The Brain, Fractals, Mushrooms, Mycellium, 1111, & The Universe

I once had a dream that I was in this organic maze that was constantly changing shape, becoming more complex and overwhelming. There was a digital clock, illuminated and constantly in my view, counting down by the milli-second, representing time left that I was to get out of the maze. It stopped at 11:11:11, and a voice thunderously said that if I was to say “Awake (something something)” that I would be able to escape the maze. So I did, and then I began to float up and expand out to see that the maze looked a lot like this:

Shortly after coming out of the maze, I woke up in my bed.

Both photos are a micro-image of the mycellium structure of a mushroom.

I went to Will’s birthday party last night, and he had a book called “Cosmos” lying out in the open on the kitchen table. We talked about the images in there, real and computer-generated pictures of some of the billions of galaxies in our observable universe. I’ve seen this image before, but it always sparks something wild in me every time I look at it.

Will suggested the irony that the mycellium of a mushroom looks strangely similar to the interconnected web of galaxies in the universe. I’d never thought of that but have definitely considered that the image looked strangely similar to a membrane, or even neurons in the brain.

Lots of eastern thought and even advocates of psychedelics have nearly made it a cliché that the universe is contained within its parts, much like a fractal. It makes you wonder why so many people claim that they’ve had perceptions of one-ness or “awakening” after consuming psychedelic mushrooms.

Because of the parallel, I tried to find the rant Joe Rogan does in his stand-up about the possibility of the human experience looking like this: being within a galaxy of a universe inside the ball of a guy whos in a galaxy of a universe within the ball of a guy who’s in a universe…

…but instead, I found this.

Calea Zacatechichi – Dream Herb

I think my experience with 1111 has something to do with an answer to the question, what is reality? Here is something I wrote a couple of months ago, about something I experienced in 2008.

“Everything begins at the thought level. So, humans, for whatever reason, have developed a habitual thought stream that they allow to run wild. And I think we have the conscious choice to take hold of the reigns and steer that energy to a focused place. So, how to balance thinking with presence? I think at this point, it’s good to start by redirecting my thoughts so long as I am aware. And never let thoughts of what I don’t want to run their course, or “what if” scenarios. Like my calea dream, all background thought-noise is manipulating the form that makes up reality, even through time and space. That is something I could write about. I’ve thought about it. I’ve really thought about making an illustrative video of that, or writing a little bit about it. “Thought planes in the realm of time and space” or something. Ha ha. Think of what could be learned from that. The fact that the geometric planes were being manipulated through the space, also compared as time distance… these forms were already “set”, yet they were still being touched in the slightest by my inner conversation.  So, moving through space here was in fact exploring form in time, those further away from the center point (now) were manipulated at a lesser degree, yet still manipulated. I could explore the space with my consciousness. I was the observer of my thoughts and the forms. It was a lot moving into view, a lot of planes moved in and out of view that were highly manipulated by my thinking. A plane could bubble out into a deformed geometric shape or change completely by whatever I was thinking about. It was all moving, in and out of view. It was my consciousness in the present that could perform the highest degree of manipulation. The other forms continued with their initial “deforming”, to float in this time/space realm. And they continued to change to the degree at which they were placed in time. That’s how, I assume, the past could be manipulated with intention in that book I read, the intention experiment.  So whatever I think now, is going to change the shape of my past, or perceived past. That’s crazy to me. Yet, there is a drag on it, so there will be a sense of memory or “past” until our present completely washes clean whatever that memory was of past. It will slowly  pass, and then the construct of reality will be altered in a way where the more predominating thought impressed upon the forms throughout time/space will prevail.”

Whether a symbol, or something real, it can be acknowledged that all action and emotion are directly related to the core of what we are thinking, unconsciously, or consciously, and/or the energy we carry from moment to moment. Perception is altered by our thought, and therefore information that our brains receive will change as our energy and thinking changes. Thought is energy, matter is energy at a slower vibration than thought… It’s all energy. It will attract the like, like placing your attention on finding a number, or looking for synchronicities in general.

Conversations About Hell

It may surprise you or not that modern churches are still hinging their ideology on the concept that Hell really exists. There are less and less details provided as to what Hell is, (especially in mega-churches that try to appeal to western pop-culture with rock praise bands, fog machines, and front-flipping preachers) but it’s still pretty well-understood that Hell is a place where souls are cast into by an omniscient celestial authority (A.K.A. God) for eternal torture (burning forever) if they do not abide by God’s rule(s). It is a concept that is widespread like a disease, helping produce an overwhelming number of Christians by use of fear and guilt rather than spiritual enrichment.

