began, "we've lost the first round. But we'll smash the beggars yet, don't you worry. Anyone who thinks otherwise can draw his pay here and now and push off. There are rafts enough to spare on the river and plenty of time still to reach 'em." Not a man stirred. Leiningen acknowledged his silent vote of confidence with a laugh that was half a grunt. "That's the stuff, lads. Too bad if you'd missed the rest of the show, eh? Well, the fun won't start till morning. Once these blighters turn tail, there'll be plenty of work for everyone and higher wages all round. And now run along and get something to eat; you've earned it all right." In the excitement of the fight the greater part of the day had passed without the men once pausing to snatch a bite. Now that the ants were for the time being out of sight, and the "wall of petrol" gave a stronger feeling of security, hungry stomachs began to assert their claims. The bridges over the concrete ditch were removed. Here and there solitary ants had reached the ditch; they gazed at the petrol meditatively, then scurried back again. Apparently they had little interest at the moment for what lay beyond the evil-reeking barrier; the abundant spoils of the plantation were the main attraction. Soon the trees, shrubs and beds for miles around were hulled with ants zealously gobbling the yield of long weary months of strenuous toil. As twilight began to fall, a cordon of ants marched around the petrol trench, but as yet made no move towards its brink. Leiningen posted sentries with headlights and electric torches, then withdrew to his office, and began to reckon up his losses. He estimated these as large, but, in comparison with his bank balance, by no means unbearable. He worked out in some detail a scheme of intensive cultivation which would enable him, before very long, to more than compensate himself for the damage now being wrought to his crops. It was with a contented mind that he finally betook himself to bed where he slept deeply until dawn, undisturbed by any thought that next day little more might be left of him than a glistening skeleton. He rose with the sun and went out on the flat roof of his house. And a scene like one from Dante lay around him; for miles in every direction there was nothing but a black, glittering multitude, a multitude of rested, sated, but none the less voracious ants: yes, look as far as one might, one could see nothing but that rustling black throng, except in the north, where the great river drew a boundary they could not hope to pass. But even the high stone breakwater, along the bank of the river, which Leiningen had built as a defence against inundations, was, like the paths, the shorn trees and shrubs, the ground itself, black with ants. So their greed was not glutted in razing that vast plantation? Not by a long shot; they were all the more eager now on a rich and certain booty--four hundred men, numerous horses, and bursting granaries. At first it seemed that the petrol trench would serve its purpose. The besiegers sensed the peril of swimming it, and made no move to plunge blindly over its brink. Instead they devised a better manoeuvre; they began to collect shreds of bark, twigs and dried leaves and dropped these into the petrol. Everything green, which could have been similarly used, had long since been eaten. After a time, though, a long procession could be seen bringing from the west the tamarind leaves used as rafts the day before. Since the petrol, unlike the water in the outer ditch, was perfectly still, the refuse stayed where it was thrown. It was several hours before the ants succeeded in covering an appreciable part of the surface. At length, however, they were ready to proceed to a direct attack. Their storm troops swarmed down the concrete side, scrambled over the supporting surface of twigs and leaves, and impelled these over the few remaining streaks of open petrol until they reached the other side. Then they began to climb up this to make straight for the helpless garrison. During the entire offensive, the planter sat peacefully, watching them with interest, but not stirring a muscle. Moreover, he had ordered his men not to disturb in any way whatever the advancing horde. So they squatted listlessly along the bank of the ditch and waited for a sign from the boss. The petrol was now covered with ants. A few had climbed the inner concrete wall and were scurrying towards the defenders. "Everyone back from the ditch!" roared Leiningen. The men rushed away, without the slightest idea of his plan. He stooped forward and cautiously dropped into the ditch a stone which split the floating carpet and its living freight, to reveal a gleaming patch of petrol. A match spurted, sank down to the oily surface--Leiningen sprang back; in a flash a towering rampart of fire encompassed the garrison. This spectacular and instant repulse threw the Indians into ecstasy. They applauded, yelled and stamped, like children at a pantomime. Had it not been for the awe in which they held the boss, they would infallibly have carried him shoulder high. It was some time before the petrol burned down to the bed of the ditch, and the wall of smoke and flame began to lower. The ants had retreated