Photo by: John P. Ford
Living in Music City, Nashville, Tennessee USA, I am surrounded with
Illusion and the Reality that can be the life blood of experience or the anxiety of the moment.
Any Friday or Saturday evening can find visitors and Nashville natives seeking entertainment, fun and games and the connection with each other that sharing experience in music can offer in our lower Broadway and Second Avenue district.
From the Ryman to hawkers in Printer's Alley, a feeling of discovery and anticipation is almost palatable. While involved in experiences like being in The District, I tend to want to be in the middle of the experience... while also daydreaming....
It is a bit like a movie playing in my head.... like walking down two paths? It was like that last night. I was reminded of how much perception shapes every experience. Even every breath. During my daydreams it is a bit like a stream of consciousness. I tend to recall things I may not think of at other times. This dream was one of those moments.
I had a dream like this as a kid...We were visiting someone I did not know and we arrived very late. The stairs to the bed were old and winding. I climbed what looked to me then to be endless narrow and steep steps.
I slipped under the covers gratefully and fell instantly asleep only to wake with my heart pounding.
Standing unmoving by the door was a man in a trench coat and a fedora like hat. I convinced myself he could not see me so I became invisible!
I stayed awake all night long not moving to find as the sun came up....My man in the night was a coat and hat on the back of the door...Ah reality and Illusion and the juxtapositions they give to perception.
Your perceptions? Illusions? Please share your thoughts and experiences? I love your comments and I appreciate the sharing!
53 comments:
Linda!...nice set-up.
I have just returned from the Hawaiian islands. Visiting family and friends and way too much food.
We splashed around with Sea turtles literally every other day!
The Grand Genius was hard at work on our behalf...and on the last we were graced with a Mama Stingray and her two babies swimming in calf-height-deep shore water. Wild and wonderful fuel for my rich forever rich, fantasy life.
While there we continually received random phone calls from various people back home, offering up various and random jobs that would possibly land each of us back in Hawaii. Weird, wild, and wonderful.
Wise, however knowing Mercury is Retro-grade all this month of September, we take every slice of communication with a pinch of skeptical-salt. Expectantly, none of those suggestions/offers have come to fruition. All communication stopped upon our arrival home.
P.S. Pulled a virtual-on-line tarot card: "The Bard" which told me to stay home and tell stories...Ha!
Everyday is a wild and wondrous surreal/real surprise!
Be well.
Do good.
All days.
All ways.
Stay true.
Hello Teri!
Loved your comment!. I have always wanted to visit the Hawaiian islands.What a great trip!
Your advice is taken to heart friend
Linda
Funny that you're talking about reality vs. illusion because I just posted a poem by Edgar Allan Poe, "A Dream Within A Dream" and we got to commenting about dreams. I used to have a recurring dream that I was being chased and running down a long hallway in the house where I was a child. There were nails all over the floor and I couldn't run fast and whoever was chasing me would be gaining fast. I always woke up before I got caught or to safety. I've learned that this is a typical anxiety dream.
I read a Zen koan last week that went something like this: Are you a dragonfly dreaming that you are a human or are you a human dreaming that you are a dragonfly? Crazy stuff, huh? LOL! Thanks for making me think today, Ms. Linda. I hope you're having a wonderful Sunday. Blessings!
Marion
Thanks for stopping by!. I love the dream within a dream theory.....I appreciate you as a follower and your comments
are thought provoking.I read recently on another blog...maybe Christopher's(?) about your ACOA experience. We share that connection
Hugs
LInda
Hi Linda - Wow, what an exciting place to live :)
I was unwell last week and had some of the most vivid incredible dreams, like movies most of them.
In one I was talking to someone on the phone, and they asked me to write down a phone number which was very important - every time I repeated it back to them one of the numbers was wrong....strange!
I had a few recurring dreams as a child also.
G
xx
I always believe dreams mean something and as for illusions, are they such or really real? Ha! It's too early in the morning for this. My brain is beginning to hurt already!
