Christian Movie

Word Search

Profanity report:

Waking Life

Um, pick a color.

Blue.

B-L-U-E.

Pick a number.

- Eight.

- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

Pick one more number.

- Fifteen.

- 1, 2, 3, 4,

5, 6, 7, 8,

9, 10, 11, 12,

13, 14, 15.

Pick another number.

- Six.

- Okay.

"Dream is destiny".

Rock out.

Rock and roll.

Go, strings. Begin.

Sara, will you try that,

the thing you asked me about?

- Yeah.

- Will you try it

a little more subdued?

- Okay...

- Vibrato. Just try it

and see what you think.

- But what I want...

I mean, I want it to sound rich

and maybe almost a little wavy...

due to being

slightly out of tune.

- Do you want it, um...

- I think it should be

slightly detached.

That's what I was wondering.

Yeah, yeah, you got it.

Snazzy...

Okay, pick up to 20, please.

- Erik, this is a pickup to 20.

- Okay...

1, 2, 3.

Hey, man, it's me.

Um, I just got back into town.

I thought maybe I could bum a ride

off you or something, but that's cool.

I could probably just take a cab,

something like that. Um...

Yeah, I guess I'll hang out

with you later, something like that.

Ahoy there, matey!

You in for the long haul?

You need a little hitch

in your get-along,

a little lift on down the line?

Oh, um, yeah, actually,

I was waiting for a cab

or something, but if you want to...

All right.

Don't miss the boat.

- Hey, thanks.

- Not a problem.

Anchors aweigh!

So what do you think

of my little vessel?

She's what we call "see-worthy".

S-E-E. See with your eyes.

I feel like my transport should be

an extension of my personality.

Voila. And this? This is like

my little window to the world,

and every minute,

it's a different show.

Now, I may not understand it. I may

not even necessarily agree with it.

But I'll tell you what, I accept it

and just sort of glide along.

You want to keep things on an even keel

I guess is what I'm saying.

You want to go with the flow.

The sea refuses no river.

The idea is to remain in a state

of constant departure

while always arriving.

Saves on introductions

and good-byes.

The ride does not require

an explanation.

Just occupants.

That's where you guys come in.

It's like you come onto this planet

with a crayon box.

Now, you may get the 8-pack,

you may get the 16-pack.

But it's all in what

you do with the crayons,

the colors

that you're given.

Don't worry about drawing within

the lines or coloring outside the lines.

I say color outside the lines.

Color right off the page.

Don't box me in.

We're in motion to the ocean.

We are not landlocked,

I'll tell ya that.

So where do you want out?

Uh, who, me?

Am I first?

Um, I don't know.

Really, anywhere is fine.

Well, just... just give me an address

or something, okay?

Tell you what,

go up three more streets,

take a right,

go two more blocks,

drop this guy off

on the next corner.

- Where's that?

- I don't know either,

but it's somewhere,

and it's gonna determine the course

of the rest of your life.

All ashore

that's going ashore.

Toot toot!

The reason why I refuse

to take existentialism...

as just another French fashion

or historical curiosity...

is that I think it has something

very important to offer us

for the new century...

I'm afraid we're losing the real

virtues of living life passionately,

the sense of taking responsibility

for who you are,

the ability to make something of

yourself and feeling good about life.

Existentialism is often discussed

as if it's a philosophy of despair.

But I think the truth

is just the opposite.

Sartre once interviewed said

he never really felt a day

of despair in his life.

But one thing that comes out

from reading these guys...

is not a sense of anguish

about life so much as...

a real kind of exuberance

of feeling on top of it.

It's like your life

is yours to create.

I've read the post modernists

with some interest, even admiration.

But when I read them, I always have

this awful nagging feeling...

that something absolutely essential

is getting left out.

The more that you talk about a person

as a social construction...

or as a confluence

of forces...

or as fragmented

or marginalized,

what you do is you open up

a whole new world of excuses.

And when Sartre

talks about responsibility,

he's not talking about

something abstract.

He's not talking about

the kind of self or soul that

theologians would argue about.

It's something very concrete.

It's you and me talking.

Making decisions. Doing things

and taking the consequences.

It might be true that

there are six billion people

in the world and counting.

Nevertheless,

what you do makes a difference.

It makes a difference,

first of all, in material terms.

Makes a difference to other people

and it sets an example.

In short, I think

the message here is...

that we should never simply

write ourselves off...

and see ourselves as the victim

of various forces.

It's always our decision

who we are.

Creation seems

to come out of imperfection.

I t seems to come out of

a striving and a frustration.

And this is where I think

language came from.

I mean, it came from our desire

to transcend our isolation...

and have some sort of

connection with one another.

And it had to be easy

when it was just simple survival.

Like, you know, "water".

We came up with a sound for that.

Or, "Saber-toothed tiger right behind

you". We came up with a sound for that.

But when it gets

really interesting, I think,

is when we use that same system

of symbols to communicate...

all the abstract and intangible things

that we're experiencing.

What is, like, frustration?

Or what is anger or love?

When I say "love",

the sound comes

out of my mouth...

and it hits

the other person's ear,

travels through this

Byzantine conduit in their brain,

you know, through their memories

of love or lack of love,

and they register what I'm saying

and say yes, they understand.

But how do I know they understand?

Because words are inert.

They're just symbols.

They're dead, you know?

And so much of our experience

is intangible.

So much of what we perceive cannot

be expressed. It's unspeakable.

And yet, you know,

when we communicate with one another,

and we...

we feel that we

have connected,

and we think that

we're understood,

I think we have a feeling

of almost spiritual communion.

And that feeling might be transient,

but I think it's what we live for.

If we're looking at the highlights

of human development,

you have to look at

the evolution of the organism...

and then at the development of its

interaction with the environment.

Evolution of the organism will begin

with the evolution of life...

perceived through

the hominid...

coming to the evolution

of mankind.

Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon man.

Now, interestingly, what you're looking

at here are three strings:

biological,

anthropological...

development of the cities,

cultures...

and cultural, which is

human expression.

Now, what you've seen here

is the evolution of populations,

not so much the evolution

of individuals.

And in addition, if you look at

the time scales that's involved here...

two billion years for life,

six million years

for the hominid,

100,000 years for

mankind as we know it...

you're beginning to see the telescoping

nature of the evolutionary paradigm.

And then when you

get to agricultural,

when you get to scientific revolution

and industrial revolution,

you're looking at 10,000 years,

400 years, 150 years.

You're seeing a further telescoping

of this evolutionary time.

What that means is that as we

go through the new evolution,

it's gonna telescope to

the point we should be able

to see it manifest itself...

within our lifetime,

within this generation.

The new evolution

stems from information,

and it stems from two types of

information: digital and analog.

The digital is

artificial intelligence.

The analog results from molecular

biology, the cloning of the organism.

And you knit the two together

with neurobiology.

Before on the old

evolutionary paradigm,

one would die and the other

would grow and dominate.