in a wide circle from the devastation, and innumerable charred fragments along the outer bank showed that the flames had spread from the holocaust in the ditch well into the ranks beyond, where they had wrought havoc far and wide. Yet the perseverance of the ants was by no means broken; indeed, each setback seemed only to whet it. The concrete cooled, the flicker of the dying flames wavered and vanished, petrol from the second tank poured into the trench--and the ants marched forward anew to the attack. The foregoing scene repeated itself in every detail, except that on this occasion less time was needed to bridge the ditch, for the petrol was now already filmed by a layer of ash. Once again they withdrew; once again petrol flowed into the ditch. Would the creatures never learn that their self-sacrifice was utterly senseless? It really was senseless, wasn't it? Yes, of course it was senseless--provided the defenders had an unlimited supply of petrol. When Leiningen reached this stage of reasoning, he felt for the first time since the arrival of the ants that his confidence was deserting him. His skin began to creep; he loosened his collar. Once the devils were over the trench there wasn't a chance in hell for him and his men. God, what a prospect, to be eaten alive like that! For the third time the flames immolated the attacking troops, and burned down to extinction. Yet the ants were coming on again as if nothing had happened. And meanwhile Leiningen had made a discovery that chilled him to the bone-petrol was no longer flowing into the ditch. Something must be blocking the outflow pipe of the third and last cistern-a snake or a dead rat? Whatever it was, the ants could be held off no longer, unless petrol could by some method be led from the cistern into the ditch. Then Leiningen remembered that in an outhouse nearby were two old disused fire engines. Spry as never before in their lives, the peons dragged them out of the shed, connected their pumps to the cistern, uncoiled and laid the hose. They were just in time to aim a stream of petrol at a column of ants that had already crossed and drive them back down the incline into the ditch. Once more an oily girdle surrounded the garrison, once more it was possible to hold the position--for the moment. It was obvious, however, that this last resource meant only the postponement of defeat and death. A few of the peons fell on their knees and began to pray; others, shrieking insanely, fired their revolvers at the black, advancing masses, as if they felt their despair was pitiful enough to sway fate itself to mercy. At length, two of the men's nerves broke: Leiningen saw a naked Indian leap over the north side of the petrol trench, quickly followed by a second. They sprinted with incredible speed towards the river. But their fleetness did not save them; long before they could attain the rafts, the enemy covered their bodies from head to foot. In the agony of their torment, both sprang blindly into the wide river, where enemies no less sinister awaited them. Wild screams of mortal anguish informed the breathless onlookers that crocodiles and sword-toothed piranhas were no less ravenous than ants, and even nimbler in reaching their prey. In spite of this bloody warning, more and more men showed they were making up their minds to run the blockade. Anything, even a fight midstream against alligators, seemed better than powerlessly waiting for death to come and slowly consume their living bodies. Leiningen flogged his brain till it reeled. Was there nothing on earth could sweep this devil's spawn back into the hell from which it came? Then out of the inferno of his bewilderment rose a terrifying inspiration. Yes, one hope remained, and one alone. It might be possible to dam the great river completely, so that its waters would fill not only the water ditch but overflow into the entire gigantic "saucer" of land in which lay the plantation. The far bank of the river was too high for the waters to escape that way. The stone breakwater ran between the river and the plantation; its only gaps occurred where the "horseshoe" ends of the water ditch passed into the river. So its waters would not only be forced to inundate into the plantation, they would also be held there by the breakwater until they rose to its own high level. In half an hour, perhaps even earlier, the plantation and its hostile army of occupation would be flooded. The ranch house and outbuildings stood upon rising ground. Their foundations were higher than the breakwater, so the flood would not reach them. And any remaining ants trying to ascend the slope could be repulsed by petrol. It was possible--yes, if one could only get to the dam! A distance of nearly two miles lay between the ranch house and the weir--two miles of ants. Those two peons had managed only a fifth of that distance at the cost of their lives. Was there an Indian daring enough after that to run the gauntlet five times as far? Hardly likely; and if there were, his prospect of getting back was almost nil. No, there was only one thing for it, he'd have to make the attempt himself; he might just as well be running as sitting still, anyway, when the ants finally got him. Besides, there