Old words newly considered
Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream/
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream/
This is the old nursery rhyme mentioned in class today. Life is but a dream? Would that make death the slumber then in which the dream is a function? If so, then we are all already dead. Our life is practically vegetative as it is in The Matrix. Our sleep and dreams that we unsuspectingly perceive become compound functions; g(f)(x) = ? to the effect that f(x) = the perceived dream of life and g(x) = the actual dream. This begs the corollary: what is real? Is this life that we dream in dreams, which I will call life prime, legit and valid, or is it a conglomerate fabrication – a function of the dream world that we live in? Concordantly, what is to be made of the act of going to sleep in this initial dream state, which I will call death prime? Do people ever go to sleep in dreams? I can't recall any such projected memories in which I fall asleep in my dream. Do others fall asleep in their dreams? If so, the idea of the compound function expounded above gains a degree of validity. If not, its plauability is strongly refuted. What do we make of life prime then? Is it just the random firing of neurotransmitters across the synapse, as psycholgists would have us believe, or is their some projected vestige of the past, shard of the future, or maybe even a glimpse through a window into our real "life" outside the dream? No matter the answer – which I am unable to contrive or induce – one becomes curious if there was or is any life outside this first stage death that the song suggests. There would have to be, for how can one be born dead yet still live residually and vicariously, even if through dreams? This is where the argument dies, for I cannot find a base for its foundation. Clearly, the nursery rhyme was composed by a drunk sailor zoning out during his mundane rituals.
Later that class, during invocation, a song came to mind that I have always thought enigmatic, intriguing and haunting. I had never really considered the lyrics much, but I will now do so here. In the chorus of the song "Mad World," by Gary Jules on the Donnie Darko soundtrack, he sings:
"I find it kind of funny; I find it kind of sad/
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had/
I find it hard to tell you; I find it hard to take/
When people run in circles, its a very very... mad world/"
The first and third lines are filler, merely sigmenting into the second and fourth. The fourth line seems to imply that people don't understand the way they are and how they act, and so keep making the same mistakes and keeping the same practices mindlessly that they don't realize what they're doing. The irony of the second line, spooky as it is, is where the real enigma lies. Is the author speaking literally: does he die in his dreams and that brings him the zen-like fulfillment of peace? Perhaps, considering the function discussed earlier, the dreams he refers to are the episodes in his projected life. Dying, then would be death prime. It would be a resting sleep that rejuvinates the author from his grueling life. Or, maybe the author is a craven nihilist, depressed and fatigued by life's burdens and fondling the idea of a release from the toil. I have no lead either way.
Going back to square one, what would it mean to die in a dream? Is it even possible to die in dreams? Would the dream end and the dreamer awaken? Would the dreamer die in real life, just as one killed in the Matrix dies in real life by the law that the body cannot exist without the mind? Given that by a certain age most people can control their dreams to a certain extent, to die in a dream would be a form of nihilism, for the dreamer should be able to not only alter the dreamscape to his semi-conscious will, but when situations becomes dire, the dreamer develops a certain awareness that he is dreaming and gains access to a doorway out of the dream – that of waking up. Somehow I cannot believe that the author enjoys dying in his dreams to wake up from them. The lyric for now will remain an enigma to me, and I will have to assume that the author wrote it as a literary device in order to evoke the irrational idea of enjoying the act of dying in one's dreams.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream/
This is the old nursery rhyme mentioned in class today. Life is but a dream? Would that make death the slumber then in which the dream is a function? If so, then we are all already dead. Our life is practically vegetative as it is in The Matrix. Our sleep and dreams that we unsuspectingly perceive become compound functions; g(f)(x) = ? to the effect that f(x) = the perceived dream of life and g(x) = the actual dream. This begs the corollary: what is real? Is this life that we dream in dreams, which I will call life prime, legit and valid, or is it a conglomerate fabrication – a function of the dream world that we live in? Concordantly, what is to be made of the act of going to sleep in this initial dream state, which I will call death prime? Do people ever go to sleep in dreams? I can't recall any such projected memories in which I fall asleep in my dream. Do others fall asleep in their dreams? If so, the idea of the compound function expounded above gains a degree of validity. If not, its plauability is strongly refuted. What do we make of life prime then? Is it just the random firing of neurotransmitters across the synapse, as psycholgists would have us believe, or is their some projected vestige of the past, shard of the future, or maybe even a glimpse through a window into our real "life" outside the dream? No matter the answer – which I am unable to contrive or induce – one becomes curious if there was or is any life outside this first stage death that the song suggests. There would have to be, for how can one be born dead yet still live residually and vicariously, even if through dreams? This is where the argument dies, for I cannot find a base for its foundation. Clearly, the nursery rhyme was composed by a drunk sailor zoning out during his mundane rituals.
Later that class, during invocation, a song came to mind that I have always thought enigmatic, intriguing and haunting. I had never really considered the lyrics much, but I will now do so here. In the chorus of the song "Mad World," by Gary Jules on the Donnie Darko soundtrack, he sings:
"I find it kind of funny; I find it kind of sad/
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had/
I find it hard to tell you; I find it hard to take/
When people run in circles, its a very very... mad world/"
The first and third lines are filler, merely sigmenting into the second and fourth. The fourth line seems to imply that people don't understand the way they are and how they act, and so keep making the same mistakes and keeping the same practices mindlessly that they don't realize what they're doing. The irony of the second line, spooky as it is, is where the real enigma lies. Is the author speaking literally: does he die in his dreams and that brings him the zen-like fulfillment of peace? Perhaps, considering the function discussed earlier, the dreams he refers to are the episodes in his projected life. Dying, then would be death prime. It would be a resting sleep that rejuvinates the author from his grueling life. Or, maybe the author is a craven nihilist, depressed and fatigued by life's burdens and fondling the idea of a release from the toil. I have no lead either way.
Going back to square one, what would it mean to die in a dream? Is it even possible to die in dreams? Would the dream end and the dreamer awaken? Would the dreamer die in real life, just as one killed in the Matrix dies in real life by the law that the body cannot exist without the mind? Given that by a certain age most people can control their dreams to a certain extent, to die in a dream would be a form of nihilism, for the dreamer should be able to not only alter the dreamscape to his semi-conscious will, but when situations becomes dire, the dreamer develops a certain awareness that he is dreaming and gains access to a doorway out of the dream – that of waking up. Somehow I cannot believe that the author enjoys dying in his dreams to wake up from them. The lyric for now will remain an enigma to me, and I will have to assume that the author wrote it as a literary device in order to evoke the irrational idea of enjoying the act of dying in one's dreams.
posted by Moonshynn at 7:50 PM
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