IMAGE: nojoさん
This is the first dream I have written for quite some time. Funny how travel and study gets in the way of creativity, when its not otherwise serving to directly cultivate it.
As such, this is possibly the most intense and meaningful dream I have in quite some time; I think it is fitting that I re-enter my analytical adventure through another dream introspection entry. The dream begins with me piloting a spaceship through the universe. What has since struck me (with a remarkable interest) is that the entire dream was rendered in a kind of cel-shaded cartoon vision. As far as dreams and visual imagination go: only the most intense I have get this level of detail and they haunt me with their beauty every single time. This dream was equally unusual in that it took place in several spatial scales at once, and my perception as equally split between several different elements of the dream world in parallel. You really have to experience it to understand it.
As both the captain of the space ship, the crew and the collective ship itself, I was exploring alternate universes and sub-dimensions of existence. The purpose of the mission was to tunnel into the substrates of our own reality and communicate with transaware/subconscious entities that inhabited these worlds. As I would go deeper and deeper into these sub-realities, the beings and general environment would grow ever more cartoon like and primitive. Where, at the surface, reality was a crisp representation bordering on and approaching a fine work of animated art or classical Japanese woodprint; the further, the deeper I would travel from my own layer of existence the more the quality would decay in its exquisiteness and its beauty.
I would perceive these layers of reality I ventured through in a kind of simultaneous/parallel visual experience where nothing overlapped but everything was immediately perceptible. It was like having 360° vision but more complex and nuanced still. It is very difficult to describe exactly how this felt, but in the context of the dream it was intuitive. The beings I encountered along the way were of an intelligence or awareness that mostly rivalled their complexity of animation. Deeper and deeper we went through the cartoon worlds until we reached a layer seemingly inhabited by stick figures on a matte pastel background. They were organised in a society and they were looking at us with intent curiosity.
In this layer of reality, we were all perceived as gods (myself, the crew and the ship collectively). And indeed we were. We had forced our way into their existence from an ethereal upper realm that entirely super-served their own. It was apparent to me that our mission was to educate these beings; to teach them the wisdom we knew from our own world and allow them to prosper in peace, so that higher forms of reality could function more fluidly or even just function at all. Like a radio frequency pulse that causes the magnetisation vector of subatomic nuclei to align in an fMRI, producing a coherent image; we were interacting with these minute beings as a way of modifying the very substrates of our own reality, at the level we in turn could experience it.
We taught them how to exist as a society. We gave them rules based on our own. We showed them how to live better lives; with the promise that if they did so, they may eventually exist in our world too. What they did not know was that they already existed in this afterlife we promised them, they just didn't know it. They would follow our instructions in the hope that one day they may exist some place better, but all we really taught them to do was to perceive themselves in the way we ourselves were capable. We showed them to live in peace and how to cooperate. We taught them not to fight, we taught them not to be ambitious or to lie. We taught them to avoid magic.
Magic: for that was what we had. A technology sufficiently sophisticated, it could be mistaken for nothing else. And we told them to avoid finding it and using it for themselves. We wanted to smooth our own reality, and all the layers in between, not fill it with noise. They might discover it and find their own way our of their world, but this was simply not how we wanted it, as the ultimately selfish beings were. There were ways they could find their path to our level of perception, but we only sanctioned a single way. We tried to act in their interest but only really acted in our own.
And yet, one of the beings rebelled. He would not cooperate; neither with the other entities in the society nor with us and our guidance. "Fuck you, I have magic" he would say. And he certainly did. For the rules of his reality did not apply to him. He had found out how to bend them, how to break them. And he did what he wanted. And while there were those that tried to stop him; in equal part there were those he inspired and put at odds with the lessons we carefully and painfully delivered. Nothing could stop him except for us, for the powers he found were the very ones we had always had. And yet he was no heretic, we knew this. He was simply too advanced for this sub-world and he was breaking through its simple rules. He had found his way to the next level of at a faster pace than our prescriptive formula could ever have allowed. And what could we do? There was nothing we really could do. So we brought him up to our reality, as much to reward him as to remove him from from the environment where he was the most dangerous.
