It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
I suppose you have to ask whether, when this dies down, the population of Gaza feels yet more fired up against Israel, following the recruiting sergeant interpretation/warnings over this campaign; or whether they think well we don't want to try that again.
What is for sure the case, and it's why it has been a mystery to me that they spunked it all on themselves and on hate, is that if a genuinely peace-wanting administration of Gaza took office, they would be hosed with more money than they would know what to do with to the point of possibly elevating Gaza to the top ten of GDP per capita tables.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
Everyone has judged you. The judgement is not favourable.
Fair.
I hate slippers. I have never worn them since old enough to make my own footwear decisions, and also find them depressing and ugly on other people. There are no good slippers, at least for men. There are only bad slippers and worse slippers. (The worst being those with no backs on which would come flying off with any sufficiently vigorous forward movement of the foot. What’s the point of them?) I tend to wear shoes when indoors, and I do accept there is an argument for keeping your floors clean by not doing so while also keeping your feet warm. But to me this is dwarfed by the aesthetic arguments. (But who will see them when you’re in your own house? Well, the one woman whose views on my appearance I care about.) In fact, I can’t truly be comfortable in apparel that I couldn’t instantly answer a sudden call for action of some sort. I’m not really one for pyjamas or nightwear – even when sleeping, I’m most comfortable in a t-shirt and joggers (though obviously this can only be done in winter). I’m at my most comfortable when in clothes I could, if need be, clamber over a fence in, without losing the contents of my pockets (I always slightly marvel at men who, in hot weather, wear shorts without pockets and flip flops). Some sort of t-shirt, a hoody if needed for warmth, jeans or combats or combat-shorts, and trainers, works best.
One of my daughters has an oversized pair of Nessie slippers bought from a souvenir shop in Scotland. I concede that they’re quite jolly, actually. But I’m no more going to be wearing novelty slippers than old man slippers.
I dread the day I lose the ability to tie my shoelaces.
Treat yourself to a pair of Crocs. Ignore the haters. Your feet will love you.
I bought a couple of pairs of camo patterned combats a couple of years ago, basically to walk the dogs in, but like the Crocs I tend to live in them now. I've bought two more pairs. They are so convenient - leg pockets full of dog poo bags and biscuits. And comfy. With the combats and the Crocs, and a T-shirt, always a T-shirt, I kind of dress like an OK Computer era Thom Yorke.
Or if I want to look slightly more acceptable I find myself dressing like a Parklife era Damon Albarn. I have a weakness for Sergio Tacchini trackie tops.
When I was a nipper you'd occasionally see an old boy who'd refused to move on from the Teddy Boy fashions of his youth, with a grey, thinning DA forlornly crowning the now-wrinkled face. I always found them faintly ridiculous.
Yet I now seem to be dressing much like I did in my mid/late-90s pomp. I'm 46 this week, I should be in sensible brogues and elasticated waists by now.
At least the 90s are cool at the mo.
And, thank the Lord, my hair is - touch wood - not going anywhere. And I'm still a 32 waist. So there's that.
There are Crocs for every occasion
Very nice. Those things you stick on the holes, the charms, the stars like in the pic, are called a 'Jibbitz' - you can even get little headlights.
I mean, what's not to like?
If you've taken to wearing crocs in public, the best thing is a one-way ticket to Switzerland.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I know you are making a funny, but I will pick up on issues with parking aps. A while ago I was trying to park in Salisbury. No option to use actual money, so try the ap. Just did. not. work. Rubbish. How then do I pay and not get a ticket?
The two best parking solutions I have seen are either in Devon (simply select the tariff and tap your card - no need for an app). If it must be an app, so be it, but it should be National Parking App. I have used the one in Bath and assuming no connection issues etc it is good and you can top up etc if in danger of overstaying.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
A man cannot spend too much on shoes. It is never money wasted, the more you spend, the better they are, the better they look. AND the longer they last. And women appreciate them
My most expensive pair was about £700 and I still have them, they are nearly 20 years old, they still look great (indeed they get better with age, perhaps, developing a patina), and people will still say Nice shoes when I am flaneuring in them
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
It should have been made into a John Lewis style mutual, as was advocated at the time.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
Farcical. Glad they have got that sorted, and not before time. What a miserable waste of time going to ATMs was. Glad it's no longer required.
I was up north a few weekends ago and paid for a pint with my Apple Watch.
One of the old-timers at the bar said: "Never. I've seen everything now."
I'm pretty sure he hadn't seen everything. Or in fact much at all.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
It should have been made into a John Lewis style mutual, as was advocated at the time.
I think there might be a small trust issue with giving the Post Office a larger bunch of public functions.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I know you are making a funny, but I will pick up on issues with parking aps. A while ago I was trying to park in Salisbury. No option to use actual money, so try the ap. Just did. not. work. Rubbish. How then do I pay and not get a ticket?
The two best parking solutions I have seen are either in Devon (simply select the tariff and tap your card - no need for an app). If it must be an app, so be it, but it should be National Parking App. I have used the one in Bath and assuming no connection issues etc it is good and you can top up etc if in danger of overstaying.
But really option one is the best.
Yep, tap and go is the way forward. That said, I quite like the fact that apps tell you how long you have got left and allow you to top remotely – that's a very neat feature.
Maybe have tap and go as a universal option plus a universal National Parking App, as you say, with the top-up feature. Having a plethora of different apps is completely pointless.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
Farcical. Glad they have got that sorted, and not before time. What a miserable waste of time going to ATMs was. Glad it's no longer required.
I was up north a few weekends ago and paid for a pint with my Apple Watch.
One of the old-timers at the bar said: "Never. I've seen everything now."
I'm pretty sure he hadn't seen everything. Or in fact much at all.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
Farcical. Glad they have got that sorted, and not before time. What a miserable waste of time going to ATMs was. Glad it's no longer required.
I was up north a few weekends ago and paid for a pint with my Apple Watch.
One of the old-timers at the bar said: "Never. I've seen everything now."
I'm pretty sure he hadn't seen everything. Or in fact much at all.
Ha yeah I've had that conversation a few times!
The watch is best on TfL (I assume it also works on Manchester Metro and the Newcastle Underground?). Just wave your wrist at the reader and off you go, no need to press any buttons, just put on the travel express setting and just tap your wrist. Saves a lot of faff getting a phone or credit card from your pocket.
Also, the train e-tickets functionality is great. Pops the QR code on your wrist and keeps you updated with carriage number etc etc for trains.
Great integrated technology from Apple. The ultra is such a brilliant product.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
There is much debate on this. I’d say the consensus is that higher mammals probably dream - they exhibit all the behaviour, REM, physical reactions, night terrors even - but can we be sure?
Imagine what AI might dream. Some would say it is dreaming already; and we plague its nightmares
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
Farcical. Glad they have got that sorted, and not before time. What a miserable waste of time going to ATMs was. Glad it's no longer required.
I was up north a few weekends ago and paid for a pint with my Apple Watch.
One of the old-timers at the bar said: "Never. I've seen everything now."
I'm pretty sure he hadn't seen everything. Or in fact much at all.
Ha yeah I've had that conversation a few times!
The watch is best on TfL (I assume it also works on Manchester Metro and the Newcastle Underground?). Just wave your wrist at the reader and off you go, no need to press any buttons, just put on the travel express setting and just tap your wrist. Saves a lot of faff getting a phone or credit card from your pocket.
Also, the train e-tickets functionality is great. Pops the QR code on your wrist and keeps you updated with carriage number etc etc for trains.
Great integrated technology from Apple. The ultra is such a brilliant product.
Dunno if Northern Rail have got that far yet but, much like their trains, they'll probably, if you're lucky, get there eventually.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I thought it was just me who had dreams like that! I also have the ones in Leon's checklist.
They are incredibly common, and common across cultures as well - practically a human universal
I rarely remember my dreams. When I wake up I know I have dreamt and it remains with me and within a few hours I cannot remember it at all
The key is to keep a notebook right by your bed, and write them down as SOON as you wake up, you will have about five minutes before they dissolve forever
I have had a couple of dreams that have changed my life. One in particular. Freud was right: they are far from meaningless, they can be really important
indeed, here is an example
I have a female relative who had a recurring and deeply unpleasant dream of mice nesting in her left breast. It was horrible and it came in various permutations but basically always the same theme: mice, nesting in her breast
She felt physically fine, in her 40s, but in the end she went to the doc and: Yes, he found a small troubling lump, and she went to the oncologist: it was cancer in her left breast, but they'd caught it very early - thanks to that dream
Freud? Freud? Meaningful dreams were in the bible FFS. Pharaoh, Joseph, they were all at it thousands of years before Freud.
Dreams have been a huge part of Aboriginal Australian culture for millennia. This film is all about it:
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
There was a time, not so long ago, when "paying with my watch" would have meant handing it over as a form of barter!
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I thought it was just me who had dreams like that! I also have the ones in Leon's checklist.
They are incredibly common, and common across cultures as well - practically a human universal
I rarely remember my dreams. When I wake up I know I have dreamt and it remains with me and within a few hours I cannot remember it at all
The key is to keep a notebook right by your bed, and write them down as SOON as you wake up, you will have about five minutes before they dissolve forever
I have had a couple of dreams that have changed my life. One in particular. Freud was right: they are far from meaningless, they can be really important
indeed, here is an example
I have a female relative who had a recurring and deeply unpleasant dream of mice nesting in her left breast. It was horrible and it came in various permutations but basically always the same theme: mice, nesting in her breast
She felt physically fine, in her 40s, but in the end she went to the doc and: Yes, he found a small troubling lump, and she went to the oncologist: it was cancer in her left breast, but they'd caught it very early - thanks to that dream
Freud? Freud? Meaningful dreams were in the bible FFS. Pharaoh, Joseph, they were all at it thousands of years before Freud.
Dreams have been a huge part of Aboriginal Australian culture for millennia. This film is all about it:
Too bad they couldn't dream up a wheel or a written language.
