The Guardian for this meeting was Lucinda Lavender. The comments are by Lucinda Lavender.The attendees were Nefer Soulstar,Calvino, druth Vlodovic, Hokon Cazalet.

Lucinda Lavender: Hello Nefer!
Lucinda Lavender: Have you been here before?
Nefer Soulstar: Hi Lucinda
Nefer Soulstar: I haven't been here
--BELL--

Lucinda Lavender: Our discussion is recorded...and put on to the above website. It is a chat log and if you are comfortable with being recorded then it is good to know. Other wise I can remove your name from the log...
Nefer Soulstar: should be okay
Lucinda Lavender: Every 15 minutes we have a 90 second break for "Being"
Lucinda Lavender: Hi Cal!
Calvino Rabeni: Good evening :)
Lucinda Lavender: You have met Nefer berfore...
Lucinda Lavender: :)
Lucinda Lavender: How are you Calvino?
Calvino Rabeni: I'm well, thanks - quite relaxed actually, after having gone on a "walkabout" most of the day.
Calvino Rabeni: And you?
Lucinda Lavender: Really! Where to is my next question. It has been a very busy day...
Lucinda Lavender: I am a bit wound up actually.
Lucinda Lavender: Hi Druth...
druth Vlodovic: hi
Lucinda Lavender: The unusual thing tonight is that Nefer and I are sitting across the table from each other...
Lucinda Lavender: in Real Life
druth Vlodovic: lol
Lucinda Lavender: She is studying the wiki
druth Vlodovic: good to meet you half of nef
Calvino Rabeni: The other part - awake or dreaming?
Lucinda Lavender: She is awake in reading...
Lucinda Lavender: keeping me company as my world has been kind of unusual of late
Nefer Soulstar: Must be dreaming, sorry! Hello
Lucinda Lavender: druth what is emerald user?
druth Vlodovic: sl viewer, I just found out there is a sl group about it
Lucinda Lavender: ah:)
druth Vlodovic: is the unusual what has you wound up?
--BELL--

Lucinda Lavender: yes in part...but coffee is added to the mix.
druth Vlodovic: :)
druth Vlodovic: I've done that, "I'm all tense and snappy, better get a cup of joe."
Lucinda Lavender: right...
Calvino Rabeni: Calvino Rabeni perks up from dreamy endorphin induced state - "Did someone say Coffee" ?
Lucinda Lavender: I went to a coffee house in my town where I used to work and had a coffee for old time sake
Calvino Rabeni: Yeah, that's the ticket! :)
druth Vlodovic: sounds interesting, must've been different from across the counter
Calvino Rabeni: Calvino Rabeni puts the kettle on ...
Lucinda Lavender: yes...
Lucinda Lavender: I felt the need to use wireless actually...and coffee came with it
Lucinda Lavender: then I came home and learned that another friend may be leaving this world very soon.
Lucinda Lavender: So Nefer came over to help me get dinner and settle...
Lucinda Lavender: My husband is off in the great smoky mountains building a chicken coop with my son...
Lucinda Lavender: life is very full now
druth Vlodovic: it's good to have friends to come over at such times
Lucinda Lavender: Cal can you tell us where your walk about went?
Calvino Rabeni: :)
Calvino Rabeni: Well actually - but, first I want to say, my idea of a perfect walkabout is that afterwards, I would not know where I had gone.
Lucinda Lavender: hee hee!
Lucinda Lavender: :)
Calvino Rabeni: This one was not planned in advance of course, but I found myself over the hill and around the lake and down to the shipping canal and along the greenway trail - maybe 20 miles or so.
Lucinda Lavender: nice!
Lucinda Lavender: feet ok?
Calvino Rabeni: So for instance, there's one park that has lots of benches - and I was able to sit for some time on a large number of them :)
Lucinda Lavender: :)
Nefer Soulstar: so you had a sitabout too
Calvino Rabeni: Well I had bicycle - so probably about 5 miles walking, the rest riding
Lucinda Lavender: so now you are relaxing...
Calvino Rabeni: Yes! And also sleepabout and writeabout :)
Lucinda Lavender: did you see anything unusual?
Calvino Rabeni: Sleeping animals - a heron and lots of ducks; a man with a kite big enough to lift him up (he had a harness)
Calvino Rabeni: But lots of unexpected - not unusual - things
Lucinda Lavender: I am always curious about the unusual...and the unexpected
druth Vlodovic: sounds relaxing
Calvino Rabeni: Like there was a row of parked cars and a truck - suddenly I noticed all were red in color - and then 2 more appeared on that same line
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: Things kept appearing, showing me how little I normally see of the surround
Calvino Rabeni: and along with them appeared new ideas for my projects
Lucinda Lavender: interesting...
Calvino Rabeni: as if dreaming things up
Nefer Soulstar: What projects do you have?
Calvino Rabeni: Ah ! Well they're in the delicate phase of creative emergence - I'd risk the muse, if I talk too much right now...
Nefer Soulstar: I understand
Lucinda Lavender: nicely put...
Calvino Rabeni: Did you ever have that feeling about remembering a dream?
Lucinda Lavender: yes..
Lucinda Lavender: like it is a little hazy and then gets clearer
Calvino Rabeni: This is a similar process :) Because it's coming partly from dreaming
Lucinda Lavender: I remembered a fragment today from the morning dream
Lucinda Lavender: of finding lots of letters I had never opened
Lucinda Lavender: are you saying that your listening to dreams and their suggestions then?
Calvino Rabeni: I remember looking at the blue eyes of the man who makes the coffee at the cafe - it confused him, he skipped a beat, but not unpleasantly
Calvino Rabeni: I listen to the suggestions, yes
Lucinda Lavender: The blue eyes sow up in my dreams sometimes
Lucinda Lavender: show
Lucinda Lavender: I tend to think of them as related to truth...with the blue ness
Calvino Rabeni: There were about 20 sleeping ducks, and two who were awake
Calvino Rabeni: avery now and then the eyes of the sleeping ones would look at the awake ones
Calvino Rabeni: as if to see that everything looks normal, to go back to sleep
Lucinda Lavender: checking...
Calvino Rabeni: The two awake ones were just hanging out chatting, while doing their guard duty
Lucinda Lavender: cool
Lucinda Lavender: guardian ducks