was a bit of a chance. Perhaps the ants weren't so almighty, after all; perhaps he had allowed the mass suggestion of that evil black throng to hypnotize him, just as a snake fascinates and overpowers. The ants were building their bridges. Leiningen got up on a chair. "Hey, lads, listen to me!" he cried. Slowly and listlessly, from all sides of the trench, the men began to shuffle towards him, the apathy of death already stamped on their faces. "Listen, lads!" he shouted. "You're frightened of those beggars, but you're a damn sight more frightened of me, and I'm proud of you. There's still a chance to save our lives--by flooding the plantation from the river. Now one of you might manage to get as far as the weir--but he'd never come back. Well, I'm not going to let you try it; if I did I'd be worse than one of those ants. No, I called the tune, and now I'm going to pay the piper. "The moment I'm over the ditch, set fire to the petrol. That'll allow time for the flood to do the trick. Then all you have to do is wait here all snug and quiet till I'm back. Yes, I'm coming back, trust me"--he grinned--"when I've finished my slimming-cure." He pulled on high leather boots, drew heavy gauntlets over his hands, and stuffed the spaces between breeches and boots, gauntlets and arms, shirt and neck, with rags soaked in petrol. With close-fitting mosquito goggles he shielded his eyes, knowing too well the ants' dodge of first robbing their victim of sight. Finally, he plugged his nostrils and ears with cotton-wool, and let the peons drench his clothes with petrol. He was about to set off, when the old Indian medicine man came up to him; he had a wondrous salve, he said, prepared from a species of chafer whose odour was intolerable to ants. Yes, this odour protected these chafers from the attacks of even the most murderous ants. The Indian smeared the boss' boots, his gauntlets, and his face over and over with the extract. Leiningen then remembered the paralyzing effect of ants' venom, and the Indian gave him a gourd full of the medicine he had administered to the bitten peon at the water ditch. The planter drank it down without noticing its bitter taste; his mind was already at the weir. He started of towards the northwest corner of the trench. With a bound he was over--and among the ants. The beleaguered garrison had no opportunity to watch Leiningen's race against death. The ants were climbing the inner bank again-the lurid ring of petrol blazed aloft. For the fourth time that day the reflection from the fire shone on the sweating faces of the imprisoned men, and on the reddish-black cuirasses of their oppressors. The red and blue, dark-edged flames leaped vividly now, celebrating what? The funeral pyre of the four hundred, or of the hosts of destruction? Leiningen ran. He ran in long, equal strides, with only one thought, one sensation, in his being--he must get through. He dodged all trees and shrubs; except for the split seconds his soles touched the ground the ants should have no opportunity to alight on him. That they would get to him soon, despite the salve on his boots, the petrol in his clothes, he realized only too well, but he knew even more surely that he must, and that he would, get to the weir. Apparently the salve was some use after all; not until he reached halfway did he feel ants under his clothes, and a few on his face. Mechanically, in his stride, he struck at them, scarcely conscious of their bites. He saw he was drawing appreciably nearer the weir--the distance grew less and less--sank to five hundred--three--two--one hundred yards. Then he was at the weir and gripping the ant-hulled wheel. Hardly had he seized it when a horde of infuriated ants flowed over his hands, arms and shoulders. He started the wheel--before it turned once on its axis the swarm covered his face. Leiningen strained like a madman, his lips pressed tight; if he opened them to draw breath. . . . He turned and turned; slowly the dam lowered until it reached the bed of the river. Already the water was overflowing the ditch. Another minute, and the river was pouring through the near-by gap in the breakwater. The flooding of the plantation had begun. Leiningen let go the wheel. Now, for the first time, he realized he was coated from head to foot with a layer of ants. In spite of the petrol his clothes were full of them, several had got to his body or were clinging to his face. Now that he had completed his task, he felt the smart raging over his flesh from the bites of sawing and piercing insects. Frantic with pain, he almost plunged into the river. To be ripped and splashed to shreds by piranhas? Already he was running the return journey, knocking ants from his gloves and jacket, brushing them from his bloodied face, squashing them to death under his clothes. One of the creatures bit him just below the rim of his goggles; he managed to tear it away, but the agony of the bite and its etching acid drilled into the eye nerves; he saw now through circles of fire into a milky mist, then he ran for a time almost blinded, knowing that if he once tripped and fell.... The old Indian's brew didn't seem much good; it weakened the poison a bit, but didn't get rid of it. His heart