Dreaming of my dead dog (my fault)...

Hard to believe that my favorite dog ever, Sockeye, died approximately 10 years ago, because it certainly doesn't feel like that long ago, and maybe I'm wrong or my mind is somewhat screwed up, and my mind is terrible with timing, but...

I tried to look up (on facebook) when Sockeye had died, but my fb Life Events seem to have been erased (see my blog post below this one for more thoughts on that...), which made me feel tempted to leave the fb platform (because if they're trying to erase individual's life events, then what else will they try to erase?...) etc...

But I did see an old photo of mine, which gave me the impression that Sockeye had died about 10 years ago, which is hard to believe, but...

The reason I was trying to remember the timing of his death was because Sockeye unexpectedly appeared in one of my dreams Sunday.

In the dream, Sockeye was in a small cage, in a bedroom, in the dark, and I felt guilty that he was in the cage, but unsure if I was the one who had (somehow inadvertently) caged him. (I did not choose to regularly place him in small cages in my real life. The only time he was caged was when he was a puppy and we temporarily kept him in a decent sized cage in the bedroom when we went to bed and when I/he was in someone else's house who wanted/needed him caged).

So in this dream, I wasn't sure if I was in my own bedroom or someone else's bedroom. I felt confused. Because if it was my own bedroom, then why would my own adult dog be in a cage? Because dogs in cages seem kind of like hell to me. Because if you don't want a dog (or cat or other pet) around you, then just don't get a dog. Because adults caging other adults seems like a horrific control freak horror fest.

Dreams don't always make logical sense (although neither do many parts of so-called reality these days), so I figured the disconcerting cage was in my bedroom (for whatever illogical reasons), since Sockeye was there. Maybe my bedroom had somehow changed. But my uncertain feelings about the situation caused me to feel overly anxious, bordering on panicky.

I removed Sockeye from the cage and realized he needed to go outside. I thought I had taken him outside. But then suddenly I was inside another somewhat unfamiliar small room in front of my computer and his leash was hanging out of the door, but he wasn't attached to his leash and it was my fault. I thought I had put his leash on him, a leash with a long cord, and affixed the cord to the door so he couldn't go terribly far, but either I had forgotten to attach the cord to the leash or something unexpected had happened, and I was either lazy or overly confused or ridiculously discombobulated or SOMETHING, for not going outside with my dog.

And now he was disconnected from his leash or cord or me. And as soon as I noticed the disconnection, I hurried outside to try to find him before it was too late.

And there was snow on the ground and the atmosphere/air/sky seemed to be quickly changing from light to dark.

There was a growling sound in the distance and I wasn't sure if it was Sockeye growling at another creature or another creature growling at Sockeye or if my mind was making it up. But as far as I can recall, in real life, Sockeye didn't growl. But maybe I don't recall correctly. But what is correct? 

The dream's outdoor location resembled my parent's long back yard, and it's not too uncommon for them to see deer there, so maybe Sockeye had unexpectedly encountered a deer, but I don't think deer growl (but maybe I'm wrong), but nor did my Boston Terrier (but maybe I'm wrong), and I didn't know what I should do, other than walk toward the growling sound and call his name, because then if he heard me, maybe he'd leave a potential attack scene. I didn't want anyone to be attacked, injured, or killed just because they ended up in the wrong space at the wrong time (and especially if I was the one who had accidentally gotten them into that space).

When I first stepped outside in this dream, to see if I could see him, I started walking though snow, calling his name, but the horizon seemed to shift very quickly. My initial reaction was that maybe when I had stepped outside to try to find him was right when the horizon was shifting from light to dark. But then I thought, the horizon doesn't shift from light to dark THAT fast. So I'm either suddenly losing my vision or I'm about to have a seizure in the snow or both.

I'll wake up in the snow and my dog will be lost forever.

And it will be my fault.

And I won't be able to see.

And I will be freezing.

I woke up from the dream but then a few past memories were in my head and one of them was my fault.

