(no subject)
"We declared war on terror-it’s not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I’m sure we’ll take on that bastard ennui."
"Donald Rumsfeld. Love him or hate him, you've gotta admit: a lot of people hate him."
I feel very proud to share a birthday with this guy - a fact I wasn't aware of until today. The things you learn when you're trying to avoid writing a presentation... I also share my birthday with William Blake, Friedrich Engels, and an 'Adult Film Star' called Lexington Steele (here's a hint - I don't think that's his real name).
I had a very weird experience the other night, I was in bed asleep and dreaming, but suddenly I became aware of this fact. I believe this is called 'Lucid Dreaming' - William Burroughs wrote on the subject quite frequently, and his friend Brion Gysin devised a machine to aid people in the pursuit of this experience by flashing multicoloured light infront of their eyes as they enter REM sleep. I remembered reading that if you become aware that you are dreaming, you can control the content of the dream, so I gave this a try. Once I had decided to do this, everything became white (like that bit in the Matrix where Morpheus is showing Neo 'The Construct') with objects only appearing as I thought directly about them. It was difficult though, because I now had to conciously and explicitly construct every object and sensation in the dream, rather than them coming from my subconcious. If I wasn't thinking explicitly about something, it would fade away, and If I tried to create something large or complex it was very vague and diffuse almost like a pencil sketch. It was very strange all in all, and thinking about it later I wondered if I had actually been aware that I was dreaming, or just (because I was aware of the concept) just dreaming that I was having a lucid dream and the whole thing along with the idea of self-awareness was just a product of my unconscious mind.
One thing is sure, I should eat less cheese before going to bed.