What is, NEXTUP?
Thursday, October 20th, 2022 09:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioI spoke too soon about the crickets being done. We're in for a five day warm up starting tomorrow, and by Sunday and Monday, it's gonna be 77F during the day, and still high 60sF after dark... which means I should be able to get one or two more recordings.
And at the moment they're also calling for possible thunder on TUE 25, and WED 26, So I may even get a bit more thunder in the can.
------------{=0=}------------
As for When Brains Dream, I'm almost done with it, and it was pretty good.
The theory that Zadra & Stickgold developed about dreaming... specifically REM sleep dreaming, is that the brain is engaged in, what they've dubbed, NEXTUP... and acrocym for, Network Exploration To Understand Possibilities.
Basically, the brain really is trying to process things that happened during the day, and in the recent past. But rather than re-running the exact day you just had, it builds up these little narratives about the important details, and replaces them with, loosely related concepts.
It's similar to the old saw about everything in a dream being symbolic of something in real life... but it's not an exact, one to one, symbology.
It's more like an analogy.
And the brain creates the analogy in a kind of mad-libs fashion, by picking loosely related concepts for each detail, out of a hat, and then pasting it all together to see how well the analogy resonates with the real life situation.
This is why dreams can seem so bizarre.
But it's doing all of this on purpose... using only loosely related concepts, picking each at random, and throwing them all together... because when such a strange analogy does resonate... or when parts of it resonate... we gain a better understanding about all the concepts involved.
That understanding is usually subconscious, but it can be conscious understanding, if you remember your dream, and figure out what real life situation inspired it.
That new understanding is the, "possibilities," part of the NEXTUP process.
The idea here, is that it's only through this process, where rational thinking is literally suspended, that we can find hidden connections between seemingly unrelated concepts, and discover new possibilities for dealing with situations, or resolving problems.
--<>--
I know the above might still sound like a bunch of technical gibberish, despite my effort to describe it clearly.
But as luck would have it, I did have a fairly bizarre dream this morning that... over the course of the hours I was listening to this book... I was able to decode, using their theory!..
THE HELICOPTER
0--------------------0
I'm downstairs in the living room, and it's early afternoon, with sun coming in the windows.
Mom is there with me, and I'm happy that she's finally going to meet my two best friends from work at the Hospital, Matt & Reyes. They knock on the front door and I let them in.
We're all sitting in the living room together, and as they're introducing themselves to Mom, I notice that I have no pants on! Wait!... I have no underwear or shirt either!.. I'm completely naked!
Not only that!... I'm wet and there's soap on me, like I just walked out of the shower, halfway through! What the hell!
I dash into the side bedroom, which is right off the living room, hoping nobody noticed me!
My brother Tim is in that room. It's his bedroom. I grab a towel and start drying off, and he hands me some clothes.
From there I go into the bathroom to rinse the soap off my face. Since the bathroom is off the kitchen, I exit into the kitchen.
There I see Ray, who was my boss at the hospital. He must've come with Matt & Reyes!
Ray hands me a package... it's two circus peanuts (the gross old candy variety) packaged in cardboard with see through plastic.
Ray says, Take these out there and hang 'em on the helicopter.
I'm very confused. Helicopter? Where is there a helicopter?
He says, it's out in the front yard, go hang 'em on the helicopter.
Hang them?.. on the outside?.. what?... how?.. why?..
Ray gives me a look, like I'm an idiot for not knowing what he means, but says nothing and goes outside. A moment later he's inside the kitchen, sitting in what looks like a little go-cart, with helicopter blades above it.
But it also has wheels and an engine, and smiling, Ray revs the engine and says, "This is a neat little helicopter, huh?"
Then another guy comes up and wants try it out. This guy's got a white shirt and tie, like he might be Ray's boss. And he's taller and fatter than Ray.
There's only one seat in the cart, so Ray gets out, and the bigger guy gets in and revs the engine too. He agrees, it's a neat little helicopter!
I'm astonished such a big, fat guy could even fit in the thing.
I say, How much weight can this little helicopter possibly lift?
The guy turns his head around to look at Ray, who is standing behind him and says, Probably something as heavy as that washer in the corner, huh?
Ray agrees. The helicopter could easily lift something the size of a washing machine.
Last thing I said to them before waking up was that I'd never be caught dead trying to fly in that thing, and they both looked at me like, Awwwwh... come on!... don't be a pussy!
0--------------------0
As I was driving to work, that dream made absolutely zero sense! Why the hell would Ray want me to hang some circus peanuts on a helicopter???
