|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||
|
Essays, Opinion, & Commentary |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||
|
October 1, 2007
by Frank Martin DiMeglio
Dreams involve a fundamental integration and spreading of being and experience at the mid-range of feeling between thought and sense. Accordingly, thought and feeling are proportionately reduced during dream experience. This proportionate reduction of thought and feeling is consistent with the fact that the dream is an emotional experience. (Thoughts and emotions are differentiated feelings.) The heightened interactivity with (or of) the feeling of the self involves a disintegration of visual experience, as this takes place: during dreams; when an object is close to the eye(s); and when looking (or staring) at the sun. During dreams, such heightened energy and feeling at the emotional center of the self is associated with the [relative] disintegration of vision therein, and with the experience of colors while dreaming as well. Consistent with such heightened energy/feeling, it is significant that there is neither fatigue nor tiredness in the dream. In dreams, this relatively narrow mid-range of feeling is the reason why the visual experience therein is not blurry (i.e., it is not out of focus or further disintegrated); and this associated (and narrow) range of feeling is also evident in the almost constant visual lighting therein. Since the experience of both the body and the sun involve higher feeling than is experienced in the dream, dream vision is [generally] in the distance from (i.e., out of reach of) the self; and it is not extended as far as the influence of the higher feeling of the sun would allow. Accordingly, the body and the sun are basically (or significantly) absent during dreams. The reduction in the range of feeling that occurs during dream experience is associated with a reduction in both thought and experience in general. During dreams, when waking, in becoming "one with the music", and given the increased and successful involvement of unconscious experience (in general), the range of feeling that thought may take place in conjunction (or association) with is increased (or elevated), thereby advancing consciousness. Dreams and genius add to the extensiveness of experience, thereby increasing the capacity for memory and understanding. Memory integrates experience. Memory, genius, and dreams improve upon the integrated extensiveness of experience (and thought). Memory and attention are relatively disintegrated in conjunction with experience that is more transient and less extensive. Attention is relatively impaired when it is shifting, variable, and narrow, and these are attributes of memory as well. However, the ideal (or highest) form of genius is able to achieve a superior integration, familiarity, and extensiveness of experience (and thought) in conjunction with (and as the basis for) attention that is not only sustained and consistent, but also shifting, variable, and narrow. In the ideal case of genius, memory adds to the familiarity and integrated extensiveness of experience (and thought) in the form of what can be; since memory integrates experience; and memory, genius, and the dream make experience more extensive. Therefore, when examining dreams, ordinary consciousness, and the experience of genius, it is clear that man has increasingly extensive experience and variety (or range) of habitat because he is capable of greater understanding. The central role of desire in relation to experience needs further consideration. Desire consists of both intention and concern. The correctness of this definition is evident (and applicable) in the case of depression. The loss (or reduction) of desire in depression involves a reduction of both intention and concern that is consistent with a significant reduction in (and detachment from) reality/experience in general. Accordingly, intention and concern not only define (or include) desire, but they include interest as well. The fundamental instinct or desire is to become other than one is, and such an understanding comprehensively encompasses or describes the true advancement of the self; although such a description includes both the life and death drives as well. When both intention and concern are comprehensive and consistent, the self grows and is fundamentally advanced. The elevated and sustained desire that is associated with both courage and genius is connected with the advancement of consciousness and life. Depression, however, involves a very significant (and even fatal) loss of desire (i.e., of both intention and concern), including an overall reduction in the totality of experience. Depression is significantly disassociated (or removed) from the variability, extensiveness, and benefits of both waking experience and relatively unconscious (or dream) experience as well. Therefore, the state of severe depression may be usefully opposed (or contrasted) with the experience of the highest (or ideal) form of genius. Television is only possible because this disintegration, reconfiguration, contraction (i.e., compression), and extension of visual sensory experience occurs during dreams. Accordingly, the effects of both extended television viewing and dream experience include reduced ability to think, anxiety, and increased distractibility. Television thus compels attention, as it is compelled in the dream; but it is an unnatural and hallucinatory experience. Hence, television is addictive. Similar to the visual experience while dreaming, television compels attention to the relative exclusion of other experience. Television reduces consciousness and results in a flattening of the visual experience as a result of combining waking visual experience with relatively unconscious visual experience. Television involves the experience of what is less animate, for it involves a significant reduction in (or loss of) visual experience. This disintegration of the visual experience (as in the dream) also results in an emotional disintegration (i.e., anxiety). That television may be so described (and even possible) is hard to imagine; but this is consistent with the fact that it took so very many different minds (and thoughts) of genius in order to make the relatively unconscious visual experience of the dream conscious. Since the thinking that is involved in making the experience of television possible is so enormously difficult, it becomes difficult to think while partaking of that experience. Television may be seen as an accelerated form or experience of art, thereby making someone less wary (or less anxious) initially, but less creative and more anxious (as time passes) as the advance of the self becomes unsustainable. The experience (or effects) of television demonstrates the interactive nature of being and experience; for, in the dream, there is also a reduction in the totality (or extensiveness) of experience. The great revelation of art (including music) is that the world requires and involves man; although science has been slow to recognize this; for the danger of technology is that it is creating a world of experience that is toxic and foreign to the self where man is neither truly involved nor required. Moreover, there is no true (or ultimate) difference regarding what is unnatural/foreign and toxic. Art and music advance and recognize the self as that which is true, serious, beautiful, and real. However, by pervasively and fundamentally changing our various sensory experiences (including pollution/diet), the self's ability to represent and form a consistent, comprehensive, and relatively extensive approximation of sense might be compromised; whereby sense and feeling could not be properly experienced, utilized, and understood as the expression and extension of the self's desire. It is not only our loss of language that would then be possible. Our healthy, natural, and instinctive strengthening, in conjunction with the natural extensiveness of experience, is of primary concern. We know not to take the truth for granted; but can we afford to take the manifestations of sensory experience for granted by significantly altering or replacing them? Is the fact that life is fragile insignificant? Is true concern (or seriousness), in association with a relative extensiveness of intentionality in regard to experience, being advanced? Are we not creating a veritable amusement park where our passion, emotion, and desire are increasingly ungrounded, unfocused, and disintegrated (or dissolved)? Frank Martin DiMeglio lives in Maryland and is currently writing a book about philosophy. He has a Bachelor of Science degree (Honors, 1987) from Towson University in Geography and Environmental Planning.
|
||||
|
Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book...
|
||||
|
|
Human
Being: Self, Desire, &
Consciousness
|
|
||
|
|
||
[Homepage] [Newsletter] [Search] [Support the Academy] [Link to Us] [Contact the Academy] [Citing Articles from Our Website] [Privacy Policy & Disclaimer]
Copyright 1998-99, 2000-01, 2002-03, 2004-05, & 2006-07 by The Radical Academy. All Rights Reserved.