Eleventh Words from B.C.
I'm back again and this week I do have things to say. Last week was a bit of a disappointment. Maybe for you and certainly for me. I know I'm the only one who could have done anything about that being that I was the one who wrote it, but I just wasn't in the right mood (or write mood if you fancy a pun) and the week actually hadn't been all that eventful. Now I'm ready to jump right back (or write back if you fancy repetitive humor) in with yet another rip roaring Words from B.C. But before I do that there are a couple things I'd like to get off my chest. I'd like to send a message to each of the guys out there reading this. Alan, you googly-eyed bastard, I've puked alphabits into better narratives than you'll ever come up with. Brad, customs officers should be shot and your car is a piece of shit. Brian, you scrawny wanker, Ed Wood was on par with Stanley Kubrick compared to you. Danny, as long as I can remember I've fantasized of feeding your lifeless corpse through a wood chipper a la Fargo. Darren, I mock your value system, and past instances in which I professed to like you were fraudulent. Harfield (or should I say Harf [more like Barf]), jazz sucks therefore so do you. Analyze that in your logic class. Joe, you testicularly challenged albino, hockey sucks and therefore so do you. Keith, you fat sack of crap, I hate you and so does everyone else. Matt, hip-hop sucks more than jazz and hockey combined. Steve, go to hell you chestless son of a bitch. Tim Banman, you have curly hair. I hate people with curly hair. Tim Friesen, you're short. Who else is left? Oh yes. Trevor, every moment in the same house as you was a living hell. I think that's all of them. As for the ladies, I have no problem with the ladies. I love the ladies. And the ladies love me. Boo yah. Well, I feel a lot better now. Thanks to Tim Banman for the idea... you bastard.
So where was I? Oh yeah, about to get rip roaring. This week I'd like to focus on the subject of dreams. Why? For a couple of reasons. One, over the past while (or few weeks if you fancy a more specific generality) I've had a number of interesting dreams, including a couple of lucid ones. And two, I just recently found out that The Spirit Within (I know I mention this store a lot in my emails but it has been an important part of my Vancouver experience) carries a plant called Calea Zacatechichi, also known as the Leaf of the God or Dream Herb. It's a mildly psychoactive plant that has actually been experimentally verified to increase the occurance and recall of dreams, particularly lucid dreams. This is very exciting for me because, as many of you know, I've been keenly interested in lucid dreaming since I saw the film Waking Life. While certain habitual practices and mental techniques have increased my ability to become and remain lucid while in the dream state, a natural chemical aide would be a welcome addition to my repertoire. I plan on taking a trip down to the Drive tomorrow to purchase significant quantities of the plant material and I look forward to personally testing its efficacy. As for the dreams I've already had, there was a lucid one in particular that I would like to describe. The earliest point I can recall was waking up (in the dream that is) in bed lying on my back. My bed (in waking life as in this dream) is a wooden four post bed with a sheet of linen patterened with gibberish Latin that hangs over the bed between the four posts. Hanging in front of me from a string attached to this sheet was a piece of paper. The only thing I can remember reading on the paper (though I believe there was more) was something along the lines of "Enjoy this dream." "That's interesting," I thought. "I wonder if I actually am dreaming." I looked at the watch on my wrist (which I normally take off before going to bed) and sure enough the numbers were jumping back and forth seemingly at random. 2:31:54. 3:73:15. 1:62:87. (It occurs to me now that this is similar to the effects on language I experienced after a large dose of psilocybin mushrooms as I described in the Eighth Words). "Hey, what do you know?" I thought. "I am dreaming." And now I was lucid. I got out of bed and went upstairs. I don't remember getting from my room in the basement to the living room upstairs. It could be that the memory of the dream has faded or it could be that I simply appeared upstairs and wasn't aware of the lack of transition. I looked out the living room window for a moment then went to the door and stepped out into the front yard, still in my underwear. I realized this but as I knew it was a dream I hardly cared. There were many more cars driving on the street than usual (i.e. in waking life). Not that there was heavy traffic, just more than normal. I could see the people in the cars looking away and shielding their eyes as they passed. This struck me