Impasse and Exit [draft 20]

IMPASSE AND EXIT

By Dennis Dibben aka Lazarus Short

It is not having been in the Dark House, but having left it that matters. Theodore Roosevelt

When I began the following story, I thought that it was all about walking and finding a way out, but now I know it is, even more, about water, the kind described to the woman at the well. This story is based on a series of dreams, which have occurred over most of my life. The first scene, set in a place much resembling Kansas City’s West Bottoms, I dreamed over and over when I was young. The last scene, set in a place much like a lake my family often went to years ago, follows a dream which occurred years after I began this story. My task has been to cut-and-paste dreams and scenes into a fairly coherent narrative. It is autobiographical only in the distorted way that dreams reflect our waking lives. We accept these distortions when we are in the dream, because we exist there under the Law of the Dream. While we are under this Law, we never stop to think (and I have come to believe, we cannot think of it) of where we really are. And where is that? Of course! We are (generally) snug in our beds. When we awaken, we say, “Oh, it was just a dream!” and we get on with our lives, under the Law of Waking. We think (if we think about it at all) that we now know where we are – right here and now – but I cannot help but wonder if “where we are” is another place yet, still unknown to us.

Centuries ago, early anatomists dissected cadavers, looking for “the seat of the Soul”. They failed. If you read the story of the creation of Adam/Man in Genesis, and really understand it, you will know that man was not given a soul, but BECAME a soul when he received the Breath of Life. Naturally, by the time the dissectors got their hands on the corpse, the soul, along with the breath/spirit, was non-existent. More recently, the theory was concocted that consciousness is a product of chemical reactions in the brain. As far as I know, this theory has failed, as has the one which postulated that consciousness is produced by electrical activity in the brain. What are we left with, then? Are we looking for something ephemeral or even ineffable? There is a school of thought which speculates that the brain is merely a transducer for the Mind, and that implies that our minds may well be in another place, but the nature of that place we have no knowledge of, being as we are, under the Law of Waking. Be aware that I am Philosophizing, not Scientificating here…

I have come to believe that when we move on into the “far country,” or rather, step over that barrier which we must all step over, we will again awaken and say, “Oh, that too, was just a dream!” I hope this all makes sense to the reader, many of whom will be making (some without knowing it) the sort of journey I have written about here. For those who are, may you all find your exit, and your Destination.

[the story itself in the next entry]