But under the new paradigm,

they would exist...

as a mutually supportive,

noncompetitive grouping.

Okay, independent

from the external.

And what is interesting here is

that evolution now becomes an

individually centered process,

emanating from the needs

and the desires of the individual,

and not an external process,

a passive process...

where the individual is just

at the whim of the collective.

So, you produce a neo-human with a new

individuality and a new consciousness.

But that's only the beginning

of the evolutionary cycle...

because as

the next cycle proceeds,

the input is now

this new intelligence.

As intelligence

piles on intelligence,

as ability piles on ability,

the speed changes.

Until what?

Until you reach a crescendo in a way...

could be imagined as an enormous

instantaneous fulfillment of human,

human and neo-human

potential.

It could be something

totally different.

It could be the amplification

of the individual,

the multiplication

of individual existences.

Parallel existences now

with the individual no longer

restricted by time and space.

And the manifestations

of this neo-human-type evolution,

manifestations could be

dramatically counter-intuitive.

That's the interesting part.

The old evolution is cold.

It's sterile.

It's efficient, okay?

And its manifestations are

those social adaptations.

You're talking about parasitism,

dominance, morality, okay?

Uh, war, predation, these would

be subject to de-emphasis.

These would be

subject to de-evolution.

The new evolutionary paradigm

will give us the human traits

of truth, of loyalty,

of justice, of freedom.

These will be the manifestations

of the new evolution.

That is what we would hope to see

from this. That would be nice.

A self-destructive man feels completely

alienated, utterly alone.

He's an outsider

to the human community.

He thinks to himself,

"I must be insane".

What he fails to realize is that

society has, just as he does,

a vested interest in considerable

losses and catastrophes.

These wars, famines, floods

and quakes meet well-defined needs.

Man wants chaos.

In fact, he's gotta have it.

Depression, strife, riots,

murder, all this dread.

We're irresistibly drawn

to that almost orgiastic state...

created out of death

and destruction.

It's in all of us.

We revel in it.

Sure, the media tries to put

a sad face on these things,

painting them up

as great human tragedies.

But we all know the function

of the media has never been...

to eliminate the evils

of the world, no.

Their job is to persuade us

to accept those evils and

get used to living with them.

The powers that be want us

to be passive observers.

Hey, you got a match?

And they haven't given us

any other options...

outside the occasional,

purely symbolic,

participatory act

of voting.

You want the puppet on the right

or the puppet on the left?

I feel that the time has come

to project my own...

inadequacies

and dissatisfactions...

into the sociopolitical

and scientific schemes,

let my own lack of a voice

be heard.

I keep thinking about

something you said.

- Something I said?

- Yeah.

About how you often feel like

you're observing your life...

from the perspective of an old woman

about to die.

- You remember that?

- Yeah. I still feel

that way sometimes.

Like I'm looking back

on my life.

Like my waking life

is her memories.

Exactly.

I heard that Tim Leary

said as he was dying...

that he was looking forward

to the moment...

when his body was dead,

but his brain was still alive.

They say that there's still 6

to 12 minutes of brain activity

after everything is shut down.

And a second of dream

consciousness, right,

well, that's infinitely longer

than a waking second.

- You know what I'm saying?

- Oh, yeah, definitely.

For example, I wake up

and it's 10:12,

and then I go back to sleep

and I have those long, intricate,

beautiful dreams

that seem to last for hours,

and then I wake up

and it's... 10:13.

Exactly. So then 6 to 12 minutes

of brain activity,

I mean, that could be

your whole life.

I mean, you are that woman

looking back over everything.

Okay, so what if I am?

Then what would you be in all that?

Whatever I am

right now.

I mean, yeah,

maybe I only exist in your mind.

I'm still just as real

as anything else.

Yeah.

- I've been thinking also

about something you said.

- What's that?

Just about reincarnation and where all

the new souls come from over time.

Everybody always say

that they've been the reincarnation...

of Cleopatra

or Alexander the Great.

I always want

to tell them they were probably

some dumb f**k like everybody else.

I mean, it's impossible.

Think about it.

The world population has doubled

in the past 40 years, right?

- So if you really believe in that

ego thing of one eternal soul,

- Mm-hmm.

then you only have a 50% chance

of your soul being over 40.

And for it to be over 150 years old,

then it's only one out of six.

So what are you saying then?

Reincarnation doesn't exist...

or that we're all young souls like where

half of us are first-round humans?

No, no. What I'm trying to say

is that somehow I believe...

reincarnation is just a...

a poetic expression of what

collective memory really is.

There was this article by this

biochemist that I read not long ago,

and he was talking about how when

a member of a species is born,

it has a billion years

of memory to draw on.

And this is where

we inherit our instincts.

I like that.

It's like there's, um,

this whole telepathic thing going on

that we're all a part of,

whether we're

conscious of it or not.

That would explain why

there's all these, you know,

seemingly spontaneous, worldwide,

innovative leaps in science,

in the arts.

You know, like the same results poppin'

up everywhere independent of each other.

Some guy on a computer,

he figures something out,

and then almost simultaneously, a bunch

of other people all over the world...

figure out the same thing.

- Mm-hmm.

They did this study. They isolated

a group of people over time,

and they monitored their abilities

at crossword puzzles...

in relation to

the general population.

And then they secretly gave them

a day-old crossword,

one that had already been answered

by thousands of other people.

Their scores went up dramatically,

like 20 percent.

So it's like once the answers

are out there,

you know, people can

pick up on 'em.

It's like we're all telepathically

sharing our experiences.

I'll get you motherfuckers

if it's the last thing I do.

Oh, you're gonna pay

for what you did to me.

For every second

I spend in this hellhole,

I'll see you spend

a year in living hell!

Oh, you f**ks are gonna

beg me to let you die.

No, no, not yet.

I want you c**ksuckers

to suffer.

Oh, I'll fix your

fuckin' asses, all right.

Maybe a long needle

in your eardrum.

A hot cigar in your eye.

Nothin' fancy.

Some molten lead up the a**.

Ooh!

Or better still,

some of that old

Apache s**t.

Cut your eyelids off.

Yeah.

I'll just listen

to you f**ks screamin'.

Oh, what sweet music

that'll be.

Yeah. We'll do it

in the hospital.

With doctors and nurses so you pricks

don't die on me too quick.

You know the best part?

The best part is you d*ck-smokin'

faggots will have your eyelids cut off,

so you'll have to watch me

do it to you, yeah.

You'll see me bring that

cigar closer and closer...

to your wide-open eyeball...

till you're almost

out of your mind.

But not quite...

'cause I want it to last

a long, long time.

I want you to know

that it's me,

that I'm the one

that's doin' it to you.

Me!

And that

sissy psychiatrist?

What unmitigated

ignorance!

That old drunken fart

of a judge!

What a pompous a**!

Judge not lestye be judged!

All of you pukes are gonna die the day

I get out of this shithole!

I guarantee you'll regret

the day you met me!

In a way, in our

contemporary world view,

It's easy to think that science

has come to take the place of God.