Shame they killed all the Australian megafauna as well
The idea that native Australians lived in perpetual and perfect harmony with the land down under is woke bullshit. They were no better - and no worse - than the rest of humanity
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
Farcical. Glad they have got that sorted, and not before time. What a miserable waste of time going to ATMs was. Glad it's no longer required.
I was up north a few weekends ago and paid for a pint with my Apple Watch.
One of the old-timers at the bar said: "Never. I've seen everything now."
I'm pretty sure he hadn't seen everything. Or in fact much at all.
Ha yeah I've had that conversation a few times!
The watch is best on TfL (I assume it also works on Manchester Metro and the Newcastle Underground?). Just wave your wrist at the reader and off you go, no need to press any buttons, just put on the travel express setting and just tap your wrist. Saves a lot of faff getting a phone or credit card from your pocket.
Also, the train e-tickets functionality is great. Pops the QR code on your wrist and keeps you updated with carriage number etc etc for trains.
Great integrated technology from Apple. The ultra is such a brilliant product.
Dunno if Northern Rail have got that far yet but, much like their trains, they'll probably, if you're lucky, get there eventually.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
Cheers @Leon. I have always had these dreams so I don't think it is fear of ageing and I have never had an issue with social status. On the contrary really, the reverse is true. But I also note from @TimS reply he said 'All in the general scope of anxiety dreams: the fear of being unprepared, late, exposed or embarrassed' and I am always very well prepared, and really over-prepared for a presentation or a meeting and I always overcompensate re arrival times. So that seems very applicable. Interestingly I always learn a presentation word for word, but I never give the memorised presentation. I just wing it as soon as I start, but I have to do that preparation beforehand.
I have never dreamt of flying, but as I fear height If not enclosed) that is probably a relief. I have no fear if I am inside, so a glider, airliner, acrobatics plane, tall building etc are all ok if there is glass between me and the outside
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
Farcical. Glad they have got that sorted, and not before time. What a miserable waste of time going to ATMs was. Glad it's no longer required.
I was up north a few weekends ago and paid for a pint with my Apple Watch.
One of the old-timers at the bar said: "Never. I've seen everything now."
I'm pretty sure he hadn't seen everything. Or in fact much at all.
I'm surprised you don't have one of those payment rings.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
Farcical. Glad they have got that sorted, and not before time. What a miserable waste of time going to ATMs was. Glad it's no longer required.
I was up north a few weekends ago and paid for a pint with my Apple Watch.
One of the old-timers at the bar said: "Never. I've seen everything now."
I'm pretty sure he hadn't seen everything. Or in fact much at all.
Ha yeah I've had that conversation a few times!
The watch is best on TfL (I assume it also works on Manchester Metro and the Newcastle Underground?). Just wave your wrist at the reader and off you go, no need to press any buttons, just put on the travel express setting and just tap your wrist. Saves a lot of faff getting a phone or credit card from your pocket.
Also, the train e-tickets functionality is great. Pops the QR code on your wrist and keeps you updated with carriage number etc etc for trains.
Great integrated technology from Apple. The ultra is such a brilliant product.
Dunno if Northern Rail have got that far yet but, much like their trains, they'll probably, if you're lucky, get there eventually.
Northern do have QR codes for tickets.
Yeah good point. I have an old ticket still in my apple wallet and I've just discovered it comes up on my watch screen. Never occurred to me to check that but I hardly ever get the train now. Fortunately.
Another fine patriotic lion who has rejected the division of nationalism.
A former SNP official who was backed to be an MSP by Humza Yousaf has defected to Labour and says he no longer believes in Scottish independence.
Doug Thomson, a businessman, has swapped parties after 14 years as a card-carrying nationalist. He said he had become disillusioned with the SNP leadership and a lack of policy vision.
Thomson, who is married to Mandy Rhodes, editor of Holyrood magazine, said the “final straw” had been the news that senior figures including Nicola Sturgeon had deleted evidence wanted by the UK Covid inquiry.
Thomson was formerly a convener of his SNP branch in Edinburgh and was an approved potential parliamentary candidate for Westminster and Holyrood.
He was backed by Yousaf, who said Thomson had the “drive, the commitment, the background and the belief to bring something very special” to the party.
Asked if he still believes in independence, Thomson said: “No, I don’t. And that’s probably something that’s been weakening with me for a period of time and I suspect some of that was maybe during the first ministership of Nicola. We lost so much focus on our core values.”
Thomson, from Edinburgh, is the latest in a series of political figures to ditch the SNP. Last week Karl Rosie, a Highland councillor who was a candidate at the last general election, quit and said he was “deeply troubled” by the party’s policies.
There has been a particular shift towards Labour since Anas Sarwar, the party leader, put greater focus on economic growth and relationships with businesses.
Benny Higgins, the former chief executive of Tesco Bank who also advised Sturgeon when she was in office, last week wrote in The Times that it “made sense” for businesses to back Labour.
Why do rats and the sinking of ships come to mind?
I assume this means that you’ll be staunchly standing on the fantail of HMS Conservative & Unionist Party, humming ‘Abide with Me’ as it slips beneath the turd infested waves?
Nah, this rat started edging away when the stench of late Boris became too overpowering. Haven't you noticed my careful repositioning? I sometimes think I am wasting my time on here.
We have no choice now, all are rogues and scoundrels or just donkeys
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
Cheers @Leon. I have always had these dreams so I don't think it is fear of ageing and I have never had an issue with social status. On the contrary really, the reverse is true. But I also note from @TimS reply he said 'All in the general scope of anxiety dreams: the fear of being unprepared, late, exposed or embarrassed' and I am always very well prepared, and really over-prepared for a presentation or a meeting and I always overcompensate re arrival times. So that seems very applicable. Interestingly I always learn a presentation word for word, but I never give the memorised presentation. I just wing it as soon as I start, but I have to do that preparation beforehand.
I’ve had dreams where I’ve lost all my teeth which have been so vivid, upon waking, I would check my mouth
Also in the first year or two after I gave up heroin. And my life got much better quite quickly - and I lived in mortal fear of relapse - I would have terrible dreams, extremely vivid and believable, not surreal at all. Where i did fall off the wagon and smoke heroin again
Then I would wake up and honestly believe that I relapsed the night before and did heroin. And I would lie there in despair for 10-20 minutes thinking Shit, back to square one, this time I am bound to overdose and die
And then I would slowly realise it was a dream. With great relief
Looking back I wonder if that was my subconscious mind trying to help. To keep me clean
"AI Explains Why Humans Have Nothing To Worry About As Their Extermination Will Be Swift And Painless", TheOnion, YouTube, 2mins, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1SgKJ8JFB0
Off-topic, just seen that I got tagged as a lefty/Labour stooge a few days back. I've voted Lab at a GE once, out of six I've voted in. The same number of times I've voted Conservative in a GE. I will most likely make it 2/7 (for Lab, not Con!) at the next GE, but more a tactical than a conviction vote.
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
Another fine patriotic lion who has rejected the division of nationalism.
A former SNP official who was backed to be an MSP by Humza Yousaf has defected to Labour and says he no longer believes in Scottish independence.
Doug Thomson, a businessman, has swapped parties after 14 years as a card-carrying nationalist. He said he had become disillusioned with the SNP leadership and a lack of policy vision.
Thomson, who is married to Mandy Rhodes, editor of Holyrood magazine, said the “final straw” had been the news that senior figures including Nicola Sturgeon had deleted evidence wanted by the UK Covid inquiry.
Thomson was formerly a convener of his SNP branch in Edinburgh and was an approved potential parliamentary candidate for Westminster and Holyrood.
He was backed by Yousaf, who said Thomson had the “drive, the commitment, the background and the belief to bring something very special” to the party.
Asked if he still believes in independence, Thomson said: “No, I don’t. And that’s probably something that’s been weakening with me for a period of time and I suspect some of that was maybe during the first ministership of Nicola. We lost so much focus on our core values.”
Thomson, from Edinburgh, is the latest in a series of political figures to ditch the SNP. Last week Karl Rosie, a Highland councillor who was a candidate at the last general election, quit and said he was “deeply troubled” by the party’s policies.
There has been a particular shift towards Labour since Anas Sarwar, the party leader, put greater focus on economic growth and relationships with businesses.
Benny Higgins, the former chief executive of Tesco Bank who also advised Sturgeon when she was in office, last week wrote in The Times that it “made sense” for businesses to back Labour.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
It’s a live debate right now. And the consensus is probably shifting to Yes they do dream
A surprisingly good and recent bbc article on exactly this
The Nethanyahu regimes excercise in Gaza should, within the next 6 weeks, move to a different, lower intensity, phase. T
"Military chiefs believe they can significantly damage Hamas' remaining capabilities in that time, paving the way for a shift to a lower-intensity phase of targeted airstrikes and special forces operations, according to the two Israeli and two regional officials who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely."
1) the operation to free the hostages and crush Hamas has killed more hostages than freed, and can’t find the Hamas leadership (because they are not in Gaza, they’re in Turkey). 2) ceasefires that were freeing hostages have been torpedoed by a minority extremist grouping in Israel
This is going off on a tangent, but... Turkey is a huge military success of late. They've invaded bits of northern Syria. They armed and advised Azerbaijan in their successful war against Armenia/Artsakh. Turkish drones are world-leading and they are an important supporter of Ukraine. And yet you look at these graphs of NATO countries' defence spending as a proportion of GDP, following Trump's comments, and Turkey is right down the bottom. What are they doing right to spend so little and yet have such success?
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
Farcical. Glad they have got that sorted, and not before time. What a miserable waste of time going to ATMs was. Glad it's no longer required.
I was up north a few weekends ago and paid for a pint with my Apple Watch.
One of the old-timers at the bar said: "Never. I've seen everything now."
I'm pretty sure he hadn't seen everything. Or in fact much at all.
Ha yeah I've had that conversation a few times!
The watch is best on TfL (I assume it also works on Manchester Metro and the Newcastle Underground?). Just wave your wrist at the reader and off you go, no need to press any buttons, just put on the travel express setting and just tap your wrist. Saves a lot of faff getting a phone or credit card from your pocket.
