All language subtitles for WAKING LIFE - VOEN STEN

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 1 6-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 he 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,

1 00,000 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 1 0,000 years,
400 years, 1 50 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 1 0:1 2,

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... 1 0:1 3.

Exactly. So then 6 to 1 2 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 fuck 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 1 50 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 fucks are gonna
beg me to let you die.

No, no, not yet.

I want you cocksuckers
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 ass.

Ooh!

Or better still,

some of that old
Apache shit.

Cut your eyelids off.
Yeah.

I'll just listen
to you fucks 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 dick-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 ass!

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 3 50 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 21st 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 21st 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
microsociety...

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 unaccepting
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 1 2 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 dream world.

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 dream world,

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 dwarfing 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 commodified 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 whatnot.

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.. Dick.

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. Dick
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. Dick 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 forbears.

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.

Just--Just...
wake up.