But some philosophical problems

remain as troubling as ever.

Take the problem

of free will.

This problem's been around

for a long time,

since before Aristotle

in 350 B.C.

St. Augustine,

St. Thomas Aquinas,

these guys all worried

about how we can be free...

if God already knows in advance

everything you're gonna do.

Nowadays we know that the world

operates according to some

fundamental physical laws,

and these laws govern the behavior

of every object in the world.

Now, these laws, because

they're so trustworthy,

they enable incredible

technological achievements.

But look at yourself.

We're just physical systems too.

We're just complex arrangements

of carbon molecules.

We're mostly water,

and our behavior isn't gonna be

an exception to basic physical laws.

So it starts to look like whether it's

God setting things up in advance...

and knowing everything

you're gonna do...

or whether it's these basic

physical laws governing everything.

There's not a lot of room

left for freedom.

So now you might be tempted

to just ignore the question,

ignore the mystery

of free will.

Say, "Oh, well, it's just an historical

anecdote. It's sophomoric.

It's a question with no answer.

Just forget about it".

But the question keeps staring you

right in the face.

You think about individuality,

for example, who you are.

Who you are is mostly a matter

of the free choices that you make.

Or take responsibility.

You can only be held responsible,

you can only be found guilty

or admired or respected...

for things you did

of your own free will.

The question keeps coming back, and we

don't really have a solution to it.

It starts to look like all your

decisions are really just a charade.

Think about how it happens.

There's some electrical activity

in your brain.

Your neurons fire. They send

a signal down into your nervous system.

It passes along down

into your muscle fibers.

They twitch. You might, say,

reach out your arm.

Looks like it's

a free action on your part,

but every one of those...

every part of that process...

is actually governed by

physical law:

chemical laws,

electrical laws and so on.

So now it just looks like the Big Bang

set up the initial conditions,

and the whole rest

of our history,

the whole rest of human history

and even before,

is really just sort of the playing out

of subatomic particles...

according to these basic

fundamental physical laws.

We think we're special. We think we

have some kind of special dignity,

but that now

comes under threat.

I mean, that's really

challenged by this picture.

So you might be saying, "Well,

wait a minute. What about quantum mechanics?

"I know enough contemporary

physical theory to know

it's not really like that.

"It's really

a probabilistic theory.

There's room. It's loose.

It's not deterministic".

And that's gonna enable us

to understand free will.

But if you look at the details,

it's not really gonna help...

because what happens is you have

some very small quantum particles,

and their behavior is

apparently a bit random.

They swerve. Their behavior is absurd

in the sense that it's unpredictable...

and we can't understand it

based on anything that came before.

It just does something out of the blue,

according to a probabilistic framework.

But is that gonna help

with freedom?

Should our freedom just be

a matter of probabilities,

just some random swerving

in a chaotic system?

That just seems like it's worse.

I'd rather be a gear...

in a big deterministic,

physical machine...

than just some

random swerving.

So we can't just ignore

the problem.

We have to find room in our

contemporary world view for persons,

with all that that it entails;

not just bodies, but persons.

And that means trying

to solve the problem of freedom,

finding room for choice

and responsibility...

and trying to understand

individuality.

You can't

fight city hall, death and taxes.

Don't talk about politics

or religion.

This is all the equivalent

of enemy propaganda

rolling across the picket line.

"Lay down, G.I.

Lay down, G.I.".

We saw it all through

the 20th Century.

And now in the 21 st Century,

it's time to stand up and realize...

that we should not allow ourselves

to be crammed into this rat maze.

We should not submit

to dehumanization.

I don't know about you,

but I'm concerned with

what's happening in this world.

I'm concerned

with the structure.

I'm concerned with

the systems of control,

those that control my life and those

that seek to control it even more!

I want freedom!

That's what I want!

And that's what

you should want!

It's up to each and every one of us to

turn loose and just shovel the greed,

the hatred, the envy and,

yes, the insecurities...

because that is

the central mode of control...

make us feel pathetic, small...

so we'll willingly give up our

sovereignty, our liberty, our destiny.

We have got to realize that we're

being conditioned on a mass scale.

Start challenging this

corporate slave state!

The 21 st Century is

gonna be a new century,

not the century of slavery,

not the century of lies and

issues of no significance...

and classism and statism and all

the rest of the modes of control!

It's gonna be

the age of humankind...

standing up for something

pure and something right!

What a bunch of garbage... liberal

Democrat, conservative Republican.

It's all there to control you.

Two sides of the same coin.

Two management teams

bidding for control!

The C.E.O. job of

Slavery, Incorporated!

The truth is out there in front of you,

but they lay out this buffet of lies!

I'm sick of it, and I'm not gonna take

a bite out of it! Do you got me?

Resistance is not futile.

We're gonna win this thing.

Humankind is too good!

We're not a bunch of underachievers!

We're gonna stand up

and we're gonna be human beings!

We're gonna get fired up about the

real things, the things that matter:

creativity and the dynamic human

spirit that refuses to submit!

Well, that's it! That's all I got

to say! It's in your court.

The quest is

to be liberated from the negative,

which is really

our own will to nothingness.

And once having

said yes to the instant,

the affirmation

is contagious.

It bursts into a chain of affirmations

that knows no limit.

To say yes to one instant...

is to say yes

to all of existence.

The main character is

what you might call "the mind".

It's mastery,

it's capacity to represent.

Throughout history,

attempts have been made...

to contain those experiences which

happen at the edge of the limit...

where the mind

is vulnerable.

But I think we are in

a very significant moment in history.

Those moments, those what

you might call liminal,

limit, frontier,

edge zone experiences...

are actually now

becoming the norm.

These multiplicities

and distinctions and differences...

that have given great

difficulty to the old mind...

are actually through entering

into their very essence,

tasting and feeling

their uniqueness.

One might make a breakthrough

to that common something...

that holds them together.

And so the main character is,

to this new mind,

greater, greater mind.

A mind that yet is to be.

And when we are obviously

entered into that mode,

you can see

a radical subjectivity,

radical attunement to individuality,

uniqueness to that which the mind is,

opens itself

to a vast objectivity.

So the story is

the story of the cosmos now.

The moment is not just a passing,

empty nothing yet.

And this is in the way

in which these secret passages happen.

Yes, it's empty

with such fullness...

that the great moment,

the great life of the universe...

is pulsating in it.

And each one, each object,

each place, each act...

leaves a mark.

And that story is singular.

But, in fact,

it's story after story.

Time just dissolves

into quick-moving particles

that are swirling away...

Either I'm moving fast or time is.

Never both simultaneously...

It's such a strange paradox.

I mean, while, technically,

I'm closer to the end of my life

than I've ever been,

I actually feel more than ever

that I have all the time in the world.

When I was younger, there was

a desperation, a desire for certainty,

like there was an end to the path,

and I had to get there.

I know what you mean

because I can remember thinking,

"Oh, someday, like in

my mid-thirties maybe,

everything's going to just

somehow jell and settle, just end".