Calvino Rabeni: And it reminded me of that light sleep where dreams are close to waking
Calvino Rabeni: or the opposite, which is the walkabout
Calvino Rabeni: the relaxed waking where the dreams are just under the surface
Calvino Rabeni: Handy for the ducks to show me that :)
Lucinda Lavender: nodding
Calvino Rabeni: Almost sleepwalking
Lucinda Lavender: yes
Calvino Rabeni: The french had an urban version of it I think, called drifting, my impression was it came from the surrealist movement
Lucinda Lavender: I don't know much about surrealism
Calvino Rabeni: I'd love to see a collection of all similar walking meditations from different cultures
Lucinda Lavender: yes!
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: Salvador Dali of course is considered the exemplar of surrealist artists
Lucinda Lavender: right...I was thinking about him actuall as we are sitting here
Lucinda Lavender: did his painting include the clock that appears to be melting?
Calvino Rabeni: The melting clocks, and bodies that turn into dead trees and shells, and so on
Lucinda Lavender: odd images...
Calvino Rabeni: It was a sort of romantic idea of dreaming, as a little maybe macabre
Lucinda Lavender: sort of feel random to me
Calvino Rabeni: Yes
Calvino Rabeni: but they connect things not usually connected
Lucinda Lavender: like when one is sick and dreaming
Calvino Rabeni: have you noticed in a dream, things slowly change into other things
Lucinda Lavender: yes
Calvino Rabeni: and the dreamer doesn't quite notice it happening
Lucinda Lavender: yes
Lucinda Lavender: takes the slowing down to notice maybe
Calvino Rabeni: like a highway later turns into a train into an escalator into a shopping mall
Calvino Rabeni: with the unifying thing being, moving along
Lucinda Lavender: yes
Calvino Rabeni: So the art might be looking at that
druth Vlodovic: or an acceptance of how things are making noticing unecessary
Calvino Rabeni: if you look at one piece of it, it looks like one thing
Calvino Rabeni: but if you look at it in a bigger scale, the disconnected things are seen to be flowing together
Lucinda Lavender: things making noticing unecessary is an interesting idea
Calvino Rabeni: And the lack of a coherent structure, at least in the "middle" perhaps
Calvino Rabeni: I'm trying to relate what druth meant... it's like, the images show the lack of some planner who would make it all into a logical picture
Lucinda Lavender: perhaps images generated because of stress?
Calvino Rabeni: That seems a contemporary idea to me
Calvino Rabeni: Like the surrealists may have had a contrary orientation to stress
Calvino Rabeni: An effort to add a little more stress
Calvino Rabeni: by using slightly creepy images
Calvino Rabeni: whereas contemporary people might want to remove stress
Calvino Rabeni: For instance I think one of the ideas of surrealism was the desire to break out of the too-ordinary too-safe mundane state of seeing the world
Lucinda Lavender: perhaps it becomes interesting to integrate more unusual images
Calvino Rabeni: And shake it up a little
Lucinda Lavender: yes
Calvino Rabeni: but nowadays, reality itself is jangled and cubist and disconnected already
Calvino Rabeni: so maybe now the need is to let it settle
Calvino Rabeni: if the mind works best with a good balance between control and chaos
Calvino Rabeni: that's my "goldilocks" theory of it :)
Calvino Rabeni: All those art movements are dreams in the context of the culture and time in which people live
Lucinda Lavender: yes
Nefer Soulstar: and maybe the dream body is traveling thru different dimensions and we as the dreamer have no experience with other dimensions
Nefer Soulstar: and try to make those experiences make sense in our waking world
Calvino Rabeni: I was thinking about something similar on the walkabout
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: the dream process - can be seen as revealing from other as yet uncognized places - or as organizing chaos and imposing some kind of meaning on it - it's not an either/or case of one of those being true and the other not being true
Lucinda Lavender: Hi steve
stevenaia Michinaga: hello
Nefer Soulstar: There are always layers of meanings and experiences
Nefer Soulstar: and to expereiences
Lucinda Lavender: we are discussing surrealism and dreams and that sort of thing.
stevenaia Michinaga: thx
druth Vlodovic: or to take organization and impose chaos on it, making new connections
Nefer Soulstar: I like that
Nefer Soulstar: Hello Stevenaia
Calvino Rabeni: that may have been the surrealist objective
druth Vlodovic: hi steve :)
stevenaia Michinaga: :)
Calvino Rabeni: The first goal being to subvert the control of the conscious mind - secondly to see what might emerge
Calvino Rabeni: I don't think I'd choose Dali for bedroom art
Nefer Soulstar: similar to keeping a dream journal and seeing what patterns emerge
Nefer Soulstar: I wouldn't !
Nefer Soulstar: choose Dali that is
Calvino Rabeni: Fox did a presentation week before last Tuesday 1pm on a media lab experiment designed to evoke dreambody experiences of presence
Calvino Rabeni: with some suggestive and ever-so-slightly creepy images
druth Vlodovic: it would be like listening to heavy metal to improve your mood :)
Calvino Rabeni: A hint of the haunted house, some said jokingly
Calvino Rabeni: too bad it wasn't recorded (it was in voice)
Lucinda Lavender: ah:)
Nefer Soulstar: By stimulating different areas of the brain?
Nefer Soulstar: in the Fox show
Calvino Rabeni: Through a media surround
Calvino Rabeni: It was at the kira cafe, the PaB guardian Fox Monacular is a dream researcher
Nefer Soulstar: like surround sound with multiple CSI episodes? :)
Calvino Rabeni: this was a special presntation - I found it quite interesting
stevenaia Michinaga: is there a link to the log?
Calvino Rabeni: The dream class is not logged
Nefer Soulstar: Do you if it will be shown or available again?
Calvino Rabeni: THis was a live SL presentation in voice, not recorded in any way, unfortunately
Nefer Soulstar: too bad
Calvino Rabeni: But I'm sure she'd be willing to talk about it :)
Calvino Rabeni: They had a lot of data on sleep disturbance phenomena
druth Vlodovic: speaking of which... bedtime for me
druth Vlodovic: have fun!
Lucinda Lavender: night druth!
Calvino Rabeni: Well, then, peaceful normal dreams upon you :)
stevenaia Michinaga: night druth
Lucinda Lavender: happy sleep...
Nefer Soulstar: good night druth, sweet dreams
--BELL--

