Today, I've had one of those profoundly moving experiences. An experience that you only have a couple times during your life. An experience that breaks your everyday monotony, an experience that makes you experience the outside world with greater intensity, with greater immersion. Often times, so much of our wakeful existence, simply consists of doing the same mundane tasks being only half awake or not awake at all.
Before I get to this experience, which took place in the airport. I will briefly reflect back onto my childhood, when I for the first time, had this type of an experience. An experience of being fully awake, fully emerged in the moment, an experience where you the "being in time" experience the current moment with the full intensity of the senses, where the brief moment in time, overwhelms and swallows up the person completely. The moment of awareness happened, when I was 5 years old.
I woke up in the morning, in the warm bed, facing the balcony, presented with the the overarching landscape of the world. I thought to my self for the first time, "How did I get here, how did I come to be in this bed?" Up until this point, all of my actions as a "being" were played out without me, as if my body, my being was running on autopilot up until this point. Like some type of a biological machine, it was simply responding and reacting to the world, without me... and the "conscious part, the self-aware part arose" that morning. I remember having my memories of the previous days before that morning, but it was as if they were merely implanted in me. Everything before that moment did not really have "me" present, at least not in its entirety. That morning I woke up, and I had a feeling of self, as being part of the world, and at the same as being distinct from everything around me, being awoken out of my deep eternal slumber, having an identity, having sentience.
I had the access to the memories that this body accumulated through the 5 years of its existence. Although, I need to note that having access to these memories was alien and foreign to me. Indeed these memories were "my memories" or the memories that this form has collected through its 5 years of existence , but like I've mentioned just a moment before, up until this morning, I(the being, the conscious self-aware agent that inhabited this body) wasn't really fully there with my body. "I" was in a deep slumber, waiting to emerge, "I" was dormant, waiting for the moment until this body would reach a certain level of maturity or physiological development, before the body could fully accommodate me, or "express me fully".
Well that level of physiological development(or complexity), was attained that morning. I could describe it as being similar to downloading a file and having 99% of the data downloaded. Without the missing 1%, the file is not complete and cannot be "booted". It is only once you get the last 1% downloaded and installed, that the file is complete, and you are able to "boot" it. So the night that led up to that morning must have completed the installation of that 1% that was necessary. That morning with the waking of my physical body , I woke as well.
So, I look out the balcony window, into the world... Which the body has done before... and I think to my self, "Where am I, how did I get here?" This experience of looking out the window isn't even new to me, since the body has gone through this experience before, and I have a sense of familiarity attached to it... but today I am experiencing the world, not only as a "machine" that responds to stimulus. Today I am experiencing the world as a "being" in time. So I get up out of bed, and I had the memories of my friend living next door(who was a 5-6-year-old boy like me). I got up, got dressed, and went ahead, left my home, went to his apartment, knocked on his door... and he came out... it was so strange. It was like meeting a stranger for the first time, yet having full familiarity and memories of the person, and he recognized me. What I am getting at, that the wakeful part(the conscious part), had this weird transitioning period, where it got woken into existence, and it needed to fully synthesize itself with the body(or with the machine)...
Anyways, we went outside... it wasn't my first time outside, but TODAY I've experienced this day being fully emerged in the world, being aware of it, and being aware of myself being in it. To be completely honest, I've experienced the world with such intensity; in this fresh 5-year-old body, all of the senses were sharp and brand new, all of the experiences... new and stimulating. The world seemed so mysterious and interesting, so good. To exist, to be alive, seemed the greatest "good" imaginable, the world seemed so promising, so exciting.
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Now in hindsight, if I were to be reunited with my early childhood friend(from whom I've been separated at the age of ~6), the friend whose name and face I don't even remember. I think if we were to be reunited, the feeling would not be that of happiness or rejoice, rather than of dread and a huge disappointment.
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Also in hindsight, I envy my 5-year-old self, not only for being so naive and ignorant at that moment in my youth. Ignorant of the coldness and harshness of the world and the suffering that that awaited me. I also envy my 5-year-old self for having the vigor and clearness of the senses associated with the young body... senses that were capable of examining the world with such intensity, with such clarity; clarity of the mind and sharpness of the senses which have dulled with time, and lost their previous "edge", just like a sharp knife loses it's edge with the passage of time, and is no longer the instrument that it once was.
The sheer power of the "intellect" or if you like the sheer processing power of the brain that I had at that moment in my childhood was probably TEN TIMES greater when compared to the state in which it currently is(aging is brutal beyond comprehension).
It is something about the development of the body, that the intellect, or the processing power of the brain ...is capable of taking in so much new information with such ease, and in such quantity at that age. The body needs to furnish the brain with the knowledge of the world so that the individual could survive in this cold harsh world...
I remember the two distinct peaks in which the body prioritized it's energy surplus to the brain, for the overall good of the organism. Those periods were; ages 5-6(leaving mothers side3, and exploring the world independently for the first time), and ages 14-17(sexual maturity, competition for reproductive rights, survival of the germline/selfish gene).
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My neighbor asked me to drop him off at an airport(him, his wife, and his friend), they are flying to visit their families for Christmas and New-Years. The request was made, to drop them off at the airport and then to drive his car back home(we live next to one another), and then pick him up 3 weeks later once he comes back from his trip. Anyways, they(my neighbor and his wife) have seen me once or twice in the last couple of weeks, but his friend, whom I did not even remember, although I have met him about a year or two ago, hasn't seen me for something close to two years. So he says, "Ohh, new style, a new look." I'm thinking who is this guy? I don't really remember him. I ask, "Have we met." He replies, "Yes, a year or two ago." (I....still can't remember him...)
Our eyes meet briefly, and "he sensed it", I don't know if he understood it, or fully grasped, what he just saw, I am not even sure if he was conscious of it... but I could see and feel, that at the very least his "senses" picked up on it. Just like I've sensed it in a "very strange dream" that I've had as a child. He saw the depth, or the heaviness carved into my eyes, not so much the eyes themselves, but what lies behind the eyes somehow got reflected through the eyes, almost as if the eyes are the windows into the inner state of whatever a man truly is. Behind the mask of the "persona", into the depths of "being" or the "true self".
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When I was a child growing up, for my summer vacations, I use to leave the big city that I've lived in. I use to travel to my grandfathers' farm for the purposes of visiting him and spending time with him. I use to spend about two months living on his farm every summer. The farm was far away from civilization or the modern world. You had to take a dirt road to get there. It was surrounded by deep, thick forest, separated by patches of land that were used for agriculture.
Anyways, when I was 6 years old, I remember waking up in the middle of the night for no good reason, and I wanted to visit our horse. The horse was left in the fields to graze on the grass. Halters were secured to the horses head, ~20-30 ft rope was connected to the halters, the other end of the rope was connected to a small metal pin, which was pummeled into the ground in order to secure the horse a piece of land.
I don't know what time it was, but me waking up in the middle of the night... has never happened before. Furthermore, I would never leave the home at night... but that night, for whatever reason, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I was just drawn, or compelled to visit the horse. So I got up and left, the horse has been stationed in the field about half a mile away. It was night time, so it was dark outside. There were no artificial sources of light present anywhere, although the moon was out, and the moon illuminated the land below. (Also, your eyes quickly adapt to the dark, and even with the slightest amount of light, you will be able to see in the dark.)
As I am walking to the location of the field where the horse was stationed in. The "air" started to feel heavy, it felt like I was walking through dense air. When you are in a huge open field, on a huge stretch of open land, you get this sense of "vastness", you get this spatial awareness of the land. As I got close, and gained vision of the location of where the horse was supposed to be stationed in(the location was on a slight incline/hill, so I had to get really close to gain vision of the area). As soon as I got there, I saw a pack of wolves devouring my horse.
One of the wolves lifts his head up, sniffs the air, turns his head around and sees me looking at them. Instantly without any hesitation, he turns his body around and started running towards me. I was maybe 50 feet away from them. I wanted to run, but my whole body froze. I was trying my hardest to move, but I was completely frozen in fear. I could not move a single muscle. On the inside I was trying my hardest, but the body would not move. I did not understand what was happening, I did not understand why could not move, I was so afraid, I've never felt fear, not like this, to the point where it paralyzes the body.
