Kelly's departure and how psychic stuff makes me less suspicious in a way

Zingers keep coming every week these days. 

First, Putin gratuitously screws the people of Ukraine, in a way he simply would not do if he really cared about the people (or even the Russian economy) or if he shared Trump's vision of partnership to protect Christendom from the Global Third Caliphate forces (e.g. Moslem Brotherhood, which Prince Mohammed knows about better than the others do). Then he decides to try for a new Cuban Missile kind of crisis, even more  bizarre. And then finally Russian media announce that Trump is indeed their obedient court jester/janitor whom they are confident will either do nothing or will echo whatever party line they choose for him. God was that an umpleasant scene!
It raised the question: is Trump REALLY the terrified obedient janitor/jester they are claiming he is, or is he ultrasensitive to such an extreme (and stupid!) personal insult? (WHY insult him that way?)

Silence for a short time. Canceling of a meeting at G20, leaving the question open. Announcement of US warship OPTION  to go to Black Sea, again leaving the question open. 

When the next news was Kelly resigning, I couldn't help wondering: is THIS the answer? Did Kelly, a military man, really want to send those ships, quietly but visibly and in strength, and was this the last straw for him?
(I still would like to see US-Russian partnership, and keep the war hawks under control, but there are times when good fences make good neighbors.) I was starting to wonder...

==========

But the, since I have "let it all hang out" in this blog (except for some ultradangerous stuff, like technical nuclear stuff)... let me mention the "assumption dream" I had last night. (Searching on "assumption dream" in this blog gives some background.) On the one hand, I still believe in hard core realism more than the vast majority of people who know about quantum mechanics; my previous post should be clear on that. But I also see no basic conflict between realism and the reality of psychic phenomena, which I found inescapable long ago in my personal life. 

Long ago, I mentioned in this blog that something odd started happening to me. I regularly experienced "assumption dreams" where I experienced life from the viewpoint of Donald Trump. I would wake up and remember what he was thinking and feeling, sometimes picking up things I really could not get from any news stories before the dream. When we traveled out of the US for the past three months, it was a different atmosphere; on facebook, I gave pictures AND EXPLANATIONS in text "information" with the pictures, describing the spiritual gateways which put me in a different place, and frankly raised the overall level of happiness for three months.  But here we are again.

Almost all dreams are a mix of core thoughts accompanied by "fill in" from one's own brain. (Same with the book of revelations.) After years and years of this, I know how it works  both subjectively and in mathematical models of the cortico-thalamic loops supported by empirical data. (Look up Werbos and Davis at scholar.google.com.)
In this dream... the dominant scene at the end focused on my younger daughter Maia, who has a certain kind of radiance (as does Maia). But there was this forceful unpleasant guy who first tried to stop her from saving us ..
and when that failed, drew her into a kind of horrible room where he pulled a switch on her, and locked her into another role... she could hardly even talk after that... people could hardly hear her.. but she could talk just a little bit to a younger guy in the Trump family. (My dreaming mind was puzzled why Maia wanted to talk to a guy who very visibly was a member of the Trump family...)  

Well, that's very consistent with what I see this morning in the New York Times story. (The CNN story I saw yesterday was much vaguer, and left more wondering about other possible explanations. CNN often falls into easy ungrounded explanations which don't fit a more complete story. Also, I only watched a few minutes of CNN yesterday anyway,) 

=================

All for now.

Best of luck to us all... and especially to those living around the Black Sea.

By the way, I was glad to hear that the rate of H2S formation in the Black Sea has probably actually reduced lately. But I do not know about accumulation effects, one way or another. And I have read that eddies right by Sevastopol make out gassing hard to predict even now. I do hope we won't need Moses kinds of stuff to prevengt even worse,  but that is certainly way above my pay grade as a mere watcher, 

================================

Since I have not posted much about the technical details of astral versus assumption dreams for awhile, I should add a note. I certainly do not believe that either type of dream or experience is the highest state of consciousness we can normally experience. I am happy to hear that MIT Media Lab has developed ways to follow up on LaBerge's work on "lucid dreams," for example, where one can wake to a fuller consciousness of the fact that one is IN a dream. (I have such a vivid memory of a night when I was twelve, experiencing that...). But I find it is a good habit to wake gently from an astral or assumption dream, not just running for coffee, but hanging on to the threads while in full wakeful consciousness. In fact, I try to make it a habit to stay in bed for awhile, and really think about many things, and make connections as well. I once thought of this as my "cosmic consciousness" period, but later, in discussions with vedantists and yogins and such, I learned that those words have been taken by stuff I view as silly (like the phlogiston theory of mind); it would be more accurate to use the word "samadhi" in the particular version used by esoteric Japanese Buddhists up in some mountains. It's really basically just about a kind of focus and clarity, and ability to shift focus. 

For those of us who have had real experience with that state, it can feel a bit depressing sometimes in the evening after a few margaritas (not every day!!!) to be asked a question, and suddenly to realize how easy it would be to answer earlier in the day  but how hard at the time. (Still, good things do come out at such times when they also involve contact with other people.) It is natural to ask: is it possible to continue in that state for more than just a few minutes in the early morning or whenever? Some people focus their entire lives on trying to prolong that state. But... others just play by ear.