peaches

i'm really into this song. and, uhhh...babe?

its a start,

i wasn't overly impressed with the self portraits i took this weekend, but its a start. i bought red lipstick and i think i'm addicted. i cant stop putting it on for some reason..

)(

tonight i took some self-portraits. i hope they turn out well. this is just a digital shot i took while light metering for my mamiya.

successful telepathy?

i may have had my first successful attempt at dream telepathy. for weeks i have been trying to send lauren thoughts of us riding a whale. i never specified what kind of whale and i usually fell asleep before i could think about it very hard. last night i knew lauren was sleeping, so i thought really hard about a whale. i fell asleep before i could think about us riding it in detail. then this morning lauren told me, very excitedly, that she had had a dream that we saw an orca whale flying. it jumped out of the water, and then started flying. when she expressed her bemusement to me i acted like this sort of thing happened all the time.

coincidence, or telepathy?

moving eye witnesses

"virtually everybody has at least four dream periods a night. they occur at the approximate rate of one every ninety minutes. the dream periods start out as short, about ten minutes or less, and end up in the morning considerably longer and sometimes lasting half an hour or more. this last dream is generally the one we tend to remember in the morning and is liable to be more elaborate than the earlier dreams. of the many variables affecting dreaming, age has perhaps the strongest effect. studies of newborn children have shown that they spend about seventy percent of their sleeping time in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, while adults dream only about twenty percent of their sleeping time. as old age approaches, this percent diminishes even further."

soon i'll explain REMs in more detail.

part 2: experimental studies

"carington postulated that telepathic interchanges were facilitated by common associations between the two minds. his 'association theory' held that if an idea or word (so-called k-object) were presented to a person who was in telepathic rapport with another person (that is, having a shared consciousness), then the second person would have mental associations with the 'k-object.' tell the first person the word dog and the second person might think of bark, bite, or bone as if the two persons were of a single mind."

finally making new work,

here for more: http://flickr.com/photos/monetrobbins/
more to come soon.

cool facts about lincoln;

- lincoln's formal education consisted of about 18 months of schooling, but he was largely self taught and an avid reader.
- he was a talented local wrestler and and skilled with an axe.
- he avoided fishing and hunting because he did not like killing animals, even for food.
- he began his political career at the age of 23.
- in 1837, he made his first protest against slavery in the illinois house, stating that the institution was "founded on both injustice and bad policy."
-possibly the most notable criminal trial of lincoln's career as a lawyer came in 1858, when he defended william "duff" armstrong, who had been charged with murder. the case became famous for lincoln's use of judicial notice — a rare tactic at that time — to show that an eyewitness had lied on the stand. after the witness testified to having seen the crime by moonlight, lincoln produced a farmers' almanac to show that the moon on that date was at such a low angle that it could not have provided enough illumination to see anything clearly. based almost entirely on this evidence, armstrong was acquitted.
- before being assassinated lincoln related a dream to his bodyguard, ward hill lamon, of his own assassination.
- dude was shot like, point blank in the back of the head but survived for nine hours in a coma before he died.
- lincoln did, even as a boy, largely reject organized religion.

some news.

i don't want to make a big deal out of this, because it might not happen, but by the new year i may be a photographer at work. lauren and i both expect to be promoted early on in 09. they like us a lot there.

introducing honest abe

this is the beginning of my half sleeve. the area around his eyes is going to lighten up upon healing, and there is a lot more detail in his hair than can be seen here. i love it. the detail in the shading is amazing. and I GET TO HANG OUT WITH ABRAHAM LINCOLN FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!!!!

synchronicity;

"a woman with a very strong power complex, and a "devouring attitude toward people, dreamt of seeing three tigers seated threateningly in front of her. her analyst pointed out the meaning of the dream and through casual arguments tried to make her understand the devouring attitude she thus displayed. later in the day the patient and her friend, while strolling along lake zurich, noticed a crowd gazing at three tigers in a barn - most unusual inhabitants for a swiss barn!

the three tigers were in the barn because a circus was spending the night in town. however, as franz points out, 'the highly improbable coincidence of the inner and outer tigers in this woman's life...inevitably struck her as more than mere chance and somehow as meaningful.' that is, a synchronicity."

aubrey, tx

photo by ashley howell.

