Prose

There is something in the Melatonin supplement. I guess Melatonin. And the combination of a steady flow of well-scripted radio programming rich in information that creates these dreams, dreams I secretly hold dear and will now begrudgingly reveal.

A week ago I listened to an old NPR broadcast formatted into a downloadable podcast. It was about the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung and his influence on the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous. I forget the name of which founder of AA, (there were two), who met Jung, so we'll simply call him, Anon. Well, Anon asked Jung for advice. Jung had previously counseled an alcoholic he had written off as incurable. Jung, determined to help this incurable, had theorized on the etymology of the word Spirit, which to the English-speaking world is often interchanged for "alcohol," derived from Latin's Spiritus and first used interchangeably in meaning by the Greeks.

Jung told Anon that the alcoholic needs God. In alcohol, or Spirits, the drinker seeks God, or a Spirit. S/he seeks to transcend isolation through euphoria and pleasure to unite with the spiritual world, which for us Westerners often separates us from them, you and I, God and me. Thus, Jung claims, the alcoholic seeks exaltation and connection, just as the dogmatic ideologue seeks order through religion. Silly, maybe. Nonetheless, interesting.

Which brings me to Medium, our issue's current theme. In essence we yearn for mediation. A medium like Miss Cleo to drain our bank accounts for alleged clairvoyance cleverly doled out via the Socratic method. Alcohol. Arguably: sex, philosophy, religion...the Written Word.

When I woke from my slumber I replayed the NPR podcast. I slinked around the kitchen to get breakfast while donning pearly-white earbuds. As typical for my morning routine, I recalled my dream. This dream happened to be about playing "limbo stick" and throwing rocks across the varied apexes of pink cerulean clouds. Floating in the dream--my back against the sun--I planned to fly towards Saturn with only my wings. The entirety of the dream was sound tracked by the Jung podcast concerning mediation. In turn, for the brief minutes of REM sleep, I flew above the clouds on an invisible catapult trajectory directed towards Saturn.

I am reluctant to share. Don't strap me into the straight jacket, please...oh you critical and fearful people of the West trapped on one side of the (/) of Either/Or. Instead: read, listen, view, our current concern of how medium affects our art and lives. It may be of value. Maybe.

-- Timberwolves