Just in a couple of seconds, the wolf was standing in front of me. The wolf was actually about the same height as me, I could see the blood on his snout. The wolf stepped forward, his face was about 2-3 feet away from my face, he sniffed me, he stepped back, and then stepped forward, and pressed the front of his snout to my lips, and started licking my lips, and my teeth. I could actually feel his teeth press against my lips. My heart was pounding, the adrenaline was rushing, but I could not move, even If I could have... I would have been too afraid to do anything, it would have been pointless, I had no hope of running away.
The licking was very rough, very ferocious. I could feel his teeth press against my teeth, and after about 5-6 seconds of this licking of my lips, of my mouth, of my teeth, the wolf backed off. As he stepped away, his back was arched, and he was positioned sideways to me. His tail was in between his legs, he looks at me. It seemed like he wanted to wag his tail, he seemed overwhelmed with joy, almost hysterical, the wolf seemed possessed, as it tried to wag his tail(which was in between his legs) his whole body moved in an erratic way, almost unable to contain his joy, and then he stopped, turned around and ran back to the pack
As I was seeing the wolf run back to his pack, my body relaxed. I could move again. Although I was still in a high alertness/shock mode. I've noticed a human figure standing about 15-20 feet away from the wolves. Instantly, I've assumed the wolves must belong to that person standing there(I was 6). Since I saw another person standing there, and after being approached by the wolf and not being devoured by him. I've lost all of my sensation of fear and deemed it to be "safe" to approach the other person. Maybe my curiosity just overwrote the sensation of fear. I started walking towards the figure. With every single step, the air got thicker and heavier. It felt, as if I was walking through heavy dense water, also the sensation of "vastness" or my spacial awareness of the outside, began to nauseate and disorient me. With every single step, the weight and density of air increased.
As soon, I got to the figure, I've noticed that the figure was a girl, slightly taller than me. Shaggy, short brown hair. I've told her, that her wolves are eating my horse. She did not respond, look or even notice that I was there. I asked her, what her name was, I said mine is Thomas, no response. She was staring into the direction of the wolves. I've asked her why won't she respond. I've suddenly realized, the heaviness of the air, the nauseating feeling of the vastness of this space, increased even more.
As I was standing next to her, I realized that my body was now completely adjusted to this pressure, but the pressure was still there. The pressure was pressing on me from all of the directions, the feeling of this crushing pressure felt really good for some reason, it was very "all-encompassing, firm and soothing"? Experience similar to that of being really deep underwater, and being crushed by the mass of the water, yet this sensation being very pleasant.
I've asked why is she not talking to me, who is she, why won't she tell me what her name was? And then she slowly turned to me, lifted her face ever so slightly, and looked at me, and I looked into her eyes. The eyes had some otherworldly quality of the "wilderness" or just "pure raw nature". I remember the expression on her face. The eyes of complete detachment from this place, from this time. Being not connected with the world, being so "indifferent" to this place.... the face was completely expressionless, the skin was pale and smooth. Actually, when she looked at me, her gaze, her iris did not focus, she looked completely through me, even while looking at me.
I felt inferior for the first time in my life. I could not fully grasp it at that moment, but I subconsciously understood that she was above me. The sensation of fear without the sensation of fear overcame my body(it was that vibration resonating in my body, without the actual sensory sensation of fear), and the sensation of sharp lighting striking my body, without the intense pain. It's almost like like the signals or vibrations for those emotions were expressed in me, but I did not get to experience the unpleasant sensation of those vibrations. I felt those emotions without "actually feeling them."
Then her gaze... I could see such depth, such vastness in the eyes, yet they were so indifferent, so detached from the world, so above this realm. Her gaze however so faintly, focused on me. She looked at me, almost with some distant faint sense of guilt or sadness. Almost as if my fate was, my future had been laid out before her eyes. And she took pity on me.
I wake up in my bed, I have no idea how did I get to my bed? The last moment that I remember was me standing on the hill, looking at that girl? It wasn't a dream, I know it wasn't a dream, why am I in my bed, how did I get here?
I got dressed, I went outside... and I am in disbelief, but maybe this was a dream? Even when I know it clearly wasn't. I had the full sensory awareness of the whole experience. Feeling, hearing, seeing...In fact the experience was more real, more intense, then actually being for sure awake now... there were no gaps, no skips in the experience(like you would have in a dream)... how did I get to the bed? What happened to the horse? Is the horse dead? Where is the girl? My grandfather walks in through the door, and says that the horse has been killed by the wolves, and partially eaten by them, we go see the horse, it is a partially eaten carcass.
So this wasn't a dream? But how did I get to bed? I have no memory of this part. I don't say anything to anyone, about what happened at night.
Then we went to visit, a neighboring farmer. To see if any of his animals got attacked by the wolves, none of them did. Although the farmer had a goat, and the goat just gave a birth to a bunch of "goat babies", and I asked where do babies come from?(I did know about sexual reproduction/birth... I did not know how any of the beings that inhabit the world come into existence.)(I did not learn about the process of sexual reproduction and birth until the age of 8)
So they said, that the mother goat, brings them from the woods.... So I've asked is that where humans come from as well? The woods? Someone brings them from the woods? And they said yes.... and then, of course, I believed this "innocent lie". That girl, I've instantly assumed to be my sister. It must have been, she must have been created by the "magic of the world", and she was waiting in the woods for someone to bring her home out of the woods. It just made perfect sense, everything added up. I rationalized that the detached look in her eyes, was the result of her being really sad. She was waiting for someone to bring her out of the woods. And that strange feeling of pressure, it must be the magic of creation wearing off, or maybe she has magical powers? Maybe she can teach me magic? That would be so cool!...and the wolves... ahh the wolves must have been her guardians taking care of her! I don't know, but it was so easy to rationalize the whole experience to my 6-year-old self, as soon as I got some context(false context), to which I could attach the whole story to.
To my 6-year-old self, the world was still a magical place, filled with magic, witches and monsters, ghosts, aliens...Of course, I decided to look for that girl. I was obsessed, I was drawn, I was completely consumed.
I remember being so afraid, to venture into the woods, especially deep into the woods. I did not know, what monsters, what creatures hid deep in the woods... I remember, building up courage, to pass a certain point, and once I passed it, building my courage up again to pass even a further point in the woods. Until I've lost all fear of whatever might lurk in the woods and just searched frantically.
So I've spent the whole summer venturing deep, deep into the woods, into all directions searching for her. I really believed that she is somewhere up there waiting to be discovered . I remember, losing all track of time, and just exploring the woods from dawn till dusk, looking for her hopelessly. I remember comming back home, my great-grandmother beat me with her cane, she asked me where did I disappear to. Everyone was looking for me... I told her I was in the woods, I did not even care, all I could think about was her, nothing else mattered. Those eyes, they were the eyes of some wild animal, not even animals that that quality or that level of the "pure raw nature" embued in them. That indifferent, detached expression on her face... that overwhelming pressure, the sense of vastness. Of course, I never found her.
Just a side anecdote: I remember my Psychology professor, mentioning that his father, who was a really cold, calculated, and emotionless nuclear physics researcher. Saw something like this at the end of his bed when he was a little child. My psychology professor said, that his father was disappointed that he, namely his son became a half "doctor"(namely masters in psychology), and did not get a "real" doctorate degree. He said, his father is an emotionless bastard that doesn't have a sense of humor, he is void of any emotion, he doesn't ever joke around, he doesn't ever laugh. Yet absolutely genius when it comes to the sciences. His father swore that the reason why he got interested in science, is because when he was a child, he saw something standing at the edge of his bed....
I bugged my psychology professor to tell me more... So he told me, his father, when he was a child, got woken up in the middle of the night for no reason, by some type of pressure, he said he felt as if the air turned heavy, and that the space of his room expanded? He looked at the end of his bed and saw a dark figure standing there. He hid under his sheets and was too afraid to look at it. But ever since that day, he was interested in science, that's why he pursued sciences, and he swears it really happened, he wasn't dreaming, he wasn't imagining, he said whatever it was, scared the living the daylight out of him, he thought it was a space alien or some dimensional traveler. And my psychology professor said, to hear this from his father, knowing what kind of a man he is... just beyond comprehension... but he swears by it, it really happened, and it wasn't a dream of some type of a hallucination. He said, the experience moves his father so much, that that experience was the single reason
When I heard the words, heavy air, and space expansion(vastness), I knew this was something very similar to my experience...although I took a good look at the "being", whatever it might have been...
