Waking Life Page #8

I'm not in an objective,

rational world.

Like, I've been,

like, flying around.

Uh...

I don't know. It's weird, too,

because it's not like a fixed state.

It's more like this whole

spectrum of awareness.

Like the lucidity wavers.

Like, right now I know

that I'm dreaming, right?

We're, like,

even talking about it.

This is the most in myself and in

my thoughts that I've been so far.

I'm talking

about being in a dream.

But I'm beginning

to think...

that it's something that I don't

really have any precedent for.

It's... It's totally unique.

The... The quality

of... of the environment...

and the information

that I'm receiving.

Like your soap opera,

for example.

That's a really cool idea.

I didn't come up with that.

It's like something outside of myself.

It's like something

transmitted to me externally.

I don't know what this is.

We seem to think we're

so limited by the world...

and... and the confines,

but we're really just creating them.

And you keep trying

to figure it out,

but it seems like now that you know

that what you're doing is dreaming,

you can do

whatever you want to.

You're, uh, dreaming,

but you're awake.

You have, um,

so many options,

and that's

what life is about.

I understand

what you're saying.

It's up to me.

I'm the dreamer.

It's weird. Like, so much

of the information...

that... that these people

have been imparting to me...

I don't know. It's got this, like,

really heavy connotation to it.

- Well, how do you feel?

- Well,

Well, sometimes

I feel kind of isolated,

but most of the time,

I feel really connected,

really, like, engaged

in this active process.

Which is kind of weird

because most of the time,

I've just been really passive

and not really responding,

except for now, I guess.

I'm just kind of letting

the information wash over me.

It's not necessarily passive

to not respond verbally.

We're communicating

on so many levels simultaneously.

Perhaps you're...

you're perceiving directly.

Most of the people that

I've been encountering...

and most of the things

that I would wanna say,

it's like they kind of say it

for me and almost at my cue.

It's, like,

complete unto itself.

It's not like I'm having a bad dream.

It's a great dream.

But...

it's so unlike any other dream

I've ever had before.

It's like the dream.

It's like I'm being

prepared for something.

"On this bridge,"

Lorca warns,

"life is not a dream.

"Beware and beware and...

beware. "

And so many think

because "then" happens,

"now" isn't.

But didn't I mention the ongoing "wow"

is happening right now?

We are all coauthors

of this dancing exuberance...

where even our inabilities

are having a roast.

We are the authors

of ourselves,

coauthoring a gigantic

Dostoyevsky novel starring clowns.

This entire thing we're involved

with called the world...

is an opportunity to exhibit

how exciting alienation can be.

Life is a matter of a miracle

that is collected over time...

by moments flabbergasted

to be in each other's presence.

The world is an exam to see if we can

rise into the direct experiences.

Our eyesight is here as a test

to see if we can see beyond it.

Matter is here as a test

for our curiosity.

Doubt is here as an exam

for our vitality.

Thomas Mann wrote that he would

rather participate in life...

than write

a hundred stories.

Giacometti was once

run down by a car,

and he recalled

falling into a lucid faint,

a sudden exhiliration,

as he realized at last

something was happening to him.

An assumption develops that you cannot

understand life and live life simultaneously.

I do not agree entirely. Which is

to say I do not exactly disagree.

I would say that life

understood is life lived.

But the paradoxes bug me,

and I can learn to love

and make love...

to the paradoxes

that bug me.

And on really romantic

evenings of self,

I go salsa dancing

with my confusion.

Before you drift off,

don't forget.

Which is to say,

remember.

Because remembering is so much more

a psychotic activity than forgetting.

Lorca in that

same poem said...

that the iguana will bite those

who do not dream.

And as one realizes...

that one

is a dream figure...

in another person's dream,

that is self-awareness.

You haven't

met yourself yet.

But the advantage to meeting others

in the meantime...

is that one of them

may present you to yourself.

Examine the nature...

of everything

you observe.

For instance,

you might find yourself

walking through...

a dream parking lot.

And, yes, those are dream feet

inside of your dream shoes.

Part of your dream self.

And so,

the person you appear

to be in the dream...

cannot be

who you really are.

This is an image,

a mental model.

Do you remember me?

No. No, I don't think so.

At the station?

You were on the pay phone

and you looked at me...

a few times.

I remember that,

but I don't remember that being you.

Are you sure?

Well, maybe not.

I was sitting down...

and you were looking at me.

My little friend, dream no more.

It's really here.

It's called Efferdent Plus.

In hell, you sink to the level

of your lack of love.

In heaven, you rise to the level

of your fullness of love.

Hurry up! Come on!

Get in the car! Let's go.

Allegedly,

the story goes like this.

Billy Wilder

runs into Louis Malle.

This was in the late '50s,

early '60s.

And Louis Malle had just made his most expensive

film, which had cost 21/2 million dollars.

And Billy Wilder asks him

what the film is about.

And Louis Malle says,

"It's sort of a dream within a dream. "

And Billy Wilder says,

"You just lost 21/2 million dollars. "

I feel a little more apprehensive

about this one than I did...

Down through the centuries, the notion

that life is wrapped in a dream...

has been a pervasive theme

of philosophers and poets.

So doesn't it make sense that death,

too, would be wrapped in dream?

That, after death,

your conscious life would continue...

in what might be called,

"a dream body"?

It would be the same dream body you

experience in your everyday dream life.

Except that

in the post-mortal state,

you could never

again wake up,

never again return

to your physical body.

As the pattern gets

more intricate and subtle,

being swept along

is no longer enough.

What's the word, turd?

Hey, do you also

drive a boat car?

- A what? - You gave me a ride

in a car that was also a boat.

No, man, I don't have a boat car.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Man, this must be, like,

parallel universe night.

You know that cat

that was just in here,

who just ran out

the door?

Well, he comes up to the counter,

and I say, "What's the word, turd?"

And he lays down this burrito and he kind of

looks at me, kind of stares at me and says,

"I have but recently returned from

the valley of the shadow of death.

"I'm rapturously breathing in all

the odors and essences of life.

"I've been to the brink

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