Posts in the “personal” category

If you’ve ever seen the “Maine Cabin Masters” tv show, you may have seen the black flag that they fly on their cabins while they’re working on them. If you ever wondered about their black flag, here’s what I can tell you from this deleted scene video:

• In the video, which was posted on March 19, 2020, Ryan states that the flag is new.
• The flag signifies the Maine Cabin Masters “are here” and “we’re kicking butt on this project, and it’s going to be the best this camp will ever be.”
• It is the Maine Cabin Masters “skull and crossbones.”
• It’s a Chase Morrill design.

From a Ram Dass article titled, Dying is Absolutely Safe.

“As your practice proceeds you’ll be able to remain conscious as you transition from your normal waking state into the states of sleep ... once you can remain conscious like this, you’ll no longer sleep but merely pass through the night by going into deeper states of meditation.”

To those who know me that sounds like something I might write, but those words were published by Ram Dass in 1971.

This image shows a little more of his text. I deleted a few sentences that were repetitive or used obscure words.

(Update: Here’s a link to more information on Ram Dass’s best books.)

I was just looking around for a Ram Dass quote about Maya and couldn’t find anything great, but then I found this YouTube video where he talks about Maya and illusion:

“There’s a philosophy in India where the outside world, the world of things, all is illusion. And that’s a way to deal with the sense world ... to get free of it, and go inward, and go into the Atman, the God within.”

In this Entering the Stream article, he also states the following:

“Beings who have understood how it all is, who have realized their identity with the ātman, are stream enterers; they have tasted the flow of the nectar of liberation. They are a breed apart from other people in the world. They know something others do not know. Every part of their life is colored by that merging.

A free being no longer identifies with the body or personality, with a personal past or future. The body, the packaging, still has its karma running off and the skandhas, the mental aggregates, continue, but with nobody in them.”

(For more on Ram Dass, see my article on The Best Books of Ram Dass (My Recommendations).)

As I continue my quest to learn about Ram Dass and Maya (illusion), I also had a very hard time finding any quotes about Maharaj-ji and Maya, and after sifting through about 1,000 pages of books I finally found this Maharaj-ji quote:

• “All is God’s will, but Maya prevents you from knowing it’s all God’s will.”

If you’re interested in this, you can find this quote and a little bit more on page 326 of the book, Miracle of Love.

October, 2023 Update: I also just found the following quotes in an out-of-print book about Maharaj-ji:

• “You see others trapped by maya (illusion).”
• “This temple and whatever is seen by the human eye are illusion.”
• “Delusion makes everything look real.”

In that first quote the “(illusion)” part was in the book, I didn’t add that.

If you’re interested in learning more about Ram Dass, see my post on The Best Ram Dass Books I Know.

(This is a recounting of a long dream from October 1, 2016.)

We were playing at our camp when my older brother — who was standing on higher ground than I — saw something in the distance. He stood upright, then perfectly still. After a few moments he turned to me in a look of panic I had never seen before, pointed in a direction opposite from where he was looking, and screamed, “Run! Run!” I was startled at his behavior but I knew that something was very wrong, so I ran. And I ran.

I ran as fast as I could, weaving through the brush and constantly changing my course as I was chased by a white man on a dark horse. I thought I might be close to safety when I darted through some bushes, but I ran right into a creek that was too wide to jump across. As I paused for a moment to decide how to continue, the white man shot me in the back.

In intense pain and sudden shock, I stumbled forward into the creek, bent over with one hand in the creek. As I attempted to stand up and regain my balance, I was shot in the back again. This time my body flew forward towards the opposite side of the creek. I tried to control my fall but could not, and my torso slammed against the land. The right side of my face was pressed against the ground, my eyes still open. My right arm was trapped under my body, my left arm was somewhere down my left side. My legs lay in the creek’s water.

Spent the last few hours dreaming of living in a colony on the Moon. Every moment was a new experience – bad pay, canned food, watching a movie in a makeshift theater — which reminded me of the M*A*S*H movie and tv series — but also several different beings and cultures that I found fascinating. Then I suddenly had the idea for a new book that I wanted to call, “Moon’s First Murder.” I started scribbling down some notes, but knew I didn’t know enough about the cultures, so I recruited a friend to help me with that.

~ a lucid dream note from April 2, 2014

(Note: This is one of over 1,000 lucid dreams that I have had and made notes about. For some reason I have had lucid dreams (and sleep paralysis) quite often, so at some point I started making notes about the dreams.)

I fell asleep very slowly last night, so I was able to stay awake through the whole falling-asleep process, i.e., the usual sleep paralysis part. As I was still awake I started to hear the usual “here/there sucking sounds,” and just told myself that I shouldn’t be afraid, I’ve done this hundreds of times before.

And then the instant I fell asleep here I found myself in a hospital there. A doctor and nurse were looking at a bandage on the lower-right part of my abdomen, above the appendix, and closer to the center of the stomach.

As I looked at “myself,” I noted that the skin color was lighter than mine, and that my arms were smaller and skinnier, and there wasn’t much hair on the abdomen or arms. After the inspection the doctor asked if I had any questions, and I said, “Yes. Who am I? And where am I?”