It was like there was this plateau,

and it was waiting for me,

and I was climbing up it,

and when I got to the top,

all growth and change

would stop.

Even exhilaration. But that hasn't

happened like that, thank goodness.

I think that what we don't take

into account when we're young

is our endless curiosity.

That's what's so great

about being human.

- You know that thing Benedict Anderson

says about identity?

- No.

Well, he's talking about

like, say, a baby picture.

So you pick up this picture,

this two-dimensional image,

and you say, "That's me".

Well, to connect this baby

in this weird little image...

with yourself living and

breathing in the present,

you have to make up a story like,

"This was me when I was a year old,

"and later I had long hair,

and then we moved to Riverdale,

and now here I am".

So it takes a story

that's actually a fiction...

to make you and the baby in the picture

identical to create your identity.

And the funny thing is,

our cells are completely

regenerating every seven years.

We've already become completely

different people several times over,

and yet we always remain

quintessentially ourselves.

Hmm.

Our critique began

as all critiques begin:

with doubt.

Doubt became our narrative.

Ours was a quest

for a new story, our own.

And we grasp toward this new history

driven by the suspicion...

that ordinary language

couldn't tell it.

Our past appeared frozen

in the distance,

and our every gesture

and accent...

signified the negation of the old world

and the reach for a new one.

The way we lived

created a new situation,

one of exuberance

and friendship,

that of a subversive

micro society...

in the heart of a society

which ignored it.

Art was not the goal

but the occasion and the method...

for locating

our specific rhythm...

and buried possibilities

of our time.

The discovery of a true communication

was what it was about,

or at least the quest

for such a communication.

The adventure of finding it

and losing it.

We the unappeased, the uncapping

continued looking,

filling in the silences with our

own wishes, fears and fantasies.

Driven forward by the fact that no

matter how empty the world seemed,

no matter how degraded and used up

the world appeared to us,

we knew that anything

was still possible.

And, given

the right circumstances,

a new world was just

as likely as an old one.

There are two kinds

of sufferers in this world:

those who suffer

from a lack of life...

and those who suffer from

an overabundance of life.

I've always found myself

in the second category.

When you come to think of it,

almost all human

behavior and activity...

is not essentially any

different from animal behavior.

The most advanced technologies

and craftsmanship...

bring us, at best, up to

the super-chimpanzee level.

Actually, the gap between,

say, Plato or Nietzsche

and the average human...

is greater than the gap between

that chimpanzee and the average human.

The realm

of the real spirit,

the true artist, the saint,

the philosopher,

is rarely achieved.

Why so few?

Why is world history and evolution

not stories of progress...

but rather this endless and

futile addition of zeroes?

No greater values

have developed.

Hell, the Greeks 3,000 years ago

were just as advanced as we are.

So what are these barriers

that keep people...

from reaching anywhere

near their real potential?

The answer to that can be found in

another question, and that's this:

Which is the most universal

human characteristic...

fear or laziness?

What are you writing?

A novel.

What's the story?

There's no story.

It's just...

people, gestures,

moments,

bits of rapture,

fleeting emotions.

In short,

the greatest stories

ever told.

Are you in the story?

I don't think so.

But then I'm kind of reading it

and then writing it.

It was in the middle of

the desert, in the middle of nowhere,

but on the way to Vegas,

so, you know,

every once in a while

a car would pull in, get gas.

It was the last gas stop

before Vegas.

Office had the chair,

had a cash register,

and that was all the room

there was in that office.

I was asleep,

and I heard a noise.

You know,

just like in my mind.

So I got up, and I walked out,

and I stood on the curb of

where the gas station ends,

you know, the driveway there.

I'm rubbing the sand out of my eyes,

trying to see what's going on,

and way down at the very end

of the gas station...

they had tire racks.

Chains around them, you know.

And I see there's

an Econoline van down there.

And there's a guy

with his T-shirt off,

and he's packing

his Econoline van...

- with all of these tires.

He's got the last two tires

in his hands,

pushes them into the thing,

and then I, of course,

I go, "Hey, you!"

This guy turns around,

he's got no shirt on,

he's sweating, he's built

like a brick shithouse,

pulls out a knife,

it's 12 inches long,

and then starts running at me

as fast as he can, going,

I'm still...

"This is wrong".

I walked in,

stuck my hand behind the cash register

where the owner kept a.41 revolver,

pull it out,

cocked the trigger,

and just as I turned around,

he was comin' through the door.

And I could see his eyes.

I'll never forget this guy's eyes.

And he just had bad thoughts

about me in his eyes.

And I fired a round, and it hit him.

Boom. Right in the chest.

Bang. He went... as fast as

he was coming in the door,

he went out the door.

Went right up between the two pumps,

ethyl and regular.

And he must've been on drugs,

on speed or something, you know,

because he stood up...

and he still had the knife, and

the blood was just all over his chest,

and he stood up and he went like that,

just moved a little like that.

And I was pretty much in shock,

so I just held the trigger back

and fanned the hammer.

It's one of those old-time...

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!

And I blew him

out of the gas station.

And ever since then,

- I always carry this.

I hear that.

A well-armed populace

is the best defense against tyranny.

I'll drink to that.

And you know,

I haven't fired this in such a long

time, I don't even know if it'll work.

Why don't you pull the trigger

and find out?

I'm not here. Leave a message.

Hey, man. I guess you already

took off or something.

But, uh, remind me to tell you

about this dream I had last night...

'cause there's some

really funny stuffin it.

All right, man. Uh, I guess

I'll catch you later. Okay.

Bareback riding. Copenhagen William...

and his horse Same Deal.

...for a hat band.

Sew it into the inside of the...

I do not await the future,

anticipating salvation,

absolution,

not even enlightenment

through process.

I subscribe to the premise

that this flawed perfection

is sufficient and complete...

in every single,

ineffable moment.

The Blonde Bee,

the Firefly, Praying Mantis...

...lunatic macaroni munchkin

with my googat...

...venerable tradition of sorcerers,

shamans and other visionaries...

who have developed and perfected

the art of dream travel,

the so-called

lucid dream state...

where, by consciously

controlling your dreams,

you're able

to discover things...

beyond your capacity to apprehend

in your awake state.

- Winning back-to-back...

- Tell us what Felix is doing...

A single ego is an absurdly

narrow vantage from which

to view this... this experience.

And where most consider their

individual relationship to the universe,

I contemplate

relationships...

of my various selves

to one another.

While most people

with mobility problems...

are having trouble

just getting around,

at age 92, Joy. Cullison's

out seeing the world.

/ Now I'm free to see the world //

Hey, how's it going?

They say that dreams are real

only as long as they last.

Can't you say

the same thing about life?

A lot of us out there are mapping

that mind/body relationship of dreams.

We're called the oneironauts.

We're explorers of the dreamworld.

Really, it's just about the two

opposing states of consciousness...

which don't really

oppose at all.

See, in the waking world,

the neuro-system inhibits the activation

of the vividness of memories.

