For Those Who Wish To Dream Lucidly

You could call me a veteran lucid dreamer. In fact, I've been doing it for more than a decade.

At the tender age of [5 to 7], precision is lost to me, years old, I consciously chose to lucid dream as a means to deal with a particular nightmare. Now, of course, I wouldn't have known what a "lucid dream" was back then, nor would I have known that it could be used as a tool to handle nightmares,  but all I knew was that the shit needed to stop.


Bless my mother's heart for letting such a young kid watch the Sci Fi channel, but that decision proved to be fraught with treachery. You see, somehow, I happened to glimpse the likes of the "Chucky" and "Puppet Master" films and that shit is not supposed to be seen by a child, because a child's world is filled with toys and glimpses of said toys doing horrible things to people will infest a child's mind. Now, the particular characters of the film weren't that meddlesome in my dreams, but somehow their latent evil came to infect my images of Bert and Ernie so that they became corrupted into evil little action figures that tormented me in my dreams: hiding in closets, crawl spaces, attics, and ventilation shafts waiting to strike with little knives or pens and pencils.

Even now, reviewing the memories of those dreams, or my mind's attempts at reconstructions thereof, is putting me on my edge.

But, after a while, I decided that enough was enough and that I would take back the night.

So, before I went to sleep one evening--lying awake in my bed, I played back in my head all the nightmares that had frightened me and resolved to end their power of my sleep. Then, I imagined that I stood against a half circle of all the previously mentioned characters--Bert, Ernie, Chuckie, the puppets--such that I recall in my mind it looking like they were ganged up on me, but in reality I had control over them as if they were brought before me to hear me speak. I envisioned myself telling them that they were not real, that they were merely figments of my imagination and that I wanted them to go away, that they had no power of me because I understood and accepted what they were and what they wanted to do, but that they had to resolve their illusory nature and leave me and mighty reality alone.

Sure enough, it worked. After planting that thought in my mind, it grew into a dream with the same story line. The performance took on the qualities of a particular Daffy Duck cartoon where the Detective Daffy, probably playing a send up of Dick Tracy, has the misfortune of coming face to face with a surreal version of his character's rogue's gallery that, as I recall, frightens him back into the arms of the real, rescuing Daffy from a dream turned nightmare. Now, this isn't to say that I never had another nightmare with these characters afterward, remembered or not, nor did my mind find itself without new material to frighten me. I believe that the same Christmas that my folks got me an N64 and the Ocarina of Time, my younger sister got a rather large plush doll of the character Arthur the Aardvark that I had my sneaking suspicions and fears about, no doubt instigated by my findings in The Dreamlands, fearful already, at such a young age, of what the imagination might conjure.

Still, I had conquered the nightmare at its essence and the images themselves could no longer grip me with terror, though they could certainly revolt me and cause an awful shock, a terrible sweat, and an erratic pulse. Yet, I always came out all the stronger knowing that, to at least some extent, I was in control.

But something else happened. From then on, I began to dream lucidly.

I was able to recognize that I was dreaming and, over time, I was able to perform various feats in the dream world, no doubt aided by my avid passion for playing video games and the controlled unreality that they taught me to interact with.

And this was fun, for a while. As a kid, my ability to participate in my dreams made sleep the ultimate amusement park. But with time came a certain boredom with the obvious repetition of dreams, and the inevitable fact that they were only as substantial as the stock I'd invested--and it was fast becoming pennies only.

As a teenager, trying desperately to grasp at straws of meaning, I decided to let go to the dreams and play along. I knew I was dreaming, and it was still a kind of amusement park--or, more precisely, a virtual reality, but I wanted to take it all in. I wanted to see the whole of the play and the cast and crew that made it happen. I had to go back in and take up the conversation once more.

I started, then, to actively work with my psyche, to explore whatever gurgled up to meet me under the dark sky, and, from there, I've come to get a grasp for what it is that I may be.

So, I ask those of who may be intrigued by the film "Inception" and want to play with their dreams as to whether or not you have the right reasons to do this. You are asking to explore the catacombs of your mind and may finds locked away in there that you did not want to find. I do not merely refer to things you might have dreamt up or even consciously imagined in the past, but I refer to real things chained down there, things you've seen, things you've done. Here there be dragons.

I warn you to be careful, foolish psychonaut, for it is you who might be played with.

The Road to Hell is Paved with the Souls of Mimes

No, really, it is...

All credit goes to Garth Ennis, Jacen Burrows, and Andrew Dalhouse. Now go out and buy this damn comic and find out why all of this actually does make sense!

On the Wars in Iraq and Afghaniston.

We're there.
It's queer.
Let's get over it.

