The Difference Between Human Brains and Other Animal Brains

[mallorys_camera]

Dreamed I was in a small town up a small river, and implicit in the dream was the sense that I have dreamed this place many times before (true? false? I don’t know.)

I was wandering down a street in this town’s small Victorian downtown, looking for ArtPhoto™ opps (as is my wont in waking life), when I saw this fabulously interesting porch and house.

Then suddenly I was inside the house. A bunch of students lived there; they were studying cultural anthropology.

I had various fabulous encounters with various students, but the only one I can remember is that one of the students had a bunch of bears—big Russian circus bears, tiny adorable koalas, etc—and I desperately wanted to take photos of them.

Except my iPhone kept falling apart when I tried to take the photos. Screws came loose, etc., and when I tried to put the iPhone back together, I couldn’t remember where the screws went.

Then I was sitting next to (of all people) Ice-T from Law & Order SUV. We were drinking beer, doctored with vodka. We were sitting around an enormous redwood burl, and I was remembering a sharp bend on a snowy road up a steep hill that led to a house where Rik lived. (Another thing I have dreamed many times before—or at least that was implicit in the dream.)

When you dream of roads and places, Ice-T told me, you are actually visualizing physical loci in your brain. That sharp bend is actually a neuronal relay system. Dreams are how you map your physical brain.

The difference between human brains and other animal brains, Ice-T added, is that only human brains are wired for narrative.

And then I woke up.



It was very cold yesterday but also very sunny.

So, I Naprosyn-ed up and went out for a (shortish) tromp.

Behold the Vanderbilt ghosts disguised as geese!

Behold the sleeping garden!

Writing embarrassing things about one’s inner life appears to be a potent exorcism.

Because I felt perfectly fine after I scribbled about my sticky feelings.

Went on to argue merrily for a couple of hours with Neighbor Ed about the effectiveness of masking as a COVID-19 preventative.

In fact, arguing made me so merry that I told myself, Soon, you should start arguing that the HIV virus was created in a lab—

Which I don’t believe, of course.

But which I also don’t not believe.

Government-sanctioned Medical Science no longer holds much cred with me.

Thus are conspiracy nuts born.

###

Today, I am busy, busy, busy! Remuneration, errands, lunch with Loraine, a small dinner party.

So, I better get moving.

Comments

[wayfaringwordhack]

Fascinating dream!

[mallorys_camera]

It was!!! 😀

[smokingboot]

only human brains are wired for narrative .

Ice-T was right. Now there's a sentence I never thought I would write.

When I used to work with tarot, the moon card always struck me as a metaphor map of the brain. Starting with the crayfish in the pond, the area at the base of the neck around the cerebellum, along the corpus callosum between the hemispheres and onwards, etc.

You have such fascinating dreams!

[mallorys_camera]

My dreams are really interesting to me!!!! 😀

That's why I try to write them down when I can.