Petty Potty Ponderings
It all started when I was washing my feet in the bathroom after a very long and tiring day. I was still not done with the day though, I had a lot more tasks to complete before I could call it a night. For the past week I had been quite sleep deprived and I am someone who pretty much has dreams every night, strange inexplicable dreams that I don't dwell on long enough to remember the details that are mostly so unfathomable it just slips my mind even though it makes so much sense in my head.
But it didn't actually start during the feet washing. It must have started a long time ago, but must have been on indefinite pause till my mind picked it back up today. What is "it" you ask? Well, this "it" I am referring to so mysteriously is a thought process. I like to question the reality of things, and the thought process was so quickly done, that I saw the whole idea in its entirety as soon as I was done with the washing of my feet.
I thought about how in dreams I couldn't tell I was dreaming. It would have been so cool if I could tell and then be able to lucid dream. It's only happened a few times, all of them purely random. Once during a mid morning nap I dreamed that I was looking at myself from the top of the room, like I was floating over my body and I could see the back of my head, on a spinning cycle, in the dark, and I saw the movements my body made while I cycled in time to a beat I couldn't hear. Can't call it a lucid dream though, but it felt scary real and I was pretty shaken for throughout the rest of the day. A few other times I dreamed of this one huge palace kind of place with grand staircases and stairwells or incredibly green meadows on which I would fly over. Flying dreams are the best. It's been ages since I had one.
I thought about how if I couldn't tell I was dreaming in my dreams, how could I possibly know that what I perceive to be reality without question could be a dream too? How can I prove that it is real, that everything I am seeing is completely new and I neither have the skills to have made it all up or the mind power to make tangible things created solely out of hallucinations? And so I decided to seek out and inflict some physical pain. Because I thought, pain is real, pain is something you can feel and pain is something that cannot possibly be felt if you were dreaming.
I headed to my kitchen very timidly, thinking to myself constantly as I looked at the sideboard and touched it, and opened the drawer, I thought to myself, this is not real, I can't be sure it is. I need to be sure. I need to know I am not living in world I've subconsciously created. I looked at the little harmless knife and thought to myself, it only looks harmless and blunt right now because at this second in time when I am looking at it my subconscious already made it one that was blunt. Seeing no other sharp knife, I let myself be defeated by my so called subconscious whose existence also should be doubted by the way and decided not to do anything stupid. But what's stupid? What I've let the world whose existence itself is questionable define what is? What if other things that "this world" has defined as not stupid actually stupid then?
Suddenly, my mind stopped for the tiniest split second. It felt like a stabbing of sorts, painless though, and I stood there in the kitchen, my hands on my hips and I felt really lost. I could have been anywhere in "this world." I could be anything. A piece of chocolate cake, or a guitar string. My entire consciousness could have been a speck of dust floating around in the world, unclaimed and unaffected. I sat down on the floor so my feet were placed demurely together in front of me as I put my arms over my knees, hugging them into my chest. I looked at my hands. I looked at my fingers, whose fingerprints were unique. One in billions. I examined my toes. I started to pinch myself on the arm. Little pinches that didn't ache at all. I made the pinch size tinier with ever pinch so I could feel something. I noticed that the refrigerator was in front of me. I stared at my super blurry reflection for what might have been 10 seconds, 10 minutes, I don't know. How can you know? How can you really know anything at all?
Then I slowly stood up. I opened the sideboard again, and guess what I saw instantly? A long, sharp knife. Like a butcher's knife almost. I held it in my hand. The room was pretty well lit. Really white light flooded the room, but I didn't know that maybe it was getting brighter as an effect of that sharp knife piercing into my stomach. Because I felt no pain. I turned my head around and I could turn it 360 degrees. As I did it so naturally, I saw the tip of the knife peeking out from between my spinal cord. It felt like nothing. A little ticklish. I squirmed a bit looking at the blood. There was a lot of blood and it was interestingly coloured. Kind of pink. Like fake blood. It was funny. I began to feel really funny about it all. I wanted to tell someone. But there was nobody. I started to talk to myself - a little unsure about my words at first because my voice sounded so unfamiliar. Like I was deaf my entire life and I heard myself for the first time. Everything was new. I started saying things like "I've figured it out" "It really isn't real" "Nothing is" "Nothing is" "Not a thing"
Insane ending:
But did it end?
It started, but it wouldn't end. The thought process that is. It is endless, the pursuit of the meaning of everything that is something. Why can't we be a little more compassionate and sympathise with poor old nothing? I have decided I will. Nothing will be my everything henceforth because I see it all so clearly now, that everything really is, surprise surprise? Nothing.
Sane ending:
But did it end?
It started and so it did end, as all things do. Nothing goes on infinitely. Except time. But what "it" am I talking of you ask? Surely thoughts seem infinite, at least till you stop breathing. Well I'm talking about the dream. It had to have been. Pinching hurts, I checked. Surely I wouldn't ever cut myself, that's the last thing I'd ever do.
But it didn't actually start during the feet washing. It must have started a long time ago, but must have been on indefinite pause till my mind picked it back up today. What is "it" you ask? Well, this "it" I am referring to so mysteriously is a thought process. I like to question the reality of things, and the thought process was so quickly done, that I saw the whole idea in its entirety as soon as I was done with the washing of my feet.
