In reference to that post about dream interpretation, I wanted to describe a little bit more about how reading certain authors can help you build and understand subconscious vocabulary. Obviously, you should follow whatever authors and subject matters which drive you. For me, lately, that has been Philip K. Dick. I’ve read about eight of his books in the past two months, and reading so much so quickly has had an interesting effect on my mind.

I’ve noticed it in dreams a few times now, actually. Where the dreams contain sort of mishmashed references to a variety of his books, topics and themes. It’s like, what has happened is that reading these books have thrown up certain types of patterns and structures in my subconscious mind, which have been seized on by different psychic contents in order to be used as expressive tools. It’s like, he’s not so much trying to transmit a message in his work, as he is to enable you to retool part of your mind into a certain direction, so that you can then learn these messages for yourself on your own terms.

At least, that’s what I think in the midst of studying his various writings pretty closely, and observing the sort of interactions they have upon my own mind and dreams. This idea also reminds me vaguely of a passage from one of Daniel Dennett’s books which I never read, but I saw quoted online a while back:

The haven all memes depend on reaching is the human mind, but a human mind is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order to make it a better habitat for memes. The avenues for entry and departure are modified to suit local conditions, and strengthened by various artificial devices that enhance fidelity and prolixity of replication: native Chinese minds differ dramatically from native French minds, and literate minds differ from illiterate minds. What memes provide in return to the organisms in which they reside is an incalculable store of advantages — with some Trojan horses thrown in for good measure. . .

Just replace the word “memes” with like “ideas” or “psychic energy”, or whatever feels right for you. I think the purpose of Dick’s writings was for him to modify the structure of his own mind in order for new things to flow through it, and he did it so successfully that he ultimately had a mystical (or some might say psychotic) in-breaking of unconscious contents into his mind. He then spent the rest of his life using the vocabulary and understanding he had built around it to assimilate and come to grips with what happened to him. And in the process, he left an invaluable modern symbolic record of the entire thing, start to finish.

Some books that deal with these and other related aspects to Dick’s writing. I’ve only ever seen the first one in bookstores. It has some great essays in it:

1. The Shifting Realities of Philip K. Dick: Selected Literary and Philosophical Writings
2. Philip K. Dick : The Dream Connection
3. I Am Alive and You Are Dead: The Strange Life and Times of Philip K. Dick
4. Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick
5. In Pursuit of Valis: Selections from the Exegesis
6. Pink Beams of Light from the God in the Gutter: The Science-Fictional Religion of Philip K. Dick