A bunch of Churches devote one sermon per month to the importance of “tithing,” donating 10% of your earnings to “God,” or rather, to the accounting office of the church. These days, such donations will be used to buy new flat-screens, projection systems, or PA systems to make their church more appealing to the community and improve join-rates. The direct and implied urgings to keep God happy lest ye be cast away from His love is significant, while God is simultaneously presented as an unconditionally loving paternal-like figure.

The impossibility of combining these two preached characteristics of a divine authority is obvious, especially considering at a more basic level that God has a preference to things or people and their behaviors. Essentially, the idea presents that God has an ego, and God is so humanized to the point where “He” is as insane and as moody as a step-dad who once pretended to like you just to get with your divorced Mom. God is so paternalized in Church, intentionally or not, that all dad-issues a person may have risks manifesting the shadow concept of what your dad was like towards you, combined with what you wish he was like, and things you actually did like about your dad.

Art, psychology, and history is mostly dismissed within the church so long as it isn’t actively supporting the ideology of the group, or is often a creative regurgitation (rock music praise bands, pastor jokes and emotional anecdotes), used to bring outsiders into the church. The last church experience I had was visiting a local aspiring mega-church during a Christmas Eve service where the praise band played metal versions of Christmas Carols and then blatantly ripped off that Coldplay single from Viva La Vida and changed the words to be more worship-oriented.

Towards the end of my trying to make church work for me, all the questions started with the concept of Hell and how it didn’t make any sense to me that 99.9% of the population were soon to be banished to eternal torment. Our existence on Earth would only be a blink in the scope of universal existence, a test that existed only to see which humans were fit to please God (egotistically) for all eternity. Eventually I began to fall in love with books and ideas that expanded and enhanced my curiosity towards life and the nature of humans, and slowly the division between “me” (Christian) and “them” (non-Christian) began to fade, and meaningful relationships could finally form outside of a church circle.

I went to church for almost 2 more years after I mentally checked out because of appreciation for my roots and family upbringing. Eventually “teachings” and vibes became unbearable, solidifying one day when a “guest pastor” showed up with a leather jacket, hipster glasses, and perfectly pruned faux-hawk and proceeded to bash the Dalai Lama for receiving the congressional medal of honor.

“They gave the Dalai Lama the Congressional Medal of Honor… They gave some little guy in an orange suit the congressional medal of honor…”

A comparison-mentality is inevitable when believing in the concept of Hell, “I’m saved, they’re not.” It’s not unusual that Christians think they’re “more Christian” than others, also. All the problems with black-and-white ideologies seem so simple to explore and see, but when you look at the masses, there are A TON of people who still commit to the Hell idea. The simple reason is fear. If you believe you will be severed completely from your “Father’s” love by thinking a certain thought, there is no way you can even allow a new conflicting thought or insight come into/out of your head. Any idea that causes division among humans is not based on love, and can’t possibly be linked with an ideology of genuine unconditional love, a claim made by sermon-makers all the time. Where there’s division, there is violence, and where there’s violence on a mass scale, there’s war, and where there is a belief in Hell, there is a conceptual God of a psychotic and egotistical, paternal nature. When a mass population believes in all of it, there are many who don’t mind supporting a president who declares war for a stupid reason so long as he prays about it first.

Hell is a touchy subject. It’s hardly mentioned in church anymore because it’s an incredibly retarded idea and a lot of people squeeze off insight to protect the concept. There are still a bunch of people who don’t want to touch the funny feelings they have about Hell, and why everyone can be so cool with the fact that 99.9% are going there is still mind blowing. “Hell” is a translation from the Greek word “Gehenna”, an actual place where trash and dead bodies were burned in Jerusalem, used as a metaphor by the Biblical Jesus himself, not really a flaming void at the bottom of the universe where demons and the damned remain forever.

It doesn’t take much digging to discover this. So why, after centuries, is Hell still taught to young minds as real and existing with only one way to escape it? What else are “authority figures” teaching to all age groups that could possibly be complete bunky bullshit, claiming that it is ordained by the Ultimate?

