Virtual Light

Check out this commercial:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=228216559213466747&q=rozerem&hl=en

There is a longer version of it at the company's site:
http://www.rozerem.com/

I find it very interesting that a pharmaceutical company is marketing sleep medication by making dreaming more alluring... shouldn’t just getting some rest be enough?

I happen to own the album Reconstruction Site by a band called The Weakerthans... turns out our very own Marcel Dzama did the cover art... I'm having trouble uploading pictures but you can see it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstruction_Site... I actually found this while trying to find which They Might Be Giants album Dzama did the artwork for and it seems he didnt really do the illustrations for an album but for some collaborative project, a "bedtime book/bedtime CD" called "Bed, Bed, Bed". The cover art reminds me of the picture shown in class of a young boy in bed surrounded by nightmares... it appears to be a children's book, but maybe they're just being facetious. http://secure.giantrobot.com/products.php?code=DZAMABED&catid=F003

I look around me and see lots of different people fall to floor suddenly- as if they are running some sort of air-raid drill. As the people fall they seem to spread wings, like crickets or grasshoppers before they are about to fly away… this looks very natural and doesn’t bother me at all. I walk passed them, touching each person on the shoulder, this seems to have some sort of healing effect even though I’m so sure they were very sick to begin with. One person, after I touch him, stands up and stares at me, his eyes are like small galaxies or whirlpools or something. I know intuitively that I made a big mistake because I lacked some very crucial (albeit vague) information. I get nervous and sit down with my head in my hands, trying very hard to think. I realize that I solved a central problem of the universe, one that was never meant to be solved…. By figuring it out, I dissolved some sort of natural binding force and now everything is melting into everything else and there are no boundaries because the only block to accessing everything at the same time before was the problem that I somehow solved. I wake up very slowly… like the dream just melts away…

*everything in this dream seemed to be colored in shades of deep blue and green, the air felt cool and autumn-like

This is a very simple dream, but one that resonates so strongly I still think about it often. In my dream I figured out how to levitate things with my mind. It’s very simple, and I just “got it” as if it were a formula. I was amazed at my new skill and I felt so uplifted knowing that it was something accessible, I loved it and cherished it and felt so free. I remember moving things like pens and refrigerator magnets. When I woke up and realized that it was all a dream I was so disappointed I almost cried. as I was comming out of sleep, I wracked my brain trying to reclaim the “formula”. I felt empty without my (now lost forever) power.
The whole thing felt so real… I almost think it was... like I got a glimpse at something powerful while I was in an altered state... like I somehow accessed a hidden crevice of my brain... acquired a 6th sense...
oh well.

I LOVED examining different artists in our disscussions of dreams. Every single artist left me with a very different impression. A copy of one of Dzama's prints is now my laptop background... i've always had a thing for Dali but never before really examined his "Dream of Venus" exhibit and I cant seem to stop staring at Fred Tomaselli's pieces... i just can't.... I wish I could have gotten to his show before it ended...

Also- I wanted to share the work of one artist with everyone... when I was much younger someone sent me a postcard of the first picture listed below. I don't know why exactly but it really moved me...but it did. intrestingly- it actually motivated me to start a dream journal, i pasted the picture to a small notebook that I kept by my bed and wrote down whatever dreams I could remember.
This artist's name is Jim Buckels... he's a contemporary artist who (i think) currently lives in New York.. there doesnt seem to be so much information available about him online but it seems to be that he works mostly in acryllics and does mostly prints. his website offers a pretty concise bio... "When you look at his work, there’s a déjà vu quality of “I’ve been there” or “I’ve seen that building”, but it’s even better than you remember it."... I think that's the most dream-like elements of his work. (http://www.jimbuckels.com)

some more of his prints:
http://www.secondnaturecd.com/onuptimthumi.html

My friend Schindler came over to my friend Laura’s apartment and we are all watching Gilmore Girls (a show we never watch) and eating chips and salsa. They were actually talking about dreams and elevators occurring in dreams. There is a knock at the door, we all go to open it and it’s an elevator that takes us to Germany. We go looking for prostitutes for my fiancé’s bachelor party; I have to be there to approve of all the girls beforehand because I know his type. I have this rule that none of the prostitutes can look like either Laura or Schindler… but all of them do. In fact, they are Laura and Schindler! I realize I am all alone and remember that Faigy (Laura’s roommate) lives in Germany and that she might know where all the good prostitutes are. I call her up and she shows up immediately, only I find out that she too is a prostitute! I decide that I better abandon this project altogether and start to figure out a way to get out of Germany. I try to find an airport but find a train station instead. I’m very happy because I love trains, and this particular one is a very old-fashioned kind and it makes me very happy. It doesn’t bother me that a train can’t cross the Atlantic. I ride off into the proverbial sunset and wake up.

I find it very interesting that this dream was sort of self-reflexive… mentioning dreaming and objects in dreams, only to have that manifest in the dream…

While watching Waking Life I kept thinking about how it reminds me of all those pseudo-intellectual/philosophical conversation I’ve had in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. I really liked the part where the main character was describing the dream as a series of things people say that feel vaguely familiar but at the same are expressed in a way that is altogether new. It didn’t really feel dreamlike but the overall quality of the movie reminded me of many of my dreams.

I didn’t really agree with the readings on lucid dreams, they felt too optimistic and too much like a supermarket self-help book. I’ve had lucid dreams in the past and they were very unique and moving experiences but I think both readings stretched the potential of lucid dreaming for solving the problems of waking life. I don’t think that dreams are meant to reveal things about our waking selves to that extent; they could just be manifestations of our "other" selves... I feel that there is something intentionally dissasociative about our dream lives and our dream selves- that that distance between our waking life from our dreaming life is important... and that that is the theraputic part...

A few years ago I had a series of reoccurring dreams that all had to do with horses either dying or being injured. They were all very intense and strange and frightening even though the ways in which the horses died was sometimes ridiculous or bizarre… in one dream the horse jumped over a very high wall into a vat of deep-frying oil (I’m sorry for the gross-out but imagine how I felt while I was dreaming this). In another series of dreams the horses would drown in icy water or get torn into pieces. If anyone ever saw (or will see) the horror movie “The Ring” and recalls the scene with the horse… my dreams looked just like that (and started before I ever saw the movie). In every dream I would begin by having control of the horse only to lose it shortly after trying to saddle it or ride it or lead it somewhere.
On a very personal note- I started having these dreams when my father was diagnosed with cancer and had them periodically while he was most sick for about two years… I guess it wouldn’t take the most brilliant of psychoanalysts to make the connection…. My father passed away 2 years ago and I haven’t had the dreams for about that long… but recently I’ve been getting them again- same idea… they feel a bit different… but same plot… lots of horses that I feel responsible for killing. I don’t know what’s come up that I’m getting them again…. I just wanted to share.