I thought about how in dreams I couldn't tell I was dreaming. It would have been so cool if I could tell and then be able to lucid dream. It's only happened a few times, all of them purely random. Once during a mid morning nap I dreamed that I was looking at myself from the top of the room, like I was floating over my body and I could see the back of my head, on a spinning cycle, in the dark, and I saw the movements my body made while I cycled in time to a beat I couldn't hear. Can't call it a lucid dream though, but it felt scary real and I was pretty shaken for throughout the rest of the day. A few other times I dreamed of this one huge palace kind of place with grand staircases and stairwells or incredibly green meadows on which I would fly over. Flying dreams are the best. It's been ages since I had one.
I thought about how if I couldn't tell I was dreaming in my dreams, how could I possibly know that what I perceive to be reality without question could be a dream too? How can I prove that it is real, that everything I am seeing is completely new and I neither have the skills to have made it all up or the mind power to make tangible things created solely out of hallucinations? And so I decided to seek out and inflict some physical pain. Because I thought, pain is real, pain is something you can feel and pain is something that cannot possibly be felt if you were dreaming.
I headed to my kitchen very timidly, thinking to myself constantly as I looked at the sideboard and touched it, and opened the drawer, I thought to myself, this is not real, I can't be sure it is. I need to be sure. I need to know I am not living in world I've subconsciously created. I looked at the little harmless knife and thought to myself, it only looks harmless and blunt right now because at this second in time when I am looking at it my subconscious already made it one that was blunt. Seeing no other sharp knife, I let myself be defeated by my so called subconscious whose existence also should be doubted by the way and decided not to do anything stupid. But what's stupid? What I've let the world whose existence itself is questionable define what is? What if other things that "this world" has defined as not stupid actually stupid then?
Suddenly, my mind stopped for the tiniest split second. It felt like a stabbing of sorts, painless though, and I stood there in the kitchen, my hands on my hips and I felt really lost. I could have been anywhere in "this world." I could be anything. A piece of chocolate cake, or a guitar string. My entire consciousness could have been a speck of dust floating around in the world, unclaimed and unaffected. I sat down on the floor so my feet were placed demurely together in front of me as I put my arms over my knees, hugging them into my chest. I looked at my hands. I looked at my fingers, whose fingerprints were unique. One in billions. I examined my toes. I started to pinch myself on the arm. Little pinches that didn't ache at all. I made the pinch size tinier with ever pinch so I could feel something. I noticed that the refrigerator was in front of me. I stared at my super blurry reflection for what might have been 10 seconds, 10 minutes, I don't know. How can you know? How can you really know anything at all?
Then I slowly stood up. I opened the sideboard again, and guess what I saw instantly? A long, sharp knife. Like a butcher's knife almost. I held it in my hand. The room was pretty well lit. Really white light flooded the room, but I didn't know that maybe it was getting brighter as an effect of that sharp knife piercing into my stomach. Because I felt no pain. I turned my head around and I could turn it 360 degrees. As I did it so naturally, I saw the tip of the knife peeking out from between my spinal cord. It felt like nothing. A little ticklish. I squirmed a bit looking at the blood. There was a lot of blood and it was interestingly coloured. Kind of pink. Like fake blood. It was funny. I began to feel really funny about it all. I wanted to tell someone. But there was nobody. I started to talk to myself - a little unsure about my words at first because my voice sounded so unfamiliar. Like I was deaf my entire life and I heard myself for the first time. Everything was new. I started saying things like "I've figured it out" "It really isn't real" "Nothing is" "Nothing is" "Not a thing"
Insane ending:
But did it end?
It started, but it wouldn't end. The thought process that is. It is endless, the pursuit of the meaning of everything that is something. Why can't we be a little more compassionate and sympathise with poor old nothing? I have decided I will. Nothing will be my everything henceforth because I see it all so clearly now, that everything really is, surprise surprise? Nothing.
Sane ending:
But did it end?
It started and so it did end, as all things do. Nothing goes on infinitely. Except time. But what "it" am I talking of you ask? Surely thoughts seem infinite, at least till you stop breathing. Well I'm talking about the dream. It had to have been. Pinching hurts, I checked. Surely I wouldn't ever cut myself, that's the last thing I'd ever do.
I loved this post. life is an utterly convincing multi-layered dream sequence which is set inside another infinitely large set of convincing convoluted dreams. The last knife bit( actually all the knife bits the last one maximum) was very i-wonder-what-you've-been-reading,-watching,-listening-to-or-dealing-with-off-late, thought triggering.
ReplyDeleteAditi please tell me how you manage to look at posts the very day or the next after I post them?! Thank you for your comments they are very feel-good. I completely agree.
DeleteThis was an impulse write-up. I had a different idea of how I wanted it to go but I let the thoughtless typing sweep me away to sharp knife stabbing areas. Idk how and why I wrote about it. I wanted to introduce the concept of feeling funny about something that's very morbid and gimmicky blood and sharp butchery knives seemed very apt at the time.
Don't worry, I haven't been watching reading listening or dealing with anything out of the ordinary.