And of course there was the whole naked part!.. like I just complained about that in yesterday's entry! I figured the dream was just throwing that back in my face, along with elements of my old job, which I'd also written about the night before.
And other than that, it was just meaningless.
But after listening to When Brains Dream for four hours straight, as they laid out the NEXTUP theory, and gave different examples... I actually figured it out!
------------{=0=}------------
So let's start with the setting, which was the downstairs of the house. This is just a default dream setting for me. 95% of all dreams... EVER... where I'm supposed to be at home, take place downstairs in this house.
That's been true whether I lived here or not, going back for decades.
Second, Mom, in the living room. Mom, of course, died in 2015, but according to NEXTUP, she's just a stand-in for Dad.
They're both my parents, but she's now loosely related to Dad, because... she hasn't been around for seven years, but it was still... just the lone parent.
Matt & Reyes are old friends from the hospital, and like me, they no longer work there, but... unlike me, they, in real life, are still coworkers, now at a community college, and still doing very well financially.
Matt & Reyes represent... employment, money, success, etc.
The reason I suddenly realize I'm naked is... because I'm broke! Zero clothes, in this scenario, is a reference to a literal $0.00 balance I saw yesterday on one of my two accounts... with the other being down to 0.19 Cents!
The fact that I am not just naked, but... still wet like I just walked out of an unfinished shower... is likely a reference to the fact that I'm not just broke, but had to use a credit card to buy my gas and cigarettes yesterday.
In other words, I'm worse than broke... I'm in debt a bit!
Also, my whole plan to get back on my feet is unfinished... I'm still in the process of figuring it out... like the unfinished shower.
--<>--
Now, my brother Tim, in real life, was the one who suggested, a year ago, that I start my own business, and he later helped me to get it started, doing SEO and a website for me, free of charge.
So, in the dream, when I go into the room to hide, it makes sense he would be non-judgementally handing me a towel and clothes. The towel and clothes are the SEO and the website.
In the dream, I was in his room. In real life, that stuff was his wheelhouse.
--<>--
When I emerge from the bathroom, now fully presentable, I see Ray... who is replacing Matt & Reyes, at this point in the dream, as the symbol of financial security.
He was the boss of all three of us, and we all loved, and respected him.
He hands me a pair of circus peanuts, to... hang on the helicopter!
--<>--
So... a few days earlier, Dad & I had been talking about bad Halloween candy, like candy corn, and black licorice... and I'd brought up circus peanuts as being one I always hated getting in my trick-or-treat bag.
But in the context of Ray... let's just say Ray had a bawdy sense of humor, and a bit of a foul mouth.
If Ray, is handing me a pair of circus peanuts... and asking me to hang them ON something?.. it's supposed to be a pair of testicles! It's supposed to be like, truck nuts!
Ray can't believe I don't know where to hang a pair of nuts on something... obviously you hang them from below, near the rear! They're nuts!
--<>--
The helicopter, then, is the handyman business itself!
I can't count how many times Tim referred to it as a money making machine... that's what a one-man business is... a little machine you build to turn your skills into money.
When, in the dream, Ray first mentioned the helicopter, I'd pictured, in my minds eye, in the dream (which is weird) a full blown, for-real helicopter!
And I was very surprised to see, that it was just this little, one-man, home-made flying machine!
I doubted it could even get off the ground, and even if it could, I didn't want to be up there in that thing, because it would obviously crash!
Ray and, the other guy thought I was being too much of a pussy about it, and... that would tie back to Ray's original directive to hang a pair of nuts off it.
lastly, the washing machine, I think is a reference to credit card debt.
In the first part of the dream, the fact that I was wet and soapy seemed to be a reference to being in debt, and now the washing machine calls back to that. Credit is a way to stay clean... and a credit card is a clean machine... if you can handle it.
My debt isn't much right now, only a couple hundred bucks. But my money making machine ought to be able to carry the load of the washing machine... or allow me to make the payments and not max the card out.
The helicopter can carry the washing machine.
And what Ray was saying... and what the overall message of the dream was... was, grow a pair and restart the handyman business!
It's there!.. it works!.. take a chance!
What have you got to lose?.. You're already wearing borrowed clothes!
------------{=0=}------------
Obviously, if you've been following the blog recently, then you'll know I already came to that conclusion a few days ago.
So, you'll know exactly how, on-point, this dream actually was, about the situation I've been in this very week!
Tomorrow, Friday, I will reopen the business online, and change my answering message to reflect that I'm available to work, because Dream Ray was right, dammit! I need to grow a pair!