This makes evolutionary sense.

It'd be maladapted for the perceptual

image of a predator...

to be mistaken for the memory

of one and vice-versa.

If the memory of a predator

conjured up a perceptual image,

we'd be running off to the bathroom

every time we had a scary thought.

So you have

these serotonic neurons...

that inhibit hallucinations...

that they themselves

are inhibited during REM sleep.

This allows dreams

to appear real...

while preventing competition

from other perceptual processes.

This is why dreams

are mistaken for reality.

To the functional system of neural

activity that creates our world,

there is no difference between dreaming

a perception and an action...

and actually the waking

perception and action.

I had a friend once

who told me...

that the worst mistake

that you could make...

is to think

that you are alive...

when really you're asleep

in life's waiting room.

The trick is to combine...

your waking

rational abilities...

with the infinite

possibilities of your dreams.

'Cause if you can do that,

you can do anything.

Did you ever have a job that

you hated and worked real hard at?

A long, hard day of work.

Finally you get to go home,

get in bed, close your eyes.

And immediately

you wake up and realize...

that the whole day at work

had been a dream.

It's bad enough that you sell your

waking life for... for minimum wage,

but now they get

your dreams for free.

Hey, man,

what are you doing here?

I fancy myself the social lubricator

of the dreamworld,

helping people become lucid

a little easier.

Cut out all that fear and anxiety

stuff and just rock and roll.

By becoming lucid, you mean just knowing

that you're dreaming, right?

Yeah. And then

you can control it.

They're more realistic and less

bizarre than non-lucid dreams.

You know,

I just woke from a dream.

It wasn't like a typical dream.

It seemed more like I'd walked

into an alternate universe.

Yeah, it's real.

I mean, technically,

it's a phenomenon of sleep,

but you can have

so much damn fun in your dreams.

And, of course,

everyone knows fun rules.

- Yeah.

- So what was going on in your dream?

Oh. A lot of people.

A lot of talking.

Some of it was kind of absurdist,

like from a strange movie or something.

Mostly, it was just people going off

about whatever, really intensely.

I woke up wondering, where did

all this stuff come from?

- You can control that.

- Do you have

these dreams all the time?

Hell, yeah. I'm always

gonna make the best of it.

But the trick is, you got to realize

that you're dreaming in the first place.

You got to be able

to recognize it.

You got to be able to ask yourself,

"Hey, man, is this a dream?"

Most people never

ask themselves that...

when they're awake or especially

when they're asleep.

Seems like everyone's sleepwalking

through their waking state...

or wake walking

through their dreams.

Either way they're not

gonna get much out of it.

The thing that snapped me

into realizing I was dreaming

was, uh... was my digital clock.

I couldn't really read it.

It was like the circuitry

was all screwed up or something.

Yeah, that's real common. And small

printed material is pretty tough too.

Very unstable.

Another good tip-off

is trying to adjust light levels.

You can't really do that.

If you see a light switch nearby,

turn it on and off and see if it works.

That's one of the few things

you can't do in a lucid dream.

What the hell.

I can fly around,

have an interesting conversation

with Albert Schweitzer.

I can explore all these

new dimensions of reality,

not to mention I can have any kind

of sex I want, which is way cool.

So I can't adjust

light levels. So what?

But that's one of the things you do to

test if you're dreaming or not, right?

Yeah, like I said, you can totally

train yourself to recognize it.

I mean, just hit a light switch

every now and then.

If the lights are on

and you can't turn them off,

then most likely you're dreaming.

And then you can

get down to business.

And believe me,

it's unlimited.

- Hey, you know what I've

been working on lately?

- What's that?

Oh, man, it's way ambitious,

but I'm getting better at it.

You're gonna dig this.

Three-sixty vision, man.

I can see in all directions.

Pretty cool, huh?

Yeah. Wow.

Well, I got to go, man.

Okay, later, man. Super perfundo

on the early eve of your day.

- What's that mean?

- Well, you know,

I never figured it out.

Maybe you can.

This guy always whispers into my ear.

Louis. He's a recurring

dream character.

Cinema, in its essence,

is about reproduction

of reality,

which is that, like,

reality is actually reproduced.

And for him, it might sound like

a storytelling medium, really.

And he feels like, um...

like film...

like... like literature

is better for telling a story.

And if you tell a story

or even like a joke...

"This guy walks into a bar

and sees a dwarf".

That works really well

because you're imagining this

guy and this dwarf in this bar.

And it's an imaginative

aspect to it.

In film, you don't have that because you

actually are filming a specific guy...

in a specific bar

with a specific dwarf...

of a specific height who

looks a certain way, right?

- Mm-hmm.

So like, um, for Bazin, what the

ontology of film has to deal...

it has to deal

with, you know, with...

- Photography also has an ontology,

- Right.

except that it adds

this dimension of time to it...

and this

greater realism.

And so,

it's about that guy...

at that moment

in that space.

And, you know, Bazin

is, like, a Christian,

so he, like, believes

that, you know...

in God, obviously,

and everything.

For him, reality and God

are the same. You know, like...

And so what film is actually capturing

is, like, God incarnate, creating.

You know, like this very moment,

God is manifesting as this.

And what the film would capture

if it was filming us right now...

would be, like,

God as this table,

and God is you and God is me and God

looking the way we look right now...

and saying and thinking

what we're thinking right now...

- because we're all

God manifest in that sense.

- Mm-hmm.

So film is like a record of God

or the face of God...

or of the ever-changing

face of God.

You have a mosquito.

You want me to get it for you?

- You got it. Yeah.

- I got it?

And the whole Hollywood thing

has taken film...

and tried to make it

this storytelling medium...

where you take

these books or stories...

and then you,

like, you know...

you get the script and then try

to find somebody who fits the thing.

But it's ridiculous.

It shouldn't

be based on the script.

It should be based

on the person, the thing.

And, um...

And in that sense,

they're almost right

to have this whole star system...

- because then it's about that

person instead of the story.

- Right.

Truffaut always said

the best films aren't made...

The best scripts don't

make the best films...

because they have that kind

of literary, narrative thing

that you're sort of a slave to.

The best films are the ones

that aren't tied to that slavishly.

So, um...

So... I don't know...

The whole narrative thing

seems to me like...

Obviously, there's narrativity

to cinema 'cause it's in time,

just the way there's

narrativity to music.

You don't first think of the story

of the song, then make the song.

It has to come

out of the moment.

That's what film has.

It's just that moment, which is holy.

You know, like this

moment, it's holy.

But we walk around

like it's not holy.

We walk around like there's

some holy moments and there

are all the other moments...

that are not holy,

but this moment is holy.

- Right. Right.

And film

can let us see that.

We can frame it so that we see,

like, "Ah, this moment. Holy".

Like "holy, holy, holy"

moment by moment.

But who can live that way?

Who can go, "Wow, holy"?

Because if I were to look at you

and let you be holy...

I don't know. I would,

like, stop talking.

