After many years of wrestling with an investigation of the factors which led to the environmental predicament we see around us, I have arrived at the conclusion that humans are a species who won't take no for an answer, even if this means facing up to certain disaster. If this happens to be the case then in spite of how difficult it may be for you to accept, there's really only death left for us to consider. But by the same token the fact that we're nearing the end and yet people are refusing to change their behaviour, may be our best indication that there's more to our predicament than presently meets the eye.
There can be no doubt that we're in a lot of trouble here in this day and age. Between the incremental difficulties we face as a result of our attack on the integrity of the environment, and the increasingly chaotic context in which we now entertain social relations, our prospects for survival on this planet are becoming very doubtful indeed. But our troubles may be seen against a background of the potentially simultaneous existence of all points in time, so it may no longer be sensible for us to look at history as a linear continuum but as separate and individual islands of dreaming.
Negative entropy may be a concept which physicists view with little favour but it points out the sort of direction which a dream body could go in. The dream body could choose to adopt a physical form at any point in time and assemble a world according to its needs, and no doubt in agreement with other cosmic dreamers. A dreamer may emerge from the depths of time, and other dreamers may join in and adopt a physical form, until every last one of us is awake and hard at work solving the problems in front of us. In this case history need not be a sequential continuum, but a weaving of parallel threads consistent with the simultaneous existence of every point in time.
In spite of whether or not you give much credence to this thinking it follows that although disaster may be destined on this planet, all may not be lost if the whole of creation can be reassembled by a group of dreamers able to avoid the mistakes that led to such a failure. Such dreamers would be born from an earlier branch in the multi-verse, by mother and father dreamers, until the succeeding world was dreamed into creation. The infant dreamer would remain a solitary island until the rest of the world was able to transfer its attention to its dreaming, at which time the sleeping would awaken from their slumber.
In terms of navigating the failures of previous attempts, the dead of such failed worlds would guide the living on their path through the difficulties they encountered. All that the succeeding world would require would be the development of a sensitivity among the living to the whispered words spoken by the dead who speak of their furious recriminations.
If all this sounds too incredible to be true then keep in mind, we will be living on the apex of a Pliocene feedback loop for as long as the shape of Italy remains a feature of the Mediterranean coastline. The shape of Italy may be more impressive to the mind but I expect that a theory concerning the emergence of a multi-verse which appropriates our lives will be the least distressing of the two representational paradigms.
Some readers will probably assume that the necessary strategic implication of this is that their world is now under threat from other worlds within the multi-verse, and this would be consistent with their habitual reflex. But the more subtle and interesting implication is that worlds rotate on an axis defined by the power of individual dreamers whose power could be overt as in the case of some social actors, or covert in the case of powerful but discreetly hidden figures such as that grain of sand I mentioned earlier. In the latter case the dreamer has always been, and will always be, the being who defines their world within the multi-verse, so that any one of us could be such an axis of rotation, existing throughout all of time as one of the individual islands of dreaming noted above.
In the case of really powerful dreamers, such as the ones involved in the reassembly of all creation, they will probably perform a very modest role in society, and may never truly appreciate the significance of what they're doing here. You will no doubt agree that anyone could be a dreamer such as this, and the proposition that everyone could be one is just as likely.
You may have gathered that infant dreaming plays a pivotal role in the navigating of a path through the multi-verse. This is because infant dreaming consists of such a deep well of feeling, not just in terms of our own cherished feelings, but in the feelings of our ancient cosmic ancestors.
In a typically defensive reflection of its character the waking body trivialises such feelings and dreaming in the prioritisation of its practical business. Sentiments such as these are pretty much pushed to the periphery of the waking body's priorities, when they could be at the very centre of them. For the waking body the body itself is the centre of attention, and in terms of the analogy I proposed concerning an oceanic island this is undoubtedly a valid position, but then again in another sense it is most definitely not.
The analogy concerning an oceanic island surrounded by a sea of feeling may be reduced to concentric circles, in which case the waking and dreaming bodies alternate between being central and peripheral, depending on how far you look beyond them. In a universe defined by the infinite regression of abstractions their relationship will always be recursive.
