An Interview with E. T. Marshall about Mythology for the Third Millennium
Q. Why do you call your series Mythology for the Third Millennium?
A. This mythology was inspired by Joseph Campbell, a prime motivator to write this book. He believed what humanity was looking for in this age of technology was a new mythology. I had a vision, a mythology I believed in, and was driven to write this book and share it.
Q. How is mythology, as you say, "Somebody's truth?"
A. In a broad sense, myths are ideas people believe in as truth and cannot be proven. Believing in myths helps people get through life and understand this existence. Campbell explains what mythology is in a broader sense. My intention, in future books, is to make predictions for this future mythology that may or may not be proven true.
Q. Is your novel a fiction?
A. Its characters are fictional, but DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and neural implants are facts. With the exception of the alien, Vlad and his “Buckyball simulation� the book, and future books are based on existing technology.
Q. What is lucid dreaming?
A. Everyone dreams but not everyone remembers their dreams. Lucid dreaming is for people who want to explore dream states. They consciously work to remember dreams. On awakening, many dreamers write down their dreams and, with practice can remember more and more of them. Lucid dreamers in sleep states are conscious in their dreams. Some can manipulate dreams and cause things to happen in their dream state.
Q. Did this book come to you in that state?
A. Yes, much of it did and it did not come in one piece. Over many months, insights came from my lucid dreams. I wanted to get the material into a form that I could communicate. I wanted my vision on paper and understood and wrote this mythology.
Q. Who is Vlad and how did Donald meet him?
A. The book is written from Don's point of view. It is about Donald's frame of mind, how he reacted to the simulation, his own experience and having his world disappear around him. Don was at the nexus between medical professors and DARPA, when Vlad met him. Vlad was a surgeon contributing his skill for a DARPA project to help veterans with damaged limbs. This first book is entirely about their meeting and alien contact. Donald, a lucid dreamer, was amenable to working with Vlad and open to the idea of alien simulations
Q. What was Donald's first lucid dream with Vlad like? Why was he scared?
A. He was scared because he was with Vlad, an alien. What Vlad does seems like a lucid dream but it's a simulation with alien technology and it is fully immersive. With Donald's permission, he put him in a simulation more clear and vivid than a lucid dream. Don was in awe, when the room disappeared and he was off planet. Donald knew he was not in reality. In another instance, he put him in a scene from the past so Donald could see the capabilities of the simulation. It was like being in Pilgrim stocks, head and hands restrained. Vlad didn't know exactly how it would affect him. He tried, within his knowledge of humans, to be considerate. It is important that Vlad asks for Donald’s permission.
Q. Why would an alien be so altruistic as to go into the barrio to help drug addicts and take an interest in relieving Parkinson's symptoms in a stranger, Don's friend Ann?
A. Donald does not completely know the alien's motivations. However, Vlad wants to show he's capable of doing good things. He has knowledge as a medical doctor and surgeon and wants to appear altruistic.
Q. Does the operation, where Vlad uses a microchip to ease tremors of Parkinson's, exist?
A. Yes. A long time friend with Parkinson's disease went through this operation and it made a huge difference. People can have these procedures in our world now.
Q. Why did the alien suggest this story be told? What is the Nova Dreamer?
A. Don was already a lucid dreamer. He has the ability to induce a dream-like state and change his perception of reality. It was less difficult for him to accept the alien's simulation and to return to the waking world with few bad side effects. The Nova Dreamer helps a person to not just wake up and write down dreams, but to participate in their creation. It is a real product, although it is no longer manufactured. A face mask covers your eyes. There's a minicomputer that senses the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and flashes lights when you are in a dream state. The Nova acts like a crutch. It lets you know when you are in a REM dreaming state.
Q. Is it possible for one person to come into another's lucid dream?
A. Debatable. Whether one person's dream can affect another's dream world and assume actual contact. Lucid dreaming trains a person to enter that state on command. It's scientifically verifiable. Vlad's simulation was two people speaking to each other but it was produced by technology. For Don, lucid dreaming comes from within his mind. But the practice explains why he has the mental structure to accept the alien simulation. Hopefully, we accept that reality in the novel.