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After a brief pause he says, "Will we be able to have a common language with you now, a change in style, you are a Muslim now?(This is a slight roast, due to my beard, which he is seeing for the first time, and his last memory of me, was of me being completely clean shaven.)...and all of us are very "white", prime Eastern European genetics. Everyone acts, and looks a certain way. Having dark hair accompanied by a beard is "different", although not that different when compared to the norm of "white people". Everyone giggles at the remark. My neighbor's wife, who is a typical tall skinny LOW IQ blonde(my neighbor is a classic case betabux provider), say's that the look suits me or fits me very well, it looks good on me. Anyways, we grab the luggage, throw it into the back of the car, and some of the surplus we take to the back seat.
It's something like 6PM, it's mid-December... It's really cold and dark outside, not much snow(Chicago). All 4 of us get into the car, my neighbor is driving, his friend is front, me and his wife packed with the luggage are sitting in the back. Anyways, as we are driving to the airport, which is like 25 miles away from home. I am looking out the window... it's dark, it's cold... and in the cold weather, something about how the light travels through the cold air, makes the world seem more "HD", all of the lights pop, and there is a lot of Christmas lights set up, on the various buildings that we pass by, and even on random trees. So the whole world, seems to "pop", seems to be more alive, more real, more impressionable.
Anyways, we get to the airport parking lot, park the car, take the luggage out. Once we get out, the freezing wind....brrrrrr.... pierces straight through my green "sweater" that I had on....brrrr....so cold.... I turn my back to the direction of the wind, and press my arms to my body, and sink my neck into my shoulders in an attempt to protect my self from the cold. We drag the luggage inside, they instruct me, to sit and wait, at the waiting line, with their personal smaller luggage. While they weight in and check in the huge luggage.
So, as I'm sitting there. That's when it happened, a "time stamp" moment in my life. Watching all these people pass me by. People of different ages, different races, going on about their insignificant short lives. The bright lights of the airport, the Christmas lights, the cold dark background of the night. The experience so surreal, yet I am so emerged in it.
I felt somehow connected to this moment, to all of these people that I will probably never see again... We were connected in a way, that all of us "beings", while in different stages of life, inhabited this "present" moment and place. All of us existed "here and now". I felt a bond to that place, to all of the people there....I felt connected to this moment, fully emerged in it as far as my sensory organs allowed me to be. While at the same maintaining full "third person" perspective of this moment, as if viewing this moment from a distance.
Seeing this moment, only as one of many moments. I am immediately reminded of the passage of time, aging, and of my own mortality. It is through these moments that break us out the continuum, out of our everyday mundane routine, that we are able to gain perspective on our lives.
To be honest, I don't know how to describe the moment. Heightened awareness, full emersion , combined with the perspective of this moment? Seeing people of different age groups, just walking past me, reminded me of aging, reminded me that I am 27 years old, and that I am basically an old man now, and that about a third of my life is gone(my "best" third).
I remember standing outside with my great-grandmother, who was 88 years old at the time, and I was roughly 6 years old at that time. She told me, that before I'll get to even look around, I'll be old, that life is so short. Being me at that time, I looked to my left and to my right. Looked at her with a smug/mocking expression on my face, "Look I looked around, I am still a 6, time did not pass me by." She said, just you wait and see, you will be surprised how fast time flies...
It seems that just a moment ago, I was that 5-year-old boy who just woke into this existence, the world seemed so promising, so full laughter and joy. Finding my self in this present moment, as a 27-year-old version of that little boy... What a huge disappointment life turned out to be. How much promise life held when I was little, and how little it delivered. How meaningless, empty, and pointless all of it seems, not even meaningless or pointless; probably worse, just how unjust and absurd it is to be brought into existence, to endure a lifetime of suffering and pain to see everything that you've known gradually decay and fade into nothingness . Only to suffer, to gradually decay(age), and to have knowledge that all of this suffering leads up to death, to nonexistence, all of it amounts to nothing.
I want to cry, being reminded of the absurdity of existence, and of my own finite short insignificant life... what a joke human existence is, but I can't cry due to the fact that they are about to finish checking in, and they will come back for their bags. I can't even let my eyes water. They will notice it...
I am aware, that all of the people here, will soon age, and die, and will be forever removed from existence, and not long after their deaths, a time will come, in which they are completely forgotten, all traces of their existence completely lost to time. Almost as if they never even existed. They come back for their bags, I give it to them, bid them farewell, and I leave for the parking lot. As I am walking out of the airport, I see my reflection in the window.... who is this person in being reflected in the window? Is that really me... just another insignificant drop in the ocean.... absolutely brutal....
I know Pascal, Schopenhauer and Kant this type of a moment, it is reflected in their works. I know, that through that moment I was connected to them, that they felt just as I did, that the same weight or pressure weight on them all of their lives. Trying to gain some knowledge on this mysterious existence of ours, yet being limited by our short lives...
I've actually reflected onto these quotes while standing in the airport:
When walking to the car, I just felt something sink in. Often times, when you attain new knowledge, it does not get absorbed right away, rather it just sits in this dry depositary.
Anyways, I drive back home. I got home, and went to bed. I think I went to bed at around 10:00PM.
I remember, opening my eyes, I was in a bamboo hut somewhere deep in the jungle or an area surrounded by deep deep forests, in some type of a valley. It was night time. I could feel the "vastness" of the place I was in, I looked out the window... I saw a red glow in the distance, at the horizon, a wildfire or a volcano eruption?
I am not sure, it's dark, I can't really see, and I am really tired, I go sleep on the floor, I get into a fetal position and close my eyes.
I wake up again, I can hear the roar of the flames, I can feel smoke filling up the hut I was in...I can feel the heat wave... I need to run. As I breathe in, I cough, I choke on the ashes, on the smoke. I realize I need to cover my mouth with a wet towel, so I don't breathe in the ashes... I realize it's pointless, the flames are moving too fast, I will not outrun the fire. I can hear the roar of the flames, I can feel the heat wave coming, I start running, but I know I cannot outrun the flames, the atmosphere is filled with ashes, they sky is grey.... I can feel the heat... I know this is it, I will be consumed by the flames. I know it will hurt a lot, but the pain will not last a long time, 20-30 seconds tops before I die. The body will quickly consumed by the flames... In a way as I feel the heat wave intensify, I am in a way relieved, finally I will be put out of my misery, I am simply exchanging a long painful death, or a quick death, I'll only have to suffer about 20-30 seconds in the flames, I rationalize that the flames will probably kill all of my nerves in 5-6 seconds completely, and I will probably pass out from the heat wave in 10-15 seconds. The heat intensifies, I am breathing in ash, I cough. And the flames get to me, I can feel the intense heat roasting my flesh, melting my skin, the pain becomes so intense....
I wake up in my bed at home. All wet, and really hot, irregular heart beating pattern... all of my body is stinging, huge pain at the back of my head. It was just a dream... but it was a really strange dream, I've had spacial awareness, I could feel the vastness of that place, of the junge valley in that dream, and I've felt the flames, I've felt the extreme pain of being burned alive, the pain was so intense that at the peak of it, I could not endure it and I woke up. I sit up at the edge of my bed , and I notice that I had my T-Shirt on... I usually sleep only with my underwear on. Usually, I remove pants,socks, and T-Shirt off before going to sleep. Was this the reason for this "heat"... because I left my T-shirt on? It can't be... I take it off, throw it on the floor, go to the kitchen get some water, and go back to bed... trying to recover... the dream was so real..
As I am lying in the bed, and my body has cooled off from the heat.
