December 8, 1996
Dear Terence,
where is the hallucination of ten years ago? It's neither in space nor in
time, this we know because space and time are definitions of relativity
and nothing dwells in definitions but angles of perception. But say a hallucination
(or a vision) recurs. The question might be rephrased "who is having
this recurring vision?" Or is it that the vision "has" the
perceiver?"
Language would have it that "I had a dream." If I appeared as
a character in the dream and saw a blue house, was it the one who was sleeping
who saw that house, or the one who appeared to be conscious within the dream,
reputed to be me? Or the one who writes these sentences? Assuming the possibility
of a reasonable answer, which aspect of self would be better qualified to
reply:: the self of the dream, the waking self who recalls the dream, or
the self who later ponders the subject of dream and vision in general? And
what of the parts of the dream seemingly beyond recall? If not available
to consciousness, were they really "dreamed" at all? Well, yes
- because sometimes other facets of the dream pop into consciousness suddenly
while one is thinking of other things - as though a 4th self yet had access
to the n-dimensional repository.
I had a good deep sleep last night and remember nothing, though I'm fairly
certain many vistas were opened. Just an apprehension of something occurring
which might have so little reference to the waking world that memory cannot
repossess it, unless an intersection point presents itself. Be that as it
may, I feel refreshed in a way that suggests many things were resolved.
As I write these words, I feel a sudden painful cramp in my solar plexus.
Nausea. Gas pain, or am I skirting too near the abyss here? Conversely,
is the abyss skirting too near me? Abyss: where self loses the comfortable
utility based on not asking too many questions.
To the point, why am I writing of this particular blend of ideas this morning?
Assuming nothing happens without motivation, is this examination the fruit
of whatever happened in dreamland which won't yield itself to me? Seems
a fair guess. The topic question popped into my head with commanding intensity,
wanting to be written down, but not to "myself." Rather to an
Other. As with all questions dealing with phenomenology, the problem of
the observer is paramount. When "self itself" is under scrutiny,
and starts splitting, like quicksilver touched, the "Other" is
conceived and addressed as a matter of reflexive recourse. Looks like I'm
adding to our cumulative exposition on the nature of the Other via the backdoor.
Didn't realize that was where it would lead when I began.
Back to topic A: where is the hallucination of ten years ago, if it is both
then and now? It would be almost too easy to suggest "in eternity,"
the same place the keener perceptics of babyhood loom without rational reference,
causing the endless nostagia at the core of being human. A cat purrs when
stroked because recalling the tongue washings of its mother. It needs no
drugs or philosophy to achieve this satisfying identification with the Other.
I think that in the "purr" separate identity dissolves. As in
deep sleep. Is snoring the human equivalent? The flapping glottis of peace.
Grey Autumnal morning thoughts. Cramp gone and a swirling breeze detatches
yellow leaves from the wisteria.
rh
December 12, 1996
Dear rh--
"Where are the snows of yesteryear?"
This is not a question about meteorology. It is rather a question about
memory. It seems to me that one of the fundamental accomplishments of modernity
is the establishment of the notion of a fragmented, discontinuous identity
as a part of the lived experience of many people. I call it an
accomplishment because I believe it represents an overcoming of the fiction
of narrative that was imposed on experience and life by the earlier more
print constellated psychology of the Nineteenth Century. Phenomenology and
analysis of experience leads to the notion that we each are living in very
private Idahos. Not only do we have great difficulty communicating among
ourselves but we also have great difficulty communicating with various parts
of our own identity. The awakened and the dreamer are as remote from each
other as the ten year old and the fifty year old, as different from each
other as the terminal depressed person and the psychedelically ecstatic
person; yet all of these people can be found united in one person, or at
least one body, one continuing organism. I almost wrote one continuous bundle
of genes, but then I recalled that one's genetic heritage
is never expressed all at once, some genes are turned on in puberty, some
in middle age. So in this sense we are always a part of the larger thing
that we are in time that is our whole continuous existence, something that
a 4 dimensional being could appreciated from the outside but that no one
of us can ever see or know. The organism continues but its understanding
of itself and its purposes and its experiences of itself and its purposes
is always unintegrated and discontinuous.
Best,
T