The Matrix Code

EWK 5/04/04, Degree of Lucidity: Fully Lucid.  "Inside a school environment, I leave a classroom and walk down a corridor. I realize that I dream and remember my task to try to see "the matrix code" possibly embedded behind the surface appearance of dreams. I try to use a memorized incantation: "By the power of Alkahest / Let the Matrix Code visibly manifest!" I find the chant hard to remember the first time through, and verbally sort of stumble through it. On my second attempt I remember it clearly and chant it fairly smoothly, with better kavanah. (focused intent and alignment). Afterwards I notice that the dream environment and objects look different, but still not code like shapes. The dream scene dissolves into a sort of gray void, and I feel myself waking up. I hold onto the kinesthetics to stay in the dream, and the dream scene reappears. I encounter a short fit man who looks in his thirties. He identifies himself as "Bruce Lee", and tells me had not really died. I doubt his claim, as he looks Caucasian not Asian, but for fun I challenge him to spar, shouting "Matrix moves!" as we begin, remembering the martial arts scene from the movie. I block his attack easily, and retaliate with a side kick. (I briefly wake up in physical reality, having physically kicked the covers. But I don't move, and almost immediately fall asleep and back into the lucid dream.)

I follow [Bruce Lee] down a corridor. I decide to try a simpler approach to accomplishing this task, and simply chant "See the Matrix!" again and again. The dream scene begins to fade to gray again, but I stay in the dream by focusing on the kinesthetic sensation of a object I hold in my hand. My vision clears, and now I see myself in what looks like a small town movie set, false front houses, pastel colors, a simpler less detailed simulation. It comes more into focus and resolves into a small rural town set. I see a few houses, a trailer, and a small general store style post office, missing the street side wall. On the gray post office box wall inside the post office I see a "just married" sign, black letters on white. Across the street a see a large star sign on a white background. It looks strange, chaotic, hard to resolve or focus on. The star has eight, or perhaps ten points. The octagonal(?) star has multiple lines, three or more, slightly offset, and in different colors for different sections, dark green , dark blue, dark red, perhaps some brown. A "man" dressed in white comes out of the "post office" carrying a tool box. He has on a white cap - I really only see man shaped clothes, moving without a body. On the white clothes in stark contrast I see lines of small black letters and numbers, covering about 5% of the surface. Dream matrix code? I try to ask the "man" for information, but when I do so "he" falls apart, leaving only a pile of clothing. I look in the white canvas tool bag, and remove a "white washcloth" with a line of black code on it. I get the impression of small black numbers and letters, but do not, or can not, look at them closely enough to recognize them or identify them. RWPR".

COMMENT:

I created this dream task as a way of possibly exploring the possibility of a non-sensory information universe. Some have speculated that at the deepest level, we input the universe primarily as code, an information pattern, a code that we learn to habitually translate and then experience in terms of sight, sound, touch, etc. Your computer does this in a simple way when it translates a stream of binary code information - a pattern of 0 and 1’s - into an animated visual display on your computer screen. We as humans do something very similar when we read an engaging story, where the text presents us with an arrangement of arbitrary shapes (letters and numbers ) arranged in a meaningful pattern that we ignore as such while reading, instead experiencing people, places and situations instead. Some believe that a similar situation might also applies to our waking and dreaming lives. Cypher described this possible situation pretty entertainingly in first "Matrix" movie: "But there's way too much information to decode the matrix. You get used to it. I don't even see the code. All I see is Blonde, Brunette, Redhead . . ."

In "The Matrix Code' graphic I did my best to reproduce the "chaotic star" symbol that showed up towards the end of the dream, as it certainly seemed the most significant and strange thing that showed up after I did my chant. I feel I succeeded fairly well. In the dream, I felt that it symbolized the matrix code as a whole - it belonged to a different order of existence than did anything else that I experienced in the dreamscape. Just looking at the graphic gives me a weird unsettled feeling, as if I look at something "not right", that does not properly belong in either the waking or the dreaming world.

EWK 11/04/99, Not Lucid. "I go down into the basement, followed by my Aunt Edie. She sees my gallery of pictures, and lets out a gasp of horror - especially at one painting that shows three adults standing next to one another, man - woman - man. They wear gray clothes, against a gray background. The picture looks out of focus, and the people look mindless. You can see wisps of faintly glowing colored lines above their heads, fragments of connections to the Tree of Life, like energy antennae, but horrifyingly incomplete and dim - hellish. Another painting shows a tree, made of oriental brass, that looks like a longevity symbol carving in 3D. It has three swastikas in it. The third painting looks sort of like a Shinto shrine over a small square structure with side walls only, probably a well. I explain to her that these paintings represent the Tree of Life. I show her a more standard diagram of the Tree, and point to "Netzach" and "Hod" (two sefiroth / energy centers) corresponding to the "right" and the "left" brain, intuition and intellect, that when connected by Mem (an energy pathway) produce a whole new type of consciousness - a synergistic effect. The painting that upset her shows the horror of most people - who have only a few fragmented pathways barely illuminated by energy. The goal: to light up all of the pathways, to make oneself perfect before God."

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BIOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF ARTIST: 

Ed Kellogg earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Duke University. A proficient lucid dreamer himself, he has a long-standing interest in the phenomenology of dreaming. He has presented numerous papers and workshops on such topics as the lucidity continuum, lucid dream healing, lucid dream incubation, out-of-body experiences, and the use of magic in lucid dream reality. He has developed his skills in the creation of computer art for the purpose of learning how to make accurate representations of the visual element of dreamscapes.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT:

Recent improvements and innovations in computer graphic art software has made it much easier to effectively and accurately reproduce the inner landscapes of dreams. The 'dreamscapes' presented here capture scenes from my dreams with about 90% +/- 10% fidelity. To create these dreamscapes I used Bryce 3D, Poser3D, and Painter 5. I also make use of a file collection of Master Clips images. Computer art definitely requires an integration of the right and left brain - the right to see the final vision - and the left - to understand the complex and sometimes counterintuitive instructions on how to use the computer programs to create the effects that one needs to get there! As I see it, computer art (at least as I do it) requires skills and techniques from at least four artistic disciplines: 1. Sculpture - when the artist creates or customizes 3d images; 2. Photography - where the artist arranges 3d images, camera angles, and lighting to get the effect desired; 3. Collage - where the artist integrates different elements together in a two dimensional framework; and 4. Painting - where the artist works in all of the special effects, make final modifications to colors, background textures and special effects. All of these serve as modalities through which I can create a graphic that matches what I have in mind. In the case of recreating one of my own dreamscapes, I pick a scene from memory that appeals to me - one particular snapshot, so to speak, of the dreamed experience that captures its essence for me - and reproduce it with as much fidelity as possible. As these software programs continue to develop and improve, it will become easier and easier for dreamers without highly developed artistic skills to create quickly and easily "pictures worth a thousand words". No matter how detailed, a dream report consists only of a pattern of words, that at best still fails adequately convey the living reality of the dream as experienced. In my experience, computer software graphics programs can serve as a connecting bridge, through the use of which one can recreate dreamscapes that can convey the living reality of a dream to someone other than the dreamer.