--<>--
As I said, I'm not quite done with the book, and there are other things to talk about, like the difference between, hypnogogic dreams, at the onset of sleep, and REM sleep dreams.
And I have more to say about recurring themes in my own dreams.
And I'll be reading more books on this same subject, or similar subjects, in the near future.
So... stay tuned, I guess!
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
And at the moment they're also calling for possible thunder on TUE 25, and WED 26, So I may even get a bit more thunder in the can.
As for When Brains Dream, I'm almost done with it, and it was pretty good.
The theory that Zadra & Stickgold developed about dreaming... specifically REM sleep dreaming, is that the brain is engaged in, what they've dubbed, NEXTUP... and acrocym for, Network Exploration To Understand Possibilities.
Basically, the brain really is trying to process things that happened during the day, and in the recent past. But rather than re-running the exact day you just had, it builds up these little narratives about the important details, and replaces them with, loosely related concepts.
It's similar to the old saw about everything in a dream being symbolic of something in real life... but it's not an exact, one to one, symbology.
It's more like an analogy.
And the brain creates the analogy in a kind of mad-libs fashion, by picking loosely related concepts for each detail, out of a hat, and then pasting it all together to see how well the analogy resonates with the real life situation.
This is why dreams can seem so bizarre.
But it's doing all of this on purpose... using only loosely related concepts, picking each at random, and throwing them all together... because when such a strange analogy does resonate... or when parts of it resonate... we gain a better understanding about all the concepts involved.
That understanding is usually subconscious, but it can be conscious understanding, if you remember your dream, and figure out what real life situation inspired it.
That new understanding is the, "possibilities," part of the NEXTUP process.
The idea here, is that it's only through this process, where rational thinking is literally suspended, that we can find hidden connections between seemingly unrelated concepts, and discover new possibilities for dealing with situations, or resolving problems.
I know the above might still sound like a bunch of technical gibberish, despite my effort to describe it clearly.
But as luck would have it, I did have a fairly bizarre dream this morning that... over the course of the hours I was listening to this book... I was able to decode, using their theory!..
I'm downstairs in the living room, and it's early afternoon, with sun coming in the windows.
Mom is there with me, and I'm happy that she's finally going to meet my two best friends from work at the Hospital, Matt & Reyes. They knock on the front door and I let them in.
We're all sitting in the living room together, and as they're introducing themselves to Mom, I notice that I have no pants on! Wait!... I have no underwear or shirt either!.. I'm completely naked!
Not only that!... I'm wet and there's soap on me, like I just walked out of the shower, halfway through! What the hell!
I dash into the side bedroom, which is right off the living room, hoping nobody noticed me!
My brother Tim is in that room. It's his bedroom. I grab a towel and start drying off, and he hands me some clothes.
From there I go into the bathroom to rinse the soap off my face. Since the bathroom is off the kitchen, I exit into the kitchen.
There I see Ray, who was my boss at the hospital. He must've come with Matt & Reyes!
Ray hands me a package... it's two circus peanuts (the gross old candy variety) packaged in cardboard with see through plastic.
Ray says, Take these out there and hang 'em on the helicopter.
I'm very confused. Helicopter? Where is there a helicopter?
He says, it's out in the front yard, go hang 'em on the helicopter.
Hang them?.. on the outside?.. what?... how?.. why?..
Ray gives me a look, like I'm an idiot for not knowing what he means, but says nothing and goes outside. A moment later he's inside the kitchen, sitting in what looks like a little go-cart, with helicopter blades above it.
But it also has wheels and an engine, and smiling, Ray revs the engine and says, "This is a neat little helicopter, huh?"
Then another guy comes up and wants try it out. This guy's got a white shirt and tie, like he might be Ray's boss. And he's taller and fatter than Ray.
There's only one seat in the cart, so Ray gets out, and the bigger guy gets in and revs the engine too. He agrees, it's a neat little helicopter!
I'm astonished such a big, fat guy could even fit in the thing.
I say, How much weight can this little helicopter possibly lift?
The guy turns his head around to look at Ray, who is standing behind him and says, Probably something as heavy as that washer in the corner, huh?
Ray agrees. The helicopter could easily lift something the size of a washing machine.
Last thing I said to them before waking up was that I'd never be caught dead trying to fly in that thing, and they both looked at me like, Awwwwh... come on!... don't be a pussy!
As I was driving to work, that dream made absolutely zero sense! Why the hell would Ray want me to hang some circus peanuts on a helicopter???
And of course there was the whole naked part!.. like I just complained about that in yesterday's entry! I figured the dream was just throwing that back in my face, along with elements of my old job, which I'd also written about the night before.
