Out of my mind

This blog was not intended to be my next blog, the intended one didn’t come out as it got hijacked by my mind (hence this blog). While going out of your mind is a euphemism for ‘going’ insane and also a sort of coming out, this blog is not about madness or coming out.

This blog is about the hazards of getting hijacked by mind, and how not to be. While mind is essential for negotiating the world it can all too easily take over. To get free of it, to go out of your mind, might look to the world like madness, but then how does the world look any different?

Ironically the intended blog is about coming out and the end of coming out. I am sure it won’t be long before it escapes the clutches of my mind and is able to come out.

Though ironic it could better be described as synchronicity, however this term is problematic since time does not exist. Having come to realise this, I have noticed how uncanny and strange coincidence no longer appear strange or infrequent: they have become the norm.

Being mind-led lacks the perspective necessary for this shift to occur, and so when inhabiting mind-led perspectives, writing, therapy and life in general lose their everyday magic.

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One definition for ‘mindless’ is, acting without justification and with no concern for the consequences, in this sense my life, writing and work as a psychotherapist often achieve their mindless potential.

It is worth noting that this definition is doubly negative: it twice describes what mindless is not. This is hardly surprising since mindlessness is almost always seen as negative and to be avoided even though it holds the potential for magic.

The ‘coming out’ blog did not come out in part because as I wrote it, it seemed to keep trying to justify itself. As someone who has spent much of my life trying to justify myself I know there are better ways to live. I have no wish to inflict this onto my writing nor you the reader. For that matter, is coming out really coming out when it entails justification and a concern for the consequences?

Mindfulness is a form of neurosis.

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In getting hijacked by mind I got drawn into justifying to the point that I lost my mindlessness. I found myself speaking more to the mind of the reader and less to their intuition.

I was insufficiently out of my mind.

The mind values knowledge and belief above intuition in its attempt to understand and be understood. Whereas intuition is neither dependent on, nor bogged down by any of these.

Intuition is primarily about (re)establishing connection.

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The mind artificially dissects process into bits it calls ‘cause’ and ‘effect,’ it then matches them together and projects these odd couples out giving birth to a world it believes is already there. The mind is so used to doing this that it barely has to think about it, it keeps doing this to the point of establishing a predictability it now calls ‘law’. Understandably, the law of cause and effect is reliable when you live in the world it creates.

If you feel as though there is too little magic in your life it is likely that your world has become hijacked by mind. Leading a more ‘mindless life’ (a dream-life) is conducive to magic. Paradoxically as magic becomes more the norm you stop thinking in terms of magic, and so life becomes more like the ‘magical realism’ of a Gabriel Gárcia Marquez novel, only without the drama.

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Surprisingly psychotherapy is besieged by cause-effect thinking, this seems incongruent considering how much psychotherapists rely on intuition and unconscious process.

‘What motivates you? ‘What was your intention?’ ‘Why are you feeling sad?’ These types of questions can sometimes be useful, however, they reinforce cause-effect thinking which is at odds with becoming lucid.

Freud’s conviction that dreams are the ‘royal road to the unconscious’ is contradicted by psychoanalysis when it presents as a mind-led, cause-effect, knowledge and belief mindset.

If you want to approach dreaming it is better to see that approach gets you nowhere. When you are able to see there is only dream you realise there is no approach from without, since you are always within. In this sense it’s no different from chasing your shadow: you might think you are chasing it, but since it cannot be caught you are merely running around after yourself.

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Flying in dreams is liberating, it also highlights the limits of a mind-led perspective. Flying dreamers often try to master flying, those that attempt to control flying typically report that it is the cause-effect approach itself that leads to the loss of flight. It is at odds with dreaming since it is in keeping with the ‘spirit of gravity’.

Dream-living is not only mindless, it resists mind-led perspectives.

So the question is not, ‘What is the best way to live a dream-life?’ Nor is it even, ‘What is the best way to live so-called waking life?’ The question becomes, ‘How do I live such that these two questions are one and the same?’

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When you can see yourself as just another dream image you are then able to see yourself as you do any other dream image: without explanation, justification or criticism, but with an openness, respect, acceptance, curiosity, awe and context, and as real as anything else you can possibly imagine.

Becoming lucid does not mean getting your head around dreaming, lucidity comes with unconscious awareness.

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Perhaps the best way to illustrate what I’m saying is to observe your response to two different presentations of the same content, the first is as follows:

‘I had this strange and incredibly vivid dream the other night. I am facilitating some sort of therapeutic process, perhaps teaching or maybe group therapy. I don’t recognise anyone or where I am. I’m with three people and it bothers me that I don’t know what we’re doing, I then notice the end of my penis is lit-up like the tip of a cigarette when a smoker inhales. It’s not painful, my penis is flaccid and unharmed. This happens three times, each time I calmly try to extinguish it and continue with the group. No one comments although they must have noticed: I think I’m naked from the waist down. This happens twice more, the third time I try using water to put it out only to realise, if anything, its intensity grows. And then I wake up. Thankfully it was just a dream, though I wonder, did I want to expose myself? Or rather, I was exposed without realising it: what does this mean? What does a lit penis represent? And come to that, why was I not wearing trousers? I need to spend more time with this dream to come to a better understanding.’

Pause, notice your energetic response, any thoughts or associations you have, and then what, if anything, you do with them.

Take a moment, perhaps make a note, and then do the same with the second presentation:

‘The other day I was facilitating a group of three people I don’t recognise nor do I know what we’re doing, which bothers me a little. I then see how the end of my penis is lit-up like the tip of a cigarette as it’s inhaled. My penis is just hanging there lit. The group must notice, though no one says a thing. I try three times to extinguish it and can’t, the third time I douse it with water which doesn’t work, if anything it’s getting more intense. It seems there’s no need to put it out, rather than being sensitive to it, others and myself, I have the authority to let it be and see what happens. Perhaps I’ve always been this way, and if so, how did I not notice before? Although to be fair, I normally work with my trousers on. I am bringing more of myself into the work, besides I can’t negotiate with the world anymore. Perhaps the lit penis is a talisman, a totem, a divining rod and a magic wand, although sometimes a lit penis is just a lit penis.’

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