Supernatural Longings

Dreampoem
James T. Hellcat

It has been found again! What? Eternity.

It is the sea mingled with the sun.

                               -Arthur Rimbaud

sunlight baptizes the countryside,

devours our carnal suffering,

& i dream of breasts,

water-lilies,

my delicate childhood.

this is my confession:

i am not your muse,

your gypsy nymph;

i am this season's child,

hell's embryo,

a wicked phantom of a sleepless dream.

& you are a dream tyrant,

a frenzied alchemist,

a martyr to love's wolfish heart.

the autumn sky rubies your skin,

antiques the trees.

i am lost & lake-drunk,

a slave to this roadside phantasmagoria.

i can't shake these supernatural longings.

for a moment,

i thought

we'd found

eternity.

...

Seal the hushed casket of my soul

The other night I had a dream I was dreaming. Or was it I dreamt I had a dream I was dreaming...

It doesn't matter. I was dreaming. An ordinary dream in which I was kicking some zombie butt when suddenly my dream self realized I was dreaming. It's not the first time this has happened. I've been a lucid dreamer since I was a child. What was interesting about this particular lucid dream is that not only was I acutely aware of the fact that I was dreaming, but that my dream self had powers my corporeal self does not. I'm talking about the ability to bend the rules of physics! Of course, it's nothing new. People have been flying, breathing under water, & falling from great heights without dying (trust me, it happens to me all the time) in their dreams since, well, since people began dreaming, I suppose. But what struck me was how rational my dream self was about the whole thing.

My thought process went something like this: "It's ok, I've had this dream before. These zombies can't hurt me; they aren't real." So, instead of kicking more zombie ass, I went fishing. And in my dreams I take a whole body approach to fishing, which means literally entering the water & swimming with my prey. In essence, I became a fish. I won't go too much into what fish traditionally represent in dreams (the unconscious, fertility, sex, religion, to name a few), instead I'll tell you what dreaming of fish (& being a fish) means to me.

Fish have long been recurring motifs in my dreams (as well as zombies, vampires, snakes, water, & school). They have also been motifs in my recurring dreams (I have dozens!). I have no doubt as to why these motifs surface so frequently. I spent a great part of my childhood fishing & swimming, watching horror movies, & of course, attending school. What interests me is my dream self, a self that is so obviously like me but is not me. I am not always conscious that I am dreaming, but more often than not, I find myself inhabiting a world that is completely within my control. In my dreams, I can do anything. Be anything.

So, how about you? What do you dream about? How often do you dream? Do you dream at all? I'm dying to know.

...

On a Dream

John Keats

As Hermes once took to his feathers light,

    When lulled Argus, baffled, swoon’d and slept,

So on a Delphic reed, my idle spright

    So play’d, so charm’d, so conquer’d, so bereft

The dragon-world of all its hundred eyes;

    And seeing it asleep, so fled away,

Not to pure Ida with its snow-cold skies,

    Nor unto Tempe where Jove griev’d that day;

But to that second circle of sad Hell,

    Where in the gust, the whirlwind, and the flaw

Of rain and hail-stones, lovers need not tell

    Their sorrows—pale were the sweet lips I saw,

Pale were the lips I kiss’d, and fair the form

I floated with, about that melancholy storm.

& 

To Sleep

O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
    Shutting, with careful fingers and benign,
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embowered from the light,
    Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
    In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws
    Around my bed its lulling charities;
Then save me, or the passed day will shine
    Upon my pillow, breeding many woes;
Save me from curious conscience, that still lords
    Its strength, for darkness burrowing like a mole;
Turn the key deftly in the oiled wards,
    And seal the hushed casket of my soul.

...

What post about dreams would be complete without Keats?!

...

Mooning over you: every day we descend a step further toward Hell

Well, my dear readers (all three of you!), I'm tired of listening to myself think. I'd like to hear from you.

What are your thoughts?