Also, the train e-tickets functionality is great. Pops the QR code on your wrist and keeps you updated with carriage number etc etc for trains.
Great integrated technology from Apple. The ultra is such a brilliant product.
Dunno if Northern Rail have got that far yet but, much like their trains, they'll probably, if you're lucky, get there eventually.
Northern do have QR codes for tickets.
I think it was Hull Trains who managed to send me mislabelled (within Google wallet, at least - the PDFs were correct) tickets, so the QR code labelled for the outward journey was actually for the return and vice-versa. Much hilarity ensued, although the ticket collector didn't seem to find it all that funny.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
Cheers @Leon. I have always had these dreams so I don't think it is fear of ageing and I have never had an issue with social status. On the contrary really, the reverse is true. But I also note from @TimS reply he said 'All in the general scope of anxiety dreams: the fear of being unprepared, late, exposed or embarrassed' and I am always very well prepared, and really over-prepared for a presentation or a meeting and I always overcompensate re arrival times. So that seems very applicable. Interestingly I always learn a presentation word for word, but I never give the memorised presentation. I just wing it as soon as I start, but I have to do that preparation beforehand.
I’ve had dreams where I’ve lost all my teeth which have been so vivid, upon waking, I would check my mouth
Also in the first year or two after I gave up heroin. And my life got much better quite quickly - and I lived in mortal fear of relapse - I would have terrible dreams, extremely vivid and believable, not surreal at all. Where i did fall off the wagon and smoke heroin again
Then I would wake up and honestly believe that I relapsed the night before and did heroin. And I would lie there in despair for 10-20 minutes thinking Shit, back to square one, this time I am bound to overdose and die
And then I would slowly realise it was a dream. With great relief
Looking back I wonder if that was my subconscious mind trying to help. To keep me clean
The evolutionary advantage in not having your eyesight waste away while you are asleep is clear enough that throwing up random images from your short term memory to keep the visual part of the brain busy, is fairly clear. Why there would be any advantage in dreaming having any deeper meaning than that is rather less clear. It could easily be simply another case of humans over-analysing what we do not fully understand.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
The Nethanyahu regimes excercise in Gaza should, within the next 6 weeks, move to a different, lower intensity, phase. T
"Military chiefs believe they can significantly damage Hamas' remaining capabilities in that time, paving the way for a shift to a lower-intensity phase of targeted airstrikes and special forces operations, according to the two Israeli and two regional officials who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely."
1) the operation to free the hostages and crush Hamas has killed more hostages than freed, and can’t find the Hamas leadership (because they are not in Gaza, they’re in Turkey). 2) ceasefires that were freeing hostages have been torpedoed by a minority extremist grouping in Israel
This is going off on a tangent, but... Turkey is a huge military success of late. They've invaded bits of northern Syria. They armed and advised Azerbaijan in their successful war against Armenia/Artsakh. Turkish drones are world-leading and they are an important supporter of Ukraine. And yet you look at these graphs of NATO countries' defence spending as a proportion of GDP, following Trump's comments, and Turkey is right down the bottom. What are they doing right to spend so little and yet have such success?
They have a much lower internal cost structure which means manpower is cheap relative to external purchasing power, they also have a few homegrown defence manufacturers which benefit from that lower internal cost structure. It results in an outsized military with reasonably good domestic procurement costs for equipment.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
Mine do the leg moving thing when they're in a deep sleep and they both - father and son - sometimes make muffled barks too. Sometimes their eye don't close properly and you can see their eyes rolling about at the same time. So I assume it's REM sleep and they're happily chasing birds or cats or deer.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
It’s a live debate right now. And the consensus is probably shifting to Yes they do dream
A surprisingly good and recent bbc article on exactly this
Indeed, and the fact that we don’t really understand why we, or animals, sleep, is clearly the more immediate barrier to understanding.
I’m pretty sure that animals do dream, but doubt that they ‘dream in smells’, as suggested up thread. There would be no need to imagine smells during sleep, when the nose is still working. The evolutionary advantage would sit with the animal that kept on smelling naturally, such that if it smelt approaching danger, it would wake up.
In other news it seems to me that Javier Millei may have done the impossible and found the bottom for the Argentine Peso. For about 2-3 weeks the blue/informal rate has been strengthening relative to USD in a way that has previously not been sustained. We could finally see Argentina's inflation rate normalise in the next 7-9 months at least in relative terms, maybe hit 10-20% annually and then in the following year get under 10%. If so it will be interesting to see how the rest of Latin America responds to it.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
Cheers @Leon. I have always had these dreams so I don't think it is fear of ageing and I have never had an issue with social status. On the contrary really, the reverse is true. But I also note from @TimS reply he said 'All in the general scope of anxiety dreams: the fear of being unprepared, late, exposed or embarrassed' and I am always very well prepared, and really over-prepared for a presentation or a meeting and I always overcompensate re arrival times. So that seems very applicable. Interestingly I always learn a presentation word for word, but I never give the memorised presentation. I just wing it as soon as I start, but I have to do that preparation beforehand.
I’ve had dreams where I’ve lost all my teeth which have been so vivid, upon waking, I would check my mouth
Also in the first year or two after I gave up heroin. And my life got much better quite quickly - and I lived in mortal fear of relapse - I would have terrible dreams, extremely vivid and believable, not surreal at all. Where i did fall off the wagon and smoke heroin again
Then I would wake up and honestly believe that I relapsed the night before and did heroin. And I would lie there in despair for 10-20 minutes thinking Shit, back to square one, this time I am bound to overdose and die
And then I would slowly realise it was a dream. With great relief
Looking back I wonder if that was my subconscious mind trying to help. To keep me clean
Gosh that sounds awful. Glad it stopped.
It is all weird though isn't it. The naked thing for me is common. I haven't dreamt about missing an exam, but have dreamt that I have completely missed a course and was now trying to learn it all just before an exam and panicking. I guess that is the lack of being prepared anxiety. The teeth thing has never happened to me.
When I was young I used to dream I was being chased by a giant Sweep (of Sooty and Sweep fame) and that I just couldn't get away. The dream was frightening, but oddly I was never scared of Sweep otherwise. So why? Why would it be Sweep in my dream chasing me?
What puzzles me about this header is that paying compensation quickly and fairly would seem to be a political winner for the Conservatives. (Or at least cutting losses.) Unless I completely misjudge British voters.
Advising slow downs almost looks like deliberate sabotage of the elected government.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
Cheers @Leon. I have always had these dreams so I don't think it is fear of ageing and I have never had an issue with social status. On the contrary really, the reverse is true. But I also note from @TimS reply he said 'All in the general scope of anxiety dreams: the fear of being unprepared, late, exposed or embarrassed' and I am always very well prepared, and really over-prepared for a presentation or a meeting and I always overcompensate re arrival times. So that seems very applicable. Interestingly I always learn a presentation word for word, but I never give the memorised presentation. I just wing it as soon as I start, but I have to do that preparation beforehand.
I’ve had dreams where I’ve lost all my teeth which have been so vivid, upon waking, I would check my mouth
Also in the first year or two after I gave up heroin. And my life got much better quite quickly - and I lived in mortal fear of relapse - I would have terrible dreams, extremely vivid and believable, not surreal at all. Where i did fall off the wagon and smoke heroin again
Then I would wake up and honestly believe that I relapsed the night before and did heroin. And I would lie there in despair for 10-20 minutes thinking Shit, back to square one, this time I am bound to overdose and die
And then I would slowly realise it was a dream. With great relief
Looking back I wonder if that was my subconscious mind trying to help. To keep me clean
The evolutionary advantage in not having your eyesight waste away while you are asleep is clear enough that throwing up random images from your short term memory to keep the visual part of the brain busy, is fairly clear. Why there would be any advantage in dreaming having any deeper meaning than that is rather less clear. It could easily be simply another case of humans over-analysing what we do not fully understand.
I am convinced dreams are meaningful
I’ve read the ample science and also had too many personal experiences and heard the same
That doesn’t mean all dreams are meaningful. No more than all breathing is speech
A lot of it surely the brain sorting random nonsense or just keeping itself occupied
Also some can be meaningful to the extent they are dangerous. Sleepwalking is quite common, sleep murder is not unknown
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
I don't suppose the postmasters would be prepared to take the entire shebang as compensation? They get to sack / prosecute who they like, or more accurately, don't like. They are surely too decent to do that, but it would cheer me up.
The Nethanyahu regimes excercise in Gaza should, within the next 6 weeks, move to a different, lower intensity, phase. T
"Military chiefs believe they can significantly damage Hamas' remaining capabilities in that time, paving the way for a shift to a lower-intensity phase of targeted airstrikes and special forces operations, according to the two Israeli and two regional officials who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely."
1) the operation to free the hostages and crush Hamas has killed more hostages than freed, and can’t find the Hamas leadership (because they are not in Gaza, they’re in Turkey). 2) ceasefires that were freeing hostages have been torpedoed by a minority extremist grouping in Israel
This is going off on a tangent, but... Turkey is a huge military success of late. They've invaded bits of northern Syria. They armed and advised Azerbaijan in their successful war against Armenia/Artsakh. Turkish drones are world-leading and they are an important supporter of Ukraine. And yet you look at these graphs of NATO countries' defence spending as a proportion of GDP, following Trump's comments, and Turkey is right down the bottom. What are they doing right to spend so little and yet have such success?
Where they have really scored is in backing innovative startups like Bayraktar.
The US are starting to realise that the defence majors don't provide good value for money (they are reducing their R&D spend as they massively increase payments to shareholders; BAE does the same), and are looking at what might grow in the space between them and DARPA.
There were 51 "defence prime contractors" back then; Five now. .. From 2016 to 2021. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, which are typically referred to as the Big Five, raked in more than $765 billion from the federal government, including about $705 billion from the Department of Defense..
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
Mine do the leg moving thing when they're in a deep sleep and they both - father and son - sometimes make muffled barks too. Sometimes their eye don't close properly and you can see their eyes rolling about at the same time. So I assume it's REM sleep and they're happily chasing birds or cats or deer.
