Weirdly Symbolic Synchronicity

Ed "ItsCoolToCare" has just left. He popped over to see me to discuss the implications of his son's Daemonic Encounter mentioned in his posting of the 13th May:

p://cheatingtheferryman.blogspot.com/2008/05/post-seizure-event.html)

We were sitting in the conservatory soaking in the beautiful late spring sunshine and I had my ARCHOS mp3 machine playing in the background. Now you will recall my story with regard to the random play element of this machine and how it saved my life on the motorway. (as described:

http://cheatingtheferryman.blogspot.com/2008/02/reposting-personal-evidence-for-ctf.html).

Now this is a newer version of the same machine but it works in the same way. I had it on random play - a reminder, nearly 16,000 mp3's on this machine so a 1 in 16,000 chance of any one track being randomly selected.

Ed and I start discussing the nature of reality and how it can be seen as analogous to a super-sophisticated computer simulation/game (I was making particular reference to the observations made by Alex Shane last week in The Bridge Inn). As we started discussing this a new track was selected on the ARCHOS. It was track 4 of Sigur Rós ' album () (that is not a misprint by the way. That is the title of the album - and the tracks have no names either). Unofficially this track is called "Njósnavélin"which means "Spy Machine" in Icelandic

A split second before it began playing I absolutely knew what the next track would be ... and I knew why.

This particular track is the one that is played as the soundtrack of the final sequence of Vanilla Sky (when the Tom Cruise character David Aames realises that he is living in an illusion and chooses to jump off the top of a skyscraper).

The symbolism was not lost in me. Here was yet again a message to show me that this is my self-created phaneron - and just like what happens with David Aames it uses imagery from my own memory databanks to populate my world and give subtle nudges as to the real nature of reality.

Now what is really weird is that I have blogged many times before about this particular scene in that movie (e.g. http://cheatingtheferryman.blogspot.com/2008/03/waking-life-vanilla-sky.html) but not only that - in that blog I also placed a link to the actual sequence with the Sigur Rós song playing in the background.

And what does ( ) mean? Could it be a symbol of my oft used quotation of Emile Goncourt that life is "a nothing between two epileptic seizures"!

This is all Maya!!!!

Birthday Stuff

I would like to thank everybody who has been involved in the massive surprise I had when opening the blogsite. I was ready for something because the enigmatic Dark Philosopher had left a cryptic text message on my mobile. Organising such a pulling together of all the International Association of Itladian Philosophers (IAIP) was a task of huge proportions. Thanks Karl, it really is appreciated.

Among my presents is Jean-Paul Sartre's Being And Nothingness - weighty tome of 656 pages but a book that I have planned to read for many years. This is a present from my mother-in-law, a true francophile (thank you Veronica).

Now this is where things get a little weird. For the last twenty three years I have had a ritual that I have followed on my birthday. Way back in 1985 I bought a book called The Book of Ages by Desmond Morris. This was not one of his most successful books but still a great idea. Each chapter deals with a year of life. For example for the age 25 it gives lots of info of what physiological, psychological and emtional changes usually take place at that age. It also discusses characters from history for whom huge events took place at that age. It then mentions a short list of selected famous people who died at that age.

On receiving Karl's text I delayed reading the chapter for age 54 to read what was on the blog. I noticed that Karl had specifically mentioned me being born on the day rock music started when Bill Haley recorded Rock Around The Clock. (indeed as an aside on my 20th birthday way back in 1974 the UK newspaper The Daily Mirror had a huge block headline which read "April 12 1954, The Day That Rocked The World". I was so taken by this that I placed it on the wall of my wall at university. Everybody I knew afterwards was convinced that it was a mock headline that I had had done).

After reading through your wonderful comments (and thanks again). I then settled down to breakfast and opened up the pages of the Morris book that dealt with the age 54. I was very depressed (pure Existentialist angst) when I read the following:

Fifty four is the year when 'old age' becomes visible in the distance. Previously out of sight, it now becomes a small speck on the horizon.

Great I thought. Sartre and old age! However what made my heart jump was on the next page (the only picture in the section) was one of Bill Haley, of Rock Around The Clock fame. Apparently he died at age 54. I pointed this out to my wife and she verbalised what I had initially thought. "Well, its not that strange because the article is about 1954". But we both realised that it was strange because the article was about the age 54, not the year 1954.

Yet further proof that we are continually creating our own phaneron from information in our minds - just as the Tom Cruise character David Aames does in the movie Vanilla Sky.

Waking Life - Vanilla Sky

The idea that we are all existing in some form of dream has been posted a few times on this blog. There is also a great interest inthe phenomenon technically known as "false awakenings" - when you wake up and then wake up again. The question is; could life be living in a moment before you wake up? CTF proposes that many of us are existing in the final moment of our life - existing within a self-generated dream sequence containing our whole life from the moment of our birth to the moment of our (approaching) death.

Of all the movies that seem to be echoing CTF in this fascinating weltgeist phenomenon none, in my opinion, are more accurate than the two movie versions of Alejandro Amenabar and Mateo Gil's Abre Los Ojos - Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) and Vanilla Sky. If you have not seen these films I strongly advise that you do. Indeed the final sequence of Vanilla Sky (You Tube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6upe63pVMM&feature=related

contains many elements of ITLAD. Watch this with ITLAD/CTF in mind. You have The Daemon (the guy in the white suit), a fall that stimulates the glutamate flood and a full past life review in the second before Tom Cruise (David Aames) hits the ground. This past-life review is fascinating in that it is images from the life of the director, Cameron Crowe. Pure CTF on film!

An interesting synchronicity is that I wrote most of my next book with the Icelandic ambient rock band Sigur Ros playing in the background. Although I have watched Vanilla Sky many times (ditto Abre Los Ojas) it was only today that I realised that they do the soundtrack. Clearly I had picked up some subliminal link.

Those of you who have seen my CTF lecture on YouTube or live will know that at the end I use a falling skydiver to explain the workings of CTF. In many ways this is strangely similar to the movie sequence, don't you think?

I end this posting with the words of David Aames (Tom Cruise) when asked by his Daemon "What is happiness to you David" he replies

"I want to live a real life, I don't want to dream any longer"