On life? the uncanny? zombies? Freud's predilection for cigars, coke & hysterical women? Soundgarden's new album? silent movies? tonight's harvest moon?

not tonight's harvest moon, but spectacular nonetheless

Full moons, especially the big, fat, low-hanging ones like the harvest moon, were once thought to be uncanny.

The Moon Illusion, as it is now called, is an optical illusion that causes the moon to appear larger when it is closer to the horizon & smaller when it is higher up in the sky. I was going to post a picture, but nothing was loading. You're over the moon about it, I'm sure.

And I, I have nothing to say.

So, tell ME something.

Anything.

...


To the Reader
Charles Baudelaire
trans. William Aggeler

Folly, error, sin, avarice
Occupy our minds and labor our bodies,
And we feed our pleasant remorse
As beggars nourish their vermin.

Our sins are obstinate, our repentance is faint;
We exact a high price for our confessions,
And we gaily return to the miry path,
Believing that base tears wash away all our stains.

On the pillow of evil Satan, Trismegist,
Incessantly lulls our enchanted minds,
And the noble metal of our will
Is wholly vaporized by this wise alchemist.

The Devil holds the strings which move us!
In repugnant things we discover charms;
Every day we descend a step further toward Hell,
Without horror, through gloom that stinks.

Like a penniless rake who with kisses and bites
Tortures the breast of an old prostitute,
We steal as we pass by a clandestine pleasure
That we squeeze very hard like a dried up orange.

Serried, swarming, like a million maggots,
A legion of Demons carouses in our brains,
And when we breathe, Death, that unseen river,
Descends into our lungs with muffled wails.

If rape, poison, daggers, arson
Have not yet embroidered with their pleasing designs
The banal canvas of our pitiable lives,
It is because our souls have not enough boldness.

But among the jackals, the panthers, the bitch hounds,
The apes, the scorpions, the vultures, the serpents,
The yelping, howling, growling, crawling monsters,
In the filthy menagerie of our vices,

There is one more ugly, more wicked, more filthy!
Although he makes neither great gestures nor great cries,
He would willingly make of the earth a shambles
And, in a yawn, swallow the world;

He is Ennui! — His eye watery as though with tears,
He dreams of scaffolds as he smokes his hookah pipe.
You know him reader, that refined monster,
— Hypocritish reader, — my fellow, — my brother!

...

brave, like looters in a burning town

Set 2 of Self-Portraits of You turned out pretty fantastic. And I've decided to add another level to the project by drawing/painting some of the portraits. Or maybe all of them, who knows.

So far, no one has refused my request, but a few people thought they were funny. haha.

stunning! (& not just because it was taken by my terribly beautiful daughter)

take 1 (pretty/gross)

take 2 (better!)

take 1

take 2 (disembodied head = better)

smiling bartenders make better tips

drunk patrons smile more (holy fingernail, batman!)

breathtaking (in a seedy nightclub kind of way)

creepy (in a Leprechaun meets Planet of the Apes kind of way)

trust me, he's the nicest dork you'll ever meet

two ghosts are better than one (that's my ghost in the background!)

"I don't do drugs. I am drugs." -Salvador Dali

isn't she lovely?

is this like some kind of social experiment or something?

so, you think you're a wise guy, eh?

some faces speak for themselves

even the bar took a picture of itself!

some people prefer to be in front of the camera rather than behind it

Overall, the results were fruitful, if a bit dark. But that's how I like it! And I think you're going to like my interpretation of you.

...

Beginning
Alden Nowlan

From that they found most lovely, most abhorred,
my parents made me: I was born like sound
stroked from the fiddle to become the ward
of tunes played on the bear-trap and the hound.

Not one, but seven entrances they gave
each to the other, and he laid her down
the way the sun comes out. Oh, they were brave,
and then like looters in a burning town.

Their mouths left bruises, starting with the kiss
and ending with the proverb, where they stayed;
never in making was there brighter bliss,
followed by darker shame. Thus I was made.

...

