Posted by John on March 17, 2000 at 13:31:38:
In Reply to: Re: Dream state posted by PSteven on March 16, 2000 at 20:28:34:
: : : : : OK, I told Lynne that if she posted the crab story, I'd post the storm drain story, and after all, a deal's a deal.
: : : : : I can actually relate to that kind of drug-related comical misplaced urgency. I remember as a teenager (oh so long ago) when I did LSD the first time. It was a rainy and windy night, and we were on an old civil war era estate in Virginia. On the corner of the carriage house there was a vertical drain pipe coming down from the rain gutters that lined the roof. This aluminum pipe stopped about a foot from the ground, and there was a slightly larger concrete pipe sticking up out of the ground about 6 inches, which the water was obviously meant to drain into. But the wind was blowing so hard the water was blown sideways out of the aluminum drain pipe and never made it the 6 crucial inches to the concrete pipe below it. Someone managed to convince me it was of the utmost importance that I crouch by the pipe and use my hands to block the wind and direct the water into the concrete pipe, while he ran to get help. With my time perception distorted as it was, I cannot determine how long it was that I diligently labored there feeling like I had a purpose in life.
: : : : Steve, that was a great experience, and a great time to share it.
: : : : Especially: "...I cannot determine how long it was that I diligently labored there feeling like I had a purpose in life..."
: : : : Wow!
: : : : Jason
: : : Makes ya wonder if it's possible our whole lives could be focused on goals just about as important and purposeful. If it were so, how would we know? Everything seems quite real while in a dream. It only seems absurd after you've awakened.
: : Yes but then it is possible to train oneself to recognize a dream while in it.
: Many of the most prominent philosophical minds would disagree, among them Plato and Descartes.
Yeah, at least in Western philosophy. Easterners on the other hand would have no problem with this, and the mystics. But I was really refering to actual dreams, which you can train yourself to recognize while in them. And hey, by the way, Descartes doesn't even know which way is up! :) What's all this about thinking being the measure of exisitence, there are far more basic concepts that denote existence. It would have been better to say I am, therefore I am. This is more sound.
Further, it is Descartes ideas, and those that followed him, that led directly to this entire civilization with its utilitarian, rigid scientific method, quanitfiable, if i can't measure it it isn't real, humans are the gods of creation mentality.
Anyway, food for thought.