| Dreaming |
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I was reading a 1963 electronics magazine printed in black and white which was advertising impressive DIY loudspeaker enclosures made of very thick plywood, for use with ‘Pearless™' loudspeaker drivers. They seemed to me to be of a surprisingly high quality, except that they were upside down. But after explaining this to the woman standing by me, I then advised her that VAT was always payable when two lengths of shiny copper cable met, cables such as those which I had in my hands. And they were very shiny and copper-coloured. Dreams, however strange, seem to make total sense at the time. Sometimes, the sense they make makes no sense at all when you wake up - the logic is so topsy-turvy that it simply cannot be recaptured. It is like the Cheshire cat's smile; it is a remnant which has no substance and so cannot even be thought about. This though was a dream which was in full colour as well as black and white and was full of detail, so that I did remember it, despite the dodgy vat advice I gave. Of course there had been far more which led up to this scene - I think it involved travelling - but that drifted away as soon as I tried to remember what it was. There are people, such as the American, Dr Timothy Leary (who died 10 years ago), who have said that we should take LSD or other psychedelic drugs deliberately to distort reality - in order to see life from a different viewpoint. I did once eat what I was told was a cannabis cookie, but the effect was more like being sozzled than having been provided with an alternative view of reality. The thought of taking drugs which would enable me to use a different form of ‘logic' and therefore view of life is not though something which makes any sense to me. The alternative logic could not, by definition, carry over into the world which I actually inhabit, any more than the distorted reasoning which I sometimes employ in dreams makes sense when I rejoin the day. Neither do I think that to see extra-vivid colours or experience extreme forms of emotion would be something which would help me to enjoy my life any more than I do. If I were depressed or disillusioned with life, I suppose that I may look at things differently but, when our emotions are already disturbed, to risk greater disturbance in such a way is probably not very sensible. At the very least it is an attempt to find a happier life in a short-lived way. Depression, or indeed just ordinary unhappiness, is not something which can be alleviated in the long term by escaping from life. It can only be overcome by facing up to life and finding strategies for dealing with it. I suppose that for people who are quite happy with life, it may be that the occasional indulgence in psychedelic drugs, if they were non-addictive and otherwise relatively harmless, would simply be the equivalent of indulging in any other pleasure. Although that does already presume rather a lot, including that the result would actually be pleasurable. And none of this is by any means certain with any of the known psychedelic drugs, whether synthetic or ‘natural'. Whatever may be the attractions of mind-altering substances, however, I don't think that I shall ever feel the need to indulge in them as long as I continue to have my nightly dose of that natural psychedelic condition known as dreaming. The world that I create in my sleep is as bizarre as anything I am likely to want to encounter under the influence of drugs and if my horizons haven't already widened under the influence of my psychedelic dreams, nothing else is likely to do it, apart perhaps from a few glasses of good wine. |