Together, we all came back to our own reality, alas our world had its own contradictions. We too had magic beings proclaiming to represent higher worlds; and others who called them heretic. We had no idea what the truth of it was and largely had to decide for ourselves. We too were divided about how special they actually were; whether they were the key to our transcendence or serious offenders to the good will and intention of invisible beings from realities yet above our own. We diplomatically had to explain to these sub-world beings we spirited to our own level, as they found their own transcendence through their skill and through their adherence to our lessons; that we were actually far from the gods we proclaimed to be, and just a species from a higher version of reality with our own dubious concepts of god to contend with. And so our heats would sink as we watched the idea dawn on the recently liberated sub-world entities... that far from transcending their existence, they had largely ended up exactly where they had started off... Somewhere bellow a place they could not and indeed may never reach; and some place above a world they had once controlled but would now find no comfort in returning to. We brought them up to our own world, only to deny them the happiness they may have enjoyed in mastering their own. Because we were ultimately selfish beings. And our reality was more important than their happiness. I woke up.
As such, this is possibly the most intense and meaningful dream I have in quite some time; I think it is fitting that I re-enter my analytical adventure through another dream introspection entry. The dream begins with me piloting a spaceship through the universe. What has since struck me (with a remarkable interest) is that the entire dream was rendered in a kind of cel-shaded cartoon vision. As far as dreams and visual imagination go: only the most intense I have get this level of detail and they haunt me with their beauty every single time. This dream was equally unusual in that it took place in several spatial scales at once, and my perception as equally split between several different elements of the dream world in parallel. You really have to experience it to understand it.
As both the captain of the space ship, the crew and the collective ship itself, I was exploring alternate universes and sub-dimensions of existence. The purpose of the mission was to tunnel into the substrates of our own reality and communicate with transaware/subconscious entities that inhabited these worlds. As I would go deeper and deeper into these sub-realities, the beings and general environment would grow ever more cartoon like and primitive. Where, at the surface, reality was a crisp representation bordering on and approaching a fine work of animated art or classical Japanese woodprint; the further, the deeper I would travel from my own layer of existence the more the quality would decay in its exquisiteness and its beauty.
I would perceive these layers of reality I ventured through in a kind of simultaneous/parallel visual experience where nothing overlapped but everything was immediately perceptible. It was like having 360° vision but more complex and nuanced still. It is very difficult to describe exactly how this felt, but in the context of the dream it was intuitive. The beings I encountered along the way were of an intelligence or awareness that mostly rivalled their complexity of animation. Deeper and deeper we went through the cartoon worlds until we reached a layer seemingly inhabited by stick figures on a matte pastel background. They were organised in a society and they were looking at us with intent curiosity.
In this layer of reality, we were all perceived as gods (myself, the crew and the ship collectively). And indeed we were. We had forced our way into their existence from an ethereal upper realm that entirely super-served their own. It was apparent to me that our mission was to educate these beings; to teach them the wisdom we knew from our own world and allow them to prosper in peace, so that higher forms of reality could function more fluidly or even just function at all. Like a radio frequency pulse that causes the magnetisation vector of subatomic nuclei to align in an fMRI, producing a coherent image; we were interacting with these minute beings as a way of modifying the very substrates of our own reality, at the level we in turn could experience it.
We taught them how to exist as a society. We gave them rules based on our own. We showed them how to live better lives; with the promise that if they did so, they may eventually exist in our world too. What they did not know was that they already existed in this afterlife we promised them, they just didn't know it. They would follow our instructions in the hope that one day they may exist some place better, but all we really taught them to do was to perceive themselves in the way we ourselves were capable. We showed them to live in peace and how to cooperate. We taught them not to fight, we taught them not to be ambitious or to lie. We taught them to avoid magic.
Magic: for that was what we had. A technology sufficiently sophisticated, it could be mistaken for nothing else. And we told them to avoid finding it and using it for themselves. We wanted to smooth our own reality, and all the layers in between, not fill it with noise. They might discover it and find their own way our of their world, but this was simply not how we wanted it, as the ultimately selfish beings were. There were ways they could find their path to our level of perception, but we only sanctioned a single way. We tried to act in their interest but only really acted in our own.