Well, you'd be in the

moment. The moment is holy, right?

Yeah, but I'd be open.

I'd look in your eyes

and I'd cry...

and I'd feel all this stuff

and that's not polite.

It would make you

uncomfortable.

You could laugh too.

Why would you cry?

Well, 'cause...

I don't know.

For me,

I just tend to cry.

Uh-huh. Well...

Well, let's do it right now.

Let's have a holy moment.

- Everything is layers, isn't it?

- Yeah.

There's the holy moment

and then there's the awareness...

of trying to have

the holy moment...

in the same way that the film

is the actual moment really happening,

but then the character pretending

to be in a different reality.

It's all these layers.

And, uh, I was in and out

of the holy moment, looking at you.

Can be in a holy...

You're unique that way, Caveh.

That's one

of the reasons I enjoy you.

You can...

bring me into that.

If the world that we are forced

to accept is false and nothing is true,

then everything

is possible.

On the way to discovering what we love,

we will find everything we hate,

everything that blocks

our path to what we desire.

The comfort will never be

comfortable for those who seek

what is not on the market.

A systematic questioning

of the idea of happiness.

We'll cut the vocal chords

of every empowered speaker.

We'll yank the social symbols

through the looking glass.

We'll devalue society's currency.

To confront

the familiar.

Society is a fraud

so complete and venal...

that it demands to be destroyed

beyond the power of memory

to recall its existence.

Where there's fire,

we will carry gasoline.

Interrupt the continuum

of everyday experience...

and all the normal

expectations that go with it.

To live as if something

actually depended on one's actions.

To rupture the spell of the ideology

of the co modified consumer society...

so that our oppressed desires of a more

authentic nature can come forward.

To demonstrate the contrast between what

life presently is and what it could be.

To immerse ourselves in the oblivion of

actions and know we're making it happen.

There will be an intensity

never before known in everyday life...

to exchange love and hate,

life and death,

terror and redemption,

repulsions and attractions.

An affirmation of freedom

so reckless and unqualified,

that it amounts to a total denial of

every kind of restraint and limitation.

- Hey, old man,

what you doing up there?

- I'm not sure.

You need any help

getting down, sir?

No, I don't think so.

Stupid bastard.

No worse than us.

He's all action and no theory.

We're all theory

and no actions.

Why so glum,

Mr. Deborg?

What was missing

was felt irretrievable.

The extreme

uncertainties...

of subsisting

without working...

made excesses necessary...

and breaks definitive.

To quote Stevenson:

"Suicide carried off many.

"Drink and the devil...

took care of the rest".

- Hey.

- Hey.

You a dreamer?

Yeah.

I haven't seen too many

of you around lately.

Things have been tough

lately for dreamers.

They say dreaming's dead,

that no one does it anymore.

It's not dead.

It's just that it's been forgotten.

Removed from

our language.

Nobody teaches it,

so no one knows it exists.

The dreamer is

banished to obscurity.

I'm trying to change all that,

and I hope you are too.

By dreaming every day.

Dreaming with our hands

and dreaming with our minds.

Our planet is facing the greatest

problems it's ever faced. Ever.

So whatever you do,

don't be bored.

This is absolutely the most

exciting time we could have

possibly hoped to be alive.

And things

are just starting.

A thousand years

is but an instant.

There's nothing new, nothing different.

The same pattern over and over.

The same clouds,

the same music,

the same insight felt

an hour or an eternity ago.

There's nothing here

for me now, nothing at all.

Now I remember. This happened

to me before. This is why I left.

You have begun

to find your answers.

Although it will seem difficult,

the rewards will be great.

Exercise your human mind

as thoroughly as possible,

knowing it is

only an exercise.

Build beautiful artifacts,

solve problems,

explore the secrets

of the physical universe.

Savor the input

from all the senses.

Feel the joy and sorrow, the laughter,

the empathy, compassion...

and tote the emotional

memory in your travel bag.

I remember where I came from

and how I became a human.

Why I hung around. And now my final

departure is scheduled.

This way out.

Escaping velocity.

Not just eternity,

but infinity.

- Excuse me.

- Excuse me.

Hey. Could we

do that again?

I know we haven't met, but I don't

want to be an ant. You know?

I mean, it's like

we go through life...

with our antennas

bouncing off one other,

continuously

on ant autopilot,

with nothing really human

required of us.

Stop. Go.

Walk here. Drive there.

All action

basically for survival.

All communication simply to keep

this ant colony buzzing along...

in an efficient,

polite manner.

"Here's your change".

"Paper or plastic?" "Credit or debit?"

"You want ketchup with that?"

I don't want a straw.

I want real human moments.

I want to see you.

I want you to see me.

I don't want to give that up.

I don't want to be an ant, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, I know.

I don't want

to be an ant, either.

Yeah, thanks for kind of,

like, jostling me there.

I've been kind of

on zombie autopilot lately.

I don't feel like an ant in my head,

but I guess I probably look like one.

It's kind of like D.H. Lawrence had this

idea of two people meeting on a road...

And instead of just passing

and glancing away,

they decided to accept what he calls

"the confrontation between their souls".

It's like, um... like freeing

the brave reckless gods within us all.

Then it's like

we have met.

I'm doing this project. I'm hoping

you'll be interested in doing it.

It's a soap opera,

and, so, the characters

are the fantasy lives.

They're the alter egos of

the performers who are in it.

So you pretty much just figure out

something that you've always

wanted to do...

or the life you've wanted to lead

or occupation or something like that.

And we write that in, and then we

also have your life intersect...

with other people's in the soap opera

in some typical soap opera fashion.

Then I also want to show it

in a live venue...

and have the actors present

so that once the episode is screened,

then the audience

can direct...

the actors for subsequent

episodes with menus or something.

So it has a lot to do with choices

and honoring people's ability...

to say what it is

that they want to see...

and also consumerism

and art and commodity...

And if you don't like what you got,

then you can send it back...

or you get

what you pay for,

or just participating,

just really making choices.

- So, you wanna do it?

- Uh, yeah. Yeah, that

sounds really cool.

I'd love to be

in it, but, um...

Uh, I kinda gotta ask you

a question first though.

I don't really know

how to say it, but, um...

uh, what's it like to be

a character in a dream?

'Cause, uh, I'm not

awake right now.

And I haven't even worn

a watch since, like, fourth grade.

I think this is

the same watch too.

Um... Uh, yeah.

I don't even know if you're able

to answer that question.

But I'm just trying to get like a sense

of where I am and what's going on.

So, what about you? What's your name?

What's your address?

What are you doing?

I... I... You know,

I can't really remember right now.

I can't really...

I can't really recall that.

But that's

beside the point...

whether or not I can dredge up

this information...

about, you know,

my address or, you know,

my mom's maiden name

or what not.

I've got the benefit in this reality,

if you wanna call that,

of a consistent

perspective.

What is your

consistent perspective?

It's mostly just me dealing

with a lot of people...

who are...

exposing me

to information and ideas...

that... seem

vaguely familiar,

but, at the same time,

it's all very alien to me.