The "skin hunger" comes, and starts assaulting me... Most people are probably not aware of what this "skin hunger" is... Skin hunger basically is a feeling that overwhelms your whole body, a desire to be touched, or to feel the skin of a female press against your body, a very real physiological feeling to needing to be touched, a need for skin contact. I need to note, that this isn't a sexual desire. The feeling originates in your core, or in your solar plexus. Like a low energy vibration, that has a sensation of acidic water, then all of it spreads throughout out your whole body, into your neck, shoulders, lower back, legs, thighs, arms, hands... It relaxes your muscles, and you get this sensation of being stung by sharp needles that instead of hurting, tickle... tickle in a similar way of being tied, and having someone tickle you feet with a feather. This usually persists for something like 1-3 hours... and I typically get woken out of my sleep by this sleep hunger, there's really nothing you can do to alleviate it... this ticklish sensation is accompanied by a voracious desire of being touched by soft hands of a woman. I started having these episodes of skin hunger at 26(I'm 27 atm). It's weird, it's not painful, but it's in a way similar to be tickled by a feather for 3 hours, and you could not stop this tickling for 3 hours... it would probably drive you insane... So it's this type of a feeling. (I think other true-cels can probably relate? They should be familiar with "skin hunger".)
“Man has developed consciousness slowly and laboriously, in a process that took untold ages to reach the civilized state. And this evolution is far from complete, for large areas of the human mind are still shrouded in darkness.” - Carl Jung
A dream is often symbolized by a tree, whose slow, powerful, involuntary growth fulfills a definite pattern. The organizing center from which the regulatory effects stem seems to be sort of a "nuclear atom" in our psychic system. One could also call it the inventor, organizer, and source of dream images.
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How about the wisest, man to ever live? This without a doubt goes to Socrates, a Greek philosopher.
When asked, where does his wisdom come from, he said, a daemon(daimon; is responsible for all of his knowledge(some type of a nature spirit))
Rene Descartes claimed that the dreams that he had on November 10, 1619, revealed to him the basis of a new philosophy, the scientific method.
History, as any real researcher will be able to tell you, has been sanitized in order to present the facts, myths, and overarching worldview most convenient for the so-called powers that be. This should be a pragmatic, if not novel proposition, given that those who have power will obviously desire to retain that power. Isaac Newton’s publically known legacy largely belongs to the mythology of sanitized mainstream “Science.” Official history has sanitized his story to remove elements that were embarrassing to modern rationalists and the version of Newton and the history of science they wished to present to the world—and the modern “Newtonian materialists” (an oxymoron, in truth) have, for the most part, lapped it up without question, putting Newton on a pedestal, virtually deifying him, and with him, the mechanistic worldview his ‘politically correct’ work went so far to creating.
While mechanistic thinking was reportedly all the rage in Newton’s time, thanks largely to the philosophies and logic of Descartes (1596–1650), Newton’s worldview was, in reality, largely informed by mystical, magical, and animistic thought.
This is what Issac Newton had to say about his mechanics:
"That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else . . . is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”
James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, reported stumbling upon the double helix image for the DNA chain through his dream of a spiral staircase.
Elias Howe invented the sewing machine in 1845. He had the idea of a machine with a needle which would go through a piece of cloth but he couldn't figure out exactly how it would work. In his dream, cannibals were preparing to cook him and they were dancing around the fire waving their spears. Howe noticed at the head of each spear there was a small hole through the shaft and the up-and-down motion of the spears and the hole remained with him when he woke. The idea of passing the thread through the needle close to the point, not at the other end, was a major innovation in making mechanical sewing possible.
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When I was roughly 5? years old, I remember playing in my kindergarten, with a bunch of other kids. I remember, sitting there on the caprpet, playing with a bunch of "big building blocks". I remember, I looked at the kid in front of me, and I saw him blinking, and I've never before noticed anyone blink.... and I thought it was "really cool" that he could do that, so I've asked him, "How are you able to do that with your eye." He asked me, "What?" I said, how are you able to to close your eye, he insisted that he did not know I was talking about. So I told him, look into my eye ,"Am I closing my eye as well?" He looked at my eyes and said I am doing it too.
Then he says, "Hey can you do this?" He takes a plastic lolistick, opens his mouth, and passes("pierces") it through his cheek. His index finger is positioned on one end of the loli-stick, inside of his mouth, and his thumb is holding the other the other end of the loli-stick on the outside, then he lets me look into his mouth... And then he moves the loli-stick horizontally, back and forth. He says, "See, can you do this?" He pulls the plastic loli-stick out, no blood, no wound, I look into his cheek, I look into the inside of his mouth, I run my fingers on his cheek.... Nothing, not a single mark?
And you know how little boys are. You can't be outdone, you can't be embarrassed... so I say, "Of course I can." I take the loli-stick, I open my mouth, I move it into the inside of my mouth, and I push with the tip of the loli-stick into the wall of my cheek, there is no sensation of sharpness or pain, it just goes through? So I am holding one end of the loli-stick... with my index finger, and the other with my thumb... and proceed to move the loli-stick horizontally back and forth, and say, "See, I can do it as well." I pulled the loli-stick out of my cheeck, no wound, no blood, not even a mark.
I think a year later I tried to do the same thing, but I could not, when I pressed the tip of the lolistick to the inside wall of my cheek, I felt sharp pressure, and I knew that If I applied more pressure(or I was conditioned to believe now), that such an action would cause me harm, and penetrate and wound the flesh.
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Probably, a text unheard of to most people today. But this was one of the most influential philosophical works from the middle ages. Boethius was referred to as the "schoolmaster of the west".
While imprisoned, and awaiting his execution. A "muse"(anima) manifested before him. The interference of the Muse(anima), caused Boethius to produce a profound philosophical work, that contributed to the progression of society, or the "evolution" of society.
Anyways, when asked I used to describe dreams, as an emergent evolutionary mechanism of the brain. Mechanism to rearrange information, and also as the result of that shuffling of information, this mechanism further evolved to be a "training platform"... In the real world, you only have "one life". If you die it's over. It would be beneficial if the individual could "practice" or gain experience how to deal with difficult situations, without actually having to go through them ... lets say fending off a saber tooth tiger...
So dreams acted as "mental training grounds for the individual", in the dream you could gain experience, and utilize that experience into the real world, for increased chances of survival.
But existence is more mysterious than your physics teacher might have made mae you believe... "Modern" science theories are made as an "abstract attempt" to describe some part of the "phenomenological world(world of apperances)", the true reality(noumenal world)((real real reality))is probably a lot different and a lot more mysterious than we currently understand.
A human being is an expression of the universe, rather, it is a carefully crafted gem, among all of the dust, and infinite void of "empty" space. Man is "natures" attempt to manifest her self into "agency/awareness" so it could examine her self, and understand what she is. Just like a certain level of physiological complexity is needed, for a mind to arise in an animal. Could it also be true that a certain level of complexity(or development in the intellect) is needed, to bring the man closer to what he is trying to become, namely "nature" in awareness.
The alchemical stone (the lapis) symbolizes something that can never be lost or dissolved something eternal that some have compared to the mystical experience of God within one’s own soul. It usually takes prolonged suffering to burn away all the superfluous psychic elements concealing the stone.
Nature is blind and deaf, and stuck in a deep slumber, but could man act as a lens or a medium, through which nature examines her self, and tries to understand what she is, what is this mysterious existence? Is man, natures attempt to come into being, to gain wakefulness?
Could it also be true, that dreams, and all these various "strange phenomena", contributed to the advancement of humanity? That somehow, someway, there is an outside subconscious force, driving human progress forward, manipulating the temporal individual to play a small yet a significant role in the evolution of human society? Progress needed to reach the next peak of "informational complexity", so something could emerge?
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The instance with the wolf girl(anima) was so strange. Could it have been a manifestation of nature coming into existence for the purpose of manipulating me the individual into foretaking a certain path in life? Could It have been my own deeper nature/self, appearing before me, seducecing me to seek what I truly am? Behind the mask of my individuality behind the mask of my persona?
If you have any anecdotes, insights, anything you want to share, anything you want to comment on, leave a comment below lol.
Before I get to this experience, which took place in the airport. I will briefly reflect back onto my childhood, when I for the first time, had this type of an experience. An experience of being fully awake, fully emerged in the moment, an experience where you the "being in time" experience the current moment with the full intensity of the senses, where the brief moment in time, overwhelms and swallows up the person completely. The moment of awareness happened, when I was 5 years old.
