Float 88 - Pink Floydscape

Stoned out of my mind Pink Floyd float. Listened to Meddle and then Obscured by Clouds. This float was truly one of a kind and had a deeply impactful meaning and revitalization for me...

I believe that I have perfected my ritual of entering the tank and preparing it's environment to my personal taste. I had a pre-emptive shower and ran the pump for 20 minutes or so with the heating pads cranked up, went and then smoked a joint and had a smoke before getting into the tank. The temp was 97.5 and then I left the door open for the first few minutes while I got in with my head by the door and stared up at the shifting colors of the LED lights (which sub sequentially caused my visuals during the float to be very color dynamic). I then closed the door and switched positions to the back end with my head by the speakers. I was able to quickly enter into the void and heavy visuals started.

The amount of things that I saw were baffling. I used the flame and the void technique to help clear my mindscape, but when certain images occurred I did focus solely upon them. For example, multiple occasions I saw a distinct form of an aged old patriarchal bonobo appear (my power animal?) and hold it's place amongst the chaotic swirling images surrounding it with an extremely stern and forceful presence. This then faded and another bout of evil faces within my lower right field of view emerged. I then started to force movement of my eyes and applied various levels of pressure on my optic nerve. Looking far upwards and rolling my eyes into the back of my head caused massive amounts of white and blue lights to fire upwards from below to beyond me. A handful of spasmodic twitches then occurred and I closed and opened my eyes to reset.

When I opened them again I was somewhere within a cellular world with monads evolving and consuming each other, when I focused upon one individual cell it divided a few times and then out of nowhere it became multicellular. During this period, I started to notice that my toes were becoming cold and it induced a feeling of a cooled down bathtub, I put my attention on my toes and all of a sudden it hit me about the subject effect of temperature upon my consciousness during the float. I moved around a bit and found that by crossing my legs/feet I was able to fully submerge my toes under the water and officially found my new and improved floating posture. While figuring this new posture out a drip of salty condensation feel upon my right nostril and into my mustache and due to the startling nature of it I took a big inhale (I breathe most often through my nose in the tank) of salt water went into my nostril. I exhaled immediately but was too late to stop a slight drip of it hitting the back of my throat. I coughed and ended up having to get out of the tank and having a shower to clear off my face and wash out my mouth. Oddly this occurred right at the end of Meddle and as Obscured by Clouds began I was re-entering the tank.

I practiced a bit of my breath work and played around with a few mantras while losing myself in the music. My mind started to become clearer and clearer and my internal conversations began. I debated about Nietzsche's Will to Power, me thriving off being a devil's advocate, and that amazing discussion that I had with Gregory the night before. There was an overwhelming emotional of acceptance that has occurred and realizing what I can do with my own nature when I want to. This then transitioned into a more defined argumentative experience with my internal debate on the ever changing and growing nature of Float House. Projecting a handful of possible futures I was delighted to test the metaphysical verses that each small decision can have. Also, when I reflected back to Buddhist ideal of having to polish and purify the mirror of the mind, yet in truth the is no mirror, my mind instantly went black and there was a strong sensation of me 'flying' through the intensity of space, in my new floating captains chair position, with stars, nebulas and galaxies soaring by me. They speed and rate of projection was tied directly now to the notes of Pink Floyd. At one point, my attention was then drawn to the word 'Choice' and in a flash of intense images I lived and died three times. Each time I was faced down by the same Patriarchal Bonobo. No words were spoken but a deep understanding was transferred. A sense of conflicting moralities was swept over me, but with each conflict there was a surrendering to it, "without pain and suffering we would have nothing".

The final chanting of the album began and a strong wave of hilarious laughter consumed me and I laughed deep and heartily as I exited the tank. Tom Waits "Old Shoe" started playing while I was cleansing myself in the shower and I sang loud and proud. The cycling of colors were also extremely pleasing and added to the impression of my ever forming ritualization of my floats. 

Dinosaurs in Rocketships Series: Part 2.

Manifold: Insight

So, after putting hours into reading Stephen Baxter’s Manifold series I’ve tried to apply many of his concepts to our economic situation. Obviously we haven’t encountered an alien species that destroys our rooted ideas of keeping track of history, or giving up on R&D into continued technological advancement. Sometimes I wish those aliens would just show up. Give us a little push forward.
While crawling my RSS feeds and the New Scientist it is obvious there is not any hint of invention or innovation disappearing anytime soon. Instead I see a lack of moving beyond the first stages and pushing their ideas out into a practical use for industries.
I guess I just wish I read about more Malenfant’s and Paulis’ in our society. I admire the ideology of being not concerned on the small details and making sure that every aspect is new and expensive when designing plans to utilize resources from space.
“If it gets the job done then use it.”
Their engineering and business perspective of utilizing the information available and making the best decision possible instead of straining away for years and years just to specialize on some unoccupied technological problem. That is what we need more of.
Hold on. Let me taking a step back here and provide some context to this.
Hypothetical thought question:
Objective is to acquire resources/energy from the moon.
Is it more important to focus on the acquirement technologies needed or the transportation of these.
I know little or next to nothing on running a business, but I’d put my time and energy to acquirement. Let’s find that ability to earn a projected profit before the cost of transportation occurs.
If you mine a single carbonaceous asteroid you would literally change the global economy once your first shipment arrived.

To me this is where Baxter’s excellent ideas of the foreseeable future really hit hard to heart and mind. If I had a million dollars, I’d spend all my time connecting unconnected dots in what could become more efficient for humankind over vast sections of time and space.

Now to continue last minute shopping for more things to place on my tables.

Dinosaurs in Rocketships Series: Part 1.

The Naked Sun is Always Brighter in Space

Just finished reading The Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov . Amazed and delighted again by the story that was revealed. The truth behind many of the ideas were well thought out and influential into many other emergent thoughts that have been implemented in my mind over the last few years.There was a speech at the end of the novel that seemed to enforce so many things about human behavior that is cumulating recently. It was stated thusly.

“We are better suited than they [the Spacers] for exploration and colonization. We have population pressures [and environmental resource pressures] to push us and a sapid turnover of generation to keep us supplied with the young and reckless.”

This seems to be a point that is missed in the current ideas of space exploration. It shall take generations and small steps for it to occur. There is a BBC Horizon Documentary called Moon For Sale which hints at the goals of some countries exploration and exploitation of the closet space rock we can get to. There is the potential that Helium 3 can provided an abundant source of energy through nuclear fusion for earth and future space endeavors.

This may all seem to be a sci-fi fans wish come true. And it is. Aren’t most scientists as children enthralled by some sort of science fiction, be it Star Trek, Asimov, or some other form. They take this childish dreams and fantasies and while there are formally specialized to their field and careers by contemporary education systems they can combine their factually knowledge with their inspirations and dreams.

The Venus Project which I’ve been looking into lately also seems to be a collection of many innovative theorists ideas molded together to forge a new society where labor, money, and suffering can be eliminated for the benefit of humankind.

I’ve heard that we shouldn’t be worrying about space until we can handle our own affairs here on earth. This seems to be a little ignorant of the fact that we as individuals are becoming more accustomed to multi-tasking. Our societies, establishments, and governments have been multi-tasking for decades now. From the Kublai Kahn admitting his faults in knowledge and asking professional consultants for advise on how to mange the whole of Asia during his reign to NASA manning mission to the moon while world politics still continued on with the economy, social ramifications, industry becoming more productive while cutting out the human factor of labor.

If we can combine both a perspective that unites the scientific and technological advances that will come from human ingenuity in dealing with arising problems in space, these in turn may be applied to situations on earth. The wind always ends up blowing both ways.