The Difference Between Human Brains and Other Animal Brains

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.

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

So, I better get moving.