These scattered things

Last night I had this great idea for a social experiment (I just love experiments, don't you!). I handed my camera to a few people & asked them to take a picture of themselves. It's interesting to observe how people react to anything that challenges traditional social norms (picture-taking is fine, so long as it conforms to certain unspoken rules). And self-portraiture says a lot about a person's self-image.

This is the first set of photos in the series I Am a Self-Portrait of You. Unfortunately it was a rather small group of friends, so there are only four portraits. But there will be more to come.

The results:

the first, & my favourite.

can't you at least make it LOOK as if you're having fun?

like her?

and, I don't even know your name.

It was easy to get the first two to take their own picture; I know them both quite well & they are used to my eccentricities. The third girl thought I wanted her to take a picture of me, & was very hesitant about taking one of herself. It took a lot of coaxing. I had to assure her that if she didn't like the picture, I would delete it.

I don't know the fourth girl. She was curious to know why I wanted her to take a picture of herself with my camera. I told her it was an art project/experiment & she was nice enough to humour me. 

...

Self-Portrait
Rainer Maria Rilke

The steadfastness of generations of nobility
shows in the curving lines that form the eyebrows.
And the blue eyes still show traces of childhood fears
and of humility here and there, not of a servant's,
yet of one who serves obediently, and of a woman.
The mouth formed as a mouth, large and accurate,
not given to long phrases, but to express
persuasively what is right. The forehead without guile
and favoring the shadows of quiet downward gazing.

This, as a coherent whole, only casually observed;
never as yet tried in suffering or succeeding,
held together for an enduring fulfillment,
yet so as if for times to come, out of these scattered things,
something serious and lasting were being planned. 

... 

(b)rain(s)! Pt. 2

This poem found me today:

The Door (I)

Robert Creeley 

        for Robert Duncan 

It is hard going to the door

cut so small in the wall where

the vision which echoes loneliness   

brings a scent of wild flowers in a wood.

What I understood, I understand.

My mind is sometime torment,   

sometimes good and filled with livelihood,   

and feels the ground.

But I see the door,

and knew the wall, and wanted the wood,   

and would get there if I could

with my feet and hands and mind.

Lady, do not banish me   

for digressions. My nature   

is a quagmire of unresolved   

confessions. Lady, I follow.

I walked away from myself,

I left the room, I found the garden,

I knew the woman

in it, together we lay down.

Dead night remembers. In December   

we change, not multiplied but dispersed,   

sneaked out of childhood,

the ritual of dismemberment.

Mighty magic is a mother,

in her there is another issue

of fixture, repeated form, the race renewal,   

the charge of the command.

The garden echoes across the room.   

It is fixed in the wall like a mirror   

that faces a window behind you   

and reflects the shadows.

May I go now?

Am I allowed to bow myself down

in the ridiculous posture of renewal,

of the insistence of which I am the virtue?

Nothing for You is untoward.   

Inside You would also be tall,   

more tall, more beautiful.

Come toward me from the wall, I want to be with You.

So I screamed to You,

who hears as the wind, and changes   

multiply, invariably,

changes in the mind. 

 

Running to the door, I ran down

as a clock runs down. Walked backwards,   

stumbled, sat down

hard on the floor near the wall.

Where were You.

How absurd, how vicious.

There is nothing to do but get up.

My knees were iron, I rusted in worship, of You.

For that one sings, one

writes the spring poem, one goes on walking.   

The Lady has always moved to the next town   

and you stumble on after Her.

The door in the wall leads to the garden   

where in the sunlight sit

the Graces in long Victorian dresses,   

of which my grandmother had spoken.

History sings in their faces.

They are young, they are obtainable,   

and you follow after them also

in the service of God and Truth. 

 

But the Lady is indefinable,   

she will be the door in the wall   

to the garden in sunlight.   

I will go on talking forever.

I will never get there.

Oh Lady, remember me

who in Your service grows older   

not wiser, no more than before.

How can I die alone.

Where will I be then who am now alone,   

what groans so pathetically

in this room where I am alone?

I will go to the garden.

