daydream believer

we feel pain and pleasure
we yearn

and in order to find out how
to minimize pain

and maximize pleasure

we think

Found in The 20 W sleep-walkers by Ladislav Kováč1 of Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia in the current issue of EMBO Reports.

Also found in Kováč1's piece, as directly quoted:

• The energy output of the resting adult human body is equal to the power of a 100 W electrical light bulb.


• The brain alone consumes 20% of the body's chemical energy, even though it accounts for only 2% of the body's mass. Metaphorically speaking, we all have a 20 W light bulb burning in our head, even when we lie still in complete darkness doing physically nothing.


• The brain as a whole shows no difference in the energy budget between ‘resting’ and ‘busy’ states.


• The brain guzzles up—per unit weight—as much energy as the heart muscle, about 16 times more energy than the skeletal muscle at rest, or as much as the leg muscles during a marathon race.

And:

When the brain receives no signals from the environment, a considerable part of its energy is used in daydreaming: the human mind may be spending as much as half of its wakeful time daydreaming (Klinger, 1990). This comprises not only the creation of fanciful stories similar to those we dream during the night, but also the rehashing of all possible and impossible alternatives of the past, present and future activities.

This interior universe of daydreaming creates a continuous series of fictional rewards and punishments, which steadily builds up the unique and idiosyncratic personality of every human individual by conditioning. This may explain our capability to work for years on our career, tenaciously, with self-restraint and self-denial, as if we were motivated by the mirage of an ultimate reward.

Apparently, it is not the latter in the remote future, but our present fancies of it that provide immediate, positive rewards and function to reinforce our deeds.

for lolabola

When a dream clearly gives notice, "it shines, it glitters, in the blackness, in the early dawn."

Dennis Tedlock writing about the place of dreams in the Mayan worldview, and citing the Popol Vuh, in his introduction to his translation of the text.

A lot of curious things have been unfolding in my dreams and the dreams of my friends in recent days -- Lolobola regularly reminds me of the importance of listening to those dreams.

the interpretation of dreams

Recently I have had a preponderance of dreams regarding luggage.

In one dream I was in the hotel room that I was in fact occupying, sleeping without any pajama bottoms, which I was in fact doing, and someone came into my room and took all the pants from my luggage and closet -- leaving me with no pants to wear. Not even pajama bottoms. I had business meetings scheduled, and awoke wondering how I should conduct myself in a business meeting while wearing no bottoms.

Last night I dreamed that a tidal wave was about to hit the building where I was staying -- I felt vaguely responsible for the tidal wave somehow, but was largely intent on getting myself and my luggage out of its trajectory. I grabbed my bag and fled to the nearest hilltop, with many others, yet feeling wholly alone. I realized as I cleared the ridge that I had left my toothbrush back in the building I had just fled.

Just compiled a Flickr set of airport camerphone shots -- I suspect it'll grow some more in the days to come, with three more destinations planned for the next two weeks.