h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I must have had Anthony burgess's "End of the world news" on my mind last night.

Last night I dreamed that I was only of a select number of people who were chosen to survive the destruction of planet Earth.

When I arrived at the compound in the central part of the U.S., I was given a jumpsuit that fit me like a glove, and introduced to the other people I would be traveling with. None of us had much to take with us, but jumpsuits were all that we'd be wearing anyway, we didn't need to pack clothing anyway. The plan was to travel to Oregon and go up some incredibly long escalator, which maybe scaled the side of a very tall mountain. I;'m assuming some kind of space ship would be at the summit, ready to blast off into space in search of a new planetary home, or just orbit Earth until the dust settled from whatever peril afflicted it. On the way to Oregon, we stopped at whatever passed for a restaurant. The food was meager, as the world was doing badly. I don't know if the wait staff [a young teenage girl and her feeble grandfather] knew that we would be surviving while they would not be. Or maybe they were so close to the edge that they wouldn't care anyway. They obviously needed our business.

As we approached the top of the escalator, I asked TPTB if nuclear bombs would go off after we left, and was told that there weren't any of them anyway.

Fascinating! Of course this inevitably reminded me of one of David Bowie's many masterpieces, "Five Years"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYwpnG-rkHI

I've had many weird dreams, including some about watching distant buildings topple, but this was unusually coherent, like something cinematic. Too bad I couldnt have had a movie camera with me

I often wish I could record my dreams. Maybe one day somebody will invent a sleeping cap fitted with electrodes to that end

I think we should be careful there..... some dreams we don't necessarily want to share..!!

True

I only shared that one because it was so much like a B movie -- "2012," or maybe "The Core."

I keep my most disgusting dreams to myself.....

Thank you!

I've already managed to annoy enough other researchers that I fear losing you as well.

http://thespiritscience.net/2015/10/18/scientists-can-now-record-and-show-you-your-dreams/

That's astonishing, prof!

It's also pretty expensive. MRI imaging isn't exactly cheap.

For the sake of science, I'd like to see them use it for people with locked-in syndrome like that poor soul in "The butterfly and the diving-bell."

in time it willanother few years down the line and the proverbial "tri-quater(Star Trek) will be in use. Think, there never was a scanner for walls as such, now you have hand-helds to search for pipes etc

Technological advances are pretty amazing.

Just so much closer to technology allowing one to download an entire personality into a cybernetic system.

http://www.livescience.com/53028-da-vinci-robot-japan.html?cmpid=NL_TND_weekly_2015-12-09

I remember an Arthur C Clarke novel in which a person's entire life could be downloaded into a terabyte device.

I can't even download my mp3 collection into a terabyte device.

See also Poul Anderson, "A Harvest of Stars".

Astronaut Bowman was apparently downloaded into an alien computer according to some of the sequels to "2001 A Space Odyssey".

I've just added "Harvest of Stars to my list of books to read next year.

As a child I would look at the futuristic pictures on my dad's sci-fi books which and since from an early age I have had very unusual dreams of visiting very highly advanced alien civilisations.

One thing would be great would be being to download your dream into a holographic which can be played on a holodeck or holosuite.

Tricorders and food replicators are two of my favourite Star Trek technologies.

I overheard a discussion between an and my neighbour the other day

Neighbour: - We humans are a very advanced species
: - Really? What is your mode of transportation?
Neighbour: - We travel in these hollow boxes of metal on wheels. We power them by burning old dinosaurs