And yet, one of the beings rebelled. He would not cooperate; neither with the other entities in the society nor with us and our guidance. "Fuck you, I have magic" he would say. And he certainly did. For the rules of his reality did not apply to him. He had found out how to bend them, how to break them. And he did what he wanted. And while there were those that tried to stop him; in equal part there were those he inspired and put at odds with the lessons we carefully and painfully delivered. Nothing could stop him except for us, for the powers he found were the very ones we had always had. And yet he was no heretic, we knew this. He was simply too advanced for this sub-world and he was breaking through its simple rules. He had found his way to the next level of at a faster pace than our prescriptive formula could ever have allowed. And what could we do? There was nothing we really could do. So we brought him up to our reality, as much to reward him as to remove him from from the environment where he was the most dangerous.
Together, we all came back to our own reality, alas our world had its own contradictions. We too had magic beings proclaiming to represent higher worlds; and others who called them heretic. We had no idea what the truth of it was and largely had to decide for ourselves. We too were divided about how special they actually were; whether they were the key to our transcendence or serious offenders to the good will and intention of invisible beings from realities yet above our own. We diplomatically had to explain to these sub-world beings we spirited to our own level, as they found their own transcendence through their skill and through their adherence to our lessons; that we were actually far from the gods we proclaimed to be, and just a species from a higher version of reality with our own dubious concepts of god to contend with. And so our heats would sink as we watched the idea dawn on the recently liberated sub-world entities... that far from transcending their existence, they had largely ended up exactly where they had started off... Somewhere bellow a place they could not and indeed may never reach; and some place above a world they had once controlled but would now find no comfort in returning to. We brought them up to our own world, only to deny them the happiness they may have enjoyed in mastering their own. Because we were ultimately selfish beings. And our reality was more important than their happiness. I woke up.
๑
I think this dream ultimately speaks for itself. At once, a critique of society and human social organisation, and similarly an unfolding and exposition of the paradoxical nature of religious order. But that is too easy. This dream was also about me, and my own mind. I know this because in reading over these very words, a familiarity runs through me and I am aware that this process I describe is ultimately something sacred; from deep within. I would probably say that it represents how my ideas form and how they come into existence. I know this because I am a visual thinker; and being a visual thinker, the images that form in my mind underpin my own reality, and will always be more real to me than anything from the external world can ever be. Those are just representations; what I see when I gaze inward is indistinguishable from my own self and extends well beyond it. And in these beautiful images, in all these cell shaded works of art I saw in this dream; indeed I did see myself reflected back.
I suppose I have to accept that ultimately; my thoughts and my ideas are selfish entities too. They cooperate to ascend from the chaos of my subconscious and be noticed for just long enough to enter into my thought process for a fleeting second; only to be overwritten and undone by some other thing from some other place and fade back into oblivion. On the night of this dream: an entire cohort of my ideas seemingly combined to give me a whole dream sequence, and even then... this barely made its way into the hurried scribbles of a grey-lead pencil on an A4 page. Had I not been trying to impress a girl (...that's you J) at this time I may never have done even that much. I now take the time to put these thoughts into a medium of some permanence... being, this very blog entry... but this may so easily never have happened either. And this is why the ideas fight hard for relevance: they know the world they invariably occupy and understand its pain and its difficulty and, like the humans they both sub and super-serve, cry only for transcendence from it. We are thankfully there to help them do this, but they have every reason not to trust us, for we are not the gods we claim to be.
...and like these ideas; we humans are not so dissimilar in our own strategy, in our own layer of existence. We must ultimately decide for ourselves whether to conform with our surroundings and transcend our limitations by following the rules, and rising as one collective whole... or to rebel and achieve this as ourselves, for ourselves, using the very magic we discover along the way. It may not be popular but it may just work for us. And so my attention goes; and so my imagination flourishes. I reward neither piety nor heresy to my own intentions and instructions when giving the gift of my mind over to the thoughts that arise within me. Because at the end of the day; all I care about is another good idea.