I’ve probably documented over 1,000 lucid dreams in the last 20 years or so, and here’s another one from this morning. To me, the most important part about this one is the hypnopompic hallucination stuff I note at the end.

Had a long dream — approximately 2:30-4am — about “my wife” doing drugs without me knowing it.

I starts with us driving in a seedy part of town. She had mentioned that she knew someone who could get us some drugs if I/we wanted to try them. We ended up getting something that looked like a small rock or stone.

If you have ever known anyone with schizophrenia, this scene with Walter Bishop on Fringe — and the scenes leading up to it (particularly the one with Broyles) — will strike very close to home. (See Fringe, Season 4, Episode 3, for more details.)

I’m not sure how many people can understand this, but once you’ve been through nine syncope events (unconsciousness), dozens of other pre-syncope events, and four cardiac events (“fake heart attacks”, also known as allergic angina), and a five-month heart infection (pericarditis), you just accept that death is going to happen, and it’s not in your control. So, personally, I just try to be grateful, and hopefully help others along the way, because I know that my time here is limited.

October, 2016: I’m pretty new to learning that I probably have Mast Cell Activation Disease (MCAD) — also known as Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) or just mast cell disease — and as I’m learning more about it, I’ve been wondering, “What is the difference between MCAS/MCAD and histamine intolerance?” In this article I’ll share what I’ve learned so far.

(Note: I take a little time to explain mast cell activation disease in this article. If you just want a quick overview, see the Summary section below.)

Note: I originally wrote this article in the summer of 2010. I survived on this diet for a long time, but eventually gave up my gallbladder to a surgeon.

My gallstones diet advice: Ugh, my health has destroyed my productivity lately. Due to a mysterious stomach ailment, I’ve had a lot of “stomach” pain, visited the ER several times, met a lot of doctors, had many tests, and lost thirty pounds in less than seven weeks.

In a personal note, I found out that the Sage Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico had bed bugs when I stayed there in late 2023. The photos below show the bed bugs that I discovered on the bed at 1:15 a.m. one morning, along with the resulting invoice/receipt from the Sage Hotel (formerly named Sage Inn Hotel).

2024 Update #1: I wrote the Sage Hotel in 2024 about my experience, and how disappointed I was — both with the hotel having bed bugs and with their service — and never received any sort of reply.

2024 Update #2: Also, I talked to a person who checked me into another hotel, and they said (a) they’ve never had bed bugs, and (b) if they ever did, they would give customers a full refund. (The Sage Hotel would not give me a full refund.)

Sage Hotel bed bug images

This first photo is from the bed bug I killed. I woke up, saw something moving in the bed, pressed it with my finger, it popped, and left this blood stain:

If you’re looking for the Fringe episode with the song, “I’ve Seen All Good People”, by Yes, it’s the Season 2, Episode 4 episode named, “Momentum Deferred.” It’s just before the 20-minute mark of that episode. It’s the one where Walter starts playing the song, hits the table, and Peter starts putting the wires on Rebecca Kibner (Theresa Russell). “I’ve Seen All Good People” is one of my favorite songs, so it’s great to see it and other Yes songs featured on Fringe.

This is my interpretation of the meaning of the Alanis Morissette song, Thank You (also known as Thank U). I don’t claim any special knowledge about the song; this interpretation of the lyrics is just based on my understanding of Zen, Buddhism, and also my practicing of yoga, specifically Iyengar yoga. If you’ve read some of the personal entries on this website about Zen, yoga, mindfulness, and meditation, you know a lot of what I know.

When I watched the movie Coffee Shop I knew that Laura Vandervoort wasn’t singing the songs in the movie — at least not live — and I assumed that the artist singing was Norah Jones, but it turns out that was wrong. The actual singer’s name is Mandi Mapes, and the two songs are called “Dance With Me” and “In Your Arms.” Videos for both of the Coffee Shop songs are shown below.

A few days ago I found this black paint that “turns any surface into a chalkboard.” I’ve been painting the backs of some cheap cabinets, whose backs are now exposed after I moved some furniture around. If you know me, you know I like to have surfaces I can write on. :)

In a 2023 trip to New Mexico, I found out that The Sage Hotel in Santa Fe has bed bugs, and since then I’ve been trying to learn more about them. I asked ChatGPT, “What are bed bugs,” and got this answer (which I edited slightly for brevity and clarity):

Bed bugs are small, parasitic insects that feed on the blood of humans and animals. The common bed bug, Cimex lectularius, and the tropical bed bug, Cimex hemipterus, are the two main species that feed on humans. Bed bugs belong to the family Cimicidae and the order Hemiptera.

Key characteristics of bed bugs include:

• Size and appearance
• Feeding behavior
• Habitat
• Reproduction
• Resilience

Signs of a bed bug infestation include itchy welts or bites on the skin, small reddish-brown bugs on bedding or furniture, and dark spots (fecal matter) on surfaces.

After being exposed to bed bugs at the Sage Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico in late 2023, I’ve been researching bed bugs. This article is specifically about bed bug infestations and how to treat them. This information comes from ChatGPT and a few other sources.