I woke up in the morning, in the warm bed, facing the balcony, presented with the the overarching landscape of the world. I thought to my self for the first time, "How did I get here, how did I come to be in this bed?" Up until this point, all of my actions as a "being" were played out without me, as if my body, my being was running on autopilot up until this point. Like some type of a biological machine, it was simply responding and reacting to the world, without me... and the "conscious part, the self-aware part arose" that morning. I remember having my memories of the previous days before that morning, but it was as if they were merely implanted in me. Everything before that moment did not really have "me" present, at least not in its entirety. That morning I woke up, and I had a feeling of self, as being part of the world, and at the same as being distinct from everything around me, being awoken out of my deep eternal slumber, having an identity, having sentience.
I had the access to the memories that this body accumulated through the 5 years of its existence. Although, I need to note that having access to these memories was alien and foreign to me. Indeed these memories were "my memories" or the memories that this form has collected through its 5 years of existence , but like I've mentioned just a moment before, up until this morning, I(the being, the conscious self-aware agent that inhabited this body) wasn't really fully there with my body. "I" was in a deep slumber, waiting to emerge, "I" was dormant, waiting for the moment until this body would reach a certain level of maturity or physiological development, before the body could fully accommodate me, or "express me fully".
Well that level of physiological development(or complexity), was attained that morning. I could describe it as being similar to downloading a file and having 99% of the data downloaded. Without the missing 1%, the file is not complete and cannot be "booted". It is only once you get the last 1% downloaded and installed, that the file is complete, and you are able to "boot" it. So the night that led up to that morning must have completed the installation of that 1% that was necessary. That morning with the waking of my physical body , I woke as well.
So, I look out the balcony window, into the world... Which the body has done before... and I think to my self, "Where am I, how did I get here?" This experience of looking out the window isn't even new to me, since the body has gone through this experience before, and I have a sense of familiarity attached to it... but today I am experiencing the world, not only as a "machine" that responds to stimulus. Today I am experiencing the world as a "being" in time. So I get up out of bed, and I had the memories of my friend living next door(who was a 5-6-year-old boy like me). I got up, got dressed, and went ahead, left my home, went to his apartment, knocked on his door... and he came out... it was so strange. It was like meeting a stranger for the first time, yet having full familiarity and memories of the person, and he recognized me. What I am getting at, that the wakeful part(the conscious part), had this weird transitioning period, where it got woken into existence, and it needed to fully synthesize itself with the body(or with the machine)...
Anyways, we went outside... it wasn't my first time outside, but TODAY I've experienced this day being fully emerged in the world, being aware of it, and being aware of myself being in it. To be completely honest, I've experienced the world with such intensity; in this fresh 5-year-old body, all of the senses were sharp and brand new, all of the experiences... new and stimulating. The world seemed so mysterious and interesting, so good. To exist, to be alive, seemed the greatest "good" imaginable, the world seemed so promising, so exciting.
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Now in hindsight, if I were to be reunited with my early childhood friend(from whom I've been separated at the age of ~6), the friend whose name and face I don't even remember. I think if we were to be reunited, the feeling would not be that of happiness or rejoice, rather than of dread and a huge disappointment.
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Also in hindsight, I envy my 5-year-old self, not only for being so naive and ignorant at that moment in my youth. Ignorant of the coldness and harshness of the world and the suffering that that awaited me. I also envy my 5-year-old self for having the vigor and clearness of the senses associated with the young body... senses that were capable of examining the world with such intensity, with such clarity; clarity of the mind and sharpness of the senses which have dulled with time, and lost their previous "edge", just like a sharp knife loses it's edge with the passage of time, and is no longer the instrument that it once was.
The sheer power of the "intellect" or if you like the sheer processing power of the brain that I had at that moment in my childhood was probably TEN TIMES greater when compared to the state in which it currently is(aging is brutal beyond comprehension).
It is something about the development of the body, that the intellect, or the processing power of the brain ...is capable of taking in so much new information with such ease, and in such quantity at that age. The body needs to furnish the brain with the knowledge of the world so that the individual could survive in this cold harsh world...
I remember the two distinct peaks in which the body prioritized it's energy surplus to the brain, for the overall good of the organism. Those periods were; ages 5-6(leaving mothers side3, and exploring the world independently for the first time), and ages 14-17(sexual maturity, competition for reproductive rights, survival of the germline/selfish gene).
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My neighbor asked me to drop him off at an airport(him, his wife, and his friend), they are flying to visit their families for Christmas and New-Years. The request was made, to drop them off at the airport and then to drive his car back home(we live next to one another), and then pick him up 3 weeks later once he comes back from his trip. Anyways, they(my neighbor and his wife) have seen me once or twice in the last couple of weeks, but his friend, whom I did not even remember, although I have met him about a year or two ago, hasn't seen me for something close to two years. So he says, "Ohh, new style, a new look." I'm thinking who is this guy? I don't really remember him. I ask, "Have we met." He replies, "Yes, a year or two ago." (I....still can't remember him...)
Our eyes meet briefly, and "he sensed it", I don't know if he understood it, or fully grasped, what he just saw, I am not even sure if he was conscious of it... but I could see and feel, that at the very least his "senses" picked up on it. Just like I've sensed it in a "very strange dream" that I've had as a child. He saw the depth, or the heaviness carved into my eyes, not so much the eyes themselves, but what lies behind the eyes somehow got reflected through the eyes, almost as if the eyes are the windows into the inner state of whatever a man truly is. Behind the mask of the "persona", into the depths of "being" or the "true self".
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Reflecting back again, onto my early childhood...
When I was a child growing up, for my summer vacations, I use to leave the big city that I've lived in. I use to travel to my grandfathers' farm for the purposes of visiting him and spending time with him. I use to spend about two months living on his farm every summer. The farm was far away from civilization or the modern world. You had to take a dirt road to get there. It was surrounded by deep, thick forest, separated by patches of land that were used for agriculture.
Anyways, when I was 6 years old, I remember waking up in the middle of the night for no good reason, and I wanted to visit our horse. The horse was left in the fields to graze on the grass. Halters were secured to the horses head, ~20-30 ft rope was connected to the halters, the other end of the rope was connected to a small metal pin, which was pummeled into the ground in order to secure the horse a piece of land.
I don't know what time it was, but me waking up in the middle of the night... has never happened before. Furthermore, I would never leave the home at night... but that night, for whatever reason, I woke up in the middle of the night, and I was just drawn, or compelled to visit the horse. So I got up and left, the horse has been stationed in the field about half a mile away. It was night time, so it was dark outside. There were no artificial sources of light present anywhere, although the moon was out, and the moon illuminated the land below. (Also, your eyes quickly adapt to the dark, and even with the slightest amount of light, you will be able to see in the dark.)
As I am walking to the location of the field where the horse was stationed in. The "air" started to feel heavy, it felt like I was walking through dense air. When you are in a huge open field, on a huge stretch of open land, you get this sense of "vastness", you get this spatial awareness of the land. As I got close, and gained vision of the location of where the horse was supposed to be stationed in(the location was on a slight incline/hill, so I had to get really close to gain vision of the area). As soon as I got there, I saw a pack of wolves devouring my horse.
One of the wolves lifts his head up, sniffs the air, turns his head around and sees me looking at them. Instantly without any hesitation, he turns his body around and started running towards me. I was maybe 50 feet away from them. I wanted to run, but my whole body froze. I was trying my hardest to move, but I was completely frozen in fear. I could not move a single muscle. On the inside I was trying my hardest, but the body would not move. I did not understand what was happening, I did not understand why could not move, I was so afraid, I've never felt fear, not like this, to the point where it paralyzes the body.
Just in a couple of seconds, the wolf was standing in front of me. The wolf was actually about the same height as me, I could see the blood on his snout. The wolf stepped forward, his face was about 2-3 feet away from my face, he sniffed me, he stepped back, and then stepped forward, and pressed the front of his snout to my lips, and started licking my lips, and my teeth. I could actually feel his teeth press against my lips. My heart was pounding, the adrenaline was rushing, but I could not move, even If I could have... I would have been too afraid to do anything, it would have been pointless, I had no hope of running away.
