


Skip to the end if you want to see a funny picture.
Otherwise, read on if you dare. I warn you, it's gonna get a bit "free-flowy."
You know how sometimes a theme pops up in your life? A bunch of coincidental things happen in a row and it feels too unlikely that it's just a coincidence? I love that. Even though it probably just is a coincidence or you're thinking about something so you're more atune to other happenings of the same nature.
Anyway, my most recent theme is the relation between consciousness and physicality - mind and body (sort of).
If you've ever been high, whatever your drug choice is, you know that physical reactions cause mental changes. Drinking makes you drunk, smoking pot makes you paranoid or giggly or lightheaded, taking ecstasy makes you euphoric, heroin makes every pain melt away. Even smoking a cigarette causes a mental change.
I'm reading "Theatre of the Mind" by Jay Ingram right now. He used to host "Daily Planet" on the Discovery Channel and "Quirks and Quarks" on CBC. I saw the book at my friend Claire and Jaron's apartment a while ago and decided to buy it recently. It seemed a more plausible read than my perpetually half-finished "Godel Escher Bach" endeavour (that was an inside joke for GEB-readers) that started 4 years ago.
I'm not that far into "Theatre of the Mind," but it's about trying to understand what consciousness is, if it is tied to a specific physical part of our bodies, and why we are conscious of ourselves. (The book talks about animals being alive and thinking about getting food or escaping harm, but that animals don't stop and ponder themselves. Their feelings are direct responses to the present.) Ingram often talks about how our conscious thoughts seem to appear behind our eyes. When you recall a memory or think of what an apple looks like, the image seems to present itself one or two inches back from the centre of your eyes (AKA, the "Theatre of the Mind," the stage on which your consciousness plays out). Why don't these visions materialize at the back of the head, or a couple inches outside of the skull? Is it possible to have out of body experiences by moving your conscious
Apparently, ancient cultures believed the heart to be the centre of consciousness because it is where the physical response to conscious thought most obviously appears. I have always struggled to understand why thoughts I have can cause physical pains or aches in my body. I also am trying to understand why drugs and alcohol can make those pains disappear.
This brings up when I first thought about separating my consciousness from my physical self. After a mind-bending (read inebriated) summer, I had a thought about the idea of Heaven. I have always thought that Heaven would be pretty damn boring. I mean, if you have to do boring things and follow The Bible or whatever doctrine you choose to follow in order to get into Heaven or Nirvana then chances are you have to keep doing those things once you're in. SNORE. I always find the best things in life are the opposite of religious ideals. Namely sex, drugs, and all those other deadly sins. My idea of Heaven is a bareback massage orgy in chocolate sauce followed by cancer-free cigarettes and champagne with
HENRY CAVILL (shut up he's hot) on the couch watching endless all new episodes of The Sarah Silverman Program and throwing my best actor/director/screenwriter Oscars at the screen when we don't like a joke one of the ugly gays makes (I have a LOT of Oscars in Heaven). At least that's one version.
So, if being free of all those wonderful sinful things on Earth is what gets you into Heaven, then you must have to do those things in Heaven. And if that's all you do in Heaven, then shouldn't the people who do those things on Earth be in Heaven already? Heaven on Earth? Shouldn't they be so blissed out by being good Christians that they have no pain in their lives? If not, what's going to make them be blissed out in Heaven? What's going to be different? That's when it came to me.
Heaven, if it does exist, is a place where no matter what you're doing you're enjoying it. That's exactly what drugs are. Why else would it be so much fun to be pure?
So then, if Heaven is the same thing as drugs, then why not just do drugs all the time? Why not just alienate yourself from everyone and chase the dragon off the cliff? Get higher and higher till you die. You'd be in Heaven on Earth, and since I don't actually believe in any afterlife, why not experience it now? It's a complete separation of your mind from your body - or at least an alteration of your body by your mind.
This is the idea of Tantra and Tantric sex as well - using your mind to create bliss in your body.
Same with trying to attain Nirvana - you're attempting to free your mind from the constraints of the body. My friend Ariel just went to a retreat and meditated in silence for 10 hours a day for 10 days straight. She wrote to me:
"Back from meditating. I'm enlightened, wheee!
But really, I am changed. Life changed. Clear. Inspired. I have learned how
to release and free myself from misery."Thank God it worked cause I didn't do the website changes she asked me to do while she was gone.
My friend David was looking at himself in a reflection on the streetcar. He said he feels better knowing he can see himself. He said it would be great to be able to get past the idea of the reflection as only a narcissistic object. I told him that I remembered looking into the mirror as a kid, really looking. I was only 6, and it was the first time I thought "Why am I in this body?" It's funny how shit you figure out or think about as a kid comes back up in university, and you think "Oh, I really was touching on some deep crap when I was 6." Anyway, I remember it really freaking me out that my conscious mind seemed to be this alien peeking through my eyes and analyzing the physical form of me that I could see in the mirror. In that last sentance "I" becomes a manifestation of two beings - the physical "I" and the conscious "I". This is something I recognized when I was 6.
So then I just watched
PAPRIKA, an Anime film about a machine that allows you to share your dreams - the actual experience of your dreams - with other people. People are able to visit other conscious minds. The dreams meld into each other and soon the physical world and dream world meld and switch. People act out their dreams in real life and die, people get killed in the real world from dream-wounds, and dream-objects enter the real world. It touches where Nightmare on Elm Street and The Cell could not.
Then while listening to Anna Karenina (I bought the audiobook to listen to during the drudgery of housework - thanks to
CORRIBLE for the reco) yesterday a few characters discussed whether or not
"a line should be drawn between the physiological and psychological experience in man. And if so, where?" They go on to talk about how if they can't even understand the psychological experience (consciousness) then how could they denounce religion/spirituality? That freaked me out. Anna fucking Karenina was preaching to me about consciousness and Heaven.
Finally, tonight, I went to see a movie. I'm completely ashamed of myself for wanting to see it, and for actually going to see it in a theatre. If it makes you feel better I didn't have to pay for it. I went to see..........
ENCHANTED! Heaven help me for admitting that on my blog, but if you've come this far I expect that you might be open to hearing what I have to say about it.
I went to see it with a friend, who shall remain nameless in order to protect his or her identity, because I needed something light and stupid and funny and kind of wanted to see Enchanted. So did my friend. Plus Amy Adams is such a fuckin great actress. We laughed at ourselves as we skooched past little girls and their fathers to find our seats. In the movie, a Disney princess is cast into our world by a wicked witch so that she can't marry the wicked witch's stepson, the prince, and become queen. I knew the premise before I went, but I didn't realize until we were in the theatre why I was drawn to see it (other than the fact that I've seen The Little Mermaid about 50 times). It hit me that it was all about physical and dream states. Also, a fairytale Disney romance is many-a-person's idea of heaven. This movie was a very simplistic take on reality versus dream, physical versus dream/spirit/consciousness.
So this theme of separating reality, mind from body, physical from conscious keeps presenting itself. It keeps challenging me to take it on. But what will be my weapon? Booze? Drugs? Meditation? Tantra? Books? Films? Love?
Fucked if I know. Look at the kitties!




Labels: BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM, NOBODY LIKES A NERD, REALLY FUCKING GAY, SEX