• 2016 Aug 18 • mahiwaga

Unreal City

Part I:

Me, Jen, and Ben hanging out in L.A. One of the scenes involved an imaginary subway system—I had taken the Red Line all the way out to Mid Wilshire and I waited around in some square where you could see houses in Hancock Park, and there were musicians busking.

Part II:

Me, Jen, Ben, Char, and Bram hanging out in a city that was mostly like Chicago, except there were hills, and my parent’s house in L.A. (as well as Bram’s dad’s house) were there as well. Also, whichever city this was was drivable distance from San Francisco, as that was how Ben, Jen, and Char had gotten here. In the last scene we took the Brown Line “L” all the way to Kimball Ave so Ben could get his car (which was some other white car that wasn’t an Acura) from the Park n’ Ride.

Dreaming

Some random details about last night’s visions. Naturally, some things have been forgotten or deliberately omitted. I don’t want any of you calling the psychiatric ward on me.

Now, being a rational guy, I know dreams don’t mean anything. They are just random barrages of neurons firing which sometimes manage to activate parts of your occipital cortex, where all your visual system wiring is. Your cerebral cortex has no choice but to try to make sense of this madness, and so when you wake up, you’ve got a more-or-less coherent story. Pure illusion. The mind is an awesome thing.

Then again, this is not to say that there isn’t some significance to the images that get awakened. What that significance is, no real scientist has been willing to risk their career trying to figure out, but there are two theories that have happened to stick in my head:

One, dreams are the side effect of sorting and transporting memories from your hippocampus (short-term memory) to various parts of your cerebral cortex (where long-term memory is stored in various cubbyholes and niches), through the fornix and various thalamic relays, either incidentally or deliberately lighting up your visual cortex. So the images may or may not be related to your most recent thoughts. It’s all in the wiring.

Two (as expounded by Sir Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA), dreams are an “unlearning” process. Ideas that are deemed unusable or detrimental by the brain are extricated, accidentally lighting up your visual cortex on their way out.

So, what it comes down to is this: are dreams about thoughts that are supposed to be remembered, or about thoughts that are supposed to be forgotten? To put it another way, are dreams about things you want to come true, or about things that you don’t want to come true?

And if you believe in a fatalistic, deterministic universe (which, in true quantum mechanical fashion, sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t), then what it could mean is this: are dreams things that are going to come true, or things that are definitely not going to come true?

Let’s just say that I had some pretty intense dreams last night. Not XXX graphic or anything like that (get your mind out of the gutter). But the emotions I experienced in them felt like they were going to make my heart burst. And when I woke, I felt a bit sad and forlorn, because it hit me that it was just a dream.

But like I said, dreams don’t mean anything. Maybe. I don’t know.

Eternal and Stateless (A Tale of Pepcid AC)

#More Philosophical Melodrama

I wrote something about dreams earlier today. I’ve got to stop with these doubled up entries already. Too many words are coming out of my brain as of late.

I realize that I have forgotten how to relax, and how to focus, and I’m not sure I can blame it entirely on the caffeine (although the dose has escalated to three cans of Pepsi One and/or Diet Coke at this stage). So, there is the Way, and the art of not-wanting, and the realization that nothing has really changed, I’m still a river heading to the sea.

Cryptic. But hell, three years. Worlds can be created and destroyed in that time. For all I know, none of this may even make any sense by the time I get there. Ironic, though, that I remember telling myself that you’re not supposed to hold on to things too tightly, for too long. Things are meant to evaporate, fall apart, change, and what matters is what you do here and now, in this circumscribed space and time.

Cross those bridges when you get there. And all that jazz.

Still, what matters is the little things, there still is a time and place for everything. You still have to plant that seed in the spring time if you intend to have a harvest in the fall, but these are precisely the things that can get you thinking about eternity and infinity. And now that the concept of Forever has once again entered my mind, I’ve started worrying about Doing the Wrong Thing again, when I know, rationally, that there is no such thing if you just listen to your soul and find the places where the water can flow unimpeded.

I am afraid of going forward, so I start thinking too far ahead. Ironic and ridiculous, I know. Well, these are the sort of things you don’t realize until you’ve written it down.

#The Case of the H2 Receptor Blocker

So I remember a few things about my meat-intoxicated haze yesterday. (I swear I must have been drunk on beef—I didn’t have any beer or soju, and still I was acting like I wasn’t entirely all there…) One of them was the idea floating around that taking Pepcid AC would increase your tolerance of alcohol. Now the idea of mixing two chemical agents is in of itself kind of scary, but it got my mind wondering about how this could possibly work. Purely academic. I don’t foresee any situation where I would need to drink large amounts of alcohol and not want to get intoxicated. But I will ponder it nonetheless.

Addendum 2001 Aug 31: Yes it’s true, there is some sort of interaction between alcohol and H2 receptor blockers. (Use Google to find links to some articles about famotidine and gastric alcohol dehydrogenase) Unfortunately, Pepcid AC will most likely increase blood alcohol concentrations. So if you want to get wasted on less drink (?!?), I suppose this is the way to go.

Addendum 2002 Dec 1: Or maybe not. I find it strange that searching “pepcid+ac+alcohol” can lead to this blog. But it seems that there is a lot of controversy as to whether or not H2 receptor blockers as a class really do affect gastric alcohol dehydrogenase. Read this abstract for more info. All I can say is: proceed at your own risk.