as funny. Occasionally, throughout the dream, the lucidity would begin to fade and I would have to reassure myself that I was still dreaming. So I would check my watch again, and again the numbers would shift in an apparently random fashion. At this point I decided to try something I have been having trouble with during my lucid dreaming: flying. Normally this is a simple matter and many people use it as a recognizable indication that they are in fact dreaming. The last two or three times I have had a lucid dream, however, I have found the act of flight surprisingly difficult. It's as though gravity (which doesn't actually exist in the dream world) acts unusually strongly on me. Of course, unusually strong gravity in my dreams is far less than while waking. I can generally get off the ground by force of will and even maintain flight at an altitude of a few feet, but often I will eventually drift back down to the ground. This time I was able to slowly crawl to the height of some buildings with the intention of getting an aerial view of Port Moody. I wanted to know how the view in my dream would compare to photographs I had seen while awake. (It's interesting to note how I was able to make clear distinctions between my memories of experiences from my waking life and the perceptions I was experiencing in my dreams). I didn't actually get to make the comparison, as the next thing I remember I was back on the street. This could have been another transitionless change. I should mention that by the time I went flying I was fully clothed somehow. When the dream ended I could feel or sense the shift in consciousness and I saw myself from outside my body. I went from a first person view to a third person view and then I woke up. I wouldn't exactly consider this last part an out-of-body experience. An out-of-dream-body experience maybe, but not a true OBE per se. I could get into some of the philosophical ramifications of the phenomenon of lucid dreaming at this point but it's getting pretty late here and I don't want to be up too much longer. I'll save it for another day though. Or maybe you can puzzle some of them out for yourself. It can't hurt to get people thinking about the nature of reality. Unless it leads them to ideas that shatter their whole systems of belief and they experience a catastrophic existential crisis accompanied by complete mental breakdown. But what are the odds of that happening?
Anyways, on to another topic. In order to make some small amends for being in B.C. on New Year's Eve this year I'd like to do something that I haven't done for anyone (including my mother) since I first came out here, which is to give the people in Winnipeg a telephone call (true, my mom has called me several times, but I haven't phoned her so my previous statement was true) on New Year's Eve. I'm guessing there's going to be a party at the Warsaw House so I'll go on the assumption that that will be the place to call. I'll also assume that by 7:00 anyone who wants to talk to me will be there. If either of these assumptions are incorrect, please email me and let me know what would be a better time and/or place to call. Remember that I'll still be there in spirit. I'll talk to some (hopefully most) of you on the 31st. Until the next one.
Tony "Don't press the button unless you know what it does" Hawkins
So where was I? Oh yeah, about to get rip roaring. This week I'd like to focus on the subject of dreams. Why? For a couple of reasons. One, over the past while (or few weeks if you fancy a more specific generality) I've had a number of interesting dreams, including a couple of lucid ones. And two, I just recently found out that The Spirit Within (I know I mention this store a lot in my emails but it has been an important part of my Vancouver experience) carries a plant called Calea Zacatechichi, also known as the Leaf of the God or Dream Herb. It's a mildly psychoactive plant that has actually been experimentally verified to increase the occurance and recall of dreams, particularly lucid dreams. This is very exciting for me because, as many of you know, I've been keenly interested in lucid dreaming since I saw the film Waking Life. While certain habitual practices and mental techniques have increased my ability to become and remain lucid while in the dream state, a natural chemical aide would be a welcome addition to my repertoire. I plan on taking a trip down to the Drive tomorrow to purchase significant quantities of the plant material and I look forward to personally testing its efficacy. As for the dreams I've already had, there was a lucid one in particular that I would like to describe. The earliest point I can recall was waking up (in the dream that is) in bed lying on my back. My bed (in waking life as in this dream) is a wooden four post bed with a sheet of linen patterened with gibberish Latin that hangs over the bed between the four posts. Hanging in front of me from a string attached to this sheet was a piece of paper. The only thing I can remember reading on the paper (though I believe there was more) was something along the lines of "Enjoy this dream." "That's interesting," I thought. "I wonder if I actually am dreaming." I looked at the watch on my wrist (which I normally take off before going to bed) and sure enough the numbers were jumping back and forth seemingly at random. 