A Note about “Visions”

Aside

The other day I said I had a “vision” – I wanted to clarify what I meant. I do not mean I had some kind of hallucination, and fell down randomly and maybe frothed at the mouth a little. No, the kind of “vision” I had is a completely ordinary thing that everybody does all the time. If I were to ask you how you were feeling right now, and, instead of telling me “fine”, told me “I feel like I’m standing on a beach on a bright, calm day”, you just told me your vision of how you’re feeling. Whatever you envision yourself to feel like is a vision, at least according to me.

So why do I pursue visions of things? Sometimes, to really get at the root of things, you need to sit down, close your eyes, and let the image emerge: the subtle details of it, and the changes over time. And this simple process is key to getting to the heart of emotional issues, especially those bothering you that moment. Because once you see what things are really like, you can start to question it and change it around.

A Vision of Self-Control

Before I continue on with my explanation of how I overcame my inner deceiver, I wanted to share a monstrous vision I had less than an hour ago.

I was bored and didn’t know what to do, so I closed my eyes and started to visualize and open up to the thoughts and emotions inside of me – meditation, basically – but what I saw this time were a number of parts of me who are energetic, caring, and a very positive force in me – inside of a small domed room. Inside was a researcher pacing back and forth, telling us with great enthusiasm how what we needed to do, that this was a meditation room and we needed to relax and everything I just mentioned. I started to argue – “Why do we need to listen to you anyway?” “Just do it, it will be practical, and now is a good time to do it.”

But then the researcher crossed the line and started saying things like:
“You are all very fortunate – you’re important to the project that we have going here.” Or some crap like that. He was treating me as an experiment. A lab rat.

At this, I remembered a time when I had treated one of MY friends this way, when I was 7 or something, and called him average. Well, I felt like a complete monster after that, and now I have a glimpse of why. I am treating myself like an experiment – there’s a bureaucratic part of my consciousness that seeks to control and achieve ends it deems favorable, desirable. Now that I see this, I’m both infuriated and excited. It means I will soon, or some day have a chance to fight with this inane researcher within me – but I’m infuriated because it’s still living in me, and still has that much of a presence that on a random afternoon, IT is what’s talking to me.

Anyhow, just thought I’d share that. Onward! I’ll get back to the other topic tomorrow.