Author: LittleHobb

Solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short

The Nature of Dreams

What dreams may be, or what we wish them to be, are a universal theme. The way we speak of them in metaphor tells us how we view them or wish them to be.

Hobbes considered dreams to result from a distemper of the organs. In one extensive passage he observes:

The Causes of Dreams (if they be natural) are the Actions or Violence of the inward Parts of a man upon his Brain, by which the Passages of Sense by Sleep benummed, are restored to their Motion.

This is known fr0m experience – the shaping of a dream in the mind by heat or cold or thirst or needing a wee, and other such physical factors. The scientifically accepted explanations today accord with Hobbes: some dreams are the result of bodily stimuli, and some are the working through of sensations of the preceding day.

We dream each night, but remember only if we wake during the dream. When I dream, I recognise in Hobbesian terms what is happening – I might lie back and enjoy the dream, but the rational brain is there too and it notes where the stimuli have come from in terms of the day past. Frequently my rational mind intervenes when the action gets too silly, rebukes the fancy and corrects the narrative. I do not know if that is general, or just me.

The fancy is important – if we seek joy without the burden of responsibility, there is a dream. In metaphor we say of a pleasure that is it “a dream” (and say “nightmare” for a horror). The Old English ‘dream’ means ‘joy’, while a dream is a ‘swefen’.

(Chaucer used both in a time when the words were converging: I am so ful of joye and of solas That I diffye bothe sweven and dreem.  Elsewhere he presages Hobbes to have a character say “I sette nat a straw by thy dremynges, For swevenes been but vanytees and japes“.)

Dreams are a liberation from the contraints of possibility, and from the consequences of events.No wonder they are a joy.

Popular culture, worldwide, insists on more from dreams than clinical explanation. They seem like a glimpse into a supernatural world, where colours are brighter, beauty more sublime, and power of the mind is infinite without consequence. The old, vain searching after magical powers is a wish to bring to the real world the lands that we have seen in our dreams. We even have a word for this mythical place – Dreamland. It is like ‘Fairyland’ – a fond fiction that has generated many stories (and one not to be believed in by Christians).

Dreams are seen as visions of hidden truths, or of the future. Occasionally even in the natural course that might be so – during the day. a tiny detail barely noticed may lodge itself in the mind and form the core of a dream, stripping away the distractions and showing you what you missed. Real-life problems have been solved with that insight. As for the future; a vision in a dream may reshape your perception or priorities and embolden you to act in a way that brings that future about.

The supernatural dream is another matter. Jacob the Patriarch was given a supernatural vision, of the ladder reaching up to Heaven. His son Joseph  was given dreams in order to drive him and his brothers to achieve God’s purpose. Pharoah was at that time given his dreams of plenty and famine for the same purpose. It is a way into the mind without the distractions of the working day.

Supernatural visions are not a general thing though. As Hobbes put it:

there is no doubt, but God can make unnaturall Apparitions. But that he does it so often, as men need to feare such things, more than they feare the stay, or change, of the course of Nature, which he also can stay, and change, is no point of Christian faith

Who knows that The Lord may prompt our actions by letting our dreams remember the missing detail of the day or the missing emphasis, in an otherwise natural dream. That is beyond what we can know.

The problem comes from believing there is more to natural dreams than  what they are. That simple belief will be abused. It is too temping to want to believe that the dream, the joy, is real and so reachable. It is tempting to believe that joy is given by a passing spirit and just needs interpretation. This is like any form of divination (which the prophets condemn). Dreams are the result of physical stimuli or memories of the day: believing that they are supernatural visions will empower unscrupulous men and women claiming to interpret them as such.

Again, as Hobbes explains:

From this ignorance of how to distinguish Dreams, and other strong Fancies, from vision and Sense, did arise the greatest part of the Religion of the Gentiles in time past, that worshipped Satyres, Fawnes, nymphs, and the like; and now adayes the opinion than rude people have of Fayries, Ghosts, and Goblins; and of the power of Witches.

For as for Witches, I think not that their witch craft is any reall power; but yet that they are justly punished, for the false beliefe they have, that they can do such mischiefe, joyned with their purpose to do it if they can; their trade being neerer to a new Religion, than to a Craft or Science.

I hope not to have spoiled the dreaming state. It is a joy, as long as we remember For swevenes been but vanytees and japes.  Now, I was about to go back to sleep.

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A Biblical AI strategy

AI strategies go far back beyond our current worries. I am wont to tell people that AI is discussed at length in the Bible, which puzzles listeners. An Ai strategy does not mean what interfering governments want it to mean. It is what Joshua did at the Lord’s command.

