Help interpret a word from a dream

[Taomeow]

I woke up with this word in my head, and no memory of the dream it came from, just an understanding that it was explained in the dream. 

The word was "retrodactyl."   What can it possibly be?.. 

[Tuesday]

Sounds like a retro dinosaur

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[senseless virtue]

Wikipedia: Retro  Dactyl

Wiktionary: Retro Dactyl

[liminal_luke]

I´ll take a stab.  Just this morning I got a chuckle over your post in the What Made You Laugh Today thread about reading "Fuck Off" backwards.  Could retrodactyl refer to a poem which has dactyl meter when read backwards?

[Taomeow]

38 minutes ago, virtue said:

Wikipedia: Retro  Dactyl

Wiktionary: Retro Dactyl

 

Uh...  I know Latin,  I just don't know what the combination of retro and dactyl into one word in my dream referred to.  I'm almost sure it was about some kind of animal -- related to the pterodactyl -- but what was it exactly?..  I think the dream may have been about some genetic experiments.  But I'm not sure.   

[Taomeow]

30 minutes ago, liminal_luke said:

I´ll take a stab.  Just this morning I got a chuckle over your post in the What Made You Laugh Today thread about reading "Fuck Off" backwards.  Could retrodactyl refer to a poem which has dactyl meter when read backwards?

 

I'll have to experiment with some dactyl poem now.  I'll report on the findings if it proves worth reporting. But I think the dream thing was an animal.   

[SirPalomides]

It's a pterodactyl who listens to synthwave and whose bedroom is lined with 80's collectibles ( Rainbrow Brite lunchboxes, Karate Kid posters, etc.)

[senseless virtue]

2 minutes ago, Taomeow said:

Uh...  I know Latin,  I just don't know what the combination of retro and dactyl into one word in my dream referred to.  I'm almost sure it was about some kind of animal -- related to the pterodactyl -- but what was it exactly?..  I think the dream may have been about some genetic experiments.  But I'm not sure.   

Alright, I just wanted to throw these if there was some uncommon definitions or uses coming up.

 

Since you are formulating your thoughts in such a manner, then I must pose you the following questions:

 

What did our phylogenetic ancestors have before they had fingers? How did fingers come to be?

 

Happy hunting, cat.

[Taomeow]

2 minutes ago, SirPalomides said:

It's a pterodactyl who listens to synthwave and whose bedroom is lined with 80's collectibles ( Rainbrow Brite lunchboxes, Karate Kid posters, etc.)

 

 Yeah...  and his motto is, No mercy.  God help us all.    

[Cookie Monster]

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Edited May 4, 2021 by Ocean Form

[senseless virtue]

A far fetched idea... you dreamed about life as an actual cat like Zhuangzi dreamed of a butterfly.

 

Spoiler

Alternatively, your subconscious is telling that your latent mutant powers are activating soon and you will develop retractable finger claws akin to this fine lady.

 

[Taomeow]

18 minutes ago, virtue said:

Alright, I just wanted to throw these if there was some uncommon definitions or uses coming up.

 

Since you are formulating your thoughts in such a manner, then I must pose you the following questions:

 

What did our phylogenetic ancestors have before they had fingers? How did fingers come to be?

 

Happy hunting, cat.

 

Ah, I remember.  It started out like this... 

 

 

 

And then like this...

 

 

And...

 

Gorilla fingers with depigmentation:

 

 

A chimpanzee finger and a human finger:

 

 

And finally, the crown of creation of fingers:

 

 

Edited December 30, 2019 by Taomeow

[senseless virtue]

Retrodactyl might mean opposable thumb because it operates backwards to other fingers.

 

What do you think?

[Taomeow]

10 minutes ago, virtue said:

Retrodactyl might mean opposable thumb because it operates backwards to other fingers.

 

What do you think?

 

Yup, it could mean that.  Interesting idea.  

 

I don't think it did in my dream though. 

 

A taoist aside: there's realms that have "form and substance," then the ones that have "substance but no form," and the ones with "form but no substance,"  and finally the ones with "no form and no substance" -- which are, however, part of the overall reality.

