What do you mean unreal?
It matters little what I mean Zie. Things are what they are regardless of my utterances.
Be that as it may, you can't just blithely state that dreams are as real as day unless you have some real proof to back up your preposterous assertion.
Proof? Why would I need to prove it?
The burden of proof lies with you.
Huh?
I merely state as fact that which
might or should be of interest to you. You're at liberty to investigate my
claim if you're interested in pushing back the frontiers of your knowledge cubicle,
or else remain in your hen coop of baseless certainties.
What a cheek! I never imagined you
of all people to be so intellectually bigoted. What makes my hard-earned knowledge
a mere “hen coop of baseless certainties”? Have you so little regard for
western science? Everything I know is based on centuries of scientific
endeavour, experiments, painstaking mathematics and meticulous empirical data. How
dare you call it baseless.
Ok, in that case you’re willing to
demonstrate how Big Bang actually happened, scientifically I mean. It should be
easy enough.
Of course I can’t. Big Bang was a
one off. It can't be reproduced in a laboratory.
And you’re confident that it’s not
pseudo-science?
It’s a theory, nothing more, but
it's the best theory we've got at the moment – a million times better then
saying ‘And God said “Let there be light!”’
Ok. In any case, as I said, I have
nothing to prove. If I tell you that dreams are as real as day, that is only “preposterous”
if you're unable or unwilling to access them consciously. In which case, not
being able or willing to do so, it's entirely natural that you’d sputter and
foam about this being absurd. Anything you've not yet experienced is always
absurd until something shifts in your paradigm, and you’re suddenly no longer
prevented from accessing the dimension or phenomena that were previously off
limits.
So, you mean to say something
shifted for you?
I might mean that, but what I
really mean is that this is universally true. At any given time there are only
ever a finite number of phenomena that can be experienced as such, so there’s
always a confirmation bias at work which preselects those phenomena that fit
your scheme, or perhaps what I'm really saying is that, regardless of the phenomena
selected, you’re only able to experience them as apparent certainties by construing
them in a certain way.
In a certain way?
Yes.
How do you mean?
Well, for example, I'm walking along
and I see the sun shining through what you'd refer to as “leaves”.
Ok.
As a so-called modern person, you
don’t just see the phenomenon, do you?
I er...
Your mind joins in and consciously or un-consciously affirms that what you're seeing is the sun shining through so-called “leaves”, updating in real-time your register or log of phenomena.
Yes, and what?
You do it all day long, everytime
you see something, the little catalogue of things reminds you what you're
seeing, and you naturally concur, do you not?
Well what would you expect me to
do?
Nothing. Do as you wish, but
understand that there are other people who are not “modern” who see the same
phenomenon in an entirely different way.
There are?
Correct.
And what of it? The leaves don't
stop being leaves objectively just because the mind responds to them a little
differently, do they? Their leafiness is independent of my thought process, is
it not?
I wouldn't be so sure.
But that’s absurd.
Yes, you’re right. To the modern
mind it’s utterly absurd, but then again, that's the modern mind by definition.
Huh?
A mind that objectifies all
phenomena, seeing them in terms of, or as, something that is fundamentally
distinct from, i.e. disconnected from me, from consciousness itself.
And you mean to say...
Yes, that there are other ways of
arranging things, other paradigms in which things or phenomena are not thus perceived.
But that doesn't alter a thing,
does it?
Not a thing.
So...
The things are all features
of your modern-mind.
You mean those leaves aren't
things when you perceive them?
Kind of.
But that’s ab...
-surd! Isn't it just? And yet it’s only absurd to the mind that insists on rigidly or “rightly” seeing things as phenomena separate and distinct from me, the observer. To other minds your way of perceiving things is no less absurd.
But how then do they see things?
Otherly.
And, to what end?
Presumably because to them it seems
more natural, and more complete.
Complete?
Yes.
How so?
Your material objectivity cuts out
a lot of is, n’est-ce pas?
Huh?
It only works with rather severe
distortions, preventing you from seeing, feeling or accessing a rich plethora
of interconnections or other-ness, kind of like converting analog music to
digital.
Be that as it may, I still fail to
see what you have against us being objective, and calling a spade a spade, a
leaf a leaf.
Nothing whatsoever, unless you
consider the fact that it only works up to a point.
Here we go again...
You did ask, or that's what I
perhaps erroneously inferred.
Ok, you’re right. Pray continue.
Up to a point your leaf can be a discrete thing, a leaf, but things weigh heavily on time.