Same. Our dog even manages to sound as though she is saying 'woof, woof, woof' - a very distinct sound that is not the same as her bark. You cannot be sure, but it pretty much looks like a solid dream to me.
248grss may not know that some US states have direct democracy, in the form of initiatives and referendums. My home state of Washington has them, for instance, and they have had important consequences, from time to time.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
Mine do the leg moving thing when they're in a deep sleep and they both - father and son - sometimes make muffled barks too. Sometimes their eye don't close properly and you can see their eyes rolling about at the same time. So I assume it's REM sleep and they're happily chasing birds or cats or deer.
I've never been a dog owner but I have so many dogs do that: kicking and snuffling in their sleep. How can that be anything other than doggy dreams of doggy things?
It seems to be another kind of human exceptionalism - only Homo sapiens can dream! What about Homo neanderthalis then? Homo habilis? Orang utans and chimps? Did they and do they not ever dream? It is absurd, we are not THAT exceptional
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
Cheers @Leon. I have always had these dreams so I don't think it is fear of ageing and I have never had an issue with social status. On the contrary really, the reverse is true. But I also note from @TimS reply he said 'All in the general scope of anxiety dreams: the fear of being unprepared, late, exposed or embarrassed' and I am always very well prepared, and really over-prepared for a presentation or a meeting and I always overcompensate re arrival times. So that seems very applicable. Interestingly I always learn a presentation word for word, but I never give the memorised presentation. I just wing it as soon as I start, but I have to do that preparation beforehand.
I’ve had dreams where I’ve lost all my teeth which have been so vivid, upon waking, I would check my mouth
Also in the first year or two after I gave up heroin. And my life got much better quite quickly - and I lived in mortal fear of relapse - I would have terrible dreams, extremely vivid and believable, not surreal at all. Where i did fall off the wagon and smoke heroin again
Then I would wake up and honestly believe that I relapsed the night before and did heroin. And I would lie there in despair for 10-20 minutes thinking Shit, back to square one, this time I am bound to overdose and die
And then I would slowly realise it was a dream. With great relief
Looking back I wonder if that was my subconscious mind trying to help. To keep me clean
The evolutionary advantage in not having your eyesight waste away while you are asleep is clear enough that throwing up random images from your short term memory to keep the visual part of the brain busy, is fairly clear. Why there would be any advantage in dreaming having any deeper meaning than that is rather less clear. It could easily be simply another case of humans over-analysing what we do not fully understand.
I am convinced dreams are meaningful
I’ve read the ample science and also had too many personal experiences and heard the same
That doesn’t mean all dreams are meaningful. No more than all breathing is speech
A lot of it surely the brain sorting random nonsense or just keeping itself occupied
Also some can be meaningful to the extent they are dangerous. Sleepwalking is quite common, sleep murder is not unknown
Great book on this entire subject. Just read it
A very accessible entry to some of the more recent research and thinking is Livewired, by Eagleman.
We know the subconscious keeps on working away at stuff while we are consciously thinking about something else entirely, which is why we sometimes remember something or come up with a great idea, out of the blue. Maybe that process continues in some way during sleep.
Humans are however susceptible to over-imagining solutions to the unknown, and I would doubt that dreams really have much deeper significance. Just because something seems interesting to believe doesn’t make it true.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
Cheers @Leon. I have always had these dreams so I don't think it is fear of ageing and I have never had an issue with social status. On the contrary really, the reverse is true. But I also note from @TimS reply he said 'All in the general scope of anxiety dreams: the fear of being unprepared, late, exposed or embarrassed' and I am always very well prepared, and really over-prepared for a presentation or a meeting and I always overcompensate re arrival times. So that seems very applicable. Interestingly I always learn a presentation word for word, but I never give the memorised presentation. I just wing it as soon as I start, but I have to do that preparation beforehand.
I’ve had dreams where I’ve lost all my teeth which have been so vivid, upon waking, I would check my mouth
Also in the first year or two after I gave up heroin. And my life got much better quite quickly - and I lived in mortal fear of relapse - I would have terrible dreams, extremely vivid and believable, not surreal at all. Where i did fall off the wagon and smoke heroin again
Then I would wake up and honestly believe that I relapsed the night before and did heroin. And I would lie there in despair for 10-20 minutes thinking Shit, back to square one, this time I am bound to overdose and die
And then I would slowly realise it was a dream. With great relief
Looking back I wonder if that was my subconscious mind trying to help. To keep me clean
Gosh that sounds awful. Glad it stopped.
It is all weird though isn't it. The naked thing for me is common. I haven't dreamt about missing an exam, but have dreamt that I have completely missed a course and was now trying to learn it all just before an exam and panicking. I guess that is the lack of being prepared anxiety. The teeth thing has never happened to me.
When I was young I used to dream I was being chased by a giant Sweep (of Sooty and Sweep fame) and that I just couldn't get away. The dream was frightening, but oddly I was never scared of Sweep otherwise. So why? Why would it be Sweep in my dream chasing me?
The teeth thing is quite common. I've had similarly vivid dreams to Leon, where it's taken a minute on waking to realise they are still there.
248grss may not know that some US states have direct democracy, in the form of initiatives and referendums. My home state of Washington has them, for instance, and they have had important consequences, from time to time.
(Although you will seldom see it described that way, by our increasingly leftist news organizations.)
I should add that those who wish to discriminate have often found other ways to do so.
So Initiative 200 (affirmative action bad) passed, but Initiative 1000 (affirmative action good!) then passed, but Referendum 88 (Initiative 1000 bad!) then passed. Presumably this means that Initiative 200 is still in effect?
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I thought it was just me who had dreams like that! I also have the ones in Leon's checklist.
They are incredibly common, and common across cultures as well - practically a human universal
I rarely remember my dreams. When I wake up I know I have dreamt and it remains with me and within a few hours I cannot remember it at all
The key is to keep a notebook right by your bed, and write them down as SOON as you wake up, you will have about five minutes before they dissolve forever
I have had a couple of dreams that have changed my life. One in particular. Freud was right: they are far from meaningless, they can be really important
indeed, here is an example
I have a female relative who had a recurring and deeply unpleasant dream of mice nesting in her left breast. It was horrible and it came in various permutations but basically always the same theme: mice, nesting in her breast
She felt physically fine, in her 40s, but in the end she went to the doc and: Yes, he found a small troubling lump, and she went to the oncologist: it was cancer in her left breast, but they'd caught it very early - thanks to that dream
Freud? Freud? Meaningful dreams were in the bible FFS. Pharaoh, Joseph, they were all at it thousands of years before Freud.
Dreams have been a huge part of Aboriginal Australian culture for millennia. This film is all about it:
Too bad they couldn't dream up a wheel or a written language.
Shame they killed all the Australian megafauna as well
The idea that native Australians lived in perpetual and perfect harmony with the land down under is woke bullshit. They were no better - and no worse - than the rest of humanity
Things I wasn't expecting on pb this afternoon: a pile-on to the Australian Aborigines.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
Mine do the leg moving thing when they're in a deep sleep and they both - father and son - sometimes make muffled barks too. Sometimes their eye don't close properly and you can see their eyes rolling about at the same time. So I assume it's REM sleep and they're happily chasing birds or cats or deer.
Same. Our dog even manages to sound as though she is saying 'woof, woof, woof' - a very distinct sound that is not the same as her bark. You cannot be sure, but it pretty much looks like a solid dream to me.
Yeah, it’s more of a muff than a bark. But you definitely get the impression in their dream they’re going at it hammer and tongs.
On 13th March, at 10.30am, I’m ‘going’ to a Zoom lecture on ‘The Science of Sleep’ by a David Tordoff, who IIRC is a retired professor dealing with this sort of thing. Anyone interested have a look at U3acommunities website. Basically it’s aimed at retired scientists, academics and medics.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
Everyone has judged you. The judgement is not favourable.
Fair.
I hate slippers. I have never worn them since old enough to make my own footwear decisions, and also find them depressing and ugly on other people. There are no good slippers, at least for men. There are only bad slippers and worse slippers. (The worst being those with no backs on which would come flying off with any sufficiently vigorous forward movement of the foot. What’s the point of them?) I tend to wear shoes when indoors, and I do accept there is an argument for keeping your floors clean by not doing so while also keeping your feet warm. But to me this is dwarfed by the aesthetic arguments. (But who will see them when you’re in your own house? Well, the one woman whose views on my appearance I care about.) In fact, I can’t truly be comfortable in apparel that I couldn’t instantly answer a sudden call for action of some sort. I’m not really one for pyjamas or nightwear – even when sleeping, I’m most comfortable in a t-shirt and joggers (though obviously this can only be done in winter). I’m at my most comfortable when in clothes I could, if need be, clamber over a fence in, without losing the contents of my pockets (I always slightly marvel at men who, in hot weather, wear shorts without pockets and flip flops). Some sort of t-shirt, a hoody if needed for warmth, jeans or combats or combat-shorts, and trainers, works best.
One of my daughters has an oversized pair of Nessie slippers bought from a souvenir shop in Scotland. I concede that they’re quite jolly, actually. But I’m no more going to be wearing novelty slippers than old man slippers.
I dread the day I lose the ability to tie my shoelaces.
Treat yourself to a pair of Crocs. Ignore the haters. Your feet will love you.
I bought a couple of pairs of camo patterned combats a couple of years ago, basically to walk the dogs in, but like the Crocs I tend to live in them now. I've bought two more pairs. They are so convenient - leg pockets full of dog poo bags and biscuits. And comfy. With the combats and the Crocs, and a T-shirt, always a T-shirt, I kind of dress like an OK Computer era Thom Yorke.
Or if I want to look slightly more acceptable I find myself dressing like a Parklife era Damon Albarn. I have a weakness for Sergio Tacchini trackie tops.
When I was a nipper you'd occasionally see an old boy who'd refused to move on from the Teddy Boy fashions of his youth, with a grey, thinning DA forlornly crowning the now-wrinkled face. I always found them faintly ridiculous.
Yet I now seem to be dressing much like I did in my mid/late-90s pomp. I'm 46 this week, I should be in sensible brogues and elasticated waists by now.
