Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Virtualization from my life seeping into my dreams

So, yesterday was officially the first day of Spring. And the weather seemed to agree. I came home from work and cooked my usual staple of fish for dinner. Because the weather had not been so nice for some time, my partner and I decided to take a walk.

On the walk, my partner told me about a recent trip to New Orleans, focusing on an encounter with a stereotypical Voodoo magic fortune teller. The subject of horoscopes was brought up and I had asserted the notion that I am considered a Pisces (represented by fish).

It was good to come home as these recent weeks have been pretty stressful at work, as the software company I develop for is approaching a release deadline.

At home, in my spare time, I've been designing a fairly sophisticated software framework, where both computer programming language and system architecture are not only abstracted on one level, but in some situations, on two levels (namely, Javascript to native C/C++ to/from Java). Not to get too technical, but this process requires each software layer to interface the next with essentially what are functions that act as translations just like one person often requires a translator or dictionary when abroad in foreign countries.

I had a strange dream last night that seems to have tied these past events together. Much of the dream was seemingly inconsequential, involving me interacting with the various different people who facilitate the transfer and ultimate delivery of products at a large big box retailer or grocery store. First I drove around, early in the the morning, to meet up with the truck drivers who shipped products. There was some purpose in this encounter, but it is hazy. Later, I remember being in the store, wanting to make some kind of purchase or trade, but I recall having some minor difficulty with such.

The dream had a very abrupt culmination and realization not too soon before it ended. I finally acquired two things: a large quantity of fish that had been frozen in stasis (as in, ready to be thawed and to resume living) and a typed white on black (aka carbon paper) of a rather extensive specifications sheet.

The spec sheet listed the syntax for binding all the biological functions of that particular breed of fish, allowing them to be programmed via a computer application. I remember seeing lines that looked like Java JNI function declarations with titles like "..._fish_heartbeat", "..._fish_swim", "..._fish_breath", etc. Thinking back, I seem to recall that I understood the contents on the sheet, but I don't recall now what was the nature of the technology. Had humans developed the technology to precisely project and impose electrical signals that drove neural synapses in the fish? Or did the technology involve nanotechnology or both?

The principles in the dream are the same concepts played with in the comic/movie Surrogates and the movie Avatar: biological virtualization. I can only conclude that my subconscious felt it was starting to overcome some significant computer language/architecture barriers and decided to tackle electrical/biological barriers as well.