I'm not in an objective,

rational world.

Like, I've been,

like, flying around.

Uh...

I don't know. It's weird, too,

because it's not like a fixed state.

It's more like this whole

spectrum of awareness.

Like the lucidity wavers.

Like, right now I know

that I'm dreaming, right?

We're, like,

even talking about it.

This is the most in myself and in

my thoughts that I've been so far.

I'm talking

about being in a dream.

But I'm beginning

to think...

that it's something that I don't

really have any precedent for.

It's... It's totally unique.

The... The quality

of... of the environment...

and the information

that I'm receiving.

Like your soap opera,

for example.

That's a really cool idea.

I didn't come up with that.

It's like something outside of myself.

It's like something

transmitted to me externally.

I don't know what this is.

We seem to think we're

so limited by the world...

and... and the confines,

but we're really just creating them.

And you keep trying

to figure it out,

but it seems like now that you know

that what you're doing is dreaming,

you can do

whatever you want to.

You're, uh, dreaming,

but you're awake.

You have, um,

so many options,

and that's

what life is about.

I understand

what you're saying.

It's up to me.

I'm the dreamer.

It's weird. Like, so much

of the information...

that... that these people

have been imparting to me...

I don't know. It's got this, like,

really heavy connotation to it.

- Well, how do you feel?

- Well,

Well, sometimes

I feel kind of isolated,

but most of the time,

I feel really connected,

really, like, engaged

in this active process.

Which is kind of weird

because most of the time,

I've just been really passive

and not really responding,

except for now, I guess.

I'm just kind of letting

the information wash over me.

It's not necessarily passive

to not respond verbally.

We're communicating

on so many levels simultaneously.

Perhaps you're...

you're perceiving directly.

Most of the people that

I've been encountering...

and most of the things

that I would wanna say,

it's like they kind of say it

for me and almost at my cue.

It's, like,

complete unto itself.

It's not like I'm having a bad dream.

It's a great dream.

But...

it's so unlike any other dream

I've ever had before.

It's like the dream.

It's like I'm being

prepared for something.

"On this bridge",

Lorca warns,

"life is not a dream.

"Beware and beware and...

beware".

And so many think

because "then" happens,

"now" isn't.

But didn't I mention the ongoing "wow"

is happening right now?

We are all coauthors

of this dancing exuberance...

where even our inabilities

are having a roast.

We are the authors

of ourselves,

coauthoring a gigantic

Dostoyevsky novel starring clowns.

This entire thing we're involved

with called the world...

is an opportunity to exhibit

how exciting alienation can be.

Life is a matter of a miracle

that is collected over time...

by moments flabbergasted

to be in each other's presence.

The world is an exam to see if we can

rise into the direct experiences.

Our eyesight is here as a test

to see if we can see beyond it.

Matter is here as a test

for our curiosity.

Doubt is here as an exam

for our vitality.

Thomas Mann wrote that he would

rather participate in life...

than write

a hundred stories.

Giacometti was once

run down by a car,

and he recalled

falling into a lucid faint,

a sudden exhilaration,

as he realized at last

something was happening to him.

An assumption develops that

you cannot understand life

and live life simultaneously.

I do not agree entirely. Which is

to say I do not exactly disagree.

I would say that life

understood is life lived.

But the paradoxes bug me,

and I can learn to love

and make love...

to the paradoxes

that bug me.

And on really romantic

evenings of self,

I go salsa dancing

with my confusion.

Before you drift off,

don't forget.

Which is to say,

remember.

Because remembering is so much more

a psychotic activity than forgetting.

Lorca in that

same poem said...

that the iguana will bite those

who do not dream.

And as one realizes...

that one is a dream figure...

in another person's dream,

that is self-awareness.

You haven't

met yourself yet.

But the advantage to meeting others

in the meantime...

is that one of them

may present you to yourself.

Examine the nature...

of everything

you observe.

For instance,

you might find yourself

walking through...

a dream parking lot.

And, yes, those are dream feet

inside of your dream shoes.

Part of your dream self.

And so,

the person you appear

to be in the dream...

cannot be

who you really are.

This is an image,

a mental model.

Do you remember me?

No. No, I don't think so.

At the station?

You were on the pay phone

and you looked at me...

a few times.

I remember that,

but I don't remember that being you.

Are you sure?

Well, maybe not.

I was sitting down...

and you were looking at me.

My little friend, dream no more.

It's really here.

It's called Efferdent Plus.

In hell, you sink to the level

of your lack of love.

In heaven, you rise to the level

of your fullness of love.

Hurry up! Come on!

Get in the car! Let's go.

Allegedly,

the story goes like this.

Billy Wilder

runs into Louis Malle.

This was in the late '50s,

early '60s.

And Louis Malle had just made

his most expensive film, which

had cost 2 1/2 million dollars.

And Billy Wilder asks him

what the film is about.

And Louis Malle says,

"It's sort of a dream within a dream".

And Billy Wilder says,

"You just lost 2 1/2 million dollars".

I feel a little more apprehensive

about this one than I did...

Down through the centuries, the notion

that life is wrapped in a dream...

has been a pervasive theme

of philosophers and poets.

So doesn't it make sense that death,

too, would be wrapped in dream?

That, after death,

your conscious life would continue...

in what might be called,

"a dream body"?

It would be the same dream body you

experience in your everyday dream life.

Except that

in the post-mortal state,

you could never

again wake up,

never again return

to your physical body.

As the pattern gets

more intricate and subtle,

being swept along

is no longer enough.

What's the word, turd?

Hey, do you also

drive a boat car?

- A what?

- You gave me a ride in a car

that was also a boat.

No, man, I don't have a boat car.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Man, this must be, like,

parallel universe night.

You know that cat

that was just in here,

who just ran out

the door?

Well, he comes up to the counter,

and I say, "What's the word, turd?"

And he lays down this burrito

and he kind of looks at me,

kind of stares at me and says,

"I have but recently returned from

the valley of the shadow of death.

"I'm rapturously breathing in all

the odors and essences of life.

"I've been to the brink

of total oblivion.

I remember and ferment the desire

to remember everything".

So, what did

you say to that?

Well, I mean,

what could I say?

I said, "If you're gonna

microwave that burrito,

"I want you to poke holes in the

plastic wrapping because they explode.

And I'm tired of cleaning up your

little burrito doings. You dig me?"

'Cause the jalapenos

dry up.

They're like little wheels.

When it was over,

all I could think about...

was how this entire

notion of oneself,

what we are, is just...

this logical structure,

a place to momentarily

house all the abstractions.

It was a time

to become conscious,

to give form and coherence

to the mystery.

And I had been a part of that.

It was a gift.

Life was raging

all around me,

and every moment

was magical.

I loved all the people,

dealing with all

the contradictory impulses.

That's what I loved the most...

connecting with the people.

Looking back, that's

all that really mattered.

Kierkegaard's last words

were, "Sweep me up".