I will be a romantic. I will sell   

myself in hell,

in heaven also I will be.

In my mind I see the door,

I see the sunlight before me across the floor   

beckon to me, as the Lady’s skirt

moves small beyond it.

 

...

Since I don't really have very many regular readers (a handful if I'm lucky), I thought I'd do a little experiment. Experiments are fun! And they tell you really interesting things about the human mind. And they require PARTICIPATION.

Richard Wiseman did a version of this experiment on his blog  a while ago. He blogs about the quirks of the brain & it's pretty neat (& a hundred times better than mine). Check it out if you want: http://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/. I'm interested to see if my results will be the same as his.

...

Let's play a game!

That's right, word association!

Today is Sigmund Freud's birthday (how uncanny), so to honour the twisted & depraved man himself, let's play a word association game. I'm going to give you a word & you will tell me the first word that comes to mind when you read it. And since I'm not a mind-reader (that you know of), in the comments section, write your word (I JUST realized you had to sign in with OpenID to comment on the blog, but I've since fixed that little problem) So it's easy. Ok? Go!

BLACK


...

Brains! Part 1

*these ideas are not my own, except the part about the zombies

Every idea I've ever had belonged to someone else first.
                                                    -James T. Hellcat

In his book How the Mind Works, Steven Pinker wrote, "...the mind is a naturally selected computer." I like this metaphor. For one, I'm a Darwinist/Dawkinsist, so the idea that the brain has evolved to be the crazy thinking machine it is is not so surprising/terrifying, & for another, the brain as data processor seems to me completely plausible given its nature.

What do I mean by its nature? Well, the brain has several data processing functions. It is a counting machine, a language processor, it has an expandable memory, and it is capable of crashing, to name a few. For more on the brain: http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1997_09_naturalhistory.html

But it's the misfirings of the brain that I really want to talk about. The other day I experienced a classic blunder (in Statistics, a Type 1 error/false positive). I was sitting on my couch enjoying a visit with a friend, when I looked to my left & noticed my cat hunkered down beside the couch, no doubt stalking a fly or spider or a bit of fluff. I then looked up & saw that the cat was sprawled out on the dining table. A quick double-take back to 'the cat' next to the couch & I realized that it was actually a black bag I had earlier set on the floor. Duh!

Called pareidolia or simulacra, this 'uncanny' phenomenon occurs when the brain fills in false information & recognizes a vague image as a specific one. Sort of like the mind's auto-complete, if you will. Human self-delusion is fascinating, don't you think?! Pareidolia (not aliens, God, ghosts, etc.) is also to blame when we insist that we 'recognize' a familiar face, only to realize upon looking closer that it is not at all the person we had thought, & it is what causes us to see faces on random objects such as the moon or a slice of toast. It also makes us susceptible to the power of illusion/magic.

Traditionally (& still today?!), these misperceptions have most often been attributed to supernatural beings/occurrences. But it's just your mind playing tricks on you ... literally! So why do we insist on perpetuating these supernatural myths? Evolution, baby. Our minds have evolved to take on some pretty herculean tasks, so it makes sense that the brain would try to make things easier on itself, say perhaps by switching off/turning down consciousness when it is not directly necessary in order to accomplish the task at hand. ie. making sense of the black lump protruding from behind the couch. That black lump could have been almost anything, so in order to save time & costly cell activity, my brain made a guess based on a number of things (previous experience/memory, what I imagine it to be, & what I hope it is). So why DID I see my cat & not a dog, or a sweater, or a panther, or a black hole, or the black bag that it really was? 

I'll quote Mr. Pinker again, if only because he says things so much more learnedly & eloquently than I (he's the Psychologist, Cognitive Scientist, Linguist, & I'm the English major): "...the mind is a system of organs of computation that enabled our ancestors to survive and reproduce in the physical and social worlds in which our species spent most of its evolutionary history" (Pinker 2005).

1. Our brains are still evolving & are, therefore, not without imperfections.
2. Our social & physical worlds have evolved much faster than our brain's have.