Q. Explain the Rio scale?
A. The Rio scale is from a book about SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). Scientists agreed on what this scale, like the Richter, would measure. The Rio scale gives the scientific community a predetermined way of dealing with alien contact. It marks the degree of contact and how real it is and how people would react at certain levels of alien contact. Vlad didn't want to disrupt what was going on in the world. He knew if people knew about him, they might feel less safe and panic, as in the government's concern in the David Bowie movie “ The Man Who Fell to Earth�. So he revealed himself as an alien to one person, Donald
Q. Explain the purpose of a "You are not dreaming card" and whether it worked for Donald.
A. The card is part of some practitioner's lucid dreaming technique. If a person wants to know if they are in a dream or in a waking state, the dreamer can pull out the card and try to read it. For some reason, people can't read in a lucid dream. The card does not work in Vlad's alien simulation. There, you can always read the card.
Q. Isn't a simulation a different experience than imaginative thought?
A. The alien simulation is more vivid and real. Don experienced total immersion in a simulation of Venice beach. When he asked Vlad, "Where are the people?" they suddenly appeared. Disneyland showed what could be done with a simulation. It was the real world but technology was used within it. Don could understand other languages. A simulation could have partial effects, such as altering the taste of food. Don experienced Vlad's breakfast, as the best he ever had.
Q. Does your alien's technology already exist?
A. Partially. There are now cochlear implants for hearing that use brain implant technology. It's being developed by DARPA and Musk's Neuralink. Simulation is being developed here and now.
Q. Explain the "Bucky Ball" interface of human technology with alien?
A. That is the essence of Vlad's technology. Bucky Ball is a reference to a small object, a structural particle, which exists in sub-nano technology with a specific function. It sits at the synapse between neural connections in the cells. The Alien's technology is very small. It functions two ways. First it reads, transmits and records all electrical signals in synapses. Second, it can put its own signal, electrical impulses, into a synapse. In current medical technology, we can read and record what's in a synapse and also input a signal to the body to make muscles contract. But our technology is very big. It exists but not on a nano level.
Q. How did this work for language simulation in Disneyland?
A. The Bucky Balls transmit the synaptic electrical signals from Don's auditory neurons to an enormous alien computer which translates language. The Bucky Balls then receive the translated signal from the computer in English which is transmitted back to the Bucky ball in Don's auditory synapse which Don's brain interprets as English. That was easy.
Q. Donald did not know why Vlad wanted to have a relationship with another species, his agenda. Why did he not pursue that?
A. Don's in awe of the simulation and trying to digest it. In this book, he is also just observing this amazing Alien, an unexpected opportunity. For instance, Vlad takes him to the Academy of Magical Arts to expose him to another part of his life on Earth. Don is amused to see Vlad play the magician and the stymied members unable to figure out his magical technique. Don is pursuing the question of an alien agenda, but slowly.
Q Do you see a new type of dreaming, one brought about by mechanical means, as a potential future?
A. As a physicist said, "If it is physically possible, it will happen." It's very possible in the next years and a simulation is being developed by DARPA and Neuralink.
Q. The poem Ann reads to Vlad almost makes him a divinity on earth to save mankind. It's got a messianic tone. Do you think superior or advanced life forms can help humankind ?
A. Vlad has no ill will toward anyone. He likes to do good things, like heal the homeless man, living in an alley under cardboard boxes. That intention is part of the mythological nature of the book. Can mankind be saved by advanced forms of life? Vlad is trying.
Q. The book is astonishing. And no one in it is obsessed with making a fortune from technology. That is advanced. What is your thought about how such technology could further advance humankind?
A. Elon Musk's Neuralink project is magic happening here and now. Whether it's an advancement for humankind depends on how it's used. This book was written two years before the Neuralink project was announced. Advance depends on whether people change in positive ways and how they use technology. It is a dangerous technology.
Q. What do you see for the next book of the series?
A. I was dumbfounded when Neuralink was announced just months after my book came out. I feel I don't need to write the next seven books to explain simulation technology. I can next focus on Vlad's time travel technology. Using contemporary physics and alien technology it's plausible.
For further information:
Contact Susan Weinstein
[email protected]