At least the 90s are cool at the mo.
And, thank the Lord, my hair is - touch wood - not going anywhere. And I'm still a 32 waist. So there's that.
There are Crocs for every occasion
A friend of mine is quite the sexual adventuress. She actually wrote a book about it
As part of her experimentation, she thought she'd find out what it might be like to be sexually dominated - "dommed" - by a professional dom. An expert in the Satanic but rhapsodic arts of BDSM
She she found someone on line, and he came highly recommended, and she made an appointment. Then she went round to his professional dungeon, complete with whips, chains, leather horses, four poster bed, handcuffs, and he was ok looking with a leather waistcoat and she went with it, and they began the session with him saying "Right, slut, kneel at my feet and obey me"
So she got down on her knees and prepared to be dommed but as she was on her knees she looked at his feet and realised he was wearing..... bright green crocs
Now, however comfy crocs might be, what they are not is Alpha Male Footwear. They are not SS jackboots, or Hells Angel biker boots, they aren't even the cruel velvet loafers of the posh and twisted English decadent. They are crocs
She burst out laughing and the session ended early
When I was in HK I befriended a couple of working girls. BDSM bookings were their favourite because they would turn up to an invariably high powered executive and just sit on the sofa while instructing their clients to do the cleaning, washing up, etc.
And then they would leave, many $$$ to the good.
Yeah, a houseshare I once lived in did this for a while. Not for money, just in lieu of a cleaner. Got people from Fetlife to turn up every so often to do the 'deep clean' stuff we didn't want to do - scrubbing the tiles in the bathroom, de-greasing the oven, etc. We were meant to take it in turns to 'supervise' them, which basically meant being sarcastic about their cleaning skills and swatting them with a riding crop.
Some of them apparently were quite good, but the only one I supervised was very whiny and not worth the hassle. I ended up just paying for a cleaner whenever it was my turn after that...
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
Cheers @Leon. I have always had these dreams so I don't think it is fear of ageing and I have never had an issue with social status. On the contrary really, the reverse is true. But I also note from @TimS reply he said 'All in the general scope of anxiety dreams: the fear of being unprepared, late, exposed or embarrassed' and I am always very well prepared, and really over-prepared for a presentation or a meeting and I always overcompensate re arrival times. So that seems very applicable. Interestingly I always learn a presentation word for word, but I never give the memorised presentation. I just wing it as soon as I start, but I have to do that preparation beforehand.
I’ve had dreams where I’ve lost all my teeth which have been so vivid, upon waking, I would check my mouth
Also in the first year or two after I gave up heroin. And my life got much better quite quickly - and I lived in mortal fear of relapse - I would have terrible dreams, extremely vivid and believable, not surreal at all. Where i did fall off the wagon and smoke heroin again
Then I would wake up and honestly believe that I relapsed the night before and did heroin. And I would lie there in despair for 10-20 minutes thinking Shit, back to square one, this time I am bound to overdose and die
And then I would slowly realise it was a dream. With great relief
Looking back I wonder if that was my subconscious mind trying to help. To keep me clean
The evolutionary advantage in not having your eyesight waste away while you are asleep is clear enough that throwing up random images from your short term memory to keep the visual part of the brain busy, is fairly clear. Why there would be any advantage in dreaming having any deeper meaning than that is rather less clear. It could easily be simply another case of humans over-analysing what we do not fully understand.
I am convinced dreams are meaningful
I’ve read the ample science and also had too many personal experiences and heard the same
That doesn’t mean all dreams are meaningful. No more than all breathing is speech
A lot of it surely the brain sorting random nonsense or just keeping itself occupied
Also some can be meaningful to the extent they are dangerous. Sleepwalking is quite common, sleep murder is not unknown
Great book on this entire subject. Just read it
The weirdest thing to experience is prophetic dreams. I have had a few. Each time they were puzzling dreams about real people, then that thing actually happened a week or so later.
Maybe just my subconscious putting things together in a way that my conscious could not, but very disconcerting.
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
Everyone has judged you. The judgement is not favourable.
Fair.
I hate slippers. I have never worn them since old enough to make my own footwear decisions, and also find them depressing and ugly on other people. There are no good slippers, at least for men. There are only bad slippers and worse slippers. (The worst being those with no backs on which would come flying off with any sufficiently vigorous forward movement of the foot. What’s the point of them?) I tend to wear shoes when indoors, and I do accept there is an argument for keeping your floors clean by not doing so while also keeping your feet warm. But to me this is dwarfed by the aesthetic arguments. (But who will see them when you’re in your own house? Well, the one woman whose views on my appearance I care about.) In fact, I can’t truly be comfortable in apparel that I couldn’t instantly answer a sudden call for action of some sort. I’m not really one for pyjamas or nightwear – even when sleeping, I’m most comfortable in a t-shirt and joggers (though obviously this can only be done in winter). I’m at my most comfortable when in clothes I could, if need be, clamber over a fence in, without losing the contents of my pockets (I always slightly marvel at men who, in hot weather, wear shorts without pockets and flip flops). Some sort of t-shirt, a hoody if needed for warmth, jeans or combats or combat-shorts, and trainers, works best.
One of my daughters has an oversized pair of Nessie slippers bought from a souvenir shop in Scotland. I concede that they’re quite jolly, actually. But I’m no more going to be wearing novelty slippers than old man slippers.
I dread the day I lose the ability to tie my shoelaces.
Treat yourself to a pair of Crocs. Ignore the haters. Your feet will love you.
I bought a couple of pairs of camo patterned combats a couple of years ago, basically to walk the dogs in, but like the Crocs I tend to live in them now. I've bought two more pairs. They are so convenient - leg pockets full of dog poo bags and biscuits. And comfy. With the combats and the Crocs, and a T-shirt, always a T-shirt, I kind of dress like an OK Computer era Thom Yorke.
Or if I want to look slightly more acceptable I find myself dressing like a Parklife era Damon Albarn. I have a weakness for Sergio Tacchini trackie tops.
When I was a nipper you'd occasionally see an old boy who'd refused to move on from the Teddy Boy fashions of his youth, with a grey, thinning DA forlornly crowning the now-wrinkled face. I always found them faintly ridiculous.
Yet I now seem to be dressing much like I did in my mid/late-90s pomp. I'm 46 this week, I should be in sensible brogues and elasticated waists by now.
At least the 90s are cool at the mo.
And, thank the Lord, my hair is - touch wood - not going anywhere. And I'm still a 32 waist. So there's that.
There are Crocs for every occasion
A friend of mine is quite the sexual adventuress. She actually wrote a book about it
As part of her experimentation, she thought she'd find out what it might be like to be sexually dominated - "dommed" - by a professional dom. An expert in the Satanic but rhapsodic arts of BDSM
She she found someone on line, and he came highly recommended, and she made an appointment. Then she went round to his professional dungeon, complete with whips, chains, leather horses, four poster bed, handcuffs, and he was ok looking with a leather waistcoat and she went with it, and they began the session with him saying "Right, slut, kneel at my feet and obey me"
So she got down on her knees and prepared to be dommed but as she was on her knees she looked at his feet and realised he was wearing..... bright green crocs
Now, however comfy crocs might be, what they are not is Alpha Male Footwear. They are not SS jackboots, or Hells Angel biker boots, they aren't even the cruel velvet loafers of the posh and twisted English decadent. They are crocs
She burst out laughing and the session ended early
When I was in HK I befriended a couple of working girls. BDSM bookings were their favourite because they would turn up to an invariably high powered executive and just sit on the sofa while instructing their clients to do the cleaning, washing up, etc.
And then they would leave, many $$$ to the good.
Yeah, a houseshare I once lived in did this for a while. Not for money, just in lieu of a cleaner. Got people from Fetlife to turn up every so often to do the 'deep clean' stuff we didn't want to do - scrubbing the tiles in the bathroom, de-greasing the oven, etc. We were meant to take it in turns to 'supervise' them, which basically meant being sarcastic about their cleaning skills and swatting them with a riding crop.
Some of them apparently were quite good, but the only one I supervised was very whiny and not worth the hassle. I ended up just paying for a cleaner whenever it was my turn after that...
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
Everyone has judged you. The judgement is not favourable.
Fair.
I hate slippers. I have never worn them since old enough to make my own footwear decisions, and also find them depressing and ugly on other people. There are no good slippers, at least for men. There are only bad slippers and worse slippers. (The worst being those with no backs on which would come flying off with any sufficiently vigorous forward movement of the foot. What’s the point of them?) I tend to wear shoes when indoors, and I do accept there is an argument for keeping your floors clean by not doing so while also keeping your feet warm. But to me this is dwarfed by the aesthetic arguments. (But who will see them when you’re in your own house? Well, the one woman whose views on my appearance I care about.) In fact, I can’t truly be comfortable in apparel that I couldn’t instantly answer a sudden call for action of some sort. I’m not really one for pyjamas or nightwear – even when sleeping, I’m most comfortable in a t-shirt and joggers (though obviously this can only be done in winter). I’m at my most comfortable when in clothes I could, if need be, clamber over a fence in, without losing the contents of my pockets (I always slightly marvel at men who, in hot weather, wear shorts without pockets and flip flops). Some sort of t-shirt, a hoody if needed for warmth, jeans or combats or combat-shorts, and trainers, works best.
One of my daughters has an oversized pair of Nessie slippers bought from a souvenir shop in Scotland. I concede that they’re quite jolly, actually. But I’m no more going to be wearing novelty slippers than old man slippers.
I dread the day I lose the ability to tie my shoelaces.
Treat yourself to a pair of Crocs. Ignore the haters. Your feet will love you.
I bought a couple of pairs of camo patterned combats a couple of years ago, basically to walk the dogs in, but like the Crocs I tend to live in them now. I've bought two more pairs. They are so convenient - leg pockets full of dog poo bags and biscuits. And comfy. With the combats and the Crocs, and a T-shirt, always a T-shirt, I kind of dress like an OK Computer era Thom Yorke.
Or if I want to look slightly more acceptable I find myself dressing like a Parklife era Damon Albarn. I have a weakness for Sergio Tacchini trackie tops.
