We've been having really nice weather … well, it is sunny, and most people who live in the Pacific Northwest consider that "nice." Anyway, while riding on the bus, that blasted sunlight was blinding me. I closed my eyes and noticed that patterns of shadows on my eyelids as the bus passed down an avenue lined with leafless trees.

While I know the shadows were "passing over" me and moving across my eyelids, the bus was going so fast (and my eyelids are fairly small stages … relatively speaking) that all I noticed were static images in quick succession. Maybe it was my frame of mind, but it seemed to me that my mind would seize on each pattern as it was displayed … as if I were watching a movie by looking at each picture on a reel of film.

We all know that the TV or monitor that you are watching while reading this is doing that … it is just a quick succession of pictures, but with a high-enough frame rate that you don't notice any individual picture. But what is this rate? I understand that for many people, it hovers just above 12 frames per second. T.V. (at least in this country) is just below 30. Some people's eye seem to refresh faster than others, so slow "refresh" frame rates on computer monitors give them headaches.

But I'm on a tangent …

Like many people, I've been struggling with the annoying images that my brain dreams up while I'm trying to not be annoyed with those images and thoughts. So, while meditating the other day, I noticed that my mind would follow those images that it so easily creates. But for an oh-too-brief moment, I was able to not follow them... yes, bliss may just be no more of those "thought trains." But the images kept coming, just like the patterns of tree branches on my eyelids. Maybe that part of our brain … that "random thought image generator" has a frame rate too. And is this variable among people … or even variable at different times in the same person?

Hmm... yet another pointless entry here …