The licking was very rough, very ferocious. I could feel his teeth press against my teeth, and after about 5-6 seconds of this licking of my lips, of my mouth, of my teeth, the wolf backed off. As he stepped away, his back was arched, and he was positioned sideways to me. His tail was in between his legs, he looks at me. It seemed like he wanted to wag his tail, he seemed overwhelmed with joy, almost hysterical, the wolf seemed possessed, as it tried to wag his tail(which was in between his legs) his whole body moved in an erratic way, almost unable to contain his joy, and then he stopped, turned around and ran back to the pack
As I was seeing the wolf run back to his pack, my body relaxed. I could move again. Although I was still in a high alertness/shock mode. I've noticed a human figure standing about 15-20 feet away from the wolves. Instantly, I've assumed the wolves must belong to that person standing there(I was 6). Since I saw another person standing there, and after being approached by the wolf and not being devoured by him. I've lost all of my sensation of fear and deemed it to be "safe" to approach the other person. Maybe my curiosity just overwrote the sensation of fear. I started walking towards the figure. With every single step, the air got thicker and heavier. It felt, as if I was walking through heavy dense water, also the sensation of "vastness" or my spacial awareness of the outside, began to nauseate and disorient me. With every single step, the weight and density of air increased.
As soon, I got to the figure, I've noticed that the figure was a girl, slightly taller than me. Shaggy, short brown hair. I've told her, that her wolves are eating my horse. She did not respond, look or even notice that I was there. I asked her, what her name was, I said mine is Thomas, no response. She was staring into the direction of the wolves. I've asked her why won't she respond. I've suddenly realized, the heaviness of the air, the nauseating feeling of the vastness of this space, increased even more.
As I was standing next to her, I realized that my body was now completely adjusted to this pressure, but the pressure was still there. The pressure was pressing on me from all of the directions, the feeling of this crushing pressure felt really good for some reason, it was very "all-encompassing, firm and soothing"? Experience similar to that of being really deep underwater, and being crushed by the mass of the water, yet this sensation being very pleasant.
I've asked why is she not talking to me, who is she, why won't she tell me what her name was? And then she slowly turned to me, lifted her face ever so slightly, and looked at me, and I looked into her eyes. The eyes had some otherworldly quality of the "wilderness" or just "pure raw nature". I remember the expression on her face. The eyes of complete detachment from this place, from this time. Being not connected with the world, being so "indifferent" to this place.... the face was completely expressionless, the skin was pale and smooth. Actually, when she looked at me, her gaze, her iris did not focus, she looked completely through me, even while looking at me.
I felt inferior for the first time in my life. I could not fully grasp it at that moment, but I subconsciously understood that she was above me. The sensation of fear without the sensation of fear overcame my body(it was that vibration resonating in my body, without the actual sensory sensation of fear), and the sensation of sharp lighting striking my body, without the intense pain. It's almost like like the signals or vibrations for those emotions were expressed in me, but I did not get to experience the unpleasant sensation of those vibrations. I felt those emotions without "actually feeling them."
Then her gaze... I could see such depth, such vastness in the eyes, yet they were so indifferent, so detached from the world, so above this realm. Her gaze however so faintly, focused on me. She looked at me, almost with some distant faint sense of guilt or sadness. Almost as if my fate was, my future had been laid out before her eyes. And she took pity on me.
I wake up in my bed, I have no idea how did I get to my bed? The last moment that I remember was me standing on the hill, looking at that girl? It wasn't a dream, I know it wasn't a dream, why am I in my bed, how did I get here?
I got dressed, I went outside... and I am in disbelief, but maybe this was a dream? Even when I know it clearly wasn't. I had the full sensory awareness of the whole experience. Feeling, hearing, seeing...In fact the experience was more real, more intense, then actually being for sure awake now... there were no gaps, no skips in the experience(like you would have in a dream)... how did I get to the bed? What happened to the horse? Is the horse dead? Where is the girl? My grandfather walks in through the door, and says that the horse has been killed by the wolves, and partially eaten by them, we go see the horse, it is a partially eaten carcass.
So this wasn't a dream? But how did I get to bed? I have no memory of this part. I don't say anything to anyone, about what happened at night.
Then we went to visit, a neighboring farmer. To see if any of his animals got attacked by the wolves, none of them did. Although the farmer had a goat, and the goat just gave a birth to a bunch of "goat babies", and I asked where do babies come from?(I did know about sexual reproduction/birth... I did not know how any of the beings that inhabit the world come into existence.)(I did not learn about the process of sexual reproduction and birth until the age of 8)
So they said, that the mother goat, brings them from the woods.... So I've asked is that where humans come from as well? The woods? Someone brings them from the woods? And they said yes.... and then, of course, I believed this "innocent lie". That girl, I've instantly assumed to be my sister. It must have been, she must have been created by the "magic of the world", and she was waiting in the woods for someone to bring her home out of the woods. It just made perfect sense, everything added up. I rationalized that the detached look in her eyes, was the result of her being really sad. She was waiting for someone to bring her out of the woods. And that strange feeling of pressure, it must be the magic of creation wearing off, or maybe she has magical powers? Maybe she can teach me magic? That would be so cool!...and the wolves... ahh the wolves must have been her guardians taking care of her! I don't know, but it was so easy to rationalize the whole experience to my 6-year-old self, as soon as I got some context(false context), to which I could attach the whole story to.
To my 6-year-old self, the world was still a magical place, filled with magic, witches and monsters, ghosts, aliens...Of course, I decided to look for that girl. I was obsessed, I was drawn, I was completely consumed.
I remember being so afraid, to venture into the woods, especially deep into the woods. I did not know, what monsters, what creatures hid deep in the woods... I remember, building up courage, to pass a certain point, and once I passed it, building my courage up again to pass even a further point in the woods. Until I've lost all fear of whatever might lurk in the woods and just searched frantically.
So I've spent the whole summer venturing deep, deep into the woods, into all directions searching for her. I really believed that she is somewhere up there waiting to be discovered . I remember, losing all track of time, and just exploring the woods from dawn till dusk, looking for her hopelessly. I remember comming back home, my great-grandmother beat me with her cane, she asked me where did I disappear to. Everyone was looking for me... I told her I was in the woods, I did not even care, all I could think about was her, nothing else mattered. Those eyes, they were the eyes of some wild animal, not even animals that that quality or that level of the "pure raw nature" embued in them. That indifferent, detached expression on her face... that overwhelming pressure, the sense of vastness. Of course, I never found her.
Just a side anecdote: I remember my Psychology professor, mentioning that his father, who was a really cold, calculated, and emotionless nuclear physics researcher. Saw something like this at the end of his bed when he was a little child. My psychology professor said, that his father was disappointed that he, namely his son became a half "doctor"(namely masters in psychology), and did not get a "real" doctorate degree. He said, his father is an emotionless bastard that doesn't have a sense of humor, he is void of any emotion, he doesn't ever joke around, he doesn't ever laugh. Yet absolutely genius when it comes to the sciences. His father swore that the reason why he got interested in science, is because when he was a child, he saw something standing at the edge of his bed....
I bugged my psychology professor to tell me more... So he told me, his father, when he was a child, got woken up in the middle of the night for no reason, by some type of pressure, he said he felt as if the air turned heavy, and that the space of his room expanded? He looked at the end of his bed and saw a dark figure standing there. He hid under his sheets and was too afraid to look at it. But ever since that day, he was interested in science, that's why he pursued sciences, and he swears it really happened, he wasn't dreaming, he wasn't imagining, he said whatever it was, scared the living the daylight out of him, he thought it was a space alien or some dimensional traveler. And my psychology professor said, to hear this from his father, knowing what kind of a man he is... just beyond comprehension... but he swears by it, it really happened, and it wasn't a dream of some type of a hallucination. He said, the experience moves his father so much, that that experience was the single reason
When I heard the words, heavy air, and space expansion(vastness), I knew this was something very similar to my experience...although I took a good look at the "being", whatever it might have been...
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Back to the trip to the airport:
After a brief pause he says, "Will we be able to have a common language with you now, a change in style, you are a Muslim now?(This is a slight roast, due to my beard, which he is seeing for the first time, and his last memory of me, was of me being completely clean shaven.)...and all of us are very "white", prime Eastern European genetics. Everyone acts, and looks a certain way. Having dark hair accompanied by a beard is "different", although not that different when compared to the norm of "white people". Everyone giggles at the remark. My neighbor's wife, who is a typical tall skinny LOW IQ blonde(my neighbor is a classic case betabux provider), say's that the look suits me or fits me very well, it looks good on me. Anyways, we grab the luggage, throw it into the back of the car, and some of the surplus we take to the back seat.
