(Nlog Day 14.) The 'Idea' State of Mind.

Due to *cough* and other such excuses, I have not posted for a few days... but I seriously have been working on 'stuff' and so forth.

I have been trying to observe what comes into my mind at the mid- point between going to sleep and being awake. This seems to be a special time in which ideas are likely to come to you. I think that the reason that ideas come to you readily when you are half conscious is because you are interacting with your unconscious mind and you are more open to its workings... the veil between the unconscious and the conscious becomes less dense.

I bet someone has told you at some point in your life that you should keep a pen and paper by your bedside just in case an idea comes to you while you are falling asleep. This advice is given because things just come to you while you are falling asleep (I find it annoying really, especially when you are genuinely trying to get to sleep but you feel that you have to write down the ideas that are coming to you because you will forget everything in the morning).

Here is my theory, from what I have gathered from various sources. Carl Jung introduced the idea of the collective unconscious. I think that the idea that all humans share the same unconscious is valid. Mysticism talks about an astral plane. In this astral plane there exists every single thought that any human has ever had in all the forms that thoughts can exist in. This plane of existence can be touched upon and manipulated through the imagination and as certain mystic traditions state, humans can tap into the astral world and bring back things into their waking consciousness.

The astral world can be understood as the unconscious mind, a mind that can be summed up as the collective mind of all life, the machinery of the universe. When we are nearing sleep, we are closer to our unconscious mind, this astral realm that can be tapped through our imagination... and therefore it is more likely that we can look into this 'place or state of consciousness and bring back ideas, thoughts and visual mental pictures into our conscious mind for us to write down and use in our waking world.

...It certainly doesn't explain why Rupert the Bear comes into my mind every night while I am falling asleep.

Just ideas for anyone that cares to read.

Over and Out.
ED.

(Nlog Day 6).

...Would you like a packet of crisps?

Now that that question it out of the way... I shall begin the post.

Two clear ambitions came to my mind for some reason today. The first ambition is starting a business. The second is a burning desire to write a book. I was not sure why these two ambitions came to my mind but it was this line of thinking that made me think about general life goals.

I happened to be in Leicester on an errand and I picked up a book about archetypes. According to this book humans are summed up in these ten types,

• The Adovocate.
• The Artist/Creative.
• The Athlete.
• The Caregiver.
• The Fashionata.
• The Intellectual.
• The King/Queen/Executive.
• The Rebel
• The Spiritual Speaker

...and...

• The Visionary.

I would say that I was a few of these things. 

I'm not going to tell you which one I am... without giving anything away I was the second one... although I would say that I was in one way or another, most of them in some degree.

If you follow who you are then you will apparently be more successful because you are going with your own personal current so things will flow more freely... sounds good... I'm reading on.

Over and Out.

ED.

(Nlog Day 5).

"I have never experienced another human being. I have experienced my impressions of them. "

Due to having a busy day today my post is the above quote.

(Nlog Day 4). Culture Jamming.

Last blog post I talked about symbols and it is through this that I have written this post as a follow- on. Read if you want to... if you're interested.

I'm going to talk about culture jamming. The phenomenon is an anti- consumerist movement and is a good example of the use of symbols in society.

Symbols are the main way that humans interact, interpret and understand the world. We are all born as symbolising animals... and as an avatar of a thought, idea, concept (and shizz) you can affect and manipulate your brain.

My understanding of culture jamming is that it is meant to decondition people's minds to the use of symbols in the media.

A simplistic example is the Mcdonald's 'M'. That can be used to condition you to eat fast food a lot more. If you are exposed to a certain symbol over time in your day- to- day life, then it will slowly seep into your subconsciousness and make you more likely to buy a certain product... culture jamming reverses the process I suppose.

Here a few examples that I swiftly gathered:

...and...

Just a subject of interest.

Over and Out.
ED.

The Science of Language (Nlog Day 3).

Seeing as how I am doing daily posts for the second time in my life, I have started to become aware of whether I can think about things that I will find universally beneficial and relevant to anyone reading, while at the same time being able to write something that interested me during a specific day. The amount of visitors that I get are consistent no matter what I write so... let's get this on the road.

Initially, when you read the blog title "The Science of Language" many people that read this will assume that the subject that I'll be writing about will not be of any relevance to them (maybe)... BUT... if anyone chooses to read along, they will find that they can take away a few things from what I say and maybe apply it to their life.