The use of proper meanings is important. “in the right Definition of Names, lyes the first use of Speech; which is the Acquisition of Science: And in wrong, or no Definitions’ lyes the first abuse; from which proceed all false and senslesse Tenets“. The Biblical meaning has been with us for thousands of years. The modern one is a flibbertigibbet thing.

Ai was a city in Caanan which the Lord handed to Joshua and the Israelites. The site (if it is correctly identified) is just as the Bible describes: a heap of rubble of a city destroyed in the Bronze Age, which was Joshua’s time. The city was an object lesson in obedience: in Chapter 7 of the Book of Joshua, we learn that one of the Israelites took and hid plunder from Jericho, when commanded that all be destroyed: in punishment,  The Lord permitted the Aites to defeat Israel. However with the lesson learnt, the Israelites returned to deal with the city. Chapter 8 shows the Ai Strategy.

The Lord commanded Joshua to deal with Ai, as recorded in Joshua Chapter 8.

And the Lord said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed: take all the people of war with thee, and arise, go up to Ai: see, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai, and his people, and his city, and his land:

And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king: only the spoil thereof, and the cattle thereof, shall ye take for a prey unto yourselves: lay thee an ambush for the city behind it.

Thirty thousand men were sent by night towards Ai, and five thoousand sent to conceal themselves to the west of the city, between Ai and Bethel. Then Joshua led his main force against the main gate. The Aites sallied forth, expecting another easy victory. The Israelites feined a retreat, sending the men of Ai and Bethel into surge forward “And there was not a man left in Ai or Bethel, that went not out after Israel: and they left the city open, and pursued after Israel“.

Joshua stopped and raised his spear as a signal, and his hidden force emerged, entered the unguarded city, and set it alight.

The Aites, seeing the smoke rising from their city, turned and run back, only to be caught between two armies – the Israelites emerging from the city aflame and the main force appoaching it, and were slaughtered in he midst of them.

That is what I call an Ai strategy. It has nearly four thousand years of wisdom behind it.

Definitions matter. Misdefinition and ambiguity lead to error and folly.

In case you are wondering, Dear Reader, if this article was written using AI: no it was not – I am quite capable of writing as maladroitly as this on my own. However the picture adorning it was produced from Google Gemini, in seconds from a short prompt barely over a line long.  Ai by AI – which I find remarkable.

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A peaceful Christmas to all

The full stomach aching with turkey, stuffing, pigs-in-blankets and well-roasted sprouts; good cheer and bad cracker-jokes. The warm, comfort of sinking into a chair and into yourself – this is peace and joy, albeit brief an confected, but peace and joy for the moment.

Do you ever think of others, in unhappier lands? The joy of Christmas is  hard to find where war or disorder are running over your home. Peace is an illusion.  (“the nature of War, consisteth not in actuall fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.“) We are happy here in Britain, which is rare in this world.

The song sung two decades ago to raise money for the Communist-induced famine in Ethiopia begged us to ‘Pray for the other ones’ and it is a good thing. It does not call upon us to feel guilty as our joy when others have none, though we may have taken it that way. To pray for them – we should indeed.

To feel guilty though – there is no sense. You, settling full into your sofa, are not causing any suffering to others. Indeed, your day’s excess may have helped them – guzzling on chocolate indirectly helps  the growers in West Africa (the only person it hurts is yourself.) The ‘consumerism’ and ‘conspicuous consumption’ lamented from many a pulpit encourage international trade and prosperity. We can deplore the separation of the individual from God and reflecting his love for our neighbours, and consumption can have that effect, but the consumption itself is a positive thing for the financial health of others.

The odd thing about a secularised Christmas is that it has gathered around it still a mythology of purpose drawn from Christian faith – peace and goodwill to all men are Christian ideas, and somehow the custom of secular celebration has absorbed these into its matrix. If a giant turkey, a raft of bad jokes and a silly film on the telly reconnect even the most heathenish to their neighbour and unite society, then it has done well.

I do weep for those entering a harsh Russian / Ukrainian winter without sufficient warmth or shelter, or who have no home in a war-shattered city by the Dnieper or the Nile or the Levantine coast, and for the forgotten millions in the bloody turmoil of the anarchic Congo or Sudan, and those countless elsewhere who have not been able to grasp such prosperity as to let them eat. If I can in my little way work to make the world a better place where some sustainable peace comes then I will. Maybe the blessed rest from toil over Christmas will light an idea or two, or maybe not. One thing is that I will not regret my Christmas nor the peace and joy it brings, and neither should anyone.

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Bishops in jealous rage

As usual, the bishops of the Church of England are wrong. The Church Times headline, ‘Bishops rebuke Tommy Robinson’, suggests they are jealous, not zealous. Mark records:

John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us. But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part.