It's something like 6PM, it's mid-December... It's really cold and dark outside, not much snow(Chicago). All 4 of us get into the car, my neighbor is driving, his friend is front, me and his wife packed with the luggage are sitting in the back. Anyways, as we are driving to the airport, which is like 25 miles away from home. I am looking out the window... it's dark, it's cold... and in the cold weather, something about how the light travels through the cold air, makes the world seem more "HD", all of the lights pop, and there is a lot of Christmas lights set up, on the various buildings that we pass by, and even on random trees. So the whole world, seems to "pop", seems to be more alive, more real, more impressionable.
Anyways, we get to the airport parking lot, park the car, take the luggage out. Once we get out, the freezing wind....brrrrrr.... pierces straight through my green "sweater" that I had on....brrrr....so cold.... I turn my back to the direction of the wind, and press my arms to my body, and sink my neck into my shoulders in an attempt to protect my self from the cold. We drag the luggage inside, they instruct me, to sit and wait, at the waiting line, with their personal smaller luggage. While they weight in and check in the huge luggage.
So, as I'm sitting there. That's when it happened, a "time stamp" moment in my life. Watching all these people pass me by. People of different ages, different races, going on about their insignificant short lives. The bright lights of the airport, the Christmas lights, the cold dark background of the night. The experience so surreal, yet I am so emerged in it.
I felt somehow connected to this moment, to all of these people that I will probably never see again... We were connected in a way, that all of us "beings", while in different stages of life, inhabited this "present" moment and place. All of us existed "here and now". I felt a bond to that place, to all of the people there....I felt connected to this moment, fully emerged in it as far as my sensory organs allowed me to be. While at the same maintaining full "third person" perspective of this moment, as if viewing this moment from a distance.
Seeing this moment, only as one of many moments. I am immediately reminded of the passage of time, aging, and of my own mortality. It is through these moments that break us out the continuum, out of our everyday mundane routine, that we are able to gain perspective on our lives.
To be honest, I don't know how to describe the moment. Heightened awareness, full emersion , combined with the perspective of this moment? Seeing people of different age groups, just walking past me, reminded me of aging, reminded me that I am 27 years old, and that I am basically an old man now, and that about a third of my life is gone(my "best" third).
I remember standing outside with my great-grandmother, who was 88 years old at the time, and I was roughly 6 years old at that time. She told me, that before I'll get to even look around, I'll be old, that life is so short. Being me at that time, I looked to my left and to my right. Looked at her with a smug/mocking expression on my face, "Look I looked around, I am still a 6, time did not pass me by." She said, just you wait and see, you will be surprised how fast time flies...
It seems that just a moment ago, I was that 5-year-old boy who just woke into this existence, the world seemed so promising, so full laughter and joy. Finding my self in this present moment, as a 27-year-old version of that little boy... What a huge disappointment life turned out to be. How much promise life held when I was little, and how little it delivered. How meaningless, empty, and pointless all of it seems, not even meaningless or pointless; probably worse, just how unjust and absurd it is to be brought into existence, to endure a lifetime of suffering and pain to see everything that you've known gradually decay and fade into nothingness . Only to suffer, to gradually decay(age), and to have knowledge that all of this suffering leads up to death, to nonexistence, all of it amounts to nothing.
I want to cry, being reminded of the absurdity of existence, and of my own finite short insignificant life... what a joke human existence is, but I can't cry due to the fact that they are about to finish checking in, and they will come back for their bags. I can't even let my eyes water. They will notice it...
I am aware, that all of the people here, will soon age, and die, and will be forever removed from existence, and not long after their deaths, a time will come, in which they are completely forgotten, all traces of their existence completely lost to time. Almost as if they never even existed. They come back for their bags, I give it to them, bid them farewell, and I leave for the parking lot. As I am walking out of the airport, I see my reflection in the window.... who is this person in being reflected in the window? Is that really me... just another insignificant drop in the ocean.... absolutely brutal....
I know Pascal, Schopenhauer and Kant this type of a moment, it is reflected in their works. I know, that through that moment I was connected to them, that they felt just as I did, that the same weight or pressure weight on them all of their lives. Trying to gain some knowledge on this mysterious existence of ours, yet being limited by our short lives...
I've actually reflected onto these quotes while standing in the airport:
When walking to the car, I just felt something sink in. Often times, when you attain new knowledge, it does not get absorbed right away, rather it just sits in this dry depositary.
Anyways, I drive back home. I got home, and went to bed. I think I went to bed at around 10:00PM.
I remember, opening my eyes, I was in a bamboo hut somewhere deep in the jungle or an area surrounded by deep deep forests, in some type of a valley. It was night time. I could feel the "vastness" of the place I was in, I looked out the window... I saw a red glow in the distance, at the horizon, a wildfire or a volcano eruption?
I am not sure, it's dark, I can't really see, and I am really tired, I go sleep on the floor, I get into a fetal position and close my eyes.
I wake up again, I can hear the roar of the flames, I can feel smoke filling up the hut I was in...I can feel the heat wave... I need to run. As I breathe in, I cough, I choke on the ashes, on the smoke. I realize I need to cover my mouth with a wet towel, so I don't breathe in the ashes... I realize it's pointless, the flames are moving too fast, I will not outrun the fire. I can hear the roar of the flames, I can feel the heat wave coming, I start running, but I know I cannot outrun the flames, the atmosphere is filled with ashes, they sky is grey.... I can feel the heat... I know this is it, I will be consumed by the flames. I know it will hurt a lot, but the pain will not last a long time, 20-30 seconds tops before I die. The body will quickly consumed by the flames... In a way as I feel the heat wave intensify, I am in a way relieved, finally I will be put out of my misery, I am simply exchanging a long painful death, or a quick death, I'll only have to suffer about 20-30 seconds in the flames, I rationalize that the flames will probably kill all of my nerves in 5-6 seconds completely, and I will probably pass out from the heat wave in 10-15 seconds. The heat intensifies, I am breathing in ash, I cough. And the flames get to me, I can feel the intense heat roasting my flesh, melting my skin, the pain becomes so intense....
I wake up in my bed at home. All wet, and really hot, irregular heart beating pattern... all of my body is stinging, huge pain at the back of my head. It was just a dream... but it was a really strange dream, I've had spacial awareness, I could feel the vastness of that place, of the junge valley in that dream, and I've felt the flames, I've felt the extreme pain of being burned alive, the pain was so intense that at the peak of it, I could not endure it and I woke up. I sit up at the edge of my bed , and I notice that I had my T-Shirt on... I usually sleep only with my underwear on. Usually, I remove pants,socks, and T-Shirt off before going to sleep. Was this the reason for this "heat"... because I left my T-shirt on? It can't be... I take it off, throw it on the floor, go to the kitchen get some water, and go back to bed... trying to recover... the dream was so real..
As I am lying in the bed, and my body has cooled off from the heat.
The "skin hunger" comes, and starts assaulting me... Most people are probably not aware of what this "skin hunger" is... Skin hunger basically is a feeling that overwhelms your whole body, a desire to be touched, or to feel the skin of a female press against your body, a very real physiological feeling to needing to be touched, a need for skin contact. I need to note, that this isn't a sexual desire. The feeling originates in your core, or in your solar plexus. Like a low energy vibration, that has a sensation of acidic water, then all of it spreads throughout out your whole body, into your neck, shoulders, lower back, legs, thighs, arms, hands... It relaxes your muscles, and you get this sensation of being stung by sharp needles that instead of hurting, tickle... tickle in a similar way of being tied, and having someone tickle you feet with a feather. This usually persists for something like 1-3 hours... and I typically get woken out of my sleep by this sleep hunger, there's really nothing you can do to alleviate it... this ticklish sensation is accompanied by a voracious desire of being touched by soft hands of a woman. I started having these episodes of skin hunger at 26(I'm 27 atm). It's weird, it's not painful, but it's in a way similar to be tickled by a feather for 3 hours, and you could not stop this tickling for 3 hours... it would probably drive you insane... So it's this type of a feeling. (I think other true-cels can probably relate? They should be familiar with "skin hunger".)