pounded as if it would burst; blood roared in his ears; a giant's fist battered his lungs. Then he could see again, but the burning girdle of petrol appeared infinitely far away; he could not last half that distance. Swift-changing pictures flashed through his head, episodes in his life, while in another part of his brain a cool and impartial onlooker informed this ant-blurred, gasping, exhausted bundle named Leiningen that such a rushing panorama of scenes from one's past is seen only in the moment before death. A stone in the path . . . to weak to avoid it . . . the planter stumbled and collapsed. He tried to rise . . . he must be pinned under a rock . . . it was impossible . . . the slightest movement was impossible . . . . Then all at once he saw, starkly clear and huge, and, right before his eyes, furred with ants, towering and swaying in its death agony, the pampas stag. In six minutes--gnawed to the bones. God, he couldn't die like that! And something outside him seemed to drag him to his feet. He tottered. He began to stagger forward again. Through the blazing ring hurtled an apparition which, as soon as it reached the ground on the inner side, fell full length and did not move. Leiningen, at the moment he made that leap through the flames, lost consciousness for the first time in his life. As he lay there, with glazing eyes and lacerated face, he appeared a man returned from the grave. The peons rushed to him, stripped off his clothes, tore away the ants from a body that seemed almost one open wound; in some paces the bones were showing. They carried him into the ranch house. As the curtain of flames lowered, one could see in place of the illimitable host of ants an extensive vista of water. The thwarted river had swept over the plantation, carrying with it the entire army. The water had collected and mounted in the great "saucer," while the ants had in vain attempted to reach the hill on which stood the ranch house. The girdle of flames held them back. And so imprisoned between water and fire, they had been delivered into the annihilation that was their god. And near the farther mouth of the water ditch, where the stone mole had its second gap, the ocean swept the lost battalions into the river, to vanish forever. The ring of fire dwindled as the water mounted to the petrol trench, and quenched the dimming flames. The inundation rose higher and higher: because its outflow was impeded by the timber and underbrush it had carried along with it, its surface required some time to reach the top of the high stone breakwater and discharge over it the rest of the shattered army. It swelled over ant-stippled shrubs and bushes, until it washed against the foot of the knoll whereon the besieged had taken refuge. For a while an alluvial of ants tried again and again to attain this dry land, only to be repulsed by streams of petrol back into the merciless flood. Leiningen lay on his bed, his body swathed from head to foot in bandages. With fomentations and salves, they had managed to stop the bleeding, and had dressed his many wounds. Now they thronged around him, one question in every face. Would he recover? "He won't die," said the old man who had bandaged him, "if he doesn't want to.'' The planter opened his eyes. "Everything in order?'' he asked. "They're gone,'' said his nurse. "To hell." He held out to his master a gourd full of a powerful sleeping draught. Leiningen gulped it down. "I told you I'd come back," he murmured, "even if I am a bit streamlined." He grinned and shut his eyes. He slept. *

There's a well known book out there about lucid dreaming, I forget the name atm though. The author talks about a lucid dreamer who in his dream was talking to a dream character who was smoking and told her "You're not real, you're just a dream character". She got pissed and said "really?!" and then stubbed the cigarette on his arm. He woke up with a burn on his arm. I've read anectdotal reports like this elsewhere as well. Personally, I've had dreams where I'd get an energetic feeling and wake up with the same energy in my body. The most intense of these was when I was lucid dreaming and I asked to meet my higher self and then was projected infront of a huge ball of electric blue energy which caused my physical body to convulse in bed. I woke up like that, in convulsions.

Just curious what you folks' opinion is about the ability for dreams to affect the physical body. Last night I had a dream that I was with some friends just hanging out and outside on a nice day, and we were doing handstands on the grass. In my dream I kept doing handstands for what seemed like an hour, having a good time and goofing around. When I woke up, I had a pretty bad stomach ache, which was weird because I didn't eat right before bed and felt fine before bed. I stayed awake for 20 minutes and I started feeling better. I'm sure we've all also had the kind of dream that's just a perfect scene, and it causes you to wake up in a great mood. And of course there's the erotic dreams which can lead to orgasm during the dream, but actually having a stomach ache after dreaming about handstands was really wild to me, and has never happened to me before. Anybody have any similar experiences?

