hale, healthy hallucinations

Dreams are, in essence, hallucinations. While dreaming, we see, hear, and feel things that exist nowhere except within the subconscious mind. Absent the type of appropriate sleep that facilitates reaching dream-state, we humans tend to become listless, our brains foggy, our moods sullen and prone to depression. Some research suggests that dreams help improve social interactions. Another theory is that dreams help us connect with our emotions, reducing the burden of negative ones such as fear and worry.

Consequently, it is important to do everything possible to get a good night’s sleep that is neither too long nor too short. This author knows that strenuous physical exercise during the day helps him fall asleep quickly. He also knows that the presence of both light and sound keep him from sleeping well, wherefore he makes his bedroom dark and quiet before going to bed. One of the reasons he doesn’t drink booze is because he knows that the use hard drugs such as alcohol poses a danger to healthy sleep patterns. Also important is not eating food or drinking water before bedtime, as these can interrupt nocturnal cycles.

There are few if any drawbacks to having the kind of sleep that allows to occur dreams, but many risks associated with poor sleep-related habits. For long-term health and a free bout of beneficial hallucinations, please skip the mind-altering drugs and try to get a good night’s sleep.

americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan

a new order

​When embarking on a speculative enterprise, be it personal or professional, keep in mind this quote from Niccolo Machiavelli: “There is nothing more difficult and dangerous, or more doubtful of success, than an attempt to introduce a new order of things.”

Writing in 1513 of the Common Era, Machiavelli was talking about the perilous task of nation-building. His words, however, can be applied to any imaginable effort, goal, task, or undertaking. The above lesson applies to the following: persons seeking to adopt good habits or rid themselves of bad ones; families welcoming new members into their midst; and communities adapting to conditions such as an economic depression, purposeful wealth inequality, or widespread environmental degradation.

Though not an exclusive list, the previous examples indicate that Machiavelli’s teaching covers a range of conditions, exigencies, and topics. As this whorphan struggles with the twin challenges of truly understanding and fundamentally altering the ways in which his conscious and subconscious brain works (without resorting to helpful chemical substances), he sometimes remembers the teaching, and uses it to stay patient with himself.

Sometimes, though, he forgets, and wallows then in quiet, howling desperation. Mahalo.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

our enemy – television

Television is the creative person's bane, a threat greater than most others are. Watching TV feeds the human need for companionship without ever really satisfying it and crushes creative capacity by tricking the brain into thinking it is doing something and being productive when it is just sitting idle. Creativity, power, assuredness, and passion all reside in the 2nd and 3rd chakras, the lower half of the torso that extends from the breastbone to the genitals. Look down at your own belly for a moment. Can you see your belt-buckle or waistband as it sits atop the pelvic bone? Can you feel and move the abdominus erectus, that muscle that runs from the bottom of the breastbone to attach to the top of the pelvis? If you cannot, you are not alone – more than a third of all Americans are obese, and many of these individuals carry a large portion of this additional weight in the lower halves of their torsos. The decision to sit down and watch television has disastrous consequences on the 2nd and 3rd chakras – it numbs and dulls them, confusing and stifling the free flow of energy through the regions of the core, an area central to living the best of possible human lives. Man is a gullible animal; after seeing just a few commercials related to food he will get food from his kitchen and eat that food (without focusing on what he is eating) while staring longingly into the beautiful bright lights of his TV set. If he repeats this sequence often enough he will get fat, and his increased girth will further stifle the free flow of energy through the region of his core and exacerbate the unhealthiness that stems from a lack of regular exercise and from a preference for prepackaged foods ready to eat over meals carefully and consciously crafted. Persons who wish to lead lives full of creativity and passion avoid watching television; they know that there are more constructive ways to fill their time than by staring at an electric light-box; they paint, draw, dance, or write; they make educated and intelligent decisions about what to eat and what to put through their orifices of eye and mouth and ear instead of numbing out the intestines by shoveling in as much sugary and salty and fatty foods as the gut can handle without bursting; they lead happy lives untethered from groomed and glossy but ultimately vacuous material. Downtrodden and passionless masses of the world, awake! Turn off your television sets! Humanity, and Mother Nature, need you now more than ever. Aho.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

habit flung Westward

This morning, after nearly 12 hours of sleep, having slept in for the first time in more than a month, I took an old, stuck thought, and buried it in that most endless of burial grounds, the West. Thinking the thought – a memory of how someone had sneakily insulted me in front of some of my relatives nearly a year ago – for perhaps the thousandth time, I recognized it as a self-deprecating habit, investigated it at its root, congratulated myself for having caught myself in the process of self-mutilation, took out my little leather salt -pouch, and focused all of the negative emotions and pent-up frustrations surrounding the memory into the salt-pouch and from there into the welcoming arms of the House of Death. Black is the soil of West, and deep, and I am slowly learning how to bury my toxic and useless habits there so as to free up my energies for such thoughts and actions that will be helpful rather than detrimental to me and to mankind. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥

on powerful habits

In the past, I was weak, and let people harness and usurp my fledgling powers. After FYFTT, however, I appreciate my gifts and have gained awareness of my challenges; I can now tell when I am slipping into self-mutilating behaviors and toxic interactions; now, I stop myself, breathe, and remove myself as quickly as possible from the sticky situation. Holding a pouch of salt helps me stay calm, as I can dump anyt negativity into it and cleanse my aura of stickiness – be it anger, jealousy, contempt, or hatred. Oh how much better this is to the old days when I would simmer and steep within the strong emotional states picked up from others, reaching for drugs to numb myself out but in the process making myself more susceptible to reinfection with the debilitating emotions I seem to pick up so easily. I am watchful of my old ways, mindful to not slip back into old habits, and trusting of my intution (which some would call Spirit) enough that I move when I feel it is time to move, shield when I feel it is time to shield, and breathe when no other option seems right. Praise be unto the ancestors, for it is their coding that I bring to bear. Aho.

mentiri factorem fecit – 場黑麥