Lucinda Lavender: I know you told me a little about the experiments but I forget if the purpose was to see how the images changed ones dreams...or...
Lucinda Lavender: you said 'designed to evoke dreambody experiences of presence'.
Calvino Rabeni: As I understood it, the idea was to see if it were possible to evoke a "presence of an entity" experience in a person who is awake
Lucinda Lavender: presence of the unusual/strange etc?
Calvino Rabeni: Although I guess I would not consider that "normal" waking state
Lucinda Lavender: oh ok
Lucinda Lavender: in waking then...
stevenaia Michinaga: I must be off, thanks
Lucinda Lavender: no..by steve happy travels
Calvino Rabeni: Or you could say, to evoke it in the dreaming part of the mind, during a period of being awake
Calvino Rabeni: Bye steve :)
Calvino Rabeni: Because there's the idea of multiple processes of the mind being active at once
Calvino Rabeni: Like I was saying earlier about the walkabout and the muse
Lucinda Lavender: yes
Calvino Rabeni: that the dreaming mind is active during the day also
Nefer Soulstar: the dreaming mind is always active
Calvino Rabeni: so in that lab design they were investigating it
Calvino Rabeni: communicating with the dreaming mind while the waking mind was otherwise occupied
Nefer Soulstar: but most of us are 'taught' not to let it intrude during 'real' time
Calvino Rabeni: Unlearning that could be worthwhile
Nefer Soulstar: just talking about it seems to be putting me in a dream like state
Calvino Rabeni: Do you know any followers of the Artist's Way approach?
Nefer Soulstar: yes
Calvino Rabeni: I have a couple of friends who like it, but I don't feel I have the full picture from them about it yet
Nefer Soulstar: when we use the drum to open dream circle I immediately go into a dream like state
Nefer Soulstar: and sometimes feel as if I'm dreaming the other people's dreams as they tell them
Calvino Rabeni: I'm partial to the rattle for those purposes
Nefer Soulstar: sometime we open the directions with a rattle, stones, bell, and flute
Nefer Soulstar: those work too, but not always as big a shift in consciousness as with the drum
Calvino Rabeni: I've been to various of those ecstatic dance venues, and there's one in particular that has incorporated the use of shamanic instruments by the participants
Nefer Soulstar: did you participate?
Calvino Rabeni: The others mainly stick with recorded music, and the organizers feel some need of control
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, I was doing the "shaker work" in that group (when I can attend)
Calvino Rabeni: The organizer was kind enough to give good feedback to participants
Calvino Rabeni: to honor the alchemy (or what every you want to call it) of the participant's actions
--BELL--