Ummm... Do you know anything about physicalism? The phrase "physicalist science" is an oxymoron of the highest order. Physicalism is a philosophy. It is predicated on the supposition that nothing exists beyond the current understanding of science. One of the modifications employed to avoid the obvious pitfall is to postulate some idealized future understanding of science and then arbitrarily & subjectively state which phenomena or classes of phenomena would be within this "future physics." Physicalism is an ego-protecting construct at odds with the principles of rationality. There is nothing scientific about it and most scientists I have spoken with over the years find it laughable, regardless of their personal beliefs. Are there some in academia and voicing their opinions in the media who have scientific credentials and who also espouse the philosophy of physicalism? Absolutely! They are, unfortunately, adrift in their own self-congratulatory dream. The three most important words in any scientist's vocabulary are "I don't know." Let me tell you a short story... In my senior year as a physics undergrad, the entire senior class was required to participate in a program of study called "senior seminar" -- in addition to all our other classes. Theoretical physicists, applied physicists, astrophysicists and astronomers alike were drawn together for a year-long lesson in humility. The entire physics & astronomy faculty body was involved. On a weekly basis, the students would be split into new teams and assigned a problem. Some were decidedly abstract while others seemed deceptively simple. Some which come to mind include "using Archimedes' method to determine the density of water as a function of temperature" and "determining the circular polarization of light as a function of aqueous sucrose concentration" and "identifying an unknown metal using Hooke's law." In each weekly experiment, we were given a single-sentence definition of the problem -- a problem which the overseeing faculty knew well -- and we then had to devise an experimental approach, identify needed equipment & supplies, ask permission to use those equipment and supplies (sometime the answer would be, "no, you need to find another way"), conduct the experiment as a team and then submit an individually prepared written report. Each Monday morning began with a debrief of the previous week's project and a new assignment. It was Friday, though, which was really interesting... Late Friday afternoon, the entire class met, in business attire, and the members of each team were separated. One member from each team went into a room with a member from every other team, and a panel of faculty members. One by one, the students had to stand before the room and give a formal presentation of this or her research. This was intentionally complicated by things like sometimes finding all the chalk had been removed or that the projector was missing, but the real complication was the question & answer period at the end. Each professor, knowing the experiment, knew the likely mistakes, challenges and misunderstandings, and intentionally raked us over the coals. Questions like, "did you account for the buoyancy caused by air when measuring the mass of that aluminum block?" (a critical detail in that Archimedes' method experiment, BTW) or "explain to us how you calibrated the thermometer you used for measuring temperature." We quickly learned that the absolute WORST thing you could do was not say "I don't know" (or "we didn't think about that" or some variation thereof). This senior seminar had three objectives. It cured us all of stage-fright (may surprise you to learn that not all physicists are extroverted social butterflies), it gave us confidence in our abilities to apply our knowledge to a vast array of situations AND (most importantly) it drove home to each of us how little we really comprehend & how critical it is to approach each new challenge with an open mind. I learned that lesson well, and many years later came to understand that the empty cup is to spiritual cultivation what the open mind is to intellectual cultivation.

* I've suddenly realised that Christmas time is fast approaching. Very soon all our London relations will be arriving and all the socialising and celebrations will quickly put paid to any communication here for quite some time. Before then, however, I will undoubtedly have finished my wonderful sunny sojourn in Corfu where I've been living over the last few weeks inside the pages of "My Family and Other Animals". Unfortunately, as the visible end of the book rapidly approaches, it seems like this will probably be my last chance to share some of the simple 'pleasures of living' that filled Gerald Durrell's magical childhood. I didn't want to leave 2013 on a spiritual story such as the one I added above. All of us have widely differing experiences and thoughts about what this invisible thing called "spirituality" actually is, (Or even, ‘IF’ there is such a thing at all). But there simply can’t be anyone who doesn’t love the simple, unadulterated release of shared laughter. Fortunately for us, alongside its unimaginable sufferings, life also seems to produce an inexhaustible supply of quirky and outrageous bubblings. Choosing an extract from literature's catalogue of the latter, (since it IS Christmas time, after all), last night I finished reading the heart-warming anecdote below. I found myself laughing so often throughout this passage that afterwards I thought it would make a wonderful pre-Christmas addition to the Tao Bums Chat Room as a kind of ‘spirit-lifter’ to top up the reader’s energies for this fast-approaching, annual onslaught of relatives. My yesterday’s reading suddenly seemed a charming serendipity. Shelter from the storm. * * Gerald Durrell wrote : SPRING had arrived and the island was sparkling with flowers. Lambs with flapping tails gambolled under the olives, crushing the yellow crocuses under their tiny hooves. Baby donkeys with bulbous and uncertain legs munched among the asphodels. The