PS Sometimes I don't think I am really here at all!
I went last Friday to the place I was brought up in. I went to get some concert tickets for December, however on reaching the station I made my way to the hotel and to my amazement the centre of the city has been completely changed. was this real or a dream...... thought I was going to wake up any moment.
All the familiar landmarks were gone I was completely lost.
After I eventually found my hotel
I ventured out to the theatre more shocks awaited me. I was a very confused person for a while.
Here I was in a place I grew up, went to school, worked, got married, had my three children yet felt a complete outsider. Those few days were most unreal.
Yvonne.
Wouldn't it be nifty if a technology to record dreams was to be invented? That way people can replay what transpired within the inner mind during the course of a night. My dreams have both been at times a harbinger of terror and peace. I notice that when my body is off or ill, I get the most horrendous scream provoking dreams. SOmehow I am thiankful for this because it makes me aware that physically something is wrong with my body and theefore I seek out healing.
My lucid dreams also alert me that I might be stressed, specially the ones wherein I feel myself ( or a pat of myself) rise up float and zoom away. Kinda' freaky I know.
I fully appreciate dreams wherein I am in pretty peaceful place.
Sometimes this life can seem more like a dream than reality. But then again what if reality is actually just a dream. So am I in your dream or are you in mine?
* Been a long time since the last I was here! I've been a lazy bloggy' lady. I'm so happy to be reading you again!
Wouldn't it be nifty if a technology to record dreams was to be invented? That way people can replay what transpired within the inner mind during the course of a night. My dreams have both been at times a harbinger of terror and peace. I notice that when my body is off or ill, I get the most horrendous scream provoking dreams. SOmehow I am thiankful for this because it makes me aware that physically something is wrong with my body and theefore I seek out healing.
My lucid dreams also alert me that I might be stressed, specially the ones wherein I feel myself ( or a pat of myself) rise up float and zoom away. Kinda' freaky I know.
I fully appreciate dreams wherein I am in pretty peaceful place.
Sometimes this life can seem more like a dream than reality. But then again what if reality is actually just a dream. So am I in your dream or are you in mine?
* Been a long time since the last I was here! I've been a lazy bloggy' lady. I'm so happy to be reading you again!
Isn't everything a matter of perception? Something that can be so REAL for one person is silliness to another, simply because of perspective. It depends, I think, on where you stand relative to the subject. Are you on the outside, looking in? Right in the middle of things (like the child you were in the dark room with the coat and hat)? Are you far, far removed? Each perspective changes the way we see things. A little distance can clarify things that were very blurry before.
Great post - you have me thinking this morning!
they are all intermingled in a way. the way you percieve is based in part in reality, yet coloured in by illusion, being that which you don't know...
Reality and Illusion, Linda!
Wow, those are biggies!
Reality is I'm too fat.
Illusion is XL shirts make me feel fine.
One of a million examples....
Your blog is heartwarming!
I would have to say my perceptions are more intense these days. My deafness allows for a subtle surreal quality to things I never experienced when I heard.
I'm not sure if I see more in-depth or if losing one sense - enhanced another.
I used to have strange dreams where someone was always running, only to end up getting hurt. In the dream I would follow the events. Just before the victim would get hurt, I became the victim and woke up before the final blow.
I've also been asked if I'm deaf in my dreams. In the beginning I wasn't, these days I am. I think it's a stream of conscience on reality based facts. In my writing I'm never deaf.
This was an interesting take on perception and dreams, thanks for sharing. (Hugs)Indigo
Linda, I too know that trench coat in the dark....The illusion is that we are all so far away, the reality is that we're all so close....
Linda- in this techno age of photo shop and comp images, it's hard to find reality even if we try. Excellent post. ~rick
Linda,
Very inspiring post! I tend to see things differently than others. Sometimes that creates strange stares... oh, well; I won't lose sleep over that.