When I was a nipper you'd occasionally see an old boy who'd refused to move on from the Teddy Boy fashions of his youth, with a grey, thinning DA forlornly crowning the now-wrinkled face. I always found them faintly ridiculous.
Yet I now seem to be dressing much like I did in my mid/late-90s pomp. I'm 46 this week, I should be in sensible brogues and elasticated waists by now.
At least the 90s are cool at the mo.
And, thank the Lord, my hair is - touch wood - not going anywhere. And I'm still a 32 waist. So there's that.
There are Crocs for every occasion
A friend of mine is quite the sexual adventuress. She actually wrote a book about it
As part of her experimentation, she thought she'd find out what it might be like to be sexually dominated - "dommed" - by a professional dom. An expert in the Satanic but rhapsodic arts of BDSM
She she found someone on line, and he came highly recommended, and she made an appointment. Then she went round to his professional dungeon, complete with whips, chains, leather horses, four poster bed, handcuffs, and he was ok looking with a leather waistcoat and she went with it, and they began the session with him saying "Right, slut, kneel at my feet and obey me"
So she got down on her knees and prepared to be dommed but as she was on her knees she looked at his feet and realised he was wearing..... bright green crocs
Now, however comfy crocs might be, what they are not is Alpha Male Footwear. They are not SS jackboots, or Hells Angel biker boots, they aren't even the cruel velvet loafers of the posh and twisted English decadent. They are crocs
She burst out laughing and the session ended early
I will never fail to be saddened by the gap between sexual practices and the dreary domestic reality. It was Terry Pratchett (probably) that pointed out that it's like starving people fantasising about increasingly elaborate banquets, whereas what they actually want is roast beef on Sundays with potatoes, gravy and peas.
There seems to be something in the British character that makes Brits very bad at the elaborate stuff but - oddly - very good at the adequate-penetration-and-cuddle-after version.
Oddly enough, I was thinking of that. Britain has had a film and television industry for over a century, but the most erotic thing it's ever produced was Dobby and David Mitchell in the cupboard. Heartbreaking pathos it has coming out of its arse, dark comedy to rage the gates of heaven, but when it comes to sex it's basically Julie Walters in a nighty and slippers.
C’mon, Babs Windsor’s bikini top pinging off, phwoarrr!
Are slippers for old people? I’ve always worn slippers (and slip-ons for that matter; Vans are my go-to shoe).
It’s probably just my own personal prejudice intruding
My dad always wore weirdly rubbish cheap shoes (despite becoming seriously wealthy)
But at least they were sometimes proper shoes. I felt his personal decline really kicked in when he gave up lace or buckled shoes entirely and went for slip on shoes that cost £8 from Asda
So I associate those shoes with senescence (obviously the £300 velvet loafer is a different matter - probably)
I bought a pair of crocs last year to wear schlepping about the house and garden. I promised myself I would not go out in public in the damn things.
By God, they're comfy.
So they're on my feet pretty much all the time. Pub, nipping to the shops, whatever. Only time I don't wear them is when dog walking or the one day a week in the office.
Don't judge me.
I hope you enjoy your exile on ConHome.
PB is 20 next month and yours is the worst post in PB’s history.
Wearing Crocs is worse than putting pineapple on pizza.
At one stage of my life I had unpleasant and difficult-to-deal with financial problems and I frequently had dreams where I was naked in public. Then I got everything sorted and those dreams stopped.
248grss may not know that some US states have direct democracy, in the form of initiatives and referendums. My home state of Washington has them, for instance, and they have had important consequences, from time to time.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
Do I detect "Up from Nottingham" being used correctly? Good stuff.
Every Pobble knows that London is the ultimate down, from where everything else is "up", more so as one gets further away.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I thought it was just me who had dreams like that! I also have the ones in Leon's checklist.
They are incredibly common, and common across cultures as well - practically a human universal
I rarely remember my dreams. When I wake up I know I have dreamt and it remains with me and within a few hours I cannot remember it at all
The key is to keep a notebook right by your bed, and write them down as SOON as you wake up, you will have about five minutes before they dissolve forever
I have had a couple of dreams that have changed my life. One in particular. Freud was right: they are far from meaningless, they can be really important
indeed, here is an example
I have a female relative who had a recurring and deeply unpleasant dream of mice nesting in her left breast. It was horrible and it came in various permutations but basically always the same theme: mice, nesting in her breast
She felt physically fine, in her 40s, but in the end she went to the doc and: Yes, he found a small troubling lump, and she went to the oncologist: it was cancer in her left breast, but they'd caught it very early - thanks to that dream
Freud? Freud? Meaningful dreams were in the bible FFS. Pharaoh, Joseph, they were all at it thousands of years before Freud.
Dreams have been a huge part of Aboriginal Australian culture for millennia. This film is all about it:
Too bad they couldn't dream up a wheel or a written language.
Shame they killed all the Australian megafauna as well
The idea that native Australians lived in perpetual and perfect harmony with the land down under is woke bullshit. They were no better - and no worse - than the rest of humanity
Things I wasn't expecting on pb this afternoon: a pile-on to the Australian Aborigines.
Me neither. Instant cancellation. Not allowed to dream, it seems.
Aboriginals is the spelling juste these days apparently, btw.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
Mine do the leg moving thing when they're in a deep sleep and they both - father and son - sometimes make muffled barks too. Sometimes their eye don't close properly and you can see their eyes rolling about at the same time. So I assume it's REM sleep and they're happily chasing birds or cats or deer.
I've never been a dog owner but I have so many dogs do that: kicking and snuffling in their sleep. How can that be anything other than doggy dreams of doggy things?
It seems to be another kind of human exceptionalism - only Homo sapiens can dream! What about Homo neanderthalis then? Homo habilis? Orang utans and chimps? Did they and do they not ever dream? It is absurd, we are not THAT exceptional
Dogs have REM sleep, and REM sleep disorders, just like humans. So we can be as sure as we can possibly be, until a dog is trained to confirm it verbally or in writing, that dogs do, indeed, dream.
It speaks a lot for Tory disunity right now that Gillian Keegan came to interviews with a plan to push Badenoch right into the smelly stuff today. The battle for the soul of the Conservative Party has already begun, hasn’t it. If you are going to tell us what Keegan done is not one wing of the Tory Party stitching up another wing with a “put up your evidence or shut up” then explain what is.
What’s damaging for the Conservatives is where this story goes - not just holding up payments for postmasters and postmistresses, but this PB header asks “are also delaying compensation for the victims of contaminated blood for the same reason, too?”
The PO scandal and Blood scandal payments would be a mere fraction of the cost of tax cuts announced in the budget in a few weeks time - but if the leaderoftheopposition (all one word) opens their reply with “you are funding these tax cuts with the compensation payments to the PO scandal victims and the blood scandal victims” the opposition are likely to get away with that linkage aren’t they, completely discrediting the pre election tax cuts.
If the government plan an Autumn election, they will have to make these payments before it, and satisfy Mr Bates with the settlement.
The cost of doing the right thing won’t be cheap (probably over an £bn) and probably requires delaying a tax cut for a few months / a year to cover the total cost of them.
But it’s the morally correct thing to do so clearly this Government won’t be doing that
How much is the Post Office worth? Could the compensation be funded by flogging it off? Not sure I can see why it should be publicly-owned - the universal service obligation bit sits with Royal Mail, which is already in private hands.
Someone described the Post Office as a huge scandal with a medium sized retail operation attached. It has no effective commercial value, which means the government has to sort out the mess
It’s maybe a good time to rethink the post office. I think there’s a valuable potential role for an institution that concentrates multiple public functions in one place, certainly until everyone in society is able to manage everything online.
Would be very useful service for many PBers, few of whom have got to grips with debit cards, let alone Apple Pay, parking apps or e-tickets.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
I get a lot of looks paying with my apple watch round these parts. Until the pandemic boozers didn't take cards. A mate came up for my birthday from Nottingham a few years ago and was aggrieved he had to walk to a cash point before he could get a beer.
There was a time, not so long ago, when "paying with my watch" would have meant handing it over as a form of barter!
Or handing it over as insurance to the landlord, along with the promise to not forget your wallet tomorrow.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
Mine do the leg moving thing when they're in a deep sleep and they both - father and son - sometimes make muffled barks too. Sometimes their eye don't close properly and you can see their eyes rolling about at the same time. So I assume it's REM sleep and they're happily chasing birds or cats or deer.
Same. Our dog even manages to sound as though she is saying 'woof, woof, woof' - a very distinct sound that is not the same as her bark. You cannot be sure, but it pretty much looks like a solid dream to me.
Yeah, it’s more of a muff than a bark. But you definitely get the impression in their dream they’re going at it hammer and tongs.
Apparently dogs that have never experienced chasing birds etc. exhibit the same behaviour. This theory turns the idea of dreams on its head:
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I thought it was just me who had dreams like that! I also have the ones in Leon's checklist.
They are incredibly common, and common across cultures as well - practically a human universal
I rarely remember my dreams. When I wake up I know I have dreamt and it remains with me and within a few hours I cannot remember it at all
The key is to keep a notebook right by your bed, and write them down as SOON as you wake up, you will have about five minutes before they dissolve forever
I have had a couple of dreams that have changed my life. One in particular. Freud was right: they are far from meaningless, they can be really important
indeed, here is an example
I have a female relative who had a recurring and deeply unpleasant dream of mice nesting in her left breast. It was horrible and it came in various permutations but basically always the same theme: mice, nesting in her breast
She felt physically fine, in her 40s, but in the end she went to the doc and: Yes, he found a small troubling lump, and she went to the oncologist: it was cancer in her left breast, but they'd caught it very early - thanks to that dream
Freud? Freud? Meaningful dreams were in the bible FFS. Pharaoh, Joseph, they were all at it thousands of years before Freud.
Dreams have been a huge part of Aboriginal Australian culture for millennia. This film is all about it:
Too bad they couldn't dream up a wheel or a written language.