Bishops may giggle that the carol concert Mr Yaxley-Lennon organised last weekend was not the half-million who gathered for his Unite the Kingdom rally, and only attracted a thousand people. A thousand? A vicar would weep with joy to have half that number in church praising God.

It as as expected. The observation all those years ago in Yes Prime Minister stil holds: “Nowadays, politicians want to talk about moral issues, and bishops want to talk about politics”.  They are both inadequate to the task, for the most part.

I was not at the carol concert. I read the evangelists’ accounts though: of worship, joy, of broken young men lead towards healing – all things the Church of England has forgotten about. God be praised for the work of his inspired servants.

I have read elsewhere of young men of rough voice made to feel unwelcome in church. It has echoes of past times – in the 18th century the Church of England became exclusively a place for the upper and middle classes, prompting the Methodists and Congregationalists to serve the labouring classes, and so it seems today. Come to think of it, going around several of our local congregations, I have barely seen anyone not in the middle-class bubble: the Church should be praising those who preach Christ to those we have not been welcoming. Instead, it is “rebuke”.

The bishops of the Church of England are internally institutionalised – stuck in an echo-chamber of committees and functions. If they look up from the agenda, set down the coffee and open their eyes, they might see an uninvited guest in the room, sitting unacknowledged in the corner weeping, his hands and side pierced and freshly bleeding.

The Church of Scotland when institutionalised to death in the reigns of King Charles I and II set out to attack dissenters who wanted to worship. Prayer meetings had to be held on lonely hillsides, weapons concealed for defence: it was called The Killing Time; and only ended when those dissenters took over the Kirk in Good King William’s time – and that began the Kirk’s most successful, most inspired period.

Why then did the grand men of the Established Church reject this initiative to reach out to lost men? Because they believe it is not sincere perhaps. Are they sincere? Because they disagree with the politics of the man who started it, or his former politics?

The clergy are happy to joint services with the Papists – they who worship Mary, giving her divine honours, and are devoted to idols – and that is all right apparently. Some hold services with Mohammedans who deny Christ completely and war against Christianity. This is thought a minor peccadillo. However a political difference concerning immigration policy – that is the breach for them. The Church must welcome the stranger, they say. Aye, but they actually reject working-class men.

Bishops have thrown out huge amounts of the Gospel truth in pursuit of a baseless secular philosophy, but they now take a single line about welcoming strangers and hold it fiercely as a way to reject an expression of the Gospel. In every pronouncement I see a gnat strained out and herds of camels swallowed with glee.

So ‘Bishops rebuke Tommy Robinson’. Well, I rebuke the bishops.

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Life in insular abundance

Life reaches the remotest islands, vivacity bursting forth on land newly emerged, far from the forest. Seeds float, are dropped by birds, or come on the hulls of passing boats. Once in the soil, the roots bind the sand and turn a sandbank into an island; an island into a paradise.

The solid men at Kew never lose that schoolboy wonder, judging by a lecture I had the pleasure to attend last month with the Chagos Conservation Trust. The islands’ variety, the glee of their plant life was on display.

With the islands deserted, the progress of life can be watched. By the shore, the first plants arrive and root themselves, in a hedge of beach heliotrope and similar little flowers. Then, the coral sand stabilised, the broad leaves of bush, and finally on some islands come the trees, majestic and shading their new domain.  With the plants come the birds and the turtles, crabs and insect-life.

(Regrettably, where man has stepped there also come rats, befouling and destroying, as man also befouls and destroys, but with no regret for doing so.)

Some isles are small, and with heavy undergrowth with little overgrowth to make it undergrowth, and with constant scurrying of crabs and turtles and innumerable bugs, that together make a self-sustaining  island environment. Some are small but have grown forests – the coconuts that were planted, but also beauteous, flowering takamaka trees, and others whose names  forget.

No one, we are told, knows where the coconut trees came from. They are taken to be unwelcome, invasive plants introduced for the plantations that once sustained a labourer population on the Chagos Islands. In truth though, some could have been planted by visiting fishermen from the Maldives, or ocean-crossing Malays, or even been washed ashore. More research is needed – such a heavy task it is for a naturalist to be set ashore on pristine, tropical islands, amongst the lapping waves on the coral-white sands and the cries of the seabirds.

The islands are small but many. Even on an apparently bare rock platform like Resurgent Island life has come and grows.

Around the Indian Ocean, life squeezes in, jostling with teeming mankind, scraped and netted and poisoned. Only in this place, where man may not set foot, is it thriving as it should. The plants allow the rest to lice – around the vast reefs and bank swirl sparkling fish, and sharks and whales, feeding the whole, dying Ocean.

This may be the last we see of them if the dark cloud the politicians have placed over the Chagos Islands snuffs it out. We have little time for knowing what wonders nature can give.

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