While the costs of making a mistake in perception may be different (but not less) in the contemporary social & physical worlds, our brains are still hardwired to be on the lookout for both the things we know that are safe & the things we don't that are potential dangers. It may be nothing more than a perceptual error when we misinterpret vague images, but it pays in the long run. The brain's auto-complete function enables us to quickly locate our mates/family in a jungle of faces, locate food & shelter sources & avoid danger. Only sometimes, the brain gets it wrong (like Google?!). I am familiar with the sight of my cat (I've had her for about 6 months now), I do not own a dog, the particular shape & colour of the bag was consistent with that of my cat's (rather large) posterior, I completely forgot that I had set the bag there myself a few hours earlier, & there are no panthers or black holes (that I know of) in my home, so it makes sense that I would infer that the shape I saw was my cat, Vampira. Human perception is a subjective approximation/guesstimation rather than a fundamental, objective truth.  

Everything is a lie.

...

The other day I wrote about my brain. Specifically, how superior I think it is. You may dismiss me as an egomaniac, and to a certain extent, you'd be right. I am genetically hardwired to be selfish (or rather, my genes are). But that does not make me a selfish (and therefore, according to some, bad) human being. As intelligent as I am, as you are, as anyone can ever be (and trust me that person would be a gazillion billion times smarter than me & you put together), there is so much that we don't know, it makes what we do know seem infinitesimal. I may be gifted according to some subjective standardized test, but I am far from being a know-it-all. I am no better (or worse) than the lot of humankind.

In essence, when it comes to the human brain, degrees of intelligence are irrelevant. We're all pretty damn smart (in comparison to protozoa, say) or stupid (compared to superhuman robots, which thankfully, don't exist). Think about it. From an evolutionary perspective, we aren't that much more evolved than primitive man/woman (which explains a lot about our current disordered world!). I may be an intelligent being, but most of the time I find myself shambling about like some ravenous, slobbering zombie. 

And like I always say, I am a self-portrait of you.

...

The human brain, with all of its capabilities, its imperfections, & its limitations, truly amazes & confounds me. It is not only the source of, but quite possibly, the best example of the 'uncanny' there is.

Which brings me to zombies. The words 'uncanny' & 'zombie' are practically synonymous in my world.

I really like zombies. They are my favourite monsters, despite my theory that zombies, vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein, golem, ghosts, demons, mythological monsters such as Medusa & Hydra, succubi, human monsters--serial killers/cannibalists/necrophiliacs etc.--even the Devil himself, are all incarnations of the same thing: the inherent darkness within the human brain. Zombies aren't real, but they are useful as a metaphor for the things we don't understand/like/are afraid of about ourselves. It is much easier to create an 'other' to bear the weight of our troubles, one who is capable of acting out all of the nastiness we can imagine, than it is to accept that we ourselves ARE monsters. Lest you think I am being incontrovertibly pessimistic about humankind (and truthfully, most of the time I am), I also believe that our brains have advanced far enough for us to accept this & move on. We are not merely devils, we are angels, too.

And, although logically impossible, zombies are, nonetheless, quite frightening to anyone with a brain.

...

Welcome to the Age of the Zombie.

...mmmmm brains!

...

The Computation
John Donne

For my first twenty years, since yesterday,

I scarce believed thou couldst be gone away;
For forty more I fed on favours past, 

And forty on hopes that thou wouldst they might last;
Tears drown'd one hundred, and sighs blew out two;

A thousand, I did neither think nor do,
Or not divide, all being one thought of you;

Or in a thousand more, forgot that too.
Yet call not this long life ; but think that I
Am, by being dead, immortal; can ghosts die ? 

...

Sources


Carroll, Robert T. http://www.skepdic.com/pareidol.html
Chalmers, David. http://consc.net/zombies.html
Dennett, Daniel C. http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/unzombie.htm
Pinker, Steven. http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/papers/So_How_Does_The_Mind_Work.pdf
___________. http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/media/1997_09_naturalhistory.html