And other than that, it was just meaningless.
But after listening to When Brains Dream for four hours straight, as they laid out the NEXTUP theory, and gave different examples... I actually figured it out!
So let's start with the setting, which was the downstairs of the house. This is just a default dream setting for me. 95% of all dreams... EVER... where I'm supposed to be at home, take place downstairs in this house.
That's been true whether I lived here or not, going back for decades.
Second, Mom, in the living room. Mom, of course, died in 2015, but according to NEXTUP, she's just a stand-in for Dad.
They're both my parents, but she's now loosely related to Dad, because... she hasn't been around for seven years, but it was still... just the lone parent.
Matt & Reyes are old friends from the hospital, and like me, they no longer work there, but... unlike me, they, in real life, are still coworkers, now at a community college, and still doing very well financially.
Matt & Reyes represent... employment, money, success, etc.
The reason I suddenly realize I'm naked is... because I'm broke! Zero clothes, in this scenario, is a reference to a literal $0.00 balance I saw yesterday on one of my two accounts... with the other being down to 0.19 Cents!
The fact that I am not just naked, but... still wet like I just walked out of an unfinished shower... is likely a reference to the fact that I'm not just broke, but had to use a credit card to buy my gas and cigarettes yesterday.
In other words, I'm worse than broke... I'm in debt a bit!
Also, my whole plan to get back on my feet is unfinished... I'm still in the process of figuring it out... like the unfinished shower.
Now, my brother Tim, in real life, was the one who suggested, a year ago, that I start my own business, and he later helped me to get it started, doing SEO and a website for me, free of charge.
So, in the dream, when I go into the room to hide, it makes sense he would be non-judgementally handing me a towel and clothes. The towel and clothes are the SEO and the website.
In the dream, I was in his room. In real life, that stuff was his wheelhouse.
When I emerge from the bathroom, now fully presentable, I see Ray... who is replacing Matt & Reyes, at this point in the dream, as the symbol of financial security.
He was the boss of all three of us, and we all loved, and respected him.
He hands me a pair of circus peanuts, to... hang on the helicopter!
So... a few days earlier, Dad & I had been talking about bad Halloween candy, like candy corn, and black licorice... and I'd brought up circus peanuts as being one I always hated getting in my trick-or-treat bag.
But in the context of Ray... let's just say Ray had a bawdy sense of humor, and a bit of a foul mouth.
If Ray, is handing me a pair of circus peanuts... and asking me to hang them ON something?.. it's supposed to be a pair of testicles! It's supposed to be like, truck nuts!
Ray can't believe I don't know where to hang a pair of nuts on something... obviously you hang them from below, near the rear! They're nuts!
The helicopter, then, is the handyman business itself!
I can't count how many times Tim referred to it as a money making machine... that's what a one-man business is... a little machine you build to turn your skills into money.
When, in the dream, Ray first mentioned the helicopter, I'd pictured, in my minds eye, in the dream (which is weird) a full blown, for-real helicopter!
And I was very surprised to see, that it was just this little, one-man, home-made flying machine!
I doubted it could even get off the ground, and even if it could, I didn't want to be up there in that thing, because it would obviously crash!
Ray and, the other guy thought I was being too much of a pussy about it, and... that would tie back to Ray's original directive to hang a pair of nuts off it.
lastly, the washing machine, I think is a reference to credit card debt.
In the first part of the dream, the fact that I was wet and soapy seemed to be a reference to being in debt, and now the washing machine calls back to that. Credit is a way to stay clean... and a credit card is a clean machine... if you can handle it.
My debt isn't much right now, only a couple hundred bucks. But my money making machine ought to be able to carry the load of the washing machine... or allow me to make the payments and not max the card out.
The helicopter can carry the washing machine.
And what Ray was saying... and what the overall message of the dream was... was, grow a pair and restart the handyman business!
It's there!.. it works!.. take a chance!
What have you got to lose?.. You're already wearing borrowed clothes!
Obviously, if you've been following the blog recently, then you'll know I already came to that conclusion a few days ago.
So, you'll know exactly how, on-point, this dream actually was, about the situation I've been in this very week!
Tomorrow, Friday, I will reopen the business online, and change my answering message to reflect that I'm available to work, because Dream Ray was right, dammit! I need to grow a pair!
As I said, I'm not quite done with the book, and there are other things to talk about, like the difference between, hypnogogic dreams, at the onset of sleep, and REM sleep dreams.
And I have more to say about recurring themes in my own dreams.
And I'll be reading more books on this same subject, or similar subjects, in the near future.
So... stay tuned, I guess!
°¦}