My interest of the day is about symbols and language and what they do to the human mind. An idea came my way today, that seemed so obvious and familiar...

"Language and symbols are the coding system of the human mind."

Why this is so relevant to EVERYONE and so fascinating is that with this information, you can program your own personal experience with ease.

Everything that we are is what we think or what we have thought. This means that taking care of your inner world and keeping it at its peak is an essential responsibility and will have real effects in your reality.

"All that we see are our perceptions, we mistake that as our reality."

Our outer reality can be seen as a reflection of our inner reality... so if we wish to change our outer reality, then we must change our thoughts... which we can do through language and symbols because that is the way that our mind works.

Thoughts are seeds that are planted in your mind garden... the thoughts that are good are tended and worked upon.

Language and the symbols that we use to represent language can be used to change things for you and others.

The main purpose of Art is in line with the ideas I'm talking about (good art I mean). The purpose of art is probably debatable but for many people is to do such things such as,

• increase awareness.
• to affect mass change through changing the consciousness of others.
• to manipulate the mind for good (or bad I suppose).
• To widen the doors of achievable reality.

Reality is all in the mind... so be wise about what you think. 

The next post will be related to this post... I will be talking about... look at the next post and find out.

Over and Out.

ED.

Nlog Day 2.

"Since we all create our own habitual reality- tunnels, either consciously and intelligently or unconsciously and mechanically, I prefer to create for each hour the happiest, funniest reality- tunnel consistent with the signals my brain apprehends. 
I feel sorry for people who persistently organize experience into sad, dreary and hopeless reality tunnels, and try to show them how to break the bad habit, but I don't feel any masochistic duty to share their misery."
R.A.W.

When I was free I went to some woods and this happened...

It was a  right jolly jape, messing about and talking about nothing in particular with that other bloke what is in the picture... who calls himself Kiran.

This is the first proper- ish day of doing a blog post every single day throughout November. Let it properly begin.

Let's see what happens...

Long posts in the future... observations, yammering and stuff of interest...

Nlog Day 2 over.

Over and Out.
ED.

A Brief Review of A Strange Wild Song (Nlog Day One).

I have been volunteering for the Leicester Arts and Museums Service for a few months in my spare time. I was emailed a few days ago by the volunteer coordinator about getting some free tickets to a play called 'A Strange Wild Song'.
The play was written and performed by a group called the Rhum and Clay Theatre Company and had performed the whole one- hour- ish show at the Edinburugh Festival Fringe in 2012 and now had brought it to Leicester.

The play tells the story of a Belgian photographer named Leon Gimpel who befriended a group of children living in the Grenata Street neighbourhood in Paris, forming their own play army. He visited the children, regularly playing war with them, recording these meetings through the pictures that he took from his camera.

Here is a quote from the program,

"Ultimately A Strange Wild Song is a tribute to the endurance of the human spirit, and to those who can find light in the darkest of places."

Sounded like it was right up my street.

I was not sure what to expect. In my mind, I imagined a small theatre but when I got to the place, I saw that it was just one small room. We sat down on the seats prepared for us, which were no more than fifteen places  in number. A young woman at the side of the room was playing an accordion, not playing a tune at all, but instead playing random, unrelated notes... which certainly set the atmosphere and made you slightly uncomfortable.
Half of the room had been arranged into the performance area which was set out to look like ruins, only about three props altogether but you still got the idea.

Four actors took part in the play, each playing two characters each. There was a continual shift between two time periods. The first time period was during the war and the character, Leon Gimpel, meeting the children in the ruins and befriending them. The second time period was set in modern times when a descendant of Gimpel meets up with a group of historians and scientists who have discovered the camera that was used to take pictures of the events in the first time period.

The whole show was very slick and even made use of mime and props to physically show what was going on in the children's imagination. One of my favorite parts was the use of puppets to show the child's imaginative journey flying through the skies in the spitfire, fighting German planes.

It was pretty brilliant. I think that the intimate surroundings benefited the show. You certainly felt like you were part of the story and because you were so close to the actors, it made things seem more real.

I have written down the details of the company below if you wish to look at them.



www.rhumandclay.com
Facebook: Rhum and Clay Theatre Company.
Twitter: @Rhumandclay

Over and Out.
ED.