Calvino Rabeni: It becomes a somewhat unpredictable group chemistry
Lucinda Lavender: dream circle has been pretty predictable over a long time but the dreams change...
Lucinda Lavender: and dreams change the chemistry that evening
Calvino Rabeni: This is a bigger system - about 30 - 60 people, with shamanic elements to movement and music
Lucinda Lavender: wow
Calvino Rabeni: there's often an emergent theme
Nefer Soulstar: how long does the event last?
Calvino Rabeni: But the organizer can't "control" it, only help it emerge
Nefer Soulstar: or maybe no set time.....lasts however long it needs to
Calvino Rabeni: It lasts 150 minutes, not counting warmup and the circle meeting afterward
Nefer Soulstar: wow
Lucinda Lavender: not that different than dream circle time wise
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, some things need a good piece of time to unfold
Lucinda Lavender: settling in time
Nefer Soulstar: into no time/no space -- cairos time
Hokon Cazalet: hi =)
Calvino Rabeni: Hello Hokon :)
Lucinda Lavender: hi Hokon:)
Nefer Soulstar: Hi Hokon
Hokon Cazalet: Weeee! ^.^
Lucinda Lavender: how does one do that?
Hokon Cazalet: hehe
Calvino Rabeni: The group setting helps, but it can be done at home too
Calvino Rabeni: Have you set up such a space at home?
Lucinda Lavender: for dream things?
Calvino Rabeni: Yes, a no space no time dreaming container
Lucinda Lavender: Hokon, we are talking about dream body work
Hokon Cazalet: ok
Calvino Rabeni: Maybe it helps to have an open living room with some room to move
Hokon Cazalet doesn't recognize that term
Lucinda Lavender: making it up for the moment
Hokon Cazalet: lol ok I focus myself in...but not move...
Lucinda Lavender: it is to focus in...
Calvino Rabeni: I guess we were using as a generic term "dreambody"
Calvino Rabeni: there are a lot of investigators and practitioners of things to do
Calvino Rabeni: For example http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1887078673
Calvino Rabeni: But earlier we were talking about ecstatic dance as a different venue
Calvino Rabeni: and Lucinda does dream circles
--BELL--

Lucinda Lavender: Interesting...
Calvino Rabeni: And I think Nefer was referring to shamanic style approaches
Nefer Soulstar: yes
Calvino Rabeni: Another classic is Waking Dreams - http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Dreams-.../dp/0882143247
Calvino Rabeni: About the transformative potentials of the half-dream state
Hokon Cazalet: i love using dreams to explore the psyche and heal things
Hokon Cazalet: lol my comment killed the convo
Calvino Rabeni: Oh, I didn't think so, Hokon :)
Hokon Cazalet: hehe :Þ
Calvino Rabeni: I think that's a great thing to do - I love it too
Calvino Rabeni: But ... it's dinner time, I hear the bell :)
Hokon Cazalet: yummy
Calvino Rabeni: Lucinda must be A F K
Hokon Cazalet: lol
Calvino Rabeni: Thanks for the interesting dialogues and talk to you later
Nefer Soulstar: Cinda has a phone call in rl.
Nefer Soulstar: bye Calvino
Hokon Cazalet: bye
Calvino Rabeni: and bye for now, Nefer and Hokon :)
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Nefer Soulstar: what does A F K mean?
Hokon Cazalet: away from keyboard
Nefer Soulstar: thanks
Lucinda Lavender: I have just had a phone call..It is one I should take but have to call back on the landline...so sorry.
Hokon Cazalet: =)
Hokon Cazalet: its ok
Lucinda Lavender: I shall go for now...
Hokon Cazalet: lol
Hokon Cazalet: ok
Lucinda Lavender: this is a complicated time...
Lucinda Lavender: thanks all:)