[MD] Dreaming and death

[david buchanan]

Gav, Arlo and all mortal dreamers:

Wow, Gav. You wanna talk about the meaning of dreams and the metaphysics of 
death? Okay, but after we're done with all the small talk let's discuss 
something that matters, like sports and the weather.

Death is a tough one and I think you're right to point out that we don't 
deal with it very well. I like to think that death is supposed to teach us 
something about letting go and facing the abyss, both of which are things we 
need to do in life. I've heard that sometimes enlightenment follows a 
letting go of sorts. The classic heros almost always die in some sense, and 
then are resurrected as a new being so that death becomes a transformation 
rather than the conclusion. And maybe the Zen-like "be a dead man" stuff in 
Lila is refering to an encounter with nothingness while still alive. As 
Campbell tells it, the idea that we return to the place we came from is 
common to all mythological systems. But that's not really all that 
comforting when the fear of death is really a matter of clinging to life or 
to our untransformed selves. Of course the problem with the idea of heaven 
as it is usually concieved is that its just a way to keep on living even 
when you're dead, thus the expression "life after death". I mean, you're 
right to wonder if vanity plays a role in our attitudes about death.

I've spent some time thinking about death but I do not recall ever being 
dead, so I don't know much about it. I have dreamed once or twice, however. 
Some of them have effected my waking life in ways that are personally epic. 
I've seen how misreading them can lead to disaster too. Its powerful stuff 
and its too bad that our culture is so retarded about the thing. Anyway, I 
like Campbell's pithy little saying on the topic. He says, "Myths are public 
dreams and dreams are private myths" or something like that. I guess the 
idea is that myths and dreams speak in the same language and that they both 
express truths that are relatively unfiltered, uncensored and even "organic" 
in some sense. Um, maybe the word for all that would be "Dynamic"...

As usual, Arlo posted the quote that needed to be posted:

"He had come to think of dreams as Dynamic perceptions of reality, They were 
suppressed and filtered out of consciousness by conventional patterns of 
static social and intellectual order but they revealed a primary truth: a 
value truth. The static patterns of the dreams were false but the underlying 
values that produced the patterns were true. In static reality there is no 
octopus coming to squeeze us to death, no giant that is going to devour us 
and digest us and turn us into a part of its own body so that it can grow 
stronger and stronger while we are dissolved and lost into nothingness."

This passage would carry a lot less weight as an assertion if it hadn't been 
made in the context of explaining what the GIANT is in more intellectual 
terms. I mean, the idea that social structures have immune systems and how 
the mirrors keep us in line with the GIANTS wishes and all that is actually 
very illuminating. I think it explains quite a lot about the power 
structures that maintain social level values in a way that is less cynical 
but no less realistic. Well, maybe that's a topic for another post. The 
point is simply that even dreams about cartoon octopi are true if you know 
how to read them.

dmb

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