ponds and streams and ditches were tangled in chains of spotted toads' spawn, the tortoises were heaving aside their winter bedclothes of leaves and earth, and the first butterflies, winter-faded and frayed, were flitting wanly among the flowers. In the crisp, heady weather the family spent most of its time on the veranda, eating, sleeping, reading, or just simply arguing. It was here, once a week, that we used to congregate to read our mail which Spiro had brought out to us. The bulk of it consisted of gun catalogues for Leslie, fashion magazines for Margo, and animal journals for myself. Larry's post generally contained books and interminable letters from authors, artists, and musicians, about authors, artists, and musicians. Mother's contained a wedge of mail from various relatives, sprinkled with a few seed catalogues. As we browsed we would frequently pass remarks to one another, or read bits aloud. This was not done with any motive of sociability (for no other member of the family would listen, anyway), but merely because we seemed unable to extract the full flavour of our letters and magazines unless they were shared. Occasionally, however, an item of news would be sufficiently startling to rivet the family's attention on it, and this happened one day in spring when the sky was like blue glass, and we sat in the dappled shade of the vine, devouring our mail. 'Oh, this is nice Look... organdie with puffed sleeves ... I think I would prefer it in velvet, though ... or maybe a brocade top with a flared skirt. Now, that's nice... it would look good with long white gloves and one of those sort of summery hats, wouldn't it?’ A pause, the faint sound of Lugaretzia moaning in the dining-room, mingled with the rustle of paper. Roger yawned loudly, followed in succession by Puke and Widdle. 'God! What a beauty!. . . Just look at her . . . telescopic sight, bolt action.. .. What a beaut! Um ... a hundred and fifty . . . not really expensive, I suppose. . . . Now this is good value.... Let's see ... double-barrelled ... choke.... Yes ... I suppose one really needs something a bit heavier for ducks.' Roger scratched his ears in turn, twisting his head on one side, a look of bliss on his face, groaning gently with pleasure. Widdle lay down and closed his eyes. Puke vainly tried to catch a fly, his jaws clopping as he snapped at it. 'Ah! Antoine's had a poem accepted at last I Real talent there, if he can only dig down to it. Varlaine's starting a printing press in a stable. . . . Pah!... limited editions of his own works. Oh, God, George Bullock's trying his hand at portraits ... portraits, I ask you I He couldn't paint a candlestick. Good book here you should read, Mother: The Elizabethan Dramatists ... a wonderful piece of work . . . some fine stuff in it.... “ Roger worked his way over his hind-quarters in search of a flea, using his front teeth like a pair of hair-clippers, snuffling noisily to himself. Widdle twitched his legs and tail minutely, his ginger eyebrows going up and down in astonishment at his own dream. Puke lay down and pretended to be asleep, keeping an eye cocked for the fly to settle. 'Aunt Mabel's moved to Sussex. . . . She says Henry's passed all his exams and is going into a bank ... at least, I think it's a bank... her writing really is awful, in spite of that expensive education she's always boasting about.... Uncle Stephen's broken his leg, poor old dear . . . and done something to his bladder? . . . Oh, no, I see . . . really this writing ... he broke his leg falling off a ladder. . . . You'd think he'd have more sense than to go up a ladder at his age ... ridiculous.... Tom's married... one of the Garnet girls' Mother always left until the last a fat letter, addressed in large, firm, well-rounded handwriting, which was the monthly instalment from Great-aunt Hermione. Her letters invariably created an indignant uproar among the family, so we all put aside our mail and concentrated when Mother, with a sigh of resignation, unfurled the twenty odd pages, settled herself comfortably and began to read. 'She says that the doctors don't hold out much hope for her,' observed Mother. 'They haven't held out any hope for her for the last forty years and she's still as strong as an ox,' said Larry. 'She says she always thought it a little peculiar of us, rushing off to Greece like that, but they've just had a bad winter and she thinks that perhaps it was wise of us to choose such a salubrious climate.' 'Salubrious! What a word to use!' 'Oh, heavens!... oh, no... oh, Lord!...' 'What's the matter?' 'She says she wants to come and stay... the doctors have advised a warm climate!' 'No, I refuse! I couldn't bear it,' shouted Larry, leaping to his feet; 'it's bad enough being shown Lugaretzia's gums every morning, without having Great-aunt Hermione dying by inches all over the place. You'll have to put her off, Mother . . . tell her there's no room.' 'But I can't, dear; I told her in the last letter what a big villa we had.' 'She's probably forgotten,' said Leslie hopefully. 'She hasn't. She mentions it here . . . where is it? ... oh, yes, here you are: "As you now seem able to afford such an extensive establishment, I am sure, Louie dear, that you would not begrudge a small corner to an old woman who has not much longer to live." There you are! What on earth can we do?’ 'Write and tell her we've got an epidemic of smallpox raging out here, and send her a photograph of Margo's acne,' suggested Larry. 'Don't be silly, dear. Besides, I told her how healthy it is here.' 'Really, Mother, you are impossible!' exclaimed Larry angrily. 'I was looking forward to a nice quiet summer's work, with just a few select friends, and now we're going to be invaded by that evil old camel, smelling of mothballs and singing hymns in the lavatory.' 'Really, dear, you do exaggerate. And I don't know why you have to bring lavatories into it - I've never heard her sing hymns anywhere.' 'She does nothing else but sing hymns ... "Lead, Kindly Light", while everyone queues on the landing.' 