How many awarenesses are we?
Tonight's dream was a dream about a dream. Not especially complicated. I dreamed that Spokane and Hong Kong were twin cities, separated by a river. Simultaneously I was discussing with friends my stupid dream that Spokane and Hong Kong were twin cities, separated by a river.

This play-within-a-play is common in dreams, sometimes with multiple layers.



As I observed earlier:

Closely resembles the deja-vu switch in waking life. Deja-vu turns on occasionally. While it's on, many events seem like repetitions of previous observations. Soon the switch turns off, and the distinction between fresh and repeated is clear again.

Also resembles an aspect of deliberate story-writing. When you invent a situation and place it into the 'frequent habit' slot, the previous iterations of the event fill in automatically in the writer's mind AND the reader's mind.

Clearly there's a special entry point for events that happen often. Given the amount of real input it takes to develop a REAL template for frequent events, you'd think it would be especially hard to FAKE a frequent event. But it's not. It's easier to retro-fill a habitual occurrence than a single unique occurrence.

Do propagandists understand this vulnerable entry point? Is this why the flat statement needing no explanation works so well?

Stage plays and radio shows also use layering, often with a similar slippery fade between layers. In the later years of Johnny Dollar we were listening to Johnny's "real life" cases, and we also knew that Johnny consulted on a radio show about his cases. When Johnny's "real life" case happened to be in California, the writers and producers of his radio show made cameo appearances in the "real life" case and discussed the radio show.

Sophisticated swindlers also use layers, creating a movie about a movie. Swindler #1 gets you involved in a scam with your enthusiastic participation. Swindler #2 then poses as a detective investigating Swindler #1. The "detective" persuades you to hire him to catch Swindler #1. The money you lost in the inner layer isn't important. The money you pay in the outer layer is the real payoff, but you perceive it as "justice" for the scam, not as a scam. You also feel guilty for enthusiastically participating in the inner layer, so you're happy to let the private gumshoe handle it. No need to bring in the cops.

New thought: Many modern scams have a similar structure, but the purpose of the "detective" is opposite. Instead of trying to catch Swindler #1, he's trying to defend Swindler #1 from imaginary enemies.

LIBOR is a racket designed to give total control of all banking to Goldman. We often hear about bankers who are prosecuted for "manipulating LIBOR", which is the whole point of LIBOR. The "justice" done to these "manipulators" persuades us that LIBOR itself is legitimate. Why would we prosecute people for ruining a racket?

And now we're prosecuting people for "defrauding" the Bitcoin fraud. The "justice" done to these "fraudsters" persuades us that Bitcoin itself is legit. Why would we prosecute people for defrauding it otherwise?

When Mueller prosecutes RUSSIAN_BOTS for meddling with Hillary's divine right of election, he persuades us that Hillary's divine right is legit. Why else would we prosecute meddlers?

These setups perform the flat assertion trick. The "justice" layer throws the original fraud into the background where it becomes an ordinary LEGITIMATE fact needing no explanation or prosecution.

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The BIG question: How many layers of consciousness do we have? In dreams we can easily handle three.

Labels: Asked and unanswered

  ¶ 12:53 AM