Suspending Inception

I usually don't have a problem suspending my disbelief when watching a film. Part of that is because one of the first steps in my deciding whether I will watch a film is based on whether or not I can believe in the particular dream. I readily recognize films as consciously constructed dreams that we delude ourselves into sharing, and how wonderful that is. But we don't all share in the same delusions, so, rightly so, there are some films that I just don't see from elevator pitch, let alone getting to the point of a trailer.

Therefore, I don't find it hard to comprehend that a person might not be able to hold themselves in suspense long enough to get to the exploding fruit stands and buildings suspended in the middle of explosion.

However, the film isn't that hard to appreciate whether it is placed in the context of history or genre, a very specific kind of history in both cases.

In the former, a particular and appropriately conspiratorial view of the world lends some credentials to "Inception." In this case, we need to remember that the film is situated in a world that really does have conspiracies. There is a good reason that the Spy-Fi of 007 has been invoked in reference to this film, especially "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." But "Inception" plays out like a more sentimental version of the real secret angent man's, the danger man's Spy-Fi: "The Prisoner." This makes a particular ounce of sense if you've read my last piece, since "The Prisoner" is another example of a "real" conspiracy to disenfranchise a person of their mind and to take thoughts from a person. "The Prisoner" is based on a world that already has and uses a powerful understanding of chemistry and psychology, the mind's chemistry, to manipulate, more often than not--to break, a person's spirit. The particular fantasy that a person can construct dreams not unlike a person constructs a video game--a virtual reality--to extract secret thoughts becomes less difficult to stomach if we already believe that the powers at work in the world are unafraid to plumb any and all methods to ensure that they get what they want.

In the latter, we swim well known waters as well. The question of a fictional scientific concept illuminating the fragility of our own consciousness is not uncommon. The film strikingly reminds me of PKD's short story "The Minority Report," which has never been adapted to film to my knowledge, since both stories deal with self fulfillment of prophecies and the ends of our own acts. Methinks there are two routes for this impetus: one for those who want a bigger spectacle and one for those who want to discuss ideas. In the case of the former, the film delivers in spades thanks to the film's literal situating in dreams. The one rule that the films sets up for itself for designing a convincing dream is that the laws of physics must be respected, and thus guides this spectacle into a marvelous firework, as opposed to a more raging and wild inferno that burns the audience, and the time and money that they invested. More importantly, detached from the messy implications of circumstance, "Inception" offers us the chance to dream a bit on our own consciousness and the unreliability of conclusions derived from it. The raw material of reason, the dreamed world lets us set ideas into motion within the system that the story grants, so that we may see how its theories act and develop in motion. Science fiction is the home of ideas and it is from its tool chest that we can exhibit the imagined.

Either way, exploding fruit stands and French bistros and cyclopean, twisting cityscapes are tantalizing enough gestures to believe in.

Why Inception Works

I don't want to say any more than I have to.

First, I'll repeat something that I've been saying since I left the theatre and something that I doubt I will ever stop saying in relation to this film: Inception is how you would properly film a Philip K. Dick story. I've heard a lot of references to Tarkovsky and Kubrick, but I can't help but shake that this world is uncannily familar to the ones dreamt up by PKD, and so "Blade Runner" becomes a better reference point¹ to compare with "Inception," which exists against--no, with Nolan's past works.

I don't want to talk about characters and plot, about psychology and narrative. I'm not sure if I ever would willingly, but it is not a discussion I want to have now.

The point of this conversation is to discuss the film's conceit: that we can consciously suggest thoughts that will shape a person. It is not the mind bending dream constructing/diving, because that mechanic didn't have to be accomplished through the use of science fiction. "The Life of David Gale," "The Game²," and Leo's last film "Shutter Island" are all films that deal with how an elaborate conspiracy can be constructed to manipulate a person. "Inception" is no different: it involves the use of technology--"Inception's" vast wealth of conspiratorial funds and the power that it invokes, powerful sedatives, dream-sharing black-box technology³  and, the greatest tech of all, the years of unseen development that produced people who can successfully dream-dive, so to speak, against, generally--with the minor outlying of "The Life of David Gale," vast conspiratorial wealth and power and the brilliant knowledge that the conspirators bring to their theatre. These films all focus on a certain theatrical quality that we have in our lives: the recognition of narratives within our own lives and the relative reality of our own narrative as other people stage direct and stage tech our lives. Further, they illustrate that we exist within in a theatre whose script and stage directions we are making and following, following and making--often both at the same time. But that's only so many words on lighting rigs and fog machines, it still isn't the primal mechanism.