-Alex
Myst
So glad you stopped by!
I have had some of those phone call dreams. In mine the push buttons wiggle and I can't hit them correctly. SCREAM. Much thanks for stopping by and commenting!
SarahA
I hear you! With a brain as functional as yours I am
sure it can handle the thinking!! Thanks for stopping by!
Yvonne
Excellent comment. I have had that kind of experience in the town where I lived...and still work. It is one of the fastest growing places in the nation...Getting lost in a place I thought I knew like the back of my hand is disorienting!
Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate your following.
Lady Prism.
Lovely idea!. I would be watching dream movies 24/7!
Glad you stopped by. Loved seeing you here and enjoyed your comment. Thank you!!
Linda
Linda, I've always thought that some dreams we have is a way our subconscious does problem solving. I tend to dream about things bothering me. Many is the time I wake up with a solution.
Nice article. I was walking with you down the blvd. :-)
One day, many years ago, in shallow times, in happy times, I rented a room in a house. It was a third floor walk up. There were no other tenants on the floor. The room was in a corner of the house and away from everyone else and everything else that was going on. The house was at the bottom of a hill in a remote part of the city.
In the room was a bed, a table, a chair, a closet, a small bathroom and a place to do simple cooking. There was only one window. It was on the far wall. It ran the width of the wall but it was up about 8 feet from the floor. All that I could see out of it was the sky. The only light was in the bathroom.
On dark dsys the room was dark. I brought in a small desk lamp. I always knew what the weather was because the window looked out on the sky.
Sometimes I would be away from the room working somewhere, sometimes when I had enough money I would rent an apartment somewhere. Once I was away from the room for three years, during that time I only spent one day there because I was too lazy to go home. Another time I was away for seven yers when I moved to another state. There were many times when I would completely forget I had the room even rhough I was paying rent on it regualarly. But the room was always there whenever I needed it.
I went to an audition at a private home. I was the only actor there. The woman running the audition told me to remove my pants and put on another pair because there was a vicious dog who would attack me if he couldn't smell a familiar aroma. I decided I didn't want any part of that project and left.
But she follwed me out the door with the dog. I was moving quickly down a sidewalk with walls on both sides and I could hear them coming after me. I didn't know where to go or what to do. I came to a subway station and ran down the stairs. When I got to the bottom of the stairs I remembered the room. I could go there and be safe. And that's when I woke up.
DB
This post is quite a deep one for me.. then many scenes flashed across because in each of them, now, i wonder if that had been reality or just a played up perception.
love,
~Silver
Here are my thoughts about it, nice post by the way!
Human perception is a result of interplays between past experiences, including one’s culture, and the interpretation of the perceived.
Two types of consciousness are considerable regarding perception: phenomenal (any occurrence that is observable) and psychological (not related to the external world).
Jay Wright Forrester defined mental model as: "The image of the world around us, which carry in our head, is just a model. Nobody in his head imagine all over the world, government or country. He has only selected concepts and relationships between them and those used to represent the real system".
http://singyourownlullaby.blogspot.com/2009/03/soring-memories.html
Hope you found this interesting
http://singyourownlullaby.blogspot.com/2009/05/perception-memory-and-concience.html
Our memory system is built so that we are likely to remember what is most important to us. In our everyday lives, memory is a natural in by product of the manner in which we think about an episode. Different people retain or recollect very different aspects of their everyday environment.
Sometimes we want to remember facts that are difficult to learn for us. Luckily there are several techniques that can help us improve the chance of remember what we desire to;a popular one consist in relate and integrate the new information with knowledge we already have.
Even in my waking life I find that I was sleeping for years and I awoke inside of my day. It makes me wonder how many different layers of dream I might be living? It's unsettling though, to learn about the self and realize you had left her aside for so long while believing something entirely different.
Really great prompt, Linda!
I just hate when that happens.