Shame they killed all the Australian megafauna as well
The idea that native Australians lived in perpetual and perfect harmony with the land down under is woke bullshit. They were no better - and no worse - than the rest of humanity
Things I wasn't expecting on pb this afternoon: a pile-on to the Australian Aborigines.
Me neither. Instant cancellation. Not allowed to dream, it seems.
Aboriginals is the spelling juste these days apparently, btw.
More correctly, refer to them by the name of their nation, for example the Dja Dja Wurrung people.
Dreams anecdata. When I can remember dreams, it has been when I fell asleep in a chair. In bed, no dreams. The only differences I can see are head position and posture.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
Mine do the leg moving thing when they're in a deep sleep and they both - father and son - sometimes make muffled barks too. Sometimes their eye don't close properly and you can see their eyes rolling about at the same time. So I assume it's REM sleep and they're happily chasing birds or cats or deer.
I've never been a dog owner but I have so many dogs do that: kicking and snuffling in their sleep. How can that be anything other than doggy dreams of doggy things?
It seems to be another kind of human exceptionalism - only Homo sapiens can dream! What about Homo neanderthalis then? Homo habilis? Orang utans and chimps? Did they and do they not ever dream? It is absurd, we are not THAT exceptional
Dogs have REM sleep, and REM sleep disorders, just like humans. So we can be as sure as we can possibly be, until a dog is trained to confirm it verbally or in writing, that dogs do, indeed, dream.
And the fact that dreams are most likely a utilitarian solution to keeping the visual neural networks busy, rather than some mystical way to tap into the future or understand the past, makes animal dreaming much more likely, since animals won't be doing much predicting of the future or puzzling out of the past.
On 13th March, at 10.30am, I’m ‘going’ to a Zoom lecture on ‘The Science of Sleep’ by a David Tordoff, who IIRC is a retired professor dealing with this sort of thing. Anyone interested have a look at U3acommunities website. Basically it’s aimed at retired scientists, academics and medics.
On 13th March, at 10.30am, I’m going to Cheltenham...
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
Cheers @Leon. I have always had these dreams so I don't think it is fear of ageing and I have never had an issue with social status. On the contrary really, the reverse is true. But I also note from @TimS reply he said 'All in the general scope of anxiety dreams: the fear of being unprepared, late, exposed or embarrassed' and I am always very well prepared, and really over-prepared for a presentation or a meeting and I always overcompensate re arrival times. So that seems very applicable. Interestingly I always learn a presentation word for word, but I never give the memorised presentation. I just wing it as soon as I start, but I have to do that preparation beforehand.
I’ve had dreams where I’ve lost all my teeth which have been so vivid, upon waking, I would check my mouth
Also in the first year or two after I gave up heroin. And my life got much better quite quickly - and I lived in mortal fear of relapse - I would have terrible dreams, extremely vivid and believable, not surreal at all. Where i did fall off the wagon and smoke heroin again
Then I would wake up and honestly believe that I relapsed the night before and did heroin. And I would lie there in despair for 10-20 minutes thinking Shit, back to square one, this time I am bound to overdose and die
And then I would slowly realise it was a dream. With great relief
Looking back I wonder if that was my subconscious mind trying to help. To keep me clean
The evolutionary advantage in not having your eyesight waste away while you are asleep is clear enough that throwing up random images from your short term memory to keep the visual part of the brain busy, is fairly clear. Why there would be any advantage in dreaming having any deeper meaning than that is rather less clear. It could easily be simply another case of humans over-analysing what we do not fully understand.
I am convinced dreams are meaningful
I’ve read the ample science and also had too many personal experiences and heard the same
That doesn’t mean all dreams are meaningful. No more than all breathing is speech
A lot of it surely the brain sorting random nonsense or just keeping itself occupied
Also some can be meaningful to the extent they are dangerous. Sleepwalking is quite common, sleep murder is not unknown
Great book on this entire subject. Just read it
The weirdest thing to experience is prophetic dreams. I have had a few. Each time they were puzzling dreams about real people, then that thing actually happened a week or so later.
Maybe just my subconscious putting things together in a way that my conscious could not, but very disconcerting.
Alas, nothing to bet on!
Yes. I can easily believe the subconscious brain absorbs the info that the conscious brain does not. Indeed this makes total sense, the conscious brain has to be focused on the here and now to an insane extent, the prey you can hunt, the lion in that tree, the sexy trans guy lactating in Brighton, the conscious brain is designed to filter OUT superfluous info to the extent it can be easily fooled or it can miss massive things - the famous gorilla on the basketball court
Meanwhile the subconscious brain DOES get this extraneous info and tries to make sense of it. And hand it over to the conscious brain via dreams, or during drug trips, or via things like mediums, tarot cards, meditation - humanity has used multiple methods to access this vital store of POSSIBLY random and useless info
Hence my friend dreaming of mice in her breast that became a warning of real cancer. Her subconscious brain had the sense something was wrong in the breast area - gave a signal to the higher mind?
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
Mine do the leg moving thing when they're in a deep sleep and they both - father and son - sometimes make muffled barks too. Sometimes their eye don't close properly and you can see their eyes rolling about at the same time. So I assume it's REM sleep and they're happily chasing birds or cats or deer.
Same. Our dog even manages to sound as though she is saying 'woof, woof, woof' - a very distinct sound that is not the same as her bark. You cannot be sure, but it pretty much looks like a solid dream to me.
Yeah, it’s more of a muff than a bark. But you definitely get the impression in their dream they’re going at it hammer and tongs.
My dream meanwhile was that I was invited to DJ at a night club but I had brought the wrong records (a bunch of David Bowie and Iggy Pop LPs) and everyone was waiting to get the party started but all I could play was Let's Dance (good, this got everyone on the dancefloor) then that was it. I tried Funtime (interestingly, maybe, the song I used to have played on my White Collar ring walks) but people weren't having any of it and I was reduced to putting the TV on where Friends was showing but by that time people had drifted away and the club emptied.
What was that about.
Edit: if I'd thought about it, Young Americans would have kept them moving for another few minutes.
I am actually quite good at dream interpretation - I used to keep a dream diary as a disturbed teen and got the hang of it
The essence of your dream is fear of age (as is mine, by the way), but your nuance is that YOU still feel young - Young Americans! - but that everyone has grown old AROUND you - they've stopped dancing - indeed they've become a bit boring and predictable - they wanna watch reruns of Friends, they are your old Friends - and even then they go home early
Sounds like you need some NEW friends
I've a re-occurring dream that I've had for years. In it there's always some sort of academic course that I suddenly realize I've been completely neglecting - haven't been turning up to the lectures, haven't been handing in any essays - so, in panic, I have to journey to the school/college to rectify the situation, which I'm never able to do. (When I awake I remember the world of education is long behind me and feel relieved.)
Everyone has those dreams. Sometimes accompanied by turning up to the exam naked. Essentially the basis for John Cleese's Clockwise.
Do they? I do. I often also dream I am in a meeting naked and I am worried that people might notice, sometimes while still in bed. However when I tell people they think I am barking, so I assumed these dreams were rare. I have never dreamed of my teeth falling out which I understand is common.
They are all amongst the most common dream motifs
!. The missed but hugely important appointment: an exam is particularly common
2. Being naked in public
3. Losing teeth
All revelations of anxiety about social status, or ageing, etc,
On a more positive note, dreams of flying are also common, and they are some of the rare dreams that can be really enjoyable, especially if you can master lucid dreaming - and take control of the dream, while still dreaming
I've done it a couple of times
I love the flying dreams. Usually quite close to ground level and seemingly easy, based on just walking in an airborne way. For me it tends to be associated with a period of confidence and optimism.
I get those as well. Such that when you’re awake it’s easy to imagine you still have that ability.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
That's interesting. Is dreaming a uniquely human trait then? I have seen cats and dogs appear busy in their sleep but hard to know what is going on in their heads. Though I suppose no reason why the same argument for dreaming couldn't apply to them too. I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
I don’t have any expertise to deploy but would very much doubt it.
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
Mine do the leg moving thing when they're in a deep sleep and they both - father and son - sometimes make muffled barks too. Sometimes their eye don't close properly and you can see their eyes rolling about at the same time. So I assume it's REM sleep and they're happily chasing birds or cats or deer.
Same. Our dog even manages to sound as though she is saying 'woof, woof, woof' - a very distinct sound that is not the same as her bark. You cannot be sure, but it pretty much looks like a solid dream to me.
Yeah, it’s more of a muff than a bark. But you definitely get the impression in their dream they’re going at it hammer and tongs.
Apparently dogs that have never experienced chasing birds etc. exhibit the same behaviour. This theory turns the idea of dreams on its head:
Having been brought up by naturist parents I'd never associated being naked in public with embarrassment (not that I've continued that practice as an adult, 95% of human bodies should remain covered for aesthetic purposes - including mine). Maybe that's why I've never had a 'naked in public' dream, my nightmares are mainly big spiders hunting me down increasingly narrow cave complexes.
At one stage of my life I had unpleasant and difficult-to-deal with financial problems and I frequently had dreams where I was naked in public. Then I got everything sorted and those dreams stopped.
From time to time I have 'failed to hand in work for a course' dreams and also 'naked but hoping no one will notice' dreams.
The former are easy to explain (imo) as that was my normal state throughout my undistinguished academic career.
The latter are much more puzzling as I have never been in such a situation outside of my dreams.
When you think about it the whole nudity taboo/embarrassment thing is deeply weird. At what point in our evolution did humans become ashamed of their bodies, and why? (I'm going to discount the explanation in Genesis, intriguing though it is.)
The Nethanyahu regimes excercise in Gaza should, within the next 6 weeks, move to a different, lower intensity, phase. T
"Military chiefs believe they can significantly damage Hamas' remaining capabilities in that time, paving the way for a shift to a lower-intensity phase of targeted airstrikes and special forces operations, according to the two Israeli and two regional officials who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely."