The heart of "Inception," and all of the films suggested as chorus to it, is that thought has a power, a vitality. We are capable of being manipulated by thoughts and that, without our knowing--or at least conscious knowing, the thoughts we take for real and for the basis of our judgments are just as fragile as anything else. It breaks down our very ability to sense, to think, to be real because these stories attempt to shine a light on the motherboard of our mind and tell us how it works and that we should be okay with our capacity to observe this far down into the House of Leaves. In a sense, the only way to reject "Inception" can not be based on saying that it was too complex, but that it wasn't complex enough to be irreducible. Perhaps the only way to fear "Inception" is if one feels that looking at one's soul turns one into a pillar of salt, as opposed to making its glorious nature shine until blindness.

Since it is a film about reason, it must also be a film about faith, for, without even some basic belief in our own capacity for it, the film cannot work without a balance of the two. The characters name mystery, and the heralding of danger that it entails--sometimes better than others, but that doesn't mean that they can mortally wound it. Far from it. Instead, they find a way to live with it and trust in the fact that some things can be revealed. We can only know fog for the presence of light, source be damned.

"Inception" is the building of a tremendous cathedral. Meant to house mystery, the world's and ours, it shows depictions of the unknown but inevitably, through the lens of time, forges a path, just as the cathedral organizes its energies to guide patrons though mystery.

A daring person might say that this is art for art's sake.

To me, it's just fucking awesome.


1. Which makes sense if we consider the rest of Scott's works--although "Runner" came long before Scott's career showed us the ammunition of his canon.
2.Note: I lost.
3. The only device, plot and technological, in the film that doesn't totally make sense is how there can be another dream-box inside of a dream. The answer that comes to mind first is that  it extends from the capacities of the box, and second that it is from the quality of technique of the divers. However, I would like to note that it was only while writing this that I actually even considered this, while watching the film the thought never even came to my mind.

In the Heat of the Night I - The Events That Transpired while Watching "Predators"

I wish I could simply tell you about "Predators," but--in some combination of the digital print, the technology that was supposed to run it, the anti-motivating incentives of a company like AMC and, least of all, the unforunate people who were scheduled to staff, and--consequently--crowd control, the midnight screen of "Predators" at Loews Theatre in Port Chester--things were not that simple.

So, let us begin at the start of the story. Sometime between 8:30 and 9:00, myself and a pair of pals, Evan and Sandor, showed up at the theatre to get our tickets for the midnight screening, just to be sure. It wasn't particularly necessary, but given the chance you can never be too safe. Pursuing a leisurely evening, we went off to the Mamaroneck Diner for eats and then went over to Bronxville for some coffee at Slave to the Grind, which found us there chatting 'til about 11:30 when we had to book it to PoCho. Despite their more concerned mood, I, for no good reason, had a bit of faith that we would make it to the film in time, with the only possible issue being that we might miss some trailers, which we had earlier decided would be a selling bonus since we could be among the first to see some sweet trailers for films to come.

There would be no trailers at this screening.

We got there with a few minutes to spare, a welcome blessing since the beer at the diner and the coffee had finally caught up and demanded their liberation from my bladder. I implored them to save me a seat in the theatre, did my duty, and walked into the theatre, whipping out my phone expecting that I wouldn't be able to see them, especially since I haven't had my glasses for some time now. After a few moments, and a few odd glares, I saw them waving from the other side of the theatre and joined them. I was commended on my "find the party" skills because I readily accepted the situation without fear, or something to that effect.

The theatre was hot. In fact, at some point, I got the sense that it must have become muggy or humid simply out of the en mass sweating in there. The moments dragged while commercials--not trailers--were audible but invisible. The whiteness stared back at us, taunting us for our foolhardy crowding into that theatre. It was the haunt inside. I joked that maybe we were the first to be slayed in a eugenic program to kill off parts of the population based on their media habits, since in-door gatherings like sporting events, concerts and films seem like a good way to round up and off people if you were a supervillain or some such.

The lights dimmed. The film started. Now we saw the opening titles and Adrien Brody fall out of the sky, silently. Awesome. Sandy provided a commentary for the whole situation, and, after he crashed down and got up, the sound kicked in when he met Danny Trejo who fell from the sky as well and we got through to Adrien sneaking up on Oleg Taktarov and, after the chaingun that he had been firing jammed, Adrien told Oleg to "Please stop doing that." Awesome.

A few moments later, though, the film cut out and someone from the theatre said that they were going to restart it from the beginning to try and start it right. This was kind of important since in the moments when Adrien was falling it really helps to hear his alien parachute's altimeter was screaming something awful, something reminscent of the sound that they're tech makes, as well as its red lights getting lit up as Adrien rushed to the ground. It definitely was important, and well worth the reboot.

The film made it past where we had been. They met up with some other characters as they carefully made their way across the Predator planet picking up an IDF soldier, a white ex-con and Sierra Leone RUF officer who were fighting each other when they found him, and a lame white guy hanging from a tree that Adrien shot down with his automatic shotgun. They made their way to stone outcropping when Alice Braga, the former IDF soldier who is played by a latin actress*, says "you wanna see something fucked up?"