'Well, anyway, we've got to think of a good excuse. I can't write and tell her we don't want her because she sings hymns.' 'Why not?' 'Don't be unreasonable, dear; after all, she is a relation.' 'What on earth's that got to do with it? Why should we have to fawn all over the old hag because she's a relation, when the really sensible thing to do would be to burn her at the stake.' 'She's not as bad as that,* protested Mother half-heartedly. 'My dear Mother, of all the foul relatives with which we are cluttered, she is definitely the worst. Why you keep in touch with her I cannot, for the life of me, imagine.' 'Well, I've got to answer her letters, haven't I?’ ‘Why? Just write "Gone Away" across them and send them back.' 'I couldn't do that, dear; they'd recognize my handwriting,' said Mother vaguely; 'besides, I've opened this now.' 'Can't one of us write and say you're ill?' suggested Margo. 'Yes, we'll say the doctors have given up hope,' said Leslie. ‘I’ll write the letter,' said Larry with relish. I'll get one of those lovely black-edged envelopes... that will add an air of verisimilitude to the whole thing.' 'You'll do nothing of the sort,' said Mother firmly. 'If you did that she'd come straight out to nurse me. You know what she is.' 'Why keep in touch with them; that's what I want to know,' asked Larry despairingly. 'What satisfaction does it give you? They're all either fossilized or mental.' 'Indeed, they're not mental,' said Mother indignantly. 'Nonsense, Mother. . . . Look at Aunt Bertha, keeping flocks of imaginary cats ... and there's Great Uncle Patrick, who wanders about nude and tells complete strangers how he killed whales with a pen-knife .... They're 'bats.' 'Well, they're queer; but they're all very old, and so they're bound to be. But they're not mental,’ explained Mother; adding candidly, 'Anyway, not enough to be put away.' 'Well, if we're going to be invaded by relations, there's only one thing to do,' said Larry resignedly. 'What's that?' inquired Mother, peering over her spectacles expectantly. 'We must move, of course.' ‘Move? Move where?' asked Mother, bewildered. 'Move to a smaller villa. Then you can write to all these zombies and tell them we haven't any room.' 'But don't be stupid, Larry. We can't keep moving. We moved here in order to cope with your friends.' 'Well, now we'll have to move to cope with the relations.' 'But we can't keep rushing to and fro about the island ... people will think we've gone mad.' 'They'll think we're even madder if that old harpy turns up. Honestly, Mother, I couldn't stand it if she came. I should probably borrow one of Leslie's guns and blow a hole in her corsets.' 'Larry! I do wish you wouldn't say things like that in front of Gerry.' 'I'm just warning you.' There was a pause, while Mother polished her spectacles feverishly. 'But it seems so ... so... eccentric to keep changing villas like that, dear,' she said at last. 'There's nothing eccentric about it,' said Larry, surprised; 'it's a perfectly logical thing to do.' 'Of course it is,' agreed Leslie; 'it's a sort of self-defence, anyway.' 'Do be sensible, Mother,' said Margo; 'after all, a change is as good as a feast.' So, bearing that novel proverb in mind, we moved. *

... That sounds fantastic suninmyeyes! But I'm afraid I can't help much. But I hope others can help. Perhaps my sleeping/dreaming life is something I should work on. I often wake troubled, I know I have personal relationship things that need to be resolved, but I am sure they will in time. Yes, maybe I should do more "dream" work. We'll see. My life is a waking dream. ...

This is not really often discussed in awake life , I have noticed . Dreams tend to be sometimes told , but not much attention is payed to them due to prevalent understanding . It is almost a taboo . Why ? Becouse the whole society structure is constructed mostly on anti fullnes and anti knowing of who we really are . Becouse dream language is not understood by logic orientated mind , as well as could not easily translate into words and time frames we work with and that are commonly accepted while awake . I am especially curious about learning in dreams and taking knowledge into being awake too , as well as practising in the dream . One of examples of practising in the dream : So dream starts and I notice that people (dream figures ) I meet have an unusual air about them ( common dreamscape ). This always makes me suspicious that I may be dreaming . With first hint of suspicion I usually start interracting with them (my way of checking out of whats up ), asking who they are . According to their response -- understanding comes that this is a dream . Therefore I tell my self and them that they are in the dream to together with me , just like some ideas . This usually wakes me up or the dream wipes of from the screen of the mind and I truly wake up in light or some meditation state by using discrimination , and /or listening to the inner sound and raising my vibrations . Would like to add that this came on spontanious and I have never purposefully practised lucid dreaming . At this point more consciously crossing into different dimensions of being can occur , this is where meeting and learning happens . Like a "door" that opens according to ones vibrational state .

Inspired by current dream teaching thread I have decided to ask you about your dream life and learning in dreams as well as using your own lucidity within a dream for spiritual practise or raising vibrations ... Interested to hear about dream teachers , guides ..do you have one for a long time ? How are you sure that this is your guide ? Do you go places you never been , do stuff and meet people /beings you never saw before ? Accomplish tasks , have work to do ? What kind ? Dream techniques ? What kind of dreamwork do you do ? Do you write dream journals ? Share and discuss -- specially would be intersting to hear from long term practicioners or people with more deeper understanding of themselves and interconnection between sleep and awake states .