2:31:54. 3:73:15. 1:62:87. (It occurs to me now that this is similar to the effects on language I experienced after a large dose of psilocybin mushrooms as I described in the Eighth Words). "Hey, what do you know?" I thought. "I am dreaming." And now I was lucid. I got out of bed and went upstairs. I don't remember getting from my room in the basement to the living room upstairs. It could be that the memory of the dream has faded or it could be that I simply appeared upstairs and wasn't aware of the lack of transition. I looked out the living room window for a moment then went to the door and stepped out into the front yard, still in my underwear. I realized this but as I knew it was a dream I hardly cared. There were many more cars driving on the street than usual (i.e. in waking life). Not that there was heavy traffic, just more than normal. I could see the people in the cars looking away and shielding their eyes as they passed. This struck me as funny. Occasionally, throughout the dream, the lucidity would begin to fade and I would have to reassure myself that I was still dreaming. So I would check my watch again, and again the numbers would shift in an apparently random fashion. At this point I decided to try something I have been having trouble with during my lucid dreaming: flying. Normally this is a simple matter and many people use it as a recognizable indication that they are in fact dreaming. The last two or three times I have had a lucid dream, however, I have found the act of flight surprisingly difficult. It's as though gravity (which doesn't actually exist in the dream world) acts unusually strongly on me. Of course, unusually strong gravity in my dreams is far less than while waking. I can generally get off the ground by force of will and even maintain flight at an altitude of a few feet, but often I will eventually drift back down to the ground. This time I was able to slowly crawl to the height of some buildings with the intention of getting an aerial view of Port Moody. I wanted to know how the view in my dream would compare to photographs I had seen while awake. (It's interesting to note how I was able to make clear distinctions between my memories of experiences from my waking life and the perceptions I was experiencing in my dreams). I didn't actually get to make the comparison, as the next thing I remember I was back on the street. This could have been another transitionless change. I should mention that by the time I went flying I was fully clothed somehow. When the dream ended I could feel or sense the shift in consciousness and I saw myself from outside my body. I went from a first person view to a third person view and then I woke up. I wouldn't exactly consider this last part an out-of-body experience. An out-of-dream-body experience maybe, but not a true OBE per se. I could get into some of the philosophical ramifications of the phenomenon of lucid dreaming at this point but it's getting pretty late here and I don't want to be up too much longer. I'll save it for another day though. Or maybe you can puzzle some of them out for yourself. It can't hurt to get people thinking about the nature of reality. Unless it leads them to ideas that shatter their whole systems of belief and they experience a catastrophic existential crisis accompanied by complete mental breakdown. But what are the odds of that happening?
Anyways, on to another topic. In order to make some small amends for being in B.C. on New Year's Eve this year I'd like to do something that I haven't done for anyone (including my mother) since I first came out here, which is to give the people in Winnipeg a telephone call (true, my mom has called me several times, but I haven't phoned her so my previous statement was true) on New Year's Eve. I'm guessing there's going to be a party at the Warsaw House so I'll go on the assumption that that will be the place to call. I'll also assume that by 7:00 anyone who wants to talk to me will be there. If either of these assumptions are incorrect, please email me and let me know what would be a better time and/or place to call. Remember that I'll still be there in spirit. I'll talk to some (hopefully most) of you on the 31st. Until the next one.
Tony "Don't press the button unless you know what it does" Hawkins
posted by Ad Hawk at
6:12 PM
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