- Hey, man.

- Hey.

Weren't you

in the boat car?

You know, the guy...

the guy with the hat.

He gave me a ride

in his car or boat thing,

and you were in

the back seat with me.

I'm not saying you don't know

what you're talking about,

but I don't know

what you're talking about.

No, see, you guys let me off

at this really specific spot...

that you gave him directions

to let me off at.

I get out and ended up

getting hit by a car.

But then I just woke up

because I was dreaming,

and later, I found out

that I was still dreaming,

dreaming

that I'd woken up.

Those are called "false awakenings".

I used to have those all the time.

But I'm still in it now.

I can't get out of it.

It's been going on forever.

I keep waking up, but I'm just

waking up into another dream.

I'm starting to get creeped out too,

like I'm talking to dead people.

This woman on TV's telling me

about how death is this dream time...

that exists outside of life.

I mean, I'm starting

to think that I'm dead.

I'm gonna tell you

about a dream I once had.

I know that when

someone says that,

usually you're in for a very boring

next few minutes, and you might be.

But it sounds like...

What else are you gonna do, right?

Anyway, I read this essay

by Philip K. d*ck.

What, you read it

in your dream?

No, no. I read it

before the dream.

It was the preamble

to the dream.

It was about that book,

Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said.

- You know that one?

- Yeah, yeah. He won

an award for that one.

Right. That's the one

he wrote really fast.

It just, like, flowed

right out of him.

He felt he was sort

of channeling it or something.

But anyway, about four years

after it was published,

he was at this party

and he met this woman...

who had the same name

as the woman character in the book.

And she had a boyfriend with

the same name as the boyfriend

character in the book.

and she was having an affair

with this guy, the chief of police.

And he had the same name

as the chief of police in his book.

So she's telling him

all this stuff from her life,

and everything she's saying

is right out of his book.

So that's really freaking him out,

but what can he do?

And shortly after that,

he was going to mail a letter,

and he saw this kind of, um, dangerous,

shady-looking guy standing by his car.

But instead of avoiding him, which he

said he usually would have done,

he walked right up to him

and said, "Can I help you?"

And the guy said,

"Yeah. I ran out of gas".

He pulls out his wallet and he

hands him some money, which he

says he never would have done.

And then he gets home and

he thinks, "Wait a second.

This guy can't get

to a gas station. He's out of gas".

So he gets back in his car. He finds

the guy, takes him to the gas station.

And as he's pulling up

to the gas station,

he realizes, "Hey,

this is in my book too.

This exact station.

This exact guy... Everything".

So this whole episode

is kind of creepy, right?

And he's telling

his priest about it,

describing

how he wrote this book,

and four years later,

all these things happened to him.

And as he's telling it to him, the

priest says, "That's the Book of acts.

You're describing

the Book of Acts".

He's like,

"I've never read

the Book of Acts".

So he goes home

and reads the Book of Acts,

and it's, like,

you know, uncanny.

Even the characters' names

are the same as in the Bible.

And the Book of Acts

takes place in 50 A.D,

when it was written, supposedly.

So Philip K. d*ck

had this theory...

that time was an illusion and that

we were all actually in 50 A.D.

And the reason that he

had written this book...

was that he had somehow momentarily

punctured through this illusion,

this veil of time.

And what he had seen was what

was going on in the Book of acts.

And he was really

into Gnosticism.

and this idea

that this demiurge, or demon,

had created this illusion

of time to make us forget...

that Christ

was about to return...

and the kingdom of God

was about to arrive...

and that we're all in 50 A.D.

and there's someone trying

to make us forget,

you know, that... you know,

that God is imminent.

And that's what time is.

That's what all of history is,

this kind of continuous,

you know, daydream or distraction.

And so I read that,

and I was like, "Well, that's weird".

And then that night,

I had a dream,

and there was this guy in the dream

who was supposed to be a psychic.

But I was skeptical. I was like,

"He's not really a psychic".

I was just thinking

to myself.

And then suddenly,

I start floating,

like levitating

up to the ceiling.

And as I almost go

through the roof, I'm like,

"Mr. Psychic, I believe you. You're

a psychic. Put me down, please".

And I float down,

and as my feet touch the ground,

the psychic turns

into this woman in a green dress.

And this woman

is Lady Gregory.

Now, Lady Gregory was Yeats' patron,

this, you know, Irish person.

And though I'd

never seen her image,

I was just sure that this was

the face of Lady Gregory.

So we're walking along,

and Lady Gregory turns to me and says,

"Let me explain to you

the nature of the universe.

"Now, Philip K. d*ck is right about

time, but he's wrong that it's 50 A.D.

"Actually, there's only

one instant, and it's right now.

"And it's eternity.

"And it's an instant

in which God is posing a question.

"And that question is, basically,

'Do you want to, you know,

"'be one with eternity?

"Do you want to be

in heaven?'

"And we're all saying,

'No, thank you. Not just yet'".

And so time is actually just

this constant saying no...

to God's invitation.

That's what time is. It's no more

50 A.D. than it's 2001, you know?

There's just this one instant,

and that's what we're always in.

And then she tells me that actually this

is the narrative of everyone's life.

That behind the phenomenal difference,

there is but one story,

and that's the story of moving

from the "no" to the "yes

All of life is,

"No, thank you. No, thank you".

Then ultimately it's,

"Yes, I give in.

Yes, I accept.

Yes, I embrace".

I mean, that's the journey.

- Everyone gets to the "yes"

in the end, right?

- Right.

So we continue walking,

and my dog runs over to me.

So I'm petting him. I'm really happy

to see him. He's been dead for years.

So I'm petting him

and then I realize...

there's this kind of gross oozing stuff

coming out of his stomach.

And I look over at Lady Gregory,

and she sort of coughs.

She's like...

"Oh, excuse me".

And there's vomit dribbling down

her chin, and it smells really bad.

And I think,

"Wait a second.

"That's not just the smell of vomit,

which doesn't smell very good.

"That's the smell

of dead person vomit.

You know,

it's, like, doubly foul".

And then I realize I'm actually in,

you know, the land of the dead.

And everyone

around me was dead.

My dog had been dead over ten years.

Lady Gregory had been longer than that.

When I finally woke up, I was like,

"Whoa. That wasn't a dream".

That was a visitation to this

real place, the land of the dead".

- So what happened? How did you

finally get out of it?

- Oh, man.

It was just like one of those,

like, life-altering experiences.

I could never really look at the world

the same way again after that.

Yeah, but how did you

finally get out of the dream?

See, that's my problem.

I'm trapped.

I keep... I keep thinking that I'm

waking up, but I'm still in a dream.

It seems like it's going on forever.

I can't get out of it.

I wanna wake up for real.

How do you really wake up?

I don't know.

I'm not very good at that anymore.

But, um, if that's

what you're thinking,

I mean, you probably should.

If you can wake up,

you should...

because someday

you won't be able to.

So just, um...

But it's easy, y' know...

just, just...

wake up.