Reading in Dreams

I remember a post by Chaka a while back about dreaming a word game he didn't know the rules to, and this made me think of that on some level or another. Your guess is as good as mine.

Last night I had a dream that I was taking a test, and the second question on the test was asking something along the lines of "A man named Nathaniel Bohr used an atom with 5 ... to describe ... blah blah blah ... What is the name of this atom?" (that is all I remember of the question from waking up).

When I first read the question, I had no idea what it was talking about. My first thought was that BORON is the 5th element in the periodic table. Then I looked through the test to see if it contained a periodic table I could reference. When I did not find one I decided to read the question again. The name "Nathaniel Bohr" instantly clued me in on the answer of Bohr's Atom.

Obviously, the facts in the question are all wrong, I have no idea what his first name was, almost definitely not Nathaniel. Secondly, it was not a specific atom but a model for describing atoms. Thirdly, it did not have 5 specifically of anything, it could be used to describe any number of atoms with any number of proton/neutron/electron combinations. etc, etc. But that is NOT the point.

After I realized the answer I started writing it in my answer booklet. I had finished writing the letters "BOHR" (which I specifically remember seeing in big block letters) when I realized I had written on the line for the NEXT question's answer. So I crossed it out and wrote it again "Bohr's Atom" on the correct line. Then I decided to quit taking the test and the dream took a turn for the weird, but that's a different story.

The reasons I posted this dream are
1) I remember specifically reading the question and having NO idea what the answer was at first. I find this interesting, because some part of my own brain had to create this question from scratch, yet another part of my own brain was not able to answer it right away.
2) Second, I remember specifically READING the name "Nathaniel Bohr" along with READING the rest of the question a second time. Do you ever remember READING in a dream? For some reason I thought READING was impossible in a dream. Usually what happens to me is I see some scribble of jumbled text-like drawings and just KNOW what it's trying to say. In this case, I actually remember READING the english words, not a jumble of text.
3) I very distinctly remember the big block letters spelling "BOHR" which, like part 2, is something I've never remembered in a dream before. Maybe I'm just not thinking back enough or remembering enough other dreams, but there were actual letters representing an actual word which actually stood for something in the real world. And not only did I READ it, but I was also WROTE that word "BOHR" letter-by-letter on the wrong line in the answer booklet. And then I crossed it out and wrote again: "Bohr's Atom" on the correct line.

I don't know about you folks, but I found it all interesting enough to post here.

I found this article from MSNBC to be interesting.
Authors of a new online project that aims to create a Bible suitable for conservatives argue that contemporary scholars have inserted liberal views into the Bible.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34270487/ns/us_news-faith//from/ET

Dystopia

"Our civilization has reached a stage at which together we are extremely powerful and in our individual capacities nearly helpless. We (that is, we as a body) can solve the most complicated mathematical problems, but our children no longer know the multiplication table. Since they can use a calculator to find out how much six times seven is, why bother? Also, WE can fly from New York to Stockholm in a few hours, but, when asked where Sweden is, thousands of people answer with a sigh that they did not take geography in high school: it must be somewhere up there on the map. There is no need to know anything: given the necessary software, clever machines will do all the work and leave us playing videogames and making virtual love. The worst anti-utopias did not predict such a separation between communal omniscience and personal ignorance, such a complete rift between collective wisdom and individual stultification."
~Anatoly Liberman

I didn't realize the great Anatoly shared my discontent with the direction our great society is headed.

I probably should stick to the comments since this is Chaka's blog, but no one took away my ability to post yet so I'll post, hehe. While I wish I'd been reading Nietzsche lately and could toss in some sort of quote here, all I can offer are my own words. I don't consider myself a philosopher, but I do have philosophies.

I'll have to admit, I'm disappointed in the post about the movie being a waste of $6.25. My tickets cost $10 when I went to see it... where are movies only $6.25 these days? But anyway, did I like the movie? Yes. Was it worth the $10? Positively. Did I enjoy it all three times I saw it in the theatre? Of course. So I guess I'll have to join the group of folks who thinks it was _not_ a complete waste of time. And having read about as much of the bible as I've read works by Nietzsche in the past few months I'm going to blindly place Jesus as someone who agrees with me. Is that blasphemy? Perhaps. Am I already directing too many rhetorical questions towards myself? Definitely. Will I stop? No. So will I share my barbaric analysis of the movie? I suppose.

I'm pretty sure Jesus liked to do shit with folks, though chances are they weren't ALL "bible-worthy" events. In that respect, I think it's alright to do shit with folks, just don't expect it to be recorded in the bible. Though maybe taking your friendly neighborhood pastor to a movie like The Dark Knight WOULD indeed be a "bible-worthy" event. Maybe it's just the rebel in me, but I like the whole idea of offending people's sensibilities, that's certainly my favourite part about Jesus. Jesus was kind of a badass, he offended a lot of people's sensibilities in his day. Do you happen to remember that statement I made a while back? "The search for truth is beset on all sides by pleasant lies?" I think one of those pleasant lies might be the strange idea that sheltering yourself from seeing evil makes you a better person. I don't think hiding from all outside influences helps you grow as an individual or as a christian. Maybe I'm wrong and it's my belief right there that's truly the pleasant lie, but what if I'm right?

But that's really beside the point of actually examining the movie. I honestly just enjoyed the movie because it kept to the spirit of the cartoon I grew up watching, while making it entirely real. I did find a message in it as well, it was about doing the right thing without needing a reason. The Joker used the faults of humanity (that are undeniably everywhere) to justify being an agent of chaos. Batman saw the faults of humanity to justify being an agent of good. Both did so with no want of reward, and little regard for personal safety. They truly are polar opposites, arch-nemeses, and theirs is an undying rivalry.

Paint It Black

Garfield Minus Garfield

I stumbled upon a website called "Garfield Minus Garfield" where they take garfield comics and just remove the garfield element, making them all about John Arbuckle. haha, I thought it was worth a chuckle :-)

Mostly because Garfield sucks ass out of a rhino.

Music Website

Just thought I'd post a pretty bad-ass website I stumbled upon.
http://songza.com

Lucky for you all, you can use songza to look up some Nirvana and Alice in Chains songs today. It happens to be the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death. As well as the anniversary of Layne Staley's death.