An anticipation of death, gives us perspective of our temporality in the world.
“Man has developed consciousness slowly and laboriously, in a process that took untold ages to reach the civilized state. And this evolution is far from complete, for large areas of the human mind are still shrouded in darkness.” - Carl Jung
A dream is often symbolized by a tree, whose slow, powerful, involuntary growth fulfills a definite pattern. The organizing center from which the regulatory effects stem seems to be sort of a "nuclear atom" in our psychic system. One could also call it the inventor, organizer, and source of dream images.
The anima and animus, in Carl Jung's school of analytical psychology, are the two primary anthropomorphic archetypes of the unconscious mind. In the unconscious of a man, this archetype finds expression as a feminine inner personality: anima; equivalently, in the unconscious of a woman it is expressed as a masculine inner personality: animus.
The alchemical stone (the lapis) symbolizes something that can never be lost or dissolved something eternal that some have compared to the mystical experience of God within one’s own soul. It usually takes prolonged suffering to burn away all the superfluous psychic elements concealing the stone.
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Have "dreams" had any contribution to the development and progress of the human civilization?
Father of modern western thought.
How about the wisest, man to ever live? This without a doubt goes to Socrates, a Greek philosopher.
When asked, where does his wisdom come from, he said, a daemon(daimon; is responsible for all of his knowledge(some type of a nature spirit))
Father of the scientific method.
Rene Descartes claimed that the dreams that he had on November 10, 1619, revealed to him the basis of a new philosophy, the scientific method.
The greatest scientist that ever lived.
Who comes to mind...? a few might come to mind...although Issac Newton is probably going to make the list...
History, as any real researcher will be able to tell you, has been sanitized in order to present the facts, myths, and overarching worldview most convenient for the so-called powers that be. This should be a pragmatic, if not novel proposition, given that those who have power will obviously desire to retain that power. Isaac Newton’s publically known legacy largely belongs to the mythology of sanitized mainstream “Science.” Official history has sanitized his story to remove elements that were embarrassing to modern rationalists and the version of Newton and the history of science they wished to present to the world—and the modern “Newtonian materialists” (an oxymoron, in truth) have, for the most part, lapped it up without question, putting Newton on a pedestal, virtually deifying him, and with him, the mechanistic worldview his ‘politically correct’ work went so far to creating.
While mechanistic thinking was reportedly all the rage in Newton’s time, thanks largely to the philosophies and logic of Descartes (1596–1650), Newton’s worldview was, in reality, largely informed by mystical, magical, and animistic thought.
This is what Issac Newton had to say about his mechanics:
"That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else . . . is to me so great an absurdity, that I believe no man, who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it.”
Modern advances?
James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, reported stumbling upon the double helix image for the DNA chain through his dream of a spiral staircase.
The sewing machine.
Elias Howe invented the sewing machine in 1845. He had the idea of a machine with a needle which would go through a piece of cloth but he couldn't figure out exactly how it would work. In his dream, cannibals were preparing to cook him and they were dancing around the fire waving their spears. Howe noticed at the head of each spear there was a small hole through the shaft and the up-and-down motion of the spears and the hole remained with him when he woke. The idea of passing the thread through the needle close to the point, not at the other end, was a major innovation in making mechanical sewing possible.
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Reflecting back onto my childhood again:
When I was roughly 5? years old, I remember playing in my kindergarten, with a bunch of other kids. I remember, sitting there on the caprpet, playing with a bunch of "big building blocks". I remember, I looked at the kid in front of me, and I saw him blinking, and I've never before noticed anyone blink.... and I thought it was "really cool" that he could do that, so I've asked him, "How are you able to do that with your eye." He asked me, "What?" I said, how are you able to to close your eye, he insisted that he did not know I was talking about. So I told him, look into my eye ,"Am I closing my eye as well?" He looked at my eyes and said I am doing it too.
Then he says, "Hey can you do this?" He takes a plastic lolistick, opens his mouth, and passes("pierces") it through his cheek. His index finger is positioned on one end of the loli-stick, inside of his mouth, and his thumb is holding the other the other end of the loli-stick on the outside, then he lets me look into his mouth... And then he moves the loli-stick horizontally, back and forth. He says, "See, can you do this?" He pulls the plastic loli-stick out, no blood, no wound, I look into his cheek, I look into the inside of his mouth, I run my fingers on his cheek.... Nothing, not a single mark?
And you know how little boys are. You can't be outdone, you can't be embarrassed... so I say, "Of course I can." I take the loli-stick, I open my mouth, I move it into the inside of my mouth, and I push with the tip of the loli-stick into the wall of my cheek, there is no sensation of sharpness or pain, it just goes through? So I am holding one end of the loli-stick... with my index finger, and the other with my thumb... and proceed to move the loli-stick horizontally back and forth, and say, "See, I can do it as well." I pulled the loli-stick out of my cheeck, no wound, no blood, not even a mark.
I think a year later I tried to do the same thing, but I could not, when I pressed the tip of the lolistick to the inside wall of my cheek, I felt sharp pressure, and I knew that If I applied more pressure(or I was conditioned to believe now), that such an action would cause me harm, and penetrate and wound the flesh.
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Boethius and the Consolations of Philosophy.
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius,commonly called Boethius , was a Roman senator, consul, magister officiorum, and philosopher of the early 6th century. He was born four years after Odoacer deposed the last Roman Emperor and declared himself King of Italy, and entered public service under Ostrogothic King Theodoric the Great, who later imprisoned and executed him in 524 on charges of conspiracy to overthrow him. While jailed, Boethius composed his Consolation of Philosophy, a philosophical treatise on fortune, death, and other issues, which became one of the most popular and influential works of the Middle Ages.
Probably, a text unheard of to most people today. But this was one of the most influential philosophical works from the middle ages. Boethius was referred to as the "schoolmaster of the west".
While imprisoned, and awaiting his execution. A "muse"(anima) manifested before him. The interference of the Muse(anima), caused Boethius to produce a profound philosophical work, that contributed to the progression of society, or the "evolution" of society.
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Reflecting
Anyways, when asked I used to describe dreams, as an emergent evolutionary mechanism of the brain. Mechanism to rearrange information, and also as the result of that shuffling of information, this mechanism further evolved to be a "training platform"... In the real world, you only have "one life". If you die it's over. It would be beneficial if the individual could "practice" or gain experience how to deal with difficult situations, without actually having to go through them ... lets say fending off a saber tooth tiger...
So dreams acted as "mental training grounds for the individual", in the dream you could gain experience, and utilize that experience into the real world, for increased chances of survival.
But existence is more mysterious than your physics teacher might have made mae you believe... "Modern" science theories are made as an "abstract attempt" to describe some part of the "phenomenological world(world of apperances)", the true reality(noumenal world)((real real reality))is probably a lot different and a lot more mysterious than we currently understand.
The alchemical stone (the lapis) symbolizes something that can never be lost or dissolved something eternal that some have compared to the mystical experience of God within one’s own soul. It usually takes prolonged suffering to burn away all the superfluous psychic elements concealing the stone.
Nature is blind and deaf, and stuck in a deep slumber, but could man act as a lens or a medium, through which nature examines her self, and tries to understand what she is, what is this mysterious existence? Is man, natures attempt to come into being, to gain wakefulness?
Could it also be true, that dreams, and all these various "strange phenomena", contributed to the advancement of humanity? That somehow, someway, there is an outside subconscious force, driving human progress forward, manipulating the temporal individual to play a small yet a significant role in the evolution of human society? Progress needed to reach the next peak of "informational complexity", so something could emerge?
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Anima
The instance with the wolf girl(anima) was so strange. Could it have been a manifestation of nature coming into existence for the purpose of manipulating me the individual into foretaking a certain path in life? Could It have been my own deeper nature/self, appearing before me, seducecing me to seek what I truly am? Behind the mask of my individuality behind the mask of my persona?
If you have any anecdotes, insights, anything you want to share, anything you want to comment on, leave a comment below lol.