 

So my retrodactyl is stuck somewhere in the "no substance and no form" realm.  Yet it exists.  I suspect it exists as an idea of an  animal, and if that was determined, it would transport it into the "form but no substance" realm.  And from there, maybe it would even graduate into our "form and substance" world -- as an experimental beast in some secret lab, or as a fossil yet to be dug up, who knows.  But for now it has no substance and no form, like all forgotten dreams.  Only a name.  The retrodactyl that can be named...  a fine example of tao not revealing much through just names.  

[Zork]

3 hours ago, Taomeow said:

I woke up with this word in my head, and no memory of the dream it came from, just an understanding that it was explained in the dream. 

The word was "retrodactyl."   What can it possibly be?.. 

There is no such thing. It means "backward finger" whatever that is. There is no species named like that.

[Taomeow]

51 minutes ago, Zork said:

There is no such thing. It means "backward finger" whatever that is. There is no species named like that.

 

I know.  If there was, google would have delivered.  

 

The "backward finger" was offered as a version by Virtue up the thread, and he interpreted it as the thumb, a very interesting idea, but the word "dactyl" can refer to a lot more things than a finger.  And the word "retro" may mean a lot more things than "backward."  And the word "retrodactyl" meant something in my dream, though not on google.  I'm guessing some kind of pterodactyl, but not a googlable one. Maybe a pterodactyl that could fly backward (like a dragonfly can)?  Maybe it's about tracing the animal that preceded the pterodactyl, some pterosaur or other that evolved into a pterodactyl?  Some of them had wings pointing backward when folded (see pic), so maybe it's about that?.. 

 

I don't have meaningless dreams.  Ever.  Sometimes the meaning becomes clear only much later.  A retrodactyl means something.  I just don't know what -- yet.        

 

     

[Nungali]

 

Errrmmmm    axolotl   isnt a fish .

 

Its an amphibian that 'got stuck' half way through being a 'tadpole' to a land animal .

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny

[liminal_luke]

OK, I´ll take another flying leap backwards and just throw out some associations.

 

My sense of you, Taomeow, is that you are someone who is deeply concerned with all things retro.  And I don´t mean retro as in the sixties.  I mean retro as in pre-civilization.  Retro as in dinosaur days.  Witness your Sumeria thread, for instance.  You are someone who is unusually in touch with the energetic echo of humanity as it existed before the dubious benefits of "civiliation."  Perhaps you are homesick for that precivilized world, a world where retrodactyls roamed the planet.

 

So I´m wondering if the retro in retrodactyl has anything to do with the idea of returning or recapturing what was pristine and uncorrupted about that time.    

 

 

 

 

Edited December 31, 2019 by liminal_luke

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Nungali said:

 

Errrmmmm    axolotl   isnt a fish .

 

Its an amphibian that 'got stuck' half way through being a 'tadpole' to a land animal .

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoteny

 

No one said it was a fish.  It's a picture on the cover of the book.  Of a cool axolotl with fingers.  The title of the book mentions fish and also whales but does not assert that the illustration shows a fish, or a whale.  Detracting assertions never made also has a name.  References available upon request.  

[Earl Grey]

If you PM me more details, I can use a special deck or the Akashic to help with this, but only if it needs more than just the words.

[silent thunder]

First thing to flash in my mind.

 

Perhaps it's an anagram...

[silent thunder]

now I'm playing anagram.

 

order tactly...

tact orderly...

 

I love anagrams, almost as much as puns

[Nintendao]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Spoiler

 

 

[Zork]

7 hours ago, Taomeow said:

but the word "dactyl" can refer to a lot more things than a finger. 

Actually it is one specific thing, finger, but it could refer to anything that has the shape of a finger. Like "Fingers" chocolate or sweets.

[Taomeow]

1 hour ago, Zork said:

Actually it is one specific thing, finger, but it could refer to anything that has the shape of a finger. Like "Fingers" chocolate or sweets.

 

In poetry, a dactyl is a three-syllable metrical pattern in which a stressed syllable is followed by two unstressed syllables. The word “poetry” itself, e.g., is an example of a dactyl, with the stress falling on the “Po,” followed by the unstressed syllables “e” and “try”: PO-e-try.

 

Dactyls were used to compose Greek epic poetry -- e.g. Iliad and Odyssey.

 

"Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending..."

 

And, yes, it is "like a finger" in a sense, but I don't think many people would know in what sense.  In most senses that make any sense to anyone interested in poetry, however, The Odyssey is not a collection of fingerprints.