[MD] Dreaming and death

[Squonkonguitar at aol.com]

dmb: 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.
 
Mark: Sorry for jumping in Dave, but i felt the urge.
I've developed a couple of close friendships with Americans over the last  
six or so years and one thing has become clear to us all, and that is many  
Americans avoid talk about death. I know that sounds like a sweeping  
generalisation, but there may be something in it?
The American attitude seems to be, 'Buck up, pull yourself out of it and  get 
on with things'. That could be a Dynamic aspect of the US psyche: Life goes  
on and forge ahead into the final frontier. (Interesting, 'final' frontier is  
death but it's too far over the vast expanse to be concerned about) Death  
happens, don't remind us, it's hard enough to avoid falling out of the economic  
system without dwelling on loss. The way Americans deal with death is to turn 
it  into a celebrity event sq social pattern.
It's different for us Europeans: there are large social support networks  
which make contemplating death easier. If you fall apart with grief you get  
help. Unless you Royalty, then you get the biggest stone in the  Necropolis.
 
 
dmb: I've heard that sometimes enlightenment follows a 
letting go of  sorts.
 
Mark: This is not biological death but death of ego sq patterns while  
biologically alive?
 
dmb: 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.
 
Mark: This is interesting. But i think an element is missing: The death is  a 
matter of fate; You can't avoid it cos your sq patterning will bring it upon  
you.
Orpheus, who you have studied, was in deep doo doo from the outset because  
DQ was either going to get him from the inside or from the outside.
Inside - driving himself insane trying to maintain a relationship with DQ,  
Outside - spite, hate, (Gods or mortals) envied by those less Dynamic, maybe  
even feared and misunderstood. If they could not get him they can get his wife, 
 (via the snake) and as you humorously pointed out, well, i say humorously, 
as  you pointed out, Ono got it cos that was a way of getting at Lennon. A 
cheap  laugh. Fate.
There are those among us who will be quick to alert us to the possibility  of 
my having introduced som in the above. Not so. Linguistic laziness.
 
dmb: 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.
 
Mark: Cling: sq Transform: DQ
 
dmb: 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.
 
Mark: If this is a valuable analysis, then it would seem, if my observation  
about American's avoiding talk of death has some merit, that the US is a  
particularly vain culture. Self-obsessed, that is say, to be obsessed with the  
self. It kinda adds up dontcha think?
This may be why young US troops find it so particularly easy to kill that  
which does not conform to the self.

dmb: I've spent some time thinking about death but I do not recall ever  
being 
dead, so I don't know much about it.
 
Mark: But to know is to be sq, and death is DQ. You've just said so: dmb:  
'And maybe the Zen-like "be a dead man" stuff in 
Lila is refering to an  encounter with nothingness while still alive' so, if 
you have ever dropped your  sense of self, while being creative, or in a Gav 
inspired fruity romp, then you  have experience of death without knowing it. In 
fact, most of your life has been  spent this way.
Remember, Nargarjuna tells us we are all enlightened but we don't know it,  
and Mr. Wilbur (for it is he) reminds us that Plato reminded us that we have  
forgotten who we are.
 
dmb: I have dreamed once or twice, however. 
Some of them have effected  my waking life in ways that are personally epic.
 
Mark: I would love to hear about one of those? Please delight us?

dmb: I've seen how misreading them can lead to disaster too.
 
Mark: Oh dear. I once misread a map driving home from Germany... well, it  
was a disaster i assure you.
 
dmb: Its powerful stuff 
and its too bad that our culture is so retarded  about the thing.
 
Mark: It certainly is, 'powerful stuff.' As i said to the Arab gentleman on  
that map detour, 'Wow! That's powerful stuff man! Yeah!'
 
dmb: 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"...
 
Mark: A very clear and synopsis. There's nothing like a clear synopsis, as  
my doctor will confirm.

dmb: 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."
 
Mark: This may be because Arlo has a searchable version of Lila so all he  
has to do is type in 'dreams' and wait?
That's what i do. ;-)
Anyway, this is all about metaphors, and all metaphors are valid. However,  
there are better metaphors than others and the best metaphor yet invented is 
the  MoQ itself. I'll say that again cos i like the sound of it: 'the best 
metaphor  yet invented is the MoQ'
I don't want anyone to run off in a huff. If that's too soon they can run  of 
in a minute and a huff.
In fact, this is what RP is doing in the above passage quoted by Arlo, the  
Dynamic self is always under threat from sq, as was Orpheus. Orpheus was an  
idealised highly Dynamic plopped into dull sq reality and left to it as a  
metaphor for living. As is always the way, highly Dynamics are ripped apart in a  
pool of chaotic sq piranha. (Sorry about forcing the fishy metaphor.) RP was,  
Orpheus was, most creative people have had a bite either in the schoolyard,  
workplace, educational institution, webforum, local walmart , etc.) That's 
their  fate see?

dmb: 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.
 
Mark: So, intellectual sq metaphors, (like immune systems, quarks, higher  
purchase agreements),  illuminate our understanding of sq/DQ.
 
dmb: 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.
 
Mark: This is heading for another post topic: Metaphor as epistemology.  That 
leads on to: Metaphor as Aesthetic education. Someone should write a  book 
about that? Come to think of it, they have!
 
dmb: 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
 
Mark: I wish i knew how to read that German map. Bloody disaster that was.  
Still, the NeilYoungathon was worth it.
Love,
Mark