Rats

I dreamed I was a student or teacher, and had a bucket of rats that were tame and very good pets, as good or better than dogs. They had various patterns to their coats, more like hamsters.

I passed them around to the class, who petted them. I talked about the book “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh.”

I remember we had several hamsters when I was growing up. When I was 13, for my science fair, my dad bought thirty white Sprague-Dawley rats for me to keep in the bathroom, to do an experiment about whether their learning would transfer from one maze to another, versus just the specific maze experience.

I was supposed to pet all the rats every day so that the experiment wasn’t confounded by anxiety towards humans.

I didn’t have much experience raising rodents. In their aquarium cage, they knocked over the water dish. Some of the rats got dehydrated, probably died, and were cannibalized by their fellows. I found bones and a tail.

I was horrified. Did I tell my Dad? I don’t remember. But I avoided them. My Dad got mad at me for not socializing them enough, but it was traumatizing.

I got a “Superior” ribbon for the science fair, but wasn’t selected for the State finals.

The dream probably springs from an insight I had yesterday, that I needed to be a super scientist to make up for my failings as a kid to my Dad. I’m a physician repeating my final year of residency, studying for my boards, which I’ve failed twice already. I’ve been pretty depressed for a few years now, and the dynamic with my Dad weighs on me, though he’s pretty supportive now.

The dream was probably some wish fulfillment, about how, since I didn’t socialize the rats, the experiment failed, so now I was making sure all the dream rats were socialized.

Matrix

My goal is to detect the matrix and test it’s reality.

There are multiple assumptions built into the matrix idea. One is that what we hear in our heads is detectable and influential to a consciousness external to us. The voice that we hear, the emotions in the actions that we take, must be discernible at a distance and matter to the entity that is monitoring them.

Bayesian I did that I can make a statement regarding my confidence that this reality is the base reality. So I can say that I’m 80% confident that the universe functions in a way that is easily apprehensible.

Another is that I and everyone around me can be manipulated in a way which is completely undetectable except under extraordinary circumstances. Additionally, for this to work, I would have to be able to detect that undetectable force.

The manipulation would have to benefit the entities which were monitoring from a distance.

The reason why matrix was persuasive and relatable when it first came out was because it was so apparent how my current reality was the product of my parents sending me the score and desiring me to do academics. It was readily visible how artificial the construction was. It required an extraordinary amount of energy in order to run an entire school.

Then, it’s 2021, and you stop the world for COVID-19. And the other people still exist, but so much of how you interacted with them is now gone. And you interact primarily through a computer now. It feels fake.

I have an intuition of the reality of circumstances. I have an intuition that there are other entities out there, with whom I want to be in contact.

There have been several times when the veil of reality has become thin.

A few times when loved ones acted in such a way that it was like if they were possessed by demons. My brother had a demon in him. It wanted to kill my younger brother. I had to throw myself in front of him, and he hates me forever because of it. That was more than 20 years ago, and I still think about it a couple times a week.

My younger brother had a demon. Maybe he still does. He nearly died several times. He wanted to kill my mom. He wanted to kill himself. He went inpatient multiple times. If you can’t remember anything, how do you know what was in your consciousness?

The demons have always bowed to me. I know their game. I win, but die a little more each time. They take the faces of the ones I love and twist them. They were the ones I trusted. I gave them good things.

The noosphere described by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin would have to exist, and be manipulated by superior beings who treat humans as subjects. Demons could fit into this framework, malicious programs designed to tweak malfunctioning operators. Or stop people who were getting too close to detecting them.

I feel like things are simulated when I realize how things worked together in a way that I didn’t consciously realize.

As described by Nietzsche, the Apollonian vision of reality we behold in dreams, art, theater, music, represents a hyper reality. It is so desirable that I suffer upon waking from it. It encapsulates truths beyond words, and I can only grasp at vapor trying to hold it.

Alternatively, the Dionysian experience has me dance and laugh a riot, singing and celebrating and weeping with a crew of fellow satyrs and nymphs. I get myself into a frenzy, and all boundaries are dissolved. I am loved, I am home, I am one.

Crushed beneath a heap of people, I crawl to the top, sight golden Apollo, and truly experience the god.

Burnout

You’d think becoming

A doctor would lead to my

Deep fulfillment, an

Intersection of

My gifts and the world’s needs.

No. It’s all band-aids.

I save a life and

Forget it, beat my head on

The wall when I don’t

Know an answer. It’s

Ashes in my mouth. Reward

For years of struggle

Is to be beset

By insoluble problems.

I long for music,

Peace, rest, safety, an

End to toil and turmoil.

Sabbath of Sabbaths.

No Martyr

Once did a young man

Declare that the tragedy

Of the world was

Wrong, and that he would

Fix it. Did he believe in

Himself? Sometimes. But

Not often. He had

Imbibed and lived a creed in

Which to be crushed by

The machine was a

Victory, representing

The end to the war.

Eventually he

Became a doctor and found

Himself a clockwork.

Would he spend his life

And his substance to turn back

The hands for one more

Moment? He wasn’t

That good, to die in service

Of a lost cause. He

Was selfish enough

To want a purpose for his

Life and work, to write

His name in the stars,

To stop the clock forever.

No martyr would he

Be. He would not burn

On another’s pyre. He

Would steal the sun from

The sky and hide it

In his pocket, to peep at

When he was idle.