as of the census of 2000, there were 1,500 people, 559 households, and 418 families residing in the city. the population density was 720.4 people per square mile. there were 597 housing units at an average density of 286.7/sq mi (110.8/km²). the racial makeup of the city was 92.53% white, 0.47% african american, 0.73% native american, 0.47% asian, 4.73% from other races, and 1.07% from two or more races. hispanic or latino of any race were 6.73% of the population.

aubrey used to be the location of a large peanut factory, which has long since shut down. each year on main street they host a "peanut festival" with a parade (i was in the parade numerous times for drill team, and then later marching in it for marching band). perhaps what i miss most is the cattle-lac, ridiculous right? i also miss the fire roasted corn and kettle corn. okay - those are really the only things i miss about it.

part 1: spontaneous telepathic dreaming

"it is the account of the spontaneous telepathic dream that is seldom printed in journals, yet it does happen - such dreams do occur - to ordinary people in everyday life. a fairly recent experience of one of the authors, alan vaughan, is a case in point. he watched one of his favorite writers, kurt vonnegut, jr., on a television talk show one night, and had a dream about him two nights later. he wrote about the dream to vonnegut on march 13, 1970. '...you appeared in a dream i had this morning. we were in a house full of children. you were planning to leave soon on a trip. then you mentioned that you were moving to an island named jerome. (as far as i know there is no such place, so perhaps the name jerome or initial j has some related meaning.)' vonnegut's answer was dated march 28, 1970. 'not bad. on the night of your dream, i had dinner with jerome b. (an author of children's books), and we talked about a trip i made three days later to an island named england.'"

tiiiight

"over a hundred published studies have shown the real payoff which follows from a strict experimental method in which normal, genuine, real dreams of ordinary human beings are studied with full attention to the rigorous techniques of electrophysiology. in such studies, it is necessary to bring an experimental subject to the laboratory in the evening to become familiar with the setting and with the procedure to be followed. the subject prepares for sleep, and electrodes are fastened to his scalp. he goes to sleep; he dreams-as is shown both by the rapid eye movements and the brain-wave changes which go with the sleeping process. when the records show he has been dreaming, he is awakened. he tells what he dreamed and gives free associations to what he has reported. a distant experimenter, nearly a hundred feet away and beyond three closed doors, has been attempting to guide the course of the sleeper's dream thoughts in accordance with a randomly chosen target, following a procedure which would exclude any possibility of the subject's normal knowledge of what was being beamed to him. later the data are evaluated by comparing the contents of the subject's dream with the contents of the message which was beamed to him. results have demonstrated that the resemblances are significantly greater than would be expected by chance."

and i've only read the forward!!

have you ever seen your cat on fire?

i have.
i'm sitting here at my desk, with a candle burning on my dresser next to me. i watch benny jump up onto the dresser on his way to the window. then i notice he is standing right above said candle. THEN i saw him catch flame. benny was ON FIRE. but don't worry, he is alright. it just smells really bad in here and he has some charred hair on his belly.

in other news, lauren and i went to half priced books yesterday and i got a few new books. "the dreamer's dictionary for the 21st century" to help me decipher what my (and your) dreams are supposed to symbolize in the waking life. and the one i'm most excited about, "dream telepathy: experiments in nocturnal esp" which was written in 1973 and has a really sweet cover. so, expect this blog to be filled with weird excerpts from this book soon.

understanding dreams

i've been reading this book called understanding dreams. i've had it for forever, and have used it numerous times to look up symbolism in my dreams, but it wasn't until recently that i became interested in actually reading it. right now i am in the section that talks about the beliefs in ancient cultures of what dreams are and what they mean. i thought this excerpt was quite interesting:

"presleep rituals: before incubation, the greeks would carry out specific rituals by which they purified and dedicated themselves. for two days before entering the shrine, they had to abstain from sex, avoid eating meat, fish, or fowl, and drink only water. they also had to make a sacrificial offering of animals to the god whom they wished to invoke through a dream. some subjects were taken to a statue of the god so they could be imbued with feelings of awe before sleep. the subject then lay down to sleep on the skin of a sacrificed animal, sometimes beside the statue of the deity."

in other news, this past weekend was amazing. i could not have asked for it to go any differently (except for casey to have felt well). i can not wait to spend two weeks there in december.

and also, does anyone want to buy me this:
i'm going through my well....i don't know bi-monthly tom petty obsession.