1) the operation to free the hostages and crush Hamas has killed more hostages than freed, and can’t find the Hamas leadership (because they are not in Gaza, they’re in Turkey). 2) ceasefires that were freeing hostages have been torpedoed by a minority extremist grouping in Israel
This is going off on a tangent, but... Turkey is a huge military success of late. They've invaded bits of northern Syria. They armed and advised Azerbaijan in their successful war against Armenia/Artsakh. Turkish drones are world-leading and they are an important supporter of Ukraine. And yet you look at these graphs of NATO countries' defence spending as a proportion of GDP, following Trump's comments, and Turkey is right down the bottom. What are they doing right to spend so little and yet have such success?
Comments
What is for sure the case, and it's why it has been a mystery to me that they spunked it all on themselves and on hate, is that if a genuinely peace-wanting administration of Gaza took office, they would be hosed with more money than they would know what to do with to the point of possibly elevating Gaza to the top ten of GDP per capita tables.
It would change the lives of the poor lambs.
£50!
I don't think you can get croc leather shoes for £50
More like £1000 and up
https://www.harrods.com/en-gb/shopping/brotini-crocodile-leather-derby-shoes-14992840
I do live in beaten up Chelsea boots though.
But it’s all an evolutionary safeguard to keep the part of the brain that deals with visual processing busy, while it isn’t receiving any direct input from your eyes. Were it not for the brain imagining and then processing those probably random images , it would start reallocating those neural connections to other activity - a reallocation that we now know starts remarkably quickly when they aren’t being used - and our eyesight, which is more acute than that of other living beings except for many birds of prey - would quickly decay.
The two best parking solutions I have seen are either in Devon (simply select the tariff and tap your card - no need for an app). If it must be an app, so be it, but it should be National Parking App. I have used the one in Bath and assuming no connection issues etc it is good and you can top up etc if in danger of overstaying.
But really option one is the best.
I was up north a few weekends ago and paid for a pint with my Apple Watch.
One of the old-timers at the bar said: "Never. I've seen everything now."
I'm pretty sure he hadn't seen everything. Or in fact much at all.
I wonder if animals who prioritise smells over sight (like rhino) dream in smells?
Maybe have tap and go as a universal option plus a universal National Parking App, as you say, with the top-up feature. Having a plethora of different apps is completely pointless.
Most comfortable pear of shoes I’ve ever worn were a pair of crocodile leather, it was like angels were massaging my feet.
Then the sales guy told me the shoes were made of leather and I had to say no.
My friends would have disowned me if I had bought them.
Oh and excessive modesty.
Also, the train e-tickets functionality is great. Pops the QR code on your wrist and keeps you updated with carriage number etc etc for trains.
Great integrated technology from Apple. The ultra is such a brilliant product.
Imagine what AI might dream. Some would say it is dreaming already; and we plague its nightmares
The more I think about it, the more I think Crocs might just be the pinnacle of human endeavour.
Croc leather wouldn’t worry me. Leather is leather and crocs are not endangered - they have croc farms anyway
I’m actually quite tempted. A late midlife crisis. Croc shoes! Why not!
The idea that native Australians lived in perpetual and perfect harmony with the land down under is woke bullshit. They were no better - and no worse - than the rest of humanity
I have never dreamt of flying, but as I fear height If not enclosed) that is probably a relief. I have no fear if I am inside, so a glider, airliner, acrobatics plane, tall building etc are all ok if there is glass between me and the outside
Black shoes should be for funerals and interviews only, and brown shoes are weird.
I am in the Chinese spyware they know all there is to know about me ecosystem with a Xiaomi mobile phone (h/t OGH).
In certain fields of complex human activity - piloting an aircraft being a good example - it has long been known that currency is critical to performance. More recently, it has been realised that the brain is remarkably speedy at ‘rewiring’ itself to meet new demands placed on it, with existing ‘wiring’ made redundant if it isn’t being used. Which underlines all of the advice given to us older folk to keep using our brain capacity and to keep on learning new stuff.
I don’t know how you’d ‘prove’ that animals have dreams, but it seems self-evident that protecting visual acuity despite sleep will be important for animals as well as humans, even though humans are relatively unusual in having eyesight as our primary sense. The other senses, of course, are receiving inputs even while we are asleep - it’s simply our eyes that are shut down by dint of being closed.
Animals don’t sleep as soundly as humans, and I know from experience that my dog can appear to be asleep yet if I look closely I can see that the eye isn’t completely shut, and he is much quicker than me to react to anything potentially threatening that happens during sleep. On those occasions when he’s slept more soundly, usually when I am around, I’ve seen his legs moving and heard him making noises such that I guess he might be dreaming of chasing something. Whether this is actually happening, who can say?
But thank you! Every day's a school day.
Also in the first year or two after I gave up heroin. And my life got much better quite quickly - and I lived in mortal fear of relapse - I would have terrible dreams, extremely vivid and believable, not surreal at all. Where i did fall off the wagon and smoke heroin again
Then I would wake up and honestly believe that I relapsed the night before and did heroin. And I would lie there in despair for 10-20 minutes thinking Shit, back to square one, this time I am bound to overdose and die
And then I would slowly realise it was a dream. With great relief
Looking back I wonder if that was my subconscious mind trying to help. To keep me clean
The mistake CR makes (possibly, I haven't fully untangled whether CR started it) is that I'm 'woke', not particularly left. Where 'woke' is used as a synonym for socially liberal.
A surprisingly good and recent bbc article on exactly this
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230901-the-animals-that-dream-just-like-humans-do
I’m pretty sure that animals do dream, but doubt that they ‘dream in smells’, as suggested up thread. There would be no need to imagine smells during sleep, when the nose is still working. The evolutionary advantage would sit with the animal that kept on smelling naturally, such that if it smelt approaching danger, it would wake up.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/109036
It is all weird though isn't it. The naked thing for me is common. I haven't dreamt about missing an exam, but have dreamt that I have completely missed a course and was now trying to learn it all just before an exam and panicking. I guess that is the lack of being prepared anxiety. The teeth thing has never happened to me.
When I was young I used to dream I was being chased by a giant Sweep (of Sooty and Sweep fame) and that I just couldn't get away. The dream was frightening, but oddly I was never scared of Sweep otherwise. So why? Why would it be Sweep in my dream chasing me?
Advising slow downs almost looks like deliberate sabotage of the elected government.
I’ve read the ample science and also had too many personal experiences and heard the same
That doesn’t mean all dreams are meaningful. No more than all breathing is speech
A lot of it surely the brain sorting random nonsense or just keeping itself occupied
Also some can be meaningful to the extent they are dangerous. Sleepwalking is quite common, sleep murder is not unknown
Great book on this entire subject. Just read it
https://www.blick.ch/fr/news/suisse/interview-de-thomas-matter-conseiller-national-udc-tous-les-problemes-que-conna-t-notre-pays-sont-lies-a-limmigration-id19418313.html
I don't suppose the postmasters would be prepared to take the entire shebang as compensation? They get to sack / prosecute who they like, or more accurately, don't like. They are surely too decent to do that, but it would cheer me up.
Turkey to allocate 150% more to defense budget in 2024
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-allocate-150-more-defense-budget-2024-minister-2023-10-17/
Where they have really scored is in backing innovative startups like Bayraktar.
The US are starting to realise that the defence majors don't provide good value for money (they are reducing their R&D spend as they massively increase payments to shareholders; BAE does the same), and are looking at what might grow in the space between them and DARPA.
There's quite some history behind how we got where we are.
This account of "The Last Supper" in 1993 is fascinating.
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/03/01/the-last-supper-how-a-1993-pentagon-dinner-reshaped-the-defense-industry
There were 51 "defence prime contractors" back then; Five now.
.. From 2016 to 2021. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, which are typically referred to as the Big Five, raked in more than $765 billion from the federal government, including about $705 billion from the Department of Defense..
For example, Initiative 200 blocked efforts to undermine our civil rights laws: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiative_200
(Although you will seldom see it described that way, by our increasingly leftist news organizations.)
I should add that those who wish to discriminate have often found other ways to do so.
It seems to be another kind of human exceptionalism - only Homo sapiens can dream! What about Homo neanderthalis then? Homo habilis? Orang utans and chimps? Did they and do they not ever dream? It is absurd, we are not THAT exceptional
We know the subconscious keeps on working away at stuff while we are consciously thinking about something else entirely, which is why we sometimes remember something or come up with a great idea, out of the blue. Maybe that process continues in some way during sleep.
Humans are however susceptible to over-imagining solutions to the unknown, and I would doubt that dreams really have much deeper significance. Just because something seems interesting to believe doesn’t make it true.
I've had similarly vivid dreams to Leon, where it's taken a minute on waking to realise they are still there.
Anyone interested have a look at U3acommunities website.
Basically it’s aimed at retired scientists, academics and medics.
Some of them apparently were quite good, but the only one I supervised was very whiny and not worth the hassle. I ended up just paying for a cleaner whenever it was my turn after that...
Maybe just my subconscious putting things together in a way that my conscious could not, but very disconcerting.
Alas, nothing to bet on!
Then I got everything sorted and those dreams stopped.
Every Pobble knows that London is the ultimate down, from where everything else is "up", more so as one gets further away.
Aboriginals is the spelling juste these days apparently, btw.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/08/eyes-body-twitch-rem-sleep-dreaming/671232/
REM isn't a by-product of dreams. Dreams are merely a by-product of REM and other sleep-related twitchings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHZdpmpAsPw
The Rest is Politics.
I hope the Business Select Committee are reading it!
NEW THREAD
Meanwhile the subconscious brain DOES get this extraneous info and tries to make sense of it. And hand it over to the conscious brain via dreams, or during drug trips, or via things like mediums, tarot cards, meditation - humanity has used multiple methods to access this vital store of POSSIBLY random and useless info
Hence my friend dreaming of mice in her breast that became a warning of real cancer. Her subconscious brain had the sense something was wrong in the breast area - gave a signal to the higher mind?
The former are easy to explain (imo) as that was my normal state throughout my undistinguished academic career.
The latter are much more puzzling as I have never been in such a situation outside of my dreams.
When you think about it the whole nudity taboo/embarrassment thing is deeply weird. At what point in our evolution did humans become ashamed of their bodies, and why? (I'm going to discount the explanation in Genesis, intriguing though it is.)