Huh?
Time is increasingly burdened by
the ceaseless flattening of reality into material phenomena.
It is?
Affirmative.
And what then?
Sooner or later it flips.
It what?
Has a kind of seizure.
You're kidding.
No, honest injun!
Ha ha, very funny. But
seriously...
Time has a seizure because
ultimately time is a part of your consciousness, pared and squeezed into a
narrow tube.
Oh.
Which means that it’s basically a
given that your reality is seemingly stable, to the point of abject boredom,
until suddenly it’s not. Then it’s “Buckle your seatbelt Dorothy, ‘cause Kansas
is going bye-bye!”
Gulp!
Suddenly your reality needs to
find a different set of determinators, a different set of fixture points to attach to,
to rest the overwrought, exhausted Yertle-the-Turtle construct which has been overloaded
too long, unnaturally so, in rigid, time-trapped fixity.
But why would you say our reality
is “stable, to the point of abject boredom”? Nothing could be further from the
truth. Our reality is a constant rollercoaster ride.
Only because that's the only way
you can handle the boredom, by wobbling the applecart.
Er...
You drink, fight, take drugs and
create an artificial cacophony of discord because otherwise your sterile
promontory would suffocate the spirit. You'd all end up killing yourselves. But
once you've raised the level of insecurity and alarm to an almost unbearable
level, you’re so busy coping with the self-inflicted turmoil that you no longer
notice the dull, dull ache of isolation, the self-imposed sterility of things
being things in a soulless cube of unnaturally fixéd thingfulness.
Ah.
But have no fear. It’ll all end
soon enough.
It will? (Gulp)
Yes. 3D reality has a very short
fuse. All the pieces on the chessboard are about to get up and do a switcheroo,
changing places with the pieces in your mind, because time is essentially
tidal, flowing back and forth.
Oh no.
Well what did you expect? You
didn't really imagine you were separate from the construct, did you? no matter
how hard you try to overlook the obvious. It's not like you remember anything
about anything really, is it?
Who we are, where we come from?
Yes, that kind of thing.
And you do?
We’re not thing-bound, so we can
feel and see the...
bigger picture?
Correct. Even looking at your so-called leaves I'm able to connect with or through the leafiness to other centres, other aspects of me, which are equally real, equally apropos.
Wow! Just by gazing at leaves?
Just by feeling the part of me, or
the aspect if you prefer, which is present through, beyond and within what is initially
perceived as leafiness.
And you can do this with anything
whatsoever?
Yes, I guess so, but some things
feel better than others, as you can probably understand.
Dog poo’s not at the top of the
list?
Correct.
So what ensues? You open a window
through leaves into something else...
Something more.
Ok, and what then?
Well, that in itself requires joy.
Joy?
Simple, natural joy, to rise into
a less state.
To connect and feel the er...
The allness, the isness, the infinite, for want of a better word.
Ok. And? Apart from joy?
Well there are realms beyond this,
or worlds, if you prefer.
There are?
Which are constantly part of the
dialogue.
Oh.
Which need to be felt and
reconstrued in the light of new experiences, new awarenesses. It's an isness. Nothing
is fixed because things can only be fixed within a construct, like a cube,
though paradoxically we never entirely escape the fallacy of phenomena, no
matter how close we come to isness.
But surely there are things that
are fundamentally true?
Yes, there are within a construct.
But they’re only as “fundamental” as the construct itself. They
cannot go deeper. And we invariably come back to Yertle the Turtle, don't we?
But surely atoms, or light, or...
Consciousness?
Ok then, consciousness...
It ain’t.
Fundamentally true?
Nope.
But whyever not?
You'd know immediately if you
bother to step outside the construct.
Er... what would I know?
That consciousness is a bit like
water, it flows into each and every empty vessel, feeling it from within,
filling it up, assuming its shape and form.
And what?
The same consciousness that is in
you, which you experience exclusively as your body-mind physicality, just
happens to extend way beyond that vessel... way, way beyond.
It does?
It does.
How far exactly?
There's no way of knowing, but
suffice it to say that, were you to see its full range and extent, it would
literally, without the least doubt, blow your fragile modern-mind to
smithereens.
?
A bit like the total perspective
vortex in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The mind of things-n-me simply
can't handle that level of disclosure.
Oh. So how come you're still alive
if you've ventured outside the construct?