Dream teacher ? On certain nights I attend Sufi dance. I can't remember where it is or how I get there, or, for that matter, how I get home and back into my bed. I talked to a friend about it. He told me I was dreaming. But if it is a dream why do I wake up so sore and tired? Sometimes I have blisters on my feet. But I feel I'm getting somewhere with it, I'm no longer getting as dizzy as I used to. I seem to be developing more love and patience. I look good, people tell me. I was practicing a very difficult part of the dance last month. The teacher wore orange robes and the dance was very technical. The month before, a different teacher, (who wore a red robe) taught a simpler stamping dance, a somewhat angry yet purposeful dance. There was a teacher before that a beautiful woman who wore a silver robe, her dance was fluid and graceful. I didn't do very well. I think I became a little infatuated with her, it was hard to concentrate. I liked the blue teacher, his dance was joyous and expansive. Good things happened to me after his lesson. In my mundane life, that is. The green woman! Well, that was easy! But I was a little confronted. Well worth it, because after those lessons, I met her - in my mundane life. The Golden One seemed to be saying he is what I will become. I found him a little confusing. I haven't been taught by the black teacher yet, I have had a glimpse of her style. She is naked and black and sprays of stars and spiral galaxies cover her body. But now, it’s all mixed up. Sometimes I seem in one level of the dance, and at other times in another level. But lately there is no teacher. No particular colored robe and no difference between the me here in this part of the dance and that me there in that part of the dance and another me over there in another part of the dance. But at the same time I am out of the dance and watching myself and the other dancers. When that happens the dance becomes a huge astral entity, a massive cone of light with layers and bands of colors and dancers and teachers. Each colored circle, one on top of each other, diminishing in size; a huge cone of dancing, multi-colored, banded light floating and rotating amongst the blackness and stars of space. At times while I am in the dance other dancers come into my space and bounce and career off me spinning madly, grinning, singing and dancing off to their destinies on other paths and trajectories. In this part of the dance are wild eyed poets giggling on LSD, dancers that are leaping and floating like fauns and satyrs somersaulting leaving behind them trails of stars and sparkles. Lately I have connected with a dance partner. We dance exquisitely together, she looks just like my partner in the mundane world but lately she seems to have distracted attention. Something seems to be bothering her, perhaps it is me? It probably is. My dance is far from perfection. When I look up through the translucence above, I see exquisite dancers. They are vibrant and ecstatic. I want to be like them. They fall and tumble but this helps then to rise in their total control of the dance. Even when they misstep. I want to be like that. And when I look down I see the dancers below me still learning the dance. I remember when I made those mistakes. Some are awkward and squabbling like cranky penguins but others are concentrating and aspiring. But sometimes, when the dance blends with my mundane life and I seem stuck in the middle part of the dance. A crazy insane part of the dance that must be passed through to finish the dance. It does with me what it will and I can only respond to its energy and lose myself in the ecstasy of not being there. But I know I am there. Just as I know that at this moment life seems much too serious to be taken seriously and so much is happening all at once, that it must be a dance or a dream. But it matters not because one thing I have learnt is that no matter how hard the dance is, if I persevere and continually attempt to see life from the top of the cone, in my higher consciousness, with purified love, I will survive and rise up beyond the cone to the ecstasy of infinite space and feast upon the stars of life.

... I was thinkin' the other day about the name of the place the silver spaceman apparition appeared. Sol Way. Silly, I know. I had another "dream" when I was still very young but a little older. I went down through some strange tunnel/elevator deep below the earth. In my childhood innocence I later described it as "so deep it was down below hell!" There I met a Great Lord with a Golden Winged Helmet looking quite like the one worn by the golden age Flash. Or a bit like the one worn by that oh gosh that wrathful dharma protector yeah. This King or Lord or Chieftain or so I perceived him told me much. I remembered none of what he told me. It was like and yet unlike a dream. Later in my early teens I could lucid dream. I could create reality in the dream, and wake at will. I had this ability for about a year or so. I'm givin' a lot away today! ...

... I too thought those black knight images quite arresting, if genuine. I don't know whether I should mention this. When I was small, I had a "dream" about being visited by silver figures like the solway firth spaceman. In my "dream" I grew afraid and shouted at them to leave. They did so. I don't often speak of that. on edit: I just noticed the real time chat function on this site. Nice. ...