But how does this work in practical terms? Well, a dreamer may stop the world for a moment and negotiate with power the terms of a new branch within the multi-verse, but such will be a moment not known to others until the consequences of the new direction become clear. The emergence of the host model of Earth will be an example I am familiar with. It was dreamed into this world in a moment of perfect clarity, but it could be a very long time before such a consequential paradigm becomes a matter of common knowledge.
In contrast with the waking body's obsession with itself and its determination to completely ignore the dream body, the deep passive power of the dream body requires an assumption of the view that they are at least equal parties to each other in their reciprocal symmetry. If you admire the waking body's physical prowess and technological mastery, then you must give an equal measure of credibility to the dream body, and its persistently obscured yet considerable abilities.
If you've been able to reserve your judgement of my argument until such time as I provide you with a reliable proof of its validity, then your patience will now be rewarded. Since much of science is based on the evidence of the senses you may be somewhat disgruntled with my mixture of a sense of dreaming in this evidence. Without wishing to become embroiled in a lengthy discussion of the validity and reliability of a sixth sense I believe that the use of cannabis provides us with a strong sense of this dimension. In terms of the gradient in which I configure the senses of thinking, feeling and dreaming, cannabis exposes the smoker to a deep pool of feeling, and consequently a means of negotiating a correspondence between thinking and dreaming.
Smoking cannabis can be a very disturbing experience for some individuals, so it's simply impractical to expect that everyone will want to resort to the use of this substance in order to prove the validity of my premise. Fortunately there is a perfectly rational explanation for how this could be which won't require any compromise of the reader's psychological constitution, but it depends on accepting the validity of the infinite regression of abstractions.
If I may simplify the regression in terms of an infinite series of concentric circles each of which consist of successive phases of waking, feeling and dreaming, then the only practical difference between them will be their relative proportions. In terms of their fundamental symbolic contents every scale of existence will ultimately share a common symbolic identity, and we may be sure of this because of the infinite regression of abstractions.
A teasing but useful visualisation of the infinite regression will be found by standing between two large inwardly facing mirrors, but this image is not a particularly close depiction of the infinite series of concentric circles. Nevertheless, the gulf between the recursive reflections does impress the viewer with a sense of the void occupied by an ocean of dreaming. In terms of the actual regression the ocean of dreaming is surrounded by successively larger regions of space, as celestial bodies such as the planet and solar system get ever larger and larger.
If you were to visually detonate your image of the concentric circles so that everything is expanding uniformly, then the difference between the successive scales of recursion would become substantially arbitrary. The dreaming of infinitely diminutive bodies would be equal to the dreaming of much larger ones, and in view of the sharing of a common symbolic identity their negotiation of a common purpose should be a reasonable expectation for you. In the case of the shape of Italy the geomorphic molecules of air and water and rock will share their dreaming with that of the planet in order to achieve the creation of a symbol which only humans will ever understand. In the case of human bodies the molecules of cells and tissues will share their dreaming with the entire body so as to achieve a state of health and purpose in our meagre lives.
What should be clear to you is that the dreaming of bodies regardless of their scale is conducted in an environment which has no spatial or temporal definition. It is an environment where power and purpose are the only currencies, where power and purpose define the terms under which reality is assembled, and where a revision of its terms is subject to a strategic renegotiation. In view of the utterly symbolic nature of the shape of Italy, its institutions and people, I suggest that reality can be as plastic as it can also be inflexible.
And so it follows that, in terms of accounting for the reassembly of all creation, any number of us could be born into any point in time and perform the role which reflects our correspondence with the cosmic dreamer, and which is consistent with our destiny. As far as all of us in this day and age are concerned, we all chose to be born at a time which is very close to the ultimate turning point in Earth history, which is the decimation of the natural environment for the sake of industry, and the trial of those responsible for its destruction. My point is, however, that the story doesn't cease to exist just because the final chapter has been written. All of time is as available to the dreaming of each of us, as it ever was, and ever will be.
I hope that the reader is now getting a sense of the proposition that history is just a recording which can be played back any time a new dreamer arrives on the scene to advance the project a little further, and the simple proof of which descends directly from the shape of Italy. It may have been a somewhat tortuous path for you to follow but I think you get the picture, in spite of whether or not you feel inclined to test the case with a little puff of a hallucinogen.