Fear is something you don’t want as a mental structure in your psyche. Fear makes you hand over money to people who don’t really care about you. It’s used by advertising and marketing companies all the time. Fear makes it easy for other people to control you and your decisions. Fear makes you vote for people you wouldn’t vote for otherwise. Fear is exploited by institutions like school and government all the time. To commit to an idea that creates and perpetuates fear in you is insane. We are living on Earth, a round rock that is constantly threatening planetary upheaval while flying through space amongst solar winds and asteroids, surrounded by billions of galaxies. We’re tied into a banking system and economy that adds and subtracts imagined value, digits from a computer screen. There is no ultimate security in life. There is no ultimate safety. Lust for comfort suffocates the soul. It’s all illusory and chasing it in fear will eat and cripple you from the inside. Fear can’t exist in contentment. Neither can contentment or creativity exist in the constant grasping for security, whether from God, preachers, teachers, jobs, parents, kids, or even your country.

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” -Ben Franklin

Liberation was the name of the game for the guys who started this country, not so much for the guys running it today. Unlike you’ll hear today at school, church, or on the news, the “Founding Fathers” didn’t believe in the fear-based concepts that churches teach today or even back then. If anything, there is enough hell to deal with here on Earth and the possibility remains that there are higher energetic spectrums and dimensions that may exist simultaneously outside of our everyday sensory range… hopefully dimensions that are free of such thick division and worry of damnation, and also worries about how bleached your faux-hawk tips are, or whether your low-cut church blouse and skirt will garner glances of bored husbands.

One more word of wisdom from Ben:

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Isolation Tanks, and Joe Rogan: The Bro of Truth.

Thanks to first impressions of him on The Man Show and Fear Factor, I had my prejudgments of Joe Rogan until half-way through his stand-up comedy DVD that my friend Anthony showed me one night while drinking White Russians at his parents’ house. That was some time in 2008. After Joe Rogan’s routine made the transition from dick-jokes-and-boning over to the general stupidity of humans, dependence on technology, and how it relates to egyptian pyramids, I was into it.

Later, I watched a ton of youtube videos with him, and followed his blog for a while. I once blogged about his youtube rant on isolation tanks, which eventually convinced me to drive up to Santa Fe to try it a couple of times.

An isolation tank is a huge enclosed tub of water, heated to the external skin temperature (somewhere around 91 degrees) filled with 800 pounds of epsom salt to keep your body buoyant. Your ears are submerged. You’re nearly deprived of all senses (also called a sensory deprivation tank), allowing nothing external to distract you from your own mind. The deeper you relax and sink into the experience, the more significant it can be. The first time I did it, I had an image of myself free of gravity, floating vertically through outer space.  I didn’t quite float through the geometric patterns Joe talks about, though. During the tank experience, the imagination volume knob is turned up, song melodies, internal conversations, dream-like visuals — all intensified.

Supposedly, one hour in the tank can equate to the benefits of having 4 hours of sleep. I don’t know how somebody came up with this, but I felt like a completely revived human coming out of it, with much more internal clarity and sharper senses than before. For a while I was looking for a way to own one, or even make my own. If I had a basement and a tank, I’m pretty sure I would take time to do it everyday.

Anyway, I read this post on Joe Rogan’s blog today, and I thought it was pretty cool.

Looking For Synchronicities and 11:11

Today I looked at the clock at 11:11am, 11:11pm, and went to bed at 1:11am.

I didn’t really try, it just happened. Of course the subconscious picks up more than what our eyes directly focus on. So if a person decides “I’ma see red all kinds today,” your eyes will most likely dart towards every red object in every room you’re in.

Devil’s advocate is kinda lame though. It keeps everything stiff. I did have a couple of synchronistic experiences today. Julia texted me that a certain song was stuck in her head right as I was showing a video to somebody with the same song in it. And then Dustin told me at practice tonight that he wanted to have a “Kubric-con” movie marathon while days ago I was considering buying Stanley Kubric’s entire movie collection from Amazon soon.

Eyes wide open, doods!

Tranquility

is my favorite word.

Kids Have A Way Of Destroying The World, Don’t They.

I was reading a book and it asked the question, “What are you most afraid of for the next generation?”

I never gave much thought to this beyond the scope of what the mass media now presents to the public, versus when I was a kid. Maybe I was lucky enough to not have cable as a kid. At one point I really wanted cable TV (even to the point of tears), but that was only because I was missing out when nickelodeon would play hours of Looney Tunes every single day.

Endless Cartoons. That’s what I wanted. What worries me now can mostly be found in the encapsulated life of kids who ingest extreme doses of spongebob and sugar, left alone with blinders attached, until the only real human interaction that occurs involves rage-fits followed with being spoiled with parental-quenchings to their every impulse.

Ouroboros? Maybe. That may be the best metaphor of that situation, if I ever fully understood this symbol.

