#david stuart

Ludacris in The Source Magazine April 2003 issue photographed by David Stuart

Dream Journal 2019-03-01: Deciphering Mayan

Medication Update: I have started yet another medication to help make it through a (hopefully temporary) bout of side effects. No idea how this will affect dream recall or sleep, but I’m telling you this just in case something goes weird and I don’t update for a while. Should these unwanted side effects persist after the next two weeks, I’ll start tapering off and look for other treatment options. Medicine can suck sometimes.

Countless workers toil beneath my balcony as I oversee the composition of a secret message. I appear to be some kind of Mayan ruler at the start of this dream, and the writing system is pretty impractical (at least in the reality of the dream). Drafting a message requires dozens of people to rotate square stone statues arranged in a grid the size of a sports field. Each statue has a different symbol on each face, and the meaning of the symbol changes based on how many people are standing in front of it. Determining the message also involved the application of the Chinese Remainder Theorem (which is a real-life math concept) that I only halfway used correctly.

Thanks to the magic of dream logic, once my message was composed, I received a response instantly. The encrypted message was a series of scribbles that formed an overly on top of my field of vision and it required a great deal of concentration to decipher. I was able to translate the document into a 24-character alphanumeric code that I could use as a password to do... something.

I really wanted to find out what I could use that password for, so I focused entirely too hard on making sure I kept that password in front of my eyes at all times. But the funny thing about dreams is that focusing on one thing causes the world around it to collapse and warp. By the time I got to a place where I could actually deploy that password, the message was written on the waistband of a pair of red silk underpants. The text was still readable, so I started transcribing the code onto a door.

Each time I tried to transcribe the next batch of digits, I ended up unintentionally teleporting somewhere else due to the fluid nature of dream perception. First I was at work, then I ended up in an attic, then I ended up hiding beside a bed on an exterior balcony with fake grass for a floor.

When I got to the last set I needed to transcribe, I made the mistake of looking away from my precious underpants and the secret message contained within. The last batch of characters transformed into a child’s toy, and each character was represented by an unordered mess of illustrations. Is this duck supposed to represent the numeral 6 or the letter ‘b?’ What is this fallen log supposed to represent? Since I had no clue as to what I was supposed to transcribe now, I took a random guess.

The toy let out an angry buzz.

I guessed wrong.

NOW I WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT RICHES ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THAT DOOR, BUT I’M GOING TO ASSUME THAT IT’S EITHER THE CURE TO MALARIA OR MAYBE THE SECRET TO GETTING SUPER POWERS.

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Fun fact: teaching three university courses and applying for Ph.D. programs while working two other jobs is fairly exhausting. Thank goodness we get a day off to commemorate the murderous rampage of a white man who literally accomplished nothing he set out to. While you’re enjoying the break, here’s an interesting epigraphic article about the use of first and second person reference in Maya glyphs.

The interpretation of deixis in language is heavily context-dependent. In spoken language, the addressee(s) have the context of an utterance to aid in its interpretation. In writing, however, language can become separated from both its creator and the context of its creation. This article investigates the use of certain deictics—first and second person markers—in ancient Maya hieroglyphics (circa AD 250–900). The temporal and cultural gap that separates modern language scholars from the creators of these texts means that much of the larger cultural context in which these texts would have been interpreted has been lost. An analysis of the way in which first and second person reference was framed and deployed in Maya hieroglyphs, even when identifying the intended referent proves impossible, provides insights concerning how people recontextualize textual language and how the authors of these texts adapted the form of their messages in response to the modality used.

This is separate from Maya Glyph Mondays. David Stuart tweeted this today saying,

A rare form of the name glyph of K’inich Ahkal Mo’ Nahb, who ruled Palenque from 721 to about 736 CE.  From Temple XIX’s main tablet. DS drawing.