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[ 8 minute read ]

My mind is an incubator

'All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity' Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

I randomly opened one of the books on my floor; the place reserved for 'Books to randomly open at any page' or for ones that are likely to be referenced often, like my Roget's Thesaurus and 'Simply Psychology'.

The quotation above, by Samuel Johnson is under the chapter heading, 'Is Mysticism a Kind of Schizophrenia in Disguise?' in 'Zen and the Brain' (James H Austin M.D., 1999, Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT)  I have long been fascinated in our febrile states when we dream, and the reasons given for why we dream by 'sleepologists', or at least people who have studied sleep and dreaming, as being so we can process the day's, and prior events, in our lives. I see it as a fountain of data thrown into the air and the brain catching bits as they fall in an attempt to make a coherent pattern or shape while using templates it has made in a similar way before; a bit like the old video game Tetris.

Anyone with a mental disorder, temporary or otherwise, I suggest, claims it as their own, and as it being a part of them. To make any statements on a specific mental state is likely to offend anyone who suffers from any of a myriad of mental illnesses. The chapter title I found in the book is as much an irritant to many people, as it is smack bang in the middle of my intrigue. I haven't read it yet, but I definitely shall. 

I suggest that just as a mental illness or disorder is claimed as being an integral part of someone, so are the templates or heuristics we make as a result of our febrile dreaming. If I am exposed to radical ideas in my days, my dreaming will shake up this information and other information stored in my head, and my brain will process it it like the old game 'Tetris' with falling (or suspended) pieces that need to be aligned and placed securely with no gaps between them. if there are any gaps they have to be thrown into the air again. Wake up before this has happened and we are not rested.

When I was about sixteen I had a fever. It lasted for at least three days. I had nightmares and lay in bed for those days and nights. One night I had a dream in which there were hundreds of wires that needed to be joined. There were an equal amount of red, blue and yellow wires (primary colours you might note) that needed to be joined to corresponding red, blue and yellow wires. The problem I faced in my lucid dream was that I could not test to see if the wires were joined to the right wires until I had joined them all up; then, and only then, could I test it, or 'turn the circuit on'. It seemed that I was 'doing' this for hours. If it was a real physical task it would have taken years. However, there is nothing so quick as the human brain, and dreams, lucid or not, are scripted to take a specified length of time so we can understand how we got to a result and formed a corresponding template, or new premise or heuristic, so it could have been only a minute; but I think my bedside clock told me it was actually three or four hours. 

As soon as the 'circuit' worked, meaning all the hundreds of unlabelled red, blue and yellow wires were correctly connected (in my dream) I fell asleep and woke much more rested than the previous nights of the fever. During the day, I improved as I moved around my home. The next day I was fine, just as if I had never been ill. Of course, as a teenager not eating for a day or two didn't really have any noticeable affect my energy levels, so things were good.

Anyone would have a hard time convincing me that I was unaware that my body was attacking a virus or whatever it was. I am convinced that different antigens were stuck to T cells that were marched out to battle and messages were sent back with intelligence on the enemy invader. My brain, I am certain, made changes to the antigens and stuck them to new T cells and mass produced a weapon that eliminated the virus threat. Because I was interested in electronics at the time my dream was of the complex and seemingly ever-changing conundrum of how to connect electronic circuits. (My understanding of biology and chemistry is sadly much limited and so no-one should believe that I know what I am talking about when it comes to immunology).

Because I fully believe I was prescient during the final battle in my body I cannot turn from considering that the chapter title, 'Is Mysticism a Kind of Schizophrenia in Disguise?' as being wholly relevant.

Many people believe different things. I believe that people are limited in what they believe, because they either lack mental acuity or the ability to focus it; because their mental development is still undergoing significant changes which require more shake-ups and vivid dreaming; or because they have formed a set of templates that negate either disparate or opposite suggestions. In a group this is an hegemony (Link opens a new window on my post about hegemony and doctrine) in that even the articulation of alternative ideas is inhibited.

I am disruptive; I can set aside my emotions in most scenarios. I am ruthless because in setting aside my emotions only reason and the truth is measured. People don't like this in me, and they don't like it in anyone else.

Imagine if an adult enters into a game that three, four and five year olds are playing. The adult may introduce ideas on mortgages and loans, and work, and fitting kitchens or fixing cars or booking flights and holidays and might try to get the little kids to play their own game but with the adult's rules and experiences. I strongly suspect that the kids will be confused and the enjoyment of their game will wane until it becomes only a boring bane to them, if the adult won't let them leave.

I forget every day that everyone is the centre of their own universe. I forget about 'Sonder'. (Link opens a new window with my post on sonder). I forget every day that everyone needs to feel secure in their thinking; that they are confident that they made the right choices, and confident that they listened to the right people. There are, however, persons who set themselves up as superior in knowledge and understanding who seek to create 'thought progeny' in others.

I might claim to be the first person to put 'Cool', 'Calm' and 'Collected' in a sentence decades ago. I might claim to be one of the leading persons who first put 'kind' before 'regards' at the end of letters. I might also claim to be one of the leading persons, if not 'the' leading person who thanked recipients of my letters 'for their patience and understanding in dealing with this matter'. Certainly, I had never heard or come across any of these devices prior to me inventing them in my personal world. Certainly, modern customer service follows this line of obsequious thinking but is not really clearly evinced. The 'Cool, Calm and Collected' I came up with when I was sixteen, and walking to the top of my road tossing the idea about that I should test my environment so I could understand it better by being 'prickly' that day, and then I thought, No! Cool, calm and collected might be a better approach to protecting myself my mental anguish.

It doesn't matter if I am correct in believing this. However, let's say I am correct on all three counts of being an initiator of consequent common action in the modern world. These actions that come from how people think in the modern world would stem from my 'thought-progeny' and a certain amount of pride could be felt and shown, if only that I happened to mention it in a paragraph, above.

Yet, everyone affects the world in some fashion. We just don't get to see it unfold because it takes decades, at least it did.

We should be mindful that a lot of people want to be influencers. What does this mean? 'Think like me!', and by inference, buy what I buy so you can be like me. This is, as I have mentioned a few times before, seeking validation. Someone's thoughts or understanding, no matter how many people share the same thought, either because it was born by immaculate conception as a leap of innovation, or a particular assembling of pieces of the day falling down in dreams; or through insemination by someone else's strong idea or belief, are not necessarily correct.

Once upon a time, the Romans thought it was a good idea to crucify people. They weren't the first to do this though. Today, Romans and their fellow country-people might not be so keen to nail people to wooden crosses. Yet, some people might consider it to be not good practice only because, to them, realistically, it is unhygienic, and some rotting fingers or toes might fall on the kids playing below. This is a prime example of weighting our thoughts.

When someone is in a position to influence my understanding of the world, I, like everyone else, hold hard to my own carefully considered beliefs. They are part of me. Tell me I am wrong and you insult me at the very core of my existence. To this end, I eschew strong opinion. I will listen to anything and adjust my thinking accordingly and appropriately, but zealots are brutes who seek to plants seeds in other people in a deliberate attempt to hatch thought-progeny. The action of seizing someone else's mind, throwing it to the ground and spearing an idea or thought or belief into it, is something that they are proud of. When they see the change in a person who has been thoroughly abused in this way they are pleased, and if there are enough of these changed people, zealots are able to confirm their own bias. 

'All power of fancy over reason is a degree of insanity' Samuel Johnson (1709-1784).