Allow me to be cliché and say that modern TV is bullshite for kids. When I was younger I recognized the trashiness of Barney and Teletubbies. When I was a kid it was Mister Rogers and Sesame Street (still weird for me), but those are pure gold compared to what’s aired today. I don’t know why I invest so much thought into the importance of child development with TV/Cartoons, but kids today are still soaking up 5 hours/day of television, and it still blows my mind that I did the same up until high school. For every 5 hours of television, there’s an hour and 15 minutes of commercials absorbed into a person’s brain. I’ve still retained multiple jingles from beer commercials, commercials for McDonald’s, and the catch phrases for the same, cereals my mom would never let me eat, the previews for baywatch (the best boob a kid could get pre-internet), learning new words like “constipated” and “douche” which quickly became a sources of amusement for my siblings and friends at school.

Humanity is presented in a way on TV, magazines, and newspapers that is still intertwined with self-dissatisfaction and shame. Shamefulness is taught to us early because of TV and then is reflected in our “authority figures” and peers at school. Reebok Pumps were a fad when I was in 4th grade, and to encounter the select few elite 9-year-olds who owned them struck a jealousy-chord in me, while my soul simultaneously told me that a child with divorced parents may have been wearing $100+ dollar shoes probably for other reasons.

Pull harder, mum!

It’s a memory like this that quickly helps me remember that the capacity for intelligence and understanding in a child should never be underestimated by the fear-ridden adults who spend their lives trying to tell kids who to be and how to live their lives, usually by a series of standards that are acquired within random institutions and lapped up by a de-volving demographic of human-beings. We can only pump our fists in the air and root for the few said “9-year-olds” who remain on their natural track towards genius and progress.

I never enjoyed how the majority of teachers looked at me throughout my school experience as a child. You can, no matter what phase of life, recognize when somebody sees the light in you or they don’t. Those who don’t see it in you (or your kid) are those you should be weary of. The greatest gift a person can give to a child is to offer an attention which brightens that light/brilliance within them in a way that makes their inner-intelligence feel acknowledged so they know that this intelligence is something real within them, something that can be embraced, and then can grow, expand and shine brighter into the world.

The natural creativity of a child is, and can be, the scariest thing for an adult to acknowledge when it has long been out of touch within themselves. It is, in my opinion, the duty of adults to feel it and recognize it again within ourselves, unleash our “inner-child” and inner brilliance, so that we may continue to evolve as a race, progress, and grow towards our potential as a whole.  This inner brilliance and inner intelligence, I believe, is what is naturally intertwined in love, kindness, and compassion, and when activated can bring out the natural morality and good will within a child.

The mass media is on a path of de-evolution, quickly becoming a more pertinent source of the suffocation of human creativity, progress, and self-knowledge. Ceaseless cravings, consumption, and an accompanying sense of lack is a result of a block in humanity’s inherent light, intelligence, brilliance, genius, creativity, spirituality, whatever you want to call it. A source of information that is rooted in insecurity can do nothing more to help the progress of humanity but to eventually awaken a person to the overall ridiculousness of an over-dramatized induction of a sense of lack. It is my hope that those who have or have not remained rooted in themselves (their real selves) can be humble enough to learn from children, allow them to contribute to unlocking our inherent intelligence and creativity, and we return the favor to them through nothing more than developing the skill of intense, pure, conscious attention.

I may or may not have just blacked out.

Sheep Vs. Dogs

Dreams And Music Videos

Tonight the moon is nearly burning my skin as its full moon-beams shine through my bedroom window.

My dreams have been wild lately. Not completely insane, just super real. I’m settling unresolved issues with people who I haven’t talked to for years. I’m facing imprisonment and capital punishment in foreign countries. I’m experiencing nuclear attacks. I’m living entire lifetimes in minutes.

I guess it works out, because I’m working on a music video for Will’s project, Riley Guy, and need a semi-schizo, moon-inspired neurosis to make this happen and finish already.

I’m running through thousands of photos. It’s not the most fun.

In other news, my production assistant job fell through. The movie isn’t going to be made. Somebody who had money chickened-out on the deal I guess.

“How can I help you finish your own movies,” you ask? Simply go buy stuff!

Thought Trail

Do you ever fly on an airplane and see people who are scared in the air for the entire flight? When turbulence hits, they grip the armrests and throw their bodies erect against their seat like it will help the plane steady out or something.

An idea haunts me that I’ve never quite pulled off; letting go of every petty, useless fear. But I tasted it today, and the nectar has left a sweet, sweet aftertaste.