And then shit got totally fucked up. The audio lumbered on but the video skipped a bit and then it got jittery like the frames were jumping forward and back like the screen look like it was shaking, or maybe there was earthquake because of the torrential fuck-uppery of this screening.

The scene that started this chaos made the situation even more recursively maddening. Alice Braga placed a leaf with a black powder strip on some water, presumably gunpowder--for its iron, to show that the planet, or perhaps the region or devices within the region, had fucked up electromagnetism because the leaf was spinning something chaotic, meaning that the crew--and we the audience--had no idea where they were. Adrien dragged the crew further through the forest without any rest when they came upon some cages which some cockroaches cralled out of--and then the projectionist cut the film again.

This time someone from the theatre came to tell us that they were having technical difficulties with the digital print and that everyone would recieve a certificate for a free ticket, a fre small popcorn and a free small drink. We stayed long enough to get our vouchers before we rushed out for a ciggarette that, at this point, was vital. However, before we got up out of our seats, I had to ask the staffer handing out the tickets if they would be good for the opening of Inception the next week. He not merely said that it would be so but he expressed the same sickly sweet joy that we had in anticipating that film.

But those thoughts were minor, it was time to run. Still, on the way out, we joked a bit about smoking inside, deciding that if it was closer to home-turf that the idea might not have struck us as such a joke.

In reality, we were playing a joke on ourselves. When we got out, we weren't paying much attention to the doors. However, a few folks who were sitting in our row had the good sense to put a bottle in the door and Sandor had the better sense to put his shoe in there, being a slightly better door stop. Cigarretes consumed and the theatre calling, Sandor made a grave error: when we came back in, he had forgotten to replace the bottle which we had never even thought to place in the first place, since we had blithely walked out for a smoke with little consideration to the thought that the doors might be locked at this point. Evan ran back to do the good deed while Sandy and I swore to save his seat.

The film once more resumed. When it got to the point of "fucked-up" it fucked up again and the projectionist, this time, skipped forward a bit so that we were placed at the moment where the group make their way to a clearing in the jungle and saw the various celestial bodies that where in orbit around the planet. A stunning sight.

The film finally did finish without a hickup from this point, though it was unbearably hot inside even in the middle of the damn night.

Yet, this is where this story ends; there are no more events to be told in relation to the watching of the film. But, there is another tale to come:a discussion of the film itself. Expect it shortly.

*A tradition among Predator films is the tough as the boys latina.

A Short Gallery of CAPTCHAs

The following is a small gallery of CAPTCHAs that I've collected over the years. It is far from the total collection now, and what it once was--many having been lost to the iniquities of hard drive failure (another summer, another repairing of the ol' Studio 1535, maybe its time to use an external hard drive as more than just an ever shifting library, not that BarDC++ minds its use so far). Yet, I can guarantee these are the best of the best, so far.

If you are wondering why I collect CAPTCHAs, it is because the appearance of these most minute of texts naturally lends itself to a poetic inspection on two fronts: the juxtaposition of images and the history of the text. The assembly of images might be the most simple in the most mechanical sense--a simple juxtaposition-- but their mysterious nature commands an interpretation be produced for our mind's to find some kind of ease. Our first approach may be to consider the CAPTCHA's origins, but this runs aground fast as we now it is the aether. Rather, we must attack ourselves with the words and find the meaning that resonates in a tripartite manner: with each word against themselves, with each word against ourselves, and then the final transfiguration: the conflict of the totality of the CAPTCHA against its prey: us.

Without only a little more ado, all I ask of you is to imagine!

*

I thought I lost this one, but found it digging through my twitter--ms995--and found its twitpic link, and I would suppose I never would have made this entire post without the fact that I love these two words together. The caption I had placed on this CAPTCHA way back when--almost a year ago in fact--was "Bucklers, Eugene; fucking bucklers." Reviewing that note, I can't help but feel inspired to spin that little bit of text into something with just a few more words.

*

*

Another that I want to work with, but I still don't know what the proton says, though I feel that it meant what it said.

*

*

*

The last two were kind of low hanging fruit, but this may be a bit redemptive:

Fertile words, if ever there were any. The Offer Entombs certainly would make for a good name for a metal band, or perhaps some crossover thrash or grindcore.

*

And, that's that. So, if you have some memorable CAPTCHAs on hand, share them in the comments! If not, maybe you'll get a little stranger and pick up the habit for the future, and, if so, return with your finds!

Finally, if you are wondering why I chose some of these, I could begin an explore those thoughts but that would likely produce an entire post for each inquiry, so have some patience.