Waking Life
I just watched Waking Life, which I had seen once before, but over two years ago. I sought it out again in relation to all this dream stuff that I’ve been looking at especially closely these past few weeks. Whether it’s been through my dreams, through friends’ dreams, through dream-heavy books, or through free-associative writing, or with the drawings from dreams that I’ve been doing. It seems like there’s some kind of thing happening with all of it for me, coming together in a way that I’m not sure, nor able to describe. But it feels very important and very good.
So that’s why I dusted this movie off again, just to kind of give myself yet another hit of dream theory. And I’m glad I did. You know, watching that movie, the entire thing is filled with all these shapes kind of subtly swirling and moving around… I still feel very much like that’s happening now while I’m staring at my computer screen typing. And it kind of gives me that semi-creepy “Am I dreaming?” vibe which that movie is all about. Like if I had a digital watch on right now, I bet the numbers would be all swirling around and crap…
That leads me into something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately as well. How important it is to look at and evaluate your waking life with the same sort of eyes and heart that you use to evaluate your dream life. Because, ultimately you’re creating both, and you’re a part of your creation in both cases. To sit down with a moment in your life, which seems odd or important somehow, to notice what’s happening, what people are saying, what they are holding, what they are wearing, what’s happening in the background, how you’re feeling, how you’re responding… and just to see that as you would a dream… I think that’s a super-important tool to have in living your life. Because you realize what moments “mean,” and how things are loaded up with all kinds of hidden important stuff…
I wrote down a few things while watching the movie…
“The sea refuses no river.” - which struck me as probably the most important point in the whole movie. And it happens early on, while they are in the captain’s boat/car. I just looked up that quote, and it turns out that it’s the title of a song by the Who. Here’s the lyrics (and the guitar tab) for it. Maybe it originated somewhere before that, I don’t know. I’ll have to look into it further.
One guy calls himself an “oneironaut,” a dream explorer. The word comes from the Oneiroi, who were sons of the Greek god of sleep, Hypnos, each representing different aspects of dream. The concept reminds me of a passage I read last night, in an article entitled “Dream Pilots”:
A dream pilot is someone who is able to enter nonordinary reality at will, fully alert and conscious. A dream pilot can reenter a dream or enter someone else’s dreamspace – with permission – to scout the terrain and bring back vital information and energy. A dream pilot is able to interact with beings beyond physical reality and to connect with spiritual sources of healing and guidance. A dream pilot can fold time and space and scout out the possible future and things happening at a distance. When fully trained and prepared, a dream pilot can travel where very few human beings are able or willing to go – into the Mind of Terror – to bring us vital insight into the psychic energies that have unleashed terrible rage and violence into our time.
Also, while looking up the word “oneironaut,” I found a “free web based dream logging system and discussion group,” called the Oneironaut Chronicles. Seems interesting enough to come back and look at when I wake up. Also, a blog called the Oneironaut, which kicks off with a great quote from Edgar Allan Poe:
Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
I also like what that one guy with long hair says about how its important for biological survival of an entity, during waking life, to not mistake memory or imagination for what is really happening. And that, there are inhibitors which function during ordinary waking consciousness, to make sure we can tell the difference. But that, in sleep, these inhibitors themselves are loosened.
That one guy, who’s all about “fun” and lucid dreaming, who says “Super perfundo on the early eve of your day…” something strikes me as weird about him. About what he’s saying. Lucid dreaming, to me, has always seemed intrinsically wrong. Like, the goal of your dreams should not be to “wake up” in them. You spend enough time “awake” already. Why try to consciously control dreams also? It seems like a great way to spoil a bunch of profound shit that could happen, by just turning it into some wild sex dream, or like flying. And in that way, I think there’s some element of the classical “Devil” to this character. In that he’s all about just running wild with your temptations, and trying to control and master everything. Like when the Devil tempts Jesus in the desert. And he offers him mastery over the whole world, and all that other shit that he says. And Jesus is just like, “Nah, you know what? I’m cool…” But that’s not to say there’s no possible validity to the devil’s approach here. It’s just one avenue among many, and if it feels right to you, then BAM!
I like when that one dude on the bridge with the big nose and annoying voice says something about how remembering is more of a psychotic act than forgetting. I’m thinking here, that what he means is that by remembering, you’re splitting yourself into pieces. You have this “now” piece, and this “then” piece. That reminds me, I also liked when those two chicks were talking about having to create a fictional narrative to establish your identity, and your own connection to past events.
I’m also interested in the whole idea that dying is basically just having a dream that you never wake up from. And that you inhabit the same “dream body” which you’ve always inhabited in normal dreams your whole life. It reminds me of an excellent book by Marie Louise Von Franz, called “On Dreams & Death.” I recall that she talks about during life, creating a “subtle body” which you then inhabit after your death. And that the stronger you make it in life, the better your experience in it in death will be. I’ll have to look up the exact passage tomorrow when I’m more awake.
On that note, I wonder if this idea of lucid dreaming isn’t some method of creating this “subtle body” according to a certain style or blueprint. Like, maybe the more lucid dreaming you do, the more your experience in the subtle body will be similar to ordinary waking/living consciousness. Whether you want that, then becomes the question. Whether you want to continue exactly as you are now…
Also, I think the guy that he talks to at the pinball machine says some great shit. He talks about Philip K. Dick’s ideas about reality, illusion and time, which are just awesome. And he also puts forth this modified version of those ideas. Where he says that “reality” is just one eternal instant, and in that eternal moment, God poses us with the question, or the invitation: “Do you want to be one with eternity? Do you want to come up to Heaven.” And that Time and life as we know them result from us saying “No, no thanks. Not quite ready yet.” And that the story of our lives is going from this saying “No” constantly towards finally and ultimately saying “Yes.”
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