Because I was ready for it. I was
no longer attached, or only marginally. I’d already figured out the artificial
nature of things, that all our proud postulates stand in a kind of egg timer, rock
solid until the timer thing has run out of sand.
Ah.
In any case, it’s not like I
achieved anything outstanding.
No? You're kidding.
Not at all. I simply allowed
nature to recolonise me. Once I’d understood the fallacy of things.
I beg your pardon!
You heard. The fallacy of things. You
suddenly see through the glamour, the slick marketing, the lies and deception,
and you feel a deep longing for your disconnected world of thus it is – thus
I am.
You do?
Absolutely. Because nothing else
is real. Nothing else passes the smell test. Eventually you notice the stench.
What stench?
Of fear, deception, of fraud and
fakery. Rotten to the core.
But surely...
You think it's just a bit here, a
bit there, you take your secateurs and start pruning the dead and infected
foliage, only to discover there's literally nothing left to salvage, and yet,
to your amazement, you're still alive, still cognitive, still human, so to
speak.
Oh my God, you’re not selling this
very well, if you’re trying to get me to sign up.
Not in the least. Do your own
thing. Stay your course. Batten down the hatches and ride your ship of
certainties to the final grain of sand, back to oblivion, if you will, but though
you may succeed, your overmind will still oscillate back and forth, giving
input and updates from t’other side, the vague and misty realm of so-called
“dreams”.
But, this can't be... I barely
remember my dreams any more.
It matters not. Your mind of
things will continue to calcify, but as long as there's life in you...
What?
This...
Merry opens a sluice gate in
the quantum stream of consciousness, allowing the mind to flow back into the
other side of self, beyond so-called “infinity” into not-me or un-me, that yet
happens to be...
Can't be. It’s just a dream.
It’s... No! How can I switch it off?
Aaaaaaaaaarrrgh!
Don't worry Zie. It's temporary.
Just breathe a little deeper and feel the flow of...
Tremors and convulsions notwithstanding...
Dawns another day – from the rubble, the ruin of things, from the unbound, free-range
mind-not-what.
Dot dot dot – like time is no
longer meaningful.
Zie starts reliving dreams he’s experienced “years ago” in earthly time, like they're happening now. All at once. All together, yet somehow, in some unfathomable sense, separate.
Dream after dream, or within, or...
Astonishing, isn’t it?
Zaphod Beeblebrox! What are you
doing here?
Oh, just chilling out Zie. Incredible
to imagine it’s all inside my double-head, isn't it! But then again, what would
you expect, me being the fantabulous king of awesomeness?
A feeling of being intensely
annoyed at Zaphod Beeblebrox’s limitless egotism brings Zie back to the moment
of me, wherever that now is, where he finds himself meditating with a zen
master on a mountain, apparently in the Himalayas, if on Earth at all,
discovering the innate ability to cope with feelings of rage and anger by
feeling the waters of conscious-ness flow fully back to the real source of those
feelings.
Poor Zaphod. He weren’t so bad
really, in fact, he was the missing link needed to reconnect me to my
inter-dimensional self. To my faraway tree.
Indeed. So there you have it Zie. Feeling
is forgiving, essentially, once you're free to flow through the intricate nooks
and crannies of your near infinite Mandelbrot set y’ness, to the exact spot
where every person or phenomenon is mathematically needed to plug or deflect
the infinite void binomially, thereby inducing a single click of time-y-ness, a
moment that paradoxically matters, intrinsically.
It baffles the mind, Merry, but
apparently the mind is designed to cope with near infinite bafflement. All
things being equal.
Indeed, once you rediscover, nay, um...
re-feel the reality of dream-y-dreams. The unny un-ness – as in howsonought – click
– as in One
One? Ok, here goes.
Zie walks up to a sycamore tree and allows himself to feel
the leaves without thinking them the usual way. The modern world starts
blinking red alert, doing everything possible to
make Zie capitulate and think what, anything, just as long as he
mentally connects ’em to the cube walls of the construct, but for no apparent
reason, with neither rancour nor prejudice, Zie lets the fascination of feeling
what is not the thing itself draw him deeper into the stream of...
Click – the entire universe
skips a beat, so to speak, as time collapses momentarily in on itself, as Zie
insouciantly zaphod-beeblebroxes infinity – like there’s nothing to it – like nothing
could be easier – like you’re utterly mistaken if you think this is not part of
your own personal experience tree, if you think time is on your side, if you
think these words, this text originate outside your very own leafiness.
...and the rest, as they say, is
The end
0=1
plus three
