A Special Thing

[spamtek]

I can rate a normal (non-lucid) dream on a fairly roomy scale. I have on one extreme end the drudging depths of mundane, vague, blurry somnovignettes, little more than half-remembered mental farts. We creep up through the gradients of quality, first to the grudgingly acceptable dreams, who at least offer us a splash of color or a clearly

Comments

[rock_lee_writer]

Interesting. I wish I could have such vivid experiences with dreams and remember them/think about them so much.

[spamtek]

The strategy didn't work though, all I had last night was a really vague capture-the-flag gang war on the high seas between my family, a pack of wolves, and a secretive government organization called the Snatchers. I slept in too long, though; I've developed the habit of thinking about writing down my dreams (visualizing the pen and paper and everything), and then at the end of that opening my eyes and realizing I haven't written a damn thing. And in the meanwhile, I've just forgotten more details.

[achingfingers]

Wow. I feel lame for feeling special.
I have those dreams.
I also assumed that I was unique in having them. Probably because I don't know anyone who pays any real attention to their dreams.

Most recently the feeling of completeness came from a dream about being on a planet that was undoubtedly "home". Usually it involves a person, though.

If the feeling in these dreams is the love that I'm supposed to be experiencing with someone, then I have yet to come close to being in love.

This is interesting

[spamtek]

I've never had it as a placefeel. Then again, I have had for an immaterial, invisible presence, so I suppose it's only one step away from there until I feel sacred familiarity with my surroundings.

That's not to say I haven't gotten dear impressions from the places I've been, but it's been more something like a childlike wonder and reverence for where I am (like the alien forest in the desert, or the alien forest in those grasslands - but they were different forests.) and not a sense of completion or dissolution of egoistic bonds. I was a visitor, however enraptured, not a resident as you describe it.

1

[prefer_owls]

Aristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love in another way, unlike that either of Pausanias or Eryximachus. Mankind; he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race. I will try to describe his power to you, and you shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you. In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once

2

[prefer_owls]

At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: "Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg." He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that the man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the purses which draw

3

[prefer_owls]

Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the indenture of a man, and he is always looking for his other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called Androgynous are lovers of women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous women who lust after men: the women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they hang about men and embrace them, and they are themselves the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature. Some indeed assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them. And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great proof of the truth of what I am

4

[prefer_owls]

Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety, that we may avoid evil, and obtain the good, of which Love is to us the lord and minister; and let no one oppose him-he is the enemy of the gods who oppose him. For if we are friends of the God and at peace with him we shall find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world at present. I am serious, and therefore I must beg Eryximachus not to make fun or to find any allusion in what I am saying to Pausanias and Agathon, who, as I suspect, are both of the manly nature, and belong to the class which I have been describing. But my words have a wider application-they include men and women everywhere; and I believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one returning to his primeval nature had his original true love, then our race would be happy. And if this would be best of all, the best in the next degree and under present circumstances must be the nearest approach to such an union; and that will be the attainment of a congenial love. Wherefore, if we would praise him

[spamtek]

or maybe I'm FULL OF SHIT

WOOOOOOOOOO