Tag: experimentation

  • dreamtest bust

    Just to follow-up on my little experiment, the results were a bust. That doesn’t disprove the idea that people can be connected by dream, it’s just that this particular case was not a mutually-shared experience.

    Several salient details I wondered if I might hear about after posting:

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  • dreamtest

    Photo by shahin khalaji on Unsplash

    I have intensely vivid dreams. From what I gather from having talked to people over the years, they tend to be more vivid than many people’s dream and I am often given more agency within the dream than most people claim to have (meaning, I can make choices that change the story or nature of the dream), and I can read one to five words at a time (book titles, street names), and retain it upon waking. Reading signs and books in dream tends to be especially hard for most people (but not all people), if they even think to do it (knowing what something “says” and “reading it” are two different things in dream).

    I had a series of especially vivid dreams last night and I have a little experiment I think might be interesting to try out. One of you was in one of my dreams last night. The dream space took place in an old theater and we were sitting in red, velvet-covered seats in the dark. I eventually pointed to the stage while leaning over to you and whispered, “Watch. See. This is important.”

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  • Hollowman

    I’ve gone hollow, with dusty cobwebs occupying the empty space inside. If you were to loosen the black leather lacing that holds everything inside, you would be surprised at the void that greets you.

    I don’t want you to be shocked. So, consider this fair warning if you elect to look inside just out for the looking for any curiosities you thought might be tied up inside. Some other thief or thieves have already lifted the everything of what used to reside there.

    Ahh, is that disappointment I perceive? That long, gravity-trapped face dragging to the ground, where once a smile was to reside, turned to the upside down?

    It’s not my preference to be primarily hollow, I assure you. My clockwork heart was quite the thing, I promise, before it was taken from me. Even the spleen filled of ideal was taken from me. I am quite empty, you see.

    With all parts cannibalized for the sake of entertainment of others, only my eyes remain to reflect the void within. Waiting for something that long has a been and unlike to be again.

  • Carving

    Photo by Samuel Quek on Unsplash

    Black sands and dragging blades… Darkstone scattered with bright ice standing. The skies cast grey and still I drag heavy steel, carving sigils through the wave-rippled beach between tides. Some even recall a something of you and your laughter when you forget it should be broken, but the carrion drown out the song with their raucous calls, and so I must strain to hear.

    “You should leave those birds behind,” someone suggests and I remind, “Then there is only spiders, and spiders weave different signs than these.

    “And a fox, when they are so inclined,” I add, an afterthought. That fox has decided to be less inclined of late. So I hesitate.

    Back to: drag and recall, carving both glyph and secret names in those small hours when most are asleep.

    I should be lost, I think. Let them shibari my wrists in wire, lift me on wave and bury me deep. Our heart heavies this hurt just so.

  • Stonerot

    We are Slaved of the Riverbound, and so even more stone than they. We are to be culled and carved away to make way for the flow which our overlords assure us is necessary for live to carry forth.

    I could see in the guards eyes and with the way he held his crop that he toyed with riding me. There was a gossamer thread between enforcing compliance and wanton thrill, and the guard had yet to decide if there would be his own punishment or glory in mounting me — if my transgressions warranted it, or were it to premature and hasty to act yet. Overly-eager guards were subject to the same punishments as the slaved. Our overlords wanted their workforce compliant, but largely intact and able to work, after all.

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  • On the Hobnob with Gilly

    a songlet written in 120 minutes or less

    Picture of an audio soundboard
    Photo by Anthony Roberts on Unsplash

    For new visitors: I occasionally set myself up with the challenge to write, record and produce a songlet (not a full song) in the space of 120-minutes, starting from scratch. I try to limit the song to about a minute in length.

    As a result, quality varies greatly and I don’t promise that there are any hits that will arise of this personal challenge. The quality over time will vary dramatically, depending on how my creativity level is faring for the day.

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  • after the flesh

    it is unkindness
    painted a dark blade
    they deliver blindside
    a haunted wondering
    of what was left
    unsaid in the
    somespace beside
    as black warmth
    clings cooling
    after the flesh
  • Using AI

    Using AI

    I recently updated my mobile phone and part of the package included a free year of Google’s Gemini Pro. I’ve been using more AI assistance at my workplace to help my research efficiency and improve my work throughput, and thought I would take advantage of the advanced Gemini access to do the same for my own personal research.

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  • songlets in 120 minutes — 22nov25

    Picture of an audio soundboard
    Photo by Anthony Roberts on Unsplash

    I decided that I needed something to shake up things a bit, some incentive so I didn’t keep dithering around when I was creating music. I often catch myself playing around and never actually writing anything while I was horsing, so I said to myself: “Self, you need to have some motivation to do more than press buttons and listen to sounds.”

    “Oh no, what are we going to do now, Boss?”

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  • sEEthIng — a songlet

    As I mentioned yesterday, I was needing to get out of my writer head, who wants nothing at all to do with writing (for whatever reason). So I have.

    I had previous mentioned my intentions of buying virtual synth and maybe upgrading to the subscription model for my DAW. Then I read the fine print: that subscription price on the DAW was only good for a year, and then the price would double. Great deal at the half-off price, terrible at the standard price.

    Well, the last thing I want to do is lock myself out of my own music when I decide to no longer subscribe, so I opted out of that plan and redirected those earmarked funds to the second virtual synth I had my eyes on, thereby saving myself some money in the process.

    Michael… This is awfully boring, let me skip ahead to your demo song already

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