AI is Invading our Personalized Specifics/ AI is Invading our Spaces and Species

Facebook is becoming increasingly bothersome to me lately. I've had the same facebook page for many, many years and I know online sites change their layout and other elements from time to time and we're not always going to be fans of such changes, but more recently, some of the changes have caused me to feel tempted to shut down my facebook page (I'm not going to yet, but I've been more tempted than ever).

For many years, I've been putting certain important-to-me life events (including poetry chapbooks/books but other personal life events too) in the Life Events section of my facebook page and now I don't even know where that section is/how to access it. Does it even exist anymore or did facebook get rid of it and thus delete all the life events I had shared over many years?

And lately, every time I visit my own fb page, an AI work partner shows up at the top of my page, even though I've never used this work partner, have never expressed any interest in doing so, and don't want to, because I dislike AI. Others can use AI if they choose to, but does it need to be forced upon those of us who have never expressed interest in using it, dislike it, and yet it still automatically appears at the top of our pages, like it's trying to force itself upon us?

And facebook groups that I haven't even joined are now showing up at the top of my Groups section, seeming to imply that I'm somehow involved in them (or should be), even though I'm not.

And I have a lot of facebook "friends" that I've accumulated over the years and the majority of my Wall Posts are only made visible to those friends. I do sometimes make certain poetry oriented posts public, but again, the majority of my posts are only made visible to my fb friends. But recently, I've noticed that posts of mine that I only made visible to my facebook friends are being "liked" by people I'm not facebook friends with, so what is up with that? As in, how did they even see those posts? I'm not referring to posts that I have other people tagged in; I'm well aware that in those cases, the tagged people's friends can see those posts too. I'm referring to posts that I have NOBODY tagged in other than myself, so I'm not sure how people I'm not even friends with can see them. If I log out of my own page and then type my name in the Search box, I can't even see posts of mine that aren't public, so I'm not sure how some other people can.

Maybe I'm just semi-cluelessly babbling into the ever changing internet void here. Maybe it's just supposed to be photo bomb, photo bomb, photo bomb (real or fake) and none of us are supposed to do anything other than that.

What catalyzed this post was because I was going to write about a disconcerting dream I had that involved my deceased dog. I'm terrible with timing and time seems to increasingly speed race faster and faster and faster to the point that sometimes things that happened 5 or more years ago seem as if they were just 1 or 2 years ago. I wasn't sure how long ago my dog had passed away, but I knew I had shared that in my Life Events section on facebook, so I was going to view that section to remind myself when. But now that Life Events section doesn't appear to exist anymore or at least I can't find it. And while trying to find that, I saw various Groups that I'm not even a member of showing up in my Group section and blah blah blah...

It seems as if the only things that are important anymore online are what's happening RIGHT NOW. As in TODAY or sometime in the LAST WEEK or so.

Mind you, I do tend to be a person who is focused on the present more than the past. But for me, the present doesn't just mean the last few minutes or days or weeks or even the last few months or even the last few years. The present means focusing on the present more than the past. But that doesn't mean just quickly and easily and casually deleting the past.

To reiterate, I have no desire to focus on the past more than the present. But that doesn't mean I want to delete the past. And I certainly don't want other people or online sites or ROBOTS to quickly delete whatever they feel like quickly deleting whenever they feel like quickly deleting it.

I feel like so many online sites and AI trying to overtake such sites is geared towards trying to make people be less and less individualistic, less and less personally expressive, less and less uniquely human beings. Geared towards copying and pasting. Geared towards online sites and non-human voices trying to speak for you. Geared towards quickly shared photo drops instead of thought out words. I like some photos. I like some memes. But I don't like those forms of sharing to outweigh personalized words. And I sure as hell don't want online robots speaking for me.

For crying out loud, these days if we're saying Happy Birthday to a friend online, gosh forbid we take the time to type our own sentence (or two or three words) instead of just quickly clicking on some computerized clichéd robo-word...