Peering into dreams

Fields and clouds

 This picture of the beautiful daffodils and a sky filled with clouds and occasional sunlight was taken last year when I visited the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. Other nearby fields are filled with these beautiful yellow daffodils, which are often finished by the time I get a chance to visit the tulips. I also was sort of reminded of the Ukrainian flag in this shot, yellow on the bottom and blue skies above. And of course Ukraine has been on my mind a lot these past few weeks.

I'll be visiting the tulip gardens once again with my friend Lily next week. She works most weekends but has the next one off for Easter, so we'll be making our annual visit on Saturday. The long-term weather forecast looks pretty good, but it's almost a week away and anything can happen. Although yesterday was supposed to have the rain all gone early, my friend Melanie and I walked in hail, rain, and the occasional wind gust. It's amazing that after a gorgeous day in the mid-sixties (19°C) last Thursday, today we will be lucky to have a chance to take off our warm gloves and hats. We'll be ready for anything next week. Typical springtime weather, eh?

And I am still continuing my endeavor to learn more about time, space, and consciousness, and the main thing I've discovered is how much I don't know. Just by accident I ran across a new source of information, a guy named Piero Scaruffi, whose website is simply overflowing with information I find fascinating. He's written several books about the nature of consciousness, quantum mechanics, and the meaning of life. How could I not be drawn in? You can check out his main page here. 

I've read several excerpts from his section on "The New Physics" out loud to SG, who has been interested in quantum physics for a long time. Me, I never considered that aspect of study particularly interesting; however, I have always been fascinated by science fiction that makes good use of some of the theories and ideas I've run across. And I now know where superstring theory came from, not that I'm all that interested in learning more about it, but the possibility that every single version of every event could be existing alongside us in a parallel universe gives credence to several time-travel novels I've enjoyed in the past.

Time and space always change, but there is something which is eternal and changeless. For example, the world and time, past or future, nothing exists for us in sleep. But we exist. Let us try to find out that which is changeless and which always exists. —Ramana Maharshi

I found this quote while looking for something about time and space that would be relevant to what I've learned, and the idea that while we are asleep, nothing of our normal life exists for us I find quite interesting. I know I visit many realms while dreaming, and that they seem perfectly logical and reasonable until I wake up and consider them when my brain is conscious. 

Years ago I watched a Star Trek episode (The Inner Light) that really resonated with me. In it, Jean-Luc Picard is caught in an energy beam and becomes unconscious. While only a few minutes pass in regular time, he lives forty years as another person on another planet. He is  reluctantly reconciled to his new life and marries, has children, and grows old before he awakens back on the Enterprise and realizes he is still Picard. I was fascinated by the concept of time expansion then, and I still am, wondering if it's possible. After all, the new quantum physics speculates that anything that could exist is possible in an alternate universe that might be in existence alongside our own. It does make me wonder just how much of the nature of consciousness we still don't know. 

Do you dream? I know that some people don't remember anything of their dreams, and some people dream in drab black and white, while my own dreams are filled with vivid color, and are populated with people I've known both living and dead. While I'm dreaming, it feels just as real and solid as the world I'm sitting in right now, as I tap away on my keyboard in the dark room, with hubby sleeping next to me and I take a sip of my tea from a solid cup.

Then again, what exactly is "solid"? The cup is composed of atoms and molecules, with vast areas of empty space making up an atom. We are mostly made up of empty space, it seems. Although things feel solid, it's because we are experiencing them in a macro version, not an microscopic one. I find it very interesting to wonder about what life, time, and matter really are. Who knows for certain? Not me!

Well, that's enough of wandering around in the dark realms of uncertainty. I think I'll return to what I know and what's solid around me. Looking away from the screen, I see a window that shows it's still dark outside, and I believe that the sun will come up today, even if I cannot see it through the rain clouds. And that I might actually get a few rays of sunshine to fall on my face later in the day, and that the sun will then set. That's my belief, anyway, and so far I've been right. 

But maybe when I go to sleep tonight, I'll live another century before I awake. Maybe I'll visit my mother who has been gone for decades, and we'll laugh together at the silly dream that seems like my real life as I sit here, pondering the nature of time and space. One thing I know (as much as I know anything) is that when I finish this post and hit "publish," I'll begin the rest of my day and will join my friend John for a nice springtime breakfast. And that when I come home, my dear partner will be up and out of bed and we'll hug as I return, as though we've been separated for ages. Maybe we were. Time is elastic, after all.

Okay, I hope you enjoyed this excursion as much as I did. Don't forget to find joy in your day, that goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Until we meet again next week, believing there will be a next week, I hope that you find happiness and joy in everything you do. Be well until then, dear friends.