Dreaming
When awake (although "yogi's", "mystics" and "Woody Allen" call what passes for being awake just another form of dreaming) the human brain sorts through a hundred-million bytes of information per second. In comparison, your laptop has the speed of a paperclip. Then, to make "sense" of the world, the brain selects just a very tiny fraction of all of this incoming information and uses it to continually create a 4-D technocolor experiential mock-up of the world.
This moving picture is only partly shaped by what our senses perceive. The very small amount of data it chooses to "view" and consider real, as well as the overwhelming majority of the incoming data it chooses to ignore, is literally determined by our cerebral response to central-nervous system stimuli filtered through our personal reactions, habits, and expectations shaped by prior experiences, decision patterns, and existing belief systems (B.S.). The brain thus portrays the world as a rapidly changing "scene", a series of multi-sensory four-dimensional images which -- although unique and individualized -- we almost always experience as "outside of ourselves" or "out there".
In fact, everything and everyone we see, hear, communicate with, touch or grope, even what we consider our body, is a holographic image inside our head. This image takes just under half-a-second to form (a good example of this I read someplace: When we perceive someone hitting a tennis ball, it has, in reality, already crossed the net!).
When asleep, the brain continues to form patterns and storylines from the same elements which create our waking illusion, and we dream. At times the ego becomes aware that it is dreaming, and can then learn to 'wake up' within the dream and direct it into any direction desired. To do this our, ah, rapid eye movement vibrates at, ummm, damnit, what was that number again? I don't know, I wrote it down here somewhere. No, not on that pad. Goddamnit, did I really leave it all the way out in the car? Well, the hell with it, this is getting really boring anyway. I can hardly keep my eyes open.
You know what, I can finish this article later. After that big meal, a glass of wine, and some high grade pot (not to mention that dab of peyote), I'm getting really tired. Should never mix wine, pot, and peyote, what was I thinking? Got to sleep this one off, and, and,,. . . and getting very slee-py sle. . . zzzzzzzz. . .
shocks me, I jump, and Lynn and I are in a jungle made from tiny razors with spiders running across the razors. For some reason, no fear, a hand moves, must be mine, into the razors, blood everywhere no pain. Someone laughs, me or Lynn, as a hole opens up--mommy and daddy in hole, coupling, no, revulsion/attraction same time, back up into razors go forward into hole. . .
At my aunt's house, eating cherry pie, goofy psycho cousin stares up at us from under the table. Suddenly Lynn and I are outside, on a parade float, waving at onlookers who all have the face of someone I know from somewhere. That bad man when I was six? Wind ripples our faces, Lynn and I walk into air, and
arrive naked at the mall. No one else is naked, but no one notices us either. I feel ashamed, but not enough to hide or cover myself. Flying pizza hits my skin, leaving cheese imprints where the bugs usually rest. Uncle Sam says something I don't understand. The carpenters in the circus tent shave the animal. Freebird. I can see two directions at once, birth over there, death down the way, baby cries one end old man wails at another. A second nude woman joins Lynn and I for an instant of pleasure, then crows eat her eyes I eat the hands. Walking into children's play area, still nude, green dogs jump at us, lick our faces and the other parts. Something screams. . .
Then more people come down from the upper slopes of the ships seventeen decks, some limping, some walking on stilts, a ripping sound, room expanding, many bouncing balls with the face and voice of Terence McKenna show me machines made from sound, tell me not to be astounded, say "Now you do it"
Lynn and I look in a mirror, and see giraffes. That means we are giraffes! Feeling tall but spongie, like soap inside. La la la, I'm a giraffe. Little girls play jumprope beneath me as Lynn and I eat leaves. A slight movement and the leaves taste like bone. Lynn runs away, danger somewhere nearby, can't see past the shadows, a mouse bites my ankle and. . .
I find Lynn again, hidden in the dust. There, ducks flock above a jade sunlit river, little pillow clouds, NFL linebacker runs through field of crickets, trips on sunshine, dies in ecstasy, decomposes to Bach, french toast vendor listens. Lynn and I are suddenly in New York, but invisible. I approach Lynn and notice my right hand, stare at my hand, and. . . (Holy fuck I'm lucid!, fully awake and still dreaming. OK, work it, bring Mars, alright, climb into its craters and speed along the landscape, make it redder--Mars at full sunlight. Now bring all Earth's lakes here. There, put in boats the size of cities. Fly over the scene. Now math, see all geometry at once, unite it into a moving symbol containing all angles, shapes, and dimensions. Now intersect that with the fractal construction of the mind, ha! From here easily move into becoming the consciousness of all beings, one-at-a-time, real fast, thousands a second, become one then another then another moving to the next quickly--then, yes, very important, finish up by being myself looking at them. Alright, time to make love to 'Lyn over and over and timeless, all texture and nerve feedback amplified a hundred-fold, more ways, more texture, feel the love of this moment as all moments. Now go, now, go, over. . .fading, losin g, wa it, l uc idi ty) Get away from me, orphan! This house has many more rooms than last time, yes, I know this place, have been here before. More occupants now, and the dogs are funnier. Lynn and I hurry down the stairs and out the door. Hey, you there, on the road, do I know you? I think I'll just grab hold of you and. . . run!
Lynn and I live on the island, the big Island, sand on our feet, tickles. Birds dive at our heads makes us laugh, crabs with names introduce themselves make us cry. Where are the Indians? When do the bands come on stage? Blue streak meteors a dozen. . . now five dozen. . . a second, I catch one in my hand, Lynn catches hers in a box of overpriced cereal. Debutantes waltz with Lynn but trip her on purpose, crabs eat her!! "'Lynn!!" I shout. Nobody safe here, oh god, nowhere to go, nobody safe here, petrified, pieces of Lynn carried into the bushes, can't run, muscles frozen. Hey, isn't that a cow! Riding cow, over a mountain range, mooooooo we both sing.
See also
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States of Existence |
| Alive | Awake | Asleep | Being and Nothingness | Semi-Conscious | Dead | Being Dead | Dream | Dreaming | Dead but dreaming | Bored | Pregnant | |
| Drunk | Stoned | Handicapped | Comatose | Undead | Born again |
