- last night's dream -

- subtitle: very wierd post -

I was dreaming in concepts. I can’t really clearly describe what the concepts look like because it’s a little confusing – but if you can imagine that each argument was represented by movement to , into and away from embryonic / protozoic creatures roughly the size and shape of a fat round mushroom head but fluidly moving like in the sea, only my movement wasn’t represented by an actual visual presence – more like a point of view. The whole thing was mostly black and white – only not white – yellow.

So the concepts were the issues of – can a learning / teaching philosophy that is rooted in the students interest actually be a fruitful way to pursue extended learning.

(that’s my expressed belief before the dream, but in real life I’m constantly constrained by institutions and loyalties and (maybe more than all the rest) the sheer massness of the context I work in.)

During the dream, I’m watching these cell – type things float and hearing / having this conversation.

(I’ll characterize the two sides of the conversation roughly as id and ego – id being what I want teaching / learning to be – ego being what I’m told teaching must be given the way things are.)

ID: See so why couldn’t we, if a student wanted to, just look more and more carefully at those? Or one of those? Or inside of one of those.

Close up on bouncing floating organisms, gently crashing together.

EGO: Becuase the more you indulge the student's self interest, the more self interested they become.

ID: (feels this more than says this -- it feels like a longing) but that isn't really true is it? that's not a neccessary relationship.

EGO: Wouldn't it be better to teach them how the world IS?

ZOOM to WIDE ANGLE of millions of squirming bumping embryo movements. Charts and graphs overlaid point out trends in their movement distinguish the different types of embryo-type things.

ID: But just because we follow their interest doesn't mean that we have to become absorbed in the feelies or the bumblepuppies.

(seriously, i do remember using that Huxley term in my dream, in fact I even had some lucid dreaming awareness that such use of vocabulary was unnatural.)

EGO: But it makes it very likely. Watch.

And we ZOOM deep into one of the embryos. All motion stops. We're left just staring at a textural surface.

EGO: See. Just static. No movement. No learning. When students are left to study their interest, they study themselves. They stare at their own belly buttons.

ID: But that's only because you stopped. Just because you study self doesn't mean you stop and stare. You can still find out more.

We ZOOM toward the texture. The texture changes shape, admits of diverse shapes, and gradually gives way to more of the moving shapes.

EGO: But that's useless. It's completely disconnected from any observable, external phenomena. It's divorced from the ability to talk about anything shared.

ID: That's IT! That's where you're wrong. Because we SEE it. or see them. see these shapes, whatever they are -- they're not divorced from the world of talk. They're represented. As long as we have a study buddy that we can share our observations with and get feedback from -- we're still learning. It's only when we can't represent our quest any more that we've become too inward.

(I did, seriously, use the term "study buddy" a term that I find both ridiculous and unusable in my waking life.)

The ego didn't respond, though and I felt the shapes and the movement disappearing.

I tried to reformulate what i had said, say it again. But I couldn't. I couldn't say anything or stop the images from fading.

I suppose, eventually, I woke up.

Unless I'm still dreaming. In which case I'm definitely going to NOT grade my stack of papers.

OUCH. Pinch test confirms awakeness. I'm going to get some coffee.

It'll be a long week. Though I won't be writing. Thanks to all who have written. I'm thinking of you.

Peace ~