Life is one grand illusion, I have come to believe. (Well, that is what I believe at this moment)
I don't mind deceptive appearances or false conceptions, as long as it is not a hoax perpetrated by a madman.
Good post - most enjoyable reading.
cultural illusions.....
a nice reminder of the profound connections between perspective and perception!
thanks
I agree Linda, everyone is shaped
by perception, and our perceptions
are often shaped by our emotional
baggage. I'm sensitive so I have
loads of perception.
I'll have to think of some specific
perceptions and get back to you.
love,
Cynthia
Hi dear Linda, Well this illusion that is life is looking much brighter here! Thank you for your caring wishes ..they means a lot to me. Love Chrisy
Where your awareness is, and the life you have lived will give you the perception of the present. It's odd to think that seeing things as they really are is impossible, that you will always see it through your filter, but knowing that can bring you closer to seeing beyond your filter. Or so it seems to me. :-)
When I was sixteen hitch-hiking cross-country (my parents thought I was dead somewhere, I think, because I just took off without telling a soul), I landed in East Grand Forks, South Dakota on a freezing, dark night where even the street lamps were glazed with ice crystals. I had nowhere to stay, little money, and only a spring jacket. After hours of wandering the streets to keep moving and warm enough to encourage my blood to at least try to circulate through my body, I found a tarpaper sheet covering concrete blocks and feel asleep on it with a two by four as my pillow.
Sometime later- I will never know how much later- I felt something brush against my face and I shot bolt upright. My glasses flew off onto the ground, but moonlight the color of pale ice showed me a miasmic figure twisting and turning just a few feet away. It's arm extended toward me like a tendril of cold breath. To this day I swear, Linda, that I could "feel" it looking at me as though it knew I were weak.
But I knew that ghosts were impossible, and that I was so cold that anything I saw could be nothing more than a death dream. I grew agitated at myself and looked around at the star smeared sky, seeing it as only the most near sighted can see. Ghosts indeed. I needed my glasses to find my way to someplace warmer before I died.
I crawled on my hands and knees as the concrete blocks and frozen ground sandpapered my knees and hands. A random piece of broken glass sliced my hand and my blood stained the pale gray ground.
By the time I found my glasses I was both cursing and crying at my stupidity. Dropping my glasses, thinking I saw a ghost and getting dropped off in frozen-assed town with no winter coat- I gave myself a serious talking to.
After I'd straightened myself out and felt tough enough to get moving again, I stood, turned, and came face to face with the ghost of a young woman. Even through my grime coated lenses, I could see clearly her lips, her eyes, and her wispy white hair.
Hey LInda,
When I was a kid, well, I was kind of afraid of the dark,lol. I guess I still am in some ways. But, I remember laying in my bed and outside the window I was what I thought was the devil! Oh yes! lol. It had the pointy horns and the tail, I was scared to death, I was about 7 or 8. I couldn't sleep all night. Well, when morning came, I told my mom, and she started laughing, and explained to me it had just been the cat outside and I had seen it's shadow! LOL It took a bit before she really had me convinced, but I finally believed her after she took me outside and showed me! I'll always remember that one for sure :)
take care dear friend,
JUlian
WOW what a fantastic post. I could so identify with your story. Our perceptions are often not what they appear and how we waste precious positive thoughts by entertaining illusions~ Thank you for all your visits and lovely comments at my place. Hugzzzz~
Perception vs. reality. Dreamworld vs. reality. Through my personal experiences in life, I've learned that sometimes we're walking a very fine line as far as differentiating some seeming dichotomies. Perception is nothing but reality as seen by my eyes and mind, based on my former experiences. My dreams are the "vomit" of my mind, also a reality based on what I've witnessed and experienced, how I perceived and internalized it.
I always say that my dreams keep me sane. They are the process by which I cleanse my psyche, and my soul. My dreams are the windows to MY soul.
I absolutely love your blog, Linda, and I'm so glad to have run into it. I'll be back...
