/**
 * file: karbytes_29_august_2024.txt
 * type: plain-text
 * date: 28_AUGUST_2024
 * author: karbytes
 * license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN
 */

Last night and/or earlier this morning I had an unusually pleasant dream which seemed to go on for several hours if not an entire day or longer. The dream mostly took place in some setting which looked vaguely reminiscent of Sunnyvale or Palo Alto during a sunny but not overly warm afternoon but such that the sun did not seem to be directly visible in the sky and such that the scene looked like eternal twilight (i.e. neither day nor night yet slightly more day-like than night-like with some elements of “night life” such as carnival lights and a slightly darkened tranquil atmosphere spanning the ground and extending out into the visible sky). I was apparently there to compete in some kind of poster-making contest and was, at one point in the dream, using my poster casually as some kind of aircraft which enabled me to soar high above the carnival scene to survey my surroundings and the long train track below. Before I flew up to survey the landscape, I was standing on the ground near where those train tracks apparently intersect with a fence guarding an active two-story carousel with mechanical horses going up and down (but I don’t remember if people were riding it or not). I was wondering what would happen if I or something else obstructed the train along its trajectory. I wondered whether or not the train would stop or simply keep going and pummel whatever obstacle is on its path. Another man roughly my age was standing on the other side of the track and we watched a train suddenly appear but slow down gracefully just before reaching the fence with the carousel behind it. Then, in some absurdist surrealist manner, the gate swung open to allow the train to proceed (and the carousel somehow did not get crashed into by the train (which looked and sounded more like a trolly than a train)). After the train passed through the area, the carousel and fence resumed their prior positions. Apparently that man and I saw some glitch in the matrix which made us eligible to be summoned by some husky old lady working at a nearby tiny gas station counter. We were both standing inside that little gas station building and that lady wrote on some paper cards and handed the other guy and I a card which apparently contained instructions or clues we were supposed to not forget. The lady read aloud the special handwritten instruction on my card (which was white with black text printed on it with intentional “fill in the blank” spaces (which took the form of successive underscores like “___________”) on it to fill in with handwriting) before handing it to me (and that message was, “Cultivate your own special ‘flavour’.”).

Unlike most of the other dreams I remember having lately, the dream I wrote about in this journal entry had a more refreshing and open-ended feel to it. Also, that dream did not feel so ridden with forced manic cheer (to cover up how morose I was really feeling). The more macabre dreams I’ve had during the past few years felt a lot less lifelike and, instead, more artificial, forced, and devoid of my genuine personality, thoughts, and sense of agency. I attribute the recent change in dream quality to recently doing a lot of cathartic writing, resting and letting my mind wander and appreciate the beauty of nature (especially the presence of birds such as turkeys, crows, and owls) beneath some trees for cumulatively 20+ hours this week, and, during the past week but not during the past 48 hours, doing some psilomethoxin (which is essentially psilocybin (i.e. magic mushrooms) infused with a non hallucinogenic version of 5-MeO-DMT).

The takeaway from this seems to be for me to continue doing more of what I have been doing (i.e. following my intuition and taking refuge in relatively safe and peaceful naturalistic settings) and to enjoy living in the moment instead of obsessing too much about the past or future. The vague instruction which was given to me by a character in my dream seems relevant to some lingering concerns I’ve had that all I have to show for my existence is something merely unique instead of something particularly revolutionary. That is because, with the advent of artificial intelligence and better education and quality of life for increasingly more people, it seems that it is no longer all that unique or special for a human to write computer programs or study and comprehend modern physics. I think it’s a good thing if such things become mainstream hobbies because it would improve the overall quality of culture and infrastructure. What the take-home message in my dream seems to insinuate is that each individual person should endeavor to be some kind of artist and not just merely slave away as a scientist, engineer, or mathematician. As an artist, there is actual room to manifest something genuinely novel (and art is a notoriously open-ended enterprise with few or no actual “industry standards” other than perhaps the stylistic preferences of the individual artist in pertinence to that artist’s own creative output).

This entire website (and all the other digital files which comprise the body of intellectual property named karbytes) is technically a work of art; an object which exhibits genuinely unique attributes which distinguish it from all other cyberspace artifacts and which align closely with my own subjective experience and personality.