Perceptions can be very frightening. Last night I woke up with the full moon streaming into my window, and the shadow of a person's head against the wall. It scared the living heebeejeebies out of me, until I realized it was the shadow of my own head.
Hi Linda,
Love your blog, great stuff, and how do i get the playlist thing at the bottom, the poems we just love as well.
Thanks
I think everything is an illusion of sorts fueled by the ideas, biases, judgments, experiences in our heads... tender shades of grey...
Ha , great! I dreamt the other night there was a tree standing above my bed with the face of a man. Not a coat rack in sight as I wandered around my room in half sleep.
Reality and illusion?.. mm whats the difference?
Hope you're well and happy and thanks for the thoughts,
Sarah)
Hi Linda,
I totally agree with your question. Honestly, I think its a little of both. A lot of the entertainment field is smoke and mirrors and yet we try to emulate it all the time. Don't get me started on what its like for little girls with these images. Wonderful post and thank you for your comment sweetie.
http://underthesheets-shhh/blogspot.com
Hoping you are doing well this season and that things are going great.
Just poppin in to say hello...hope your have a lovely weekend honey...
I definitely agree with you about invisibilty..I can do it, but sometimes it happens on its own..like when I'm waiting on line and being ignored!!
Hi sweet Linda. This is a dream
I had this week: I was on a huge
large ship, with other people.
And I was sitting near the railing.
The ship left the water and was
"sailing" between the sea and moutains and the city. I was enjoying the trip and couldn't wait
to tell my family. Then all of a
sudden I became frightened. The
ship was very high up, but this
didn't bother me earlier.
I'm still puzzled as to why my
feelings did an about face.
Hi Linda,
I know that the illusion could be beautiful...but I thought of the times that my perception is influenced by anxiety. Sometimes my thought jump to the worst case when it comes to my children. I'm glad when my reasoning mind quiets my mis-perception. See you on the farm! xx
all i recall is the jumping/flying over buildings in my dreams, falling, and deliberately willing myself to hit the ground, just to see if i'd actually die... it took a while to accomplish that, and when i did, gave proof to the lie...
I remember having a similar dream as a child and was so relieved it was only a shirt on the back of a chair.
Loved reading this piece. I have been awakened by a loud whisper calling my name. Real? or dream? I don't know. I have another story to tell about a night in a hotel room, but will save it for posting on Serendipity.
Re: Lincoln. This one is in Charleston, IL. I do believe there is something in KY, but haven't been there. Thanks for stopping by.
This is a really interesting post. Made me think. Keep up the good work.
plentymorefishoutofwater.blogspot.com/
Lynda,
I'm sorry that I have not been posting or reacting for a long time. The only real writing that I have been doing for a long time has been the blog, but as you know, I haven't written for a while. I just read your comments and want to thank you for them and also thank you for this latest post. Even if I don't know Nashville, it's funny how a name has so much power. The place is real because you give it a name. It is magic and good writers know that. Of course, it means a lot to someone who knows Nashville. I have lived in Louisiana as a transposed midwesterner and as an immigrant from Puerto Rico after twelve years on the island, but what I really know about other parts of the US is sketchy. Someday I will visit Nashville and think of your blog. Mark
Divided attention is well exercised this days, have to rewrite the developmental psychology of today, mostly due to the youngest kids, born with joysticks in their hands and mastering interpersonal relations mediated by Internet by 4 years of age.
What will they become?
were we here
or were we just thinking we were.
did it happen or just a mind wander.
wonder and curious
extends beyond the cup of coffee infront.
i hope we all go to this place to get 'reality'.
great piece living one to wonder.
Hi Linda,
I would love to read your comments,
with your specific compassion
and seeing about the dialogue
I had with Michele Battiste the
poet. Please visit poemflesh2.
Thank you!
Merry Christmas Linda. You are a sweet, inspiring lady!
Hope you have a great new year.
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