The surreal

For the last four months I think I've been asleep.  The beginning of everything started with thoughts, fantasies, and ideas about what reality ought to be; and it's funny, because the implications that 'ought' carries are vague at best.

I think in a lot of ways, we don't give a lot of thought to the power that our fantasies have; there is nothing different about our dreams and reality - the forcefulness of our urges are immense.  These urges can shape our lives in dramatic ways, and when do they become reality?  Well, we make that decision.  Our lives become surreal when we delve into our own thoughts so deeply, our reality becomes questionable; we become split in regards to our decision - what should our choice be, chance or something that's more sure?

Why do we start wondering about the 'ought' ?  Why do we even have this option?  We might not even understand why we think we 'ought' to do something, yet at the end of the day it's perpetuated by our own selfishness.  Maybe we get bored, maybe we feel like our lives aren't as interesting as what we think we see around us; however, when we embark upon this journey to find what we think we 'ought' to find, a lot the time we're left with empty hands.  In fact, we're left with sequences of time that we felt were so real while we were experiencing them, that the moment totally escaped our grasp.  Now, when we look back on them, only moments later, we find they feel like dreams - like moments that didn't really happen.  Moreover, no one else witnessed them but us, so how can we be sure they actually did occur?  Maybe people did see what we were doing, and perhaps their insight is far greater than ours, maybe they do understand our 'fantasies' or that we're living in a 'fantasy'.  No  matter how conscious we think we are of the moment, it can still escape our understanding; this has happened to me more than a few times lately, and I'm not ashamed to say that I really did think I thought I knew what was going on.

To master one's own consciousness is a bold task, it's often wrapped so deeply in other things that we lose it; for example, our sexuality often guides the way we think about things.  Like Hume said, our reason is just the slave of our passions; how can we be sure we're actually making the right choice when it's being guided by something that's irrational?  Are our passions rational?  I think not; however, they're evolved alongside our reason so at times it's difficult to tell the two apart.  In our modern day world, the men and women have to decipher exactly what's speaking to them, their reason, or their genitals - both can get us into trouble.

Well, I started one place and ended in another.

Magical Thinking

Let me just say, the psychology classes I've taken in university are limited; I think I've taken about four now, and I don't plan on taking any more.  In fact, the classes bother me most of the time as they usually consist of 'special' students who can ramble off countless studies that I never really pay that much attention to - although I'm sure they're interesting.  However, I have to credit psychology with helping me figure out my own mind at times; in particular my 'magical thinking'.

'Magical Thinking' is when you think your mind or your thoughts can actually influence reality.  For example, say you didn't want to see your ex-boyfriend or girlfriend at a restaurant you usually frequent, well you might picture yourself seeing them there a few moments before you left your house for dinner.  The idea is that since you thought about seeing your ex first, before you left, it would just be too much of a coincidence if you actually did see them there at the restaurant.  Of course it doesn't affect anything at all, your thoughts posited at the world in this way are absolutely meaningless, this actually wastes vast amounts of my time; but I find myself doing this more than frequently.

I remember lying awake as a kid and thinking things out in my head in this fashion; multilayered and complex things about certain events that I didn't want to happen or did want to happen.  I didn't actually believe my thoughts could influence anything, but think about it, isn't there some kind of chance that they could?  Of course obsessing in this kind of mannerism can lead to actually psychological disorders, but perhaps at some level, it allows the mind to think about things on a slightly more complex level - or maybe it's just a way for me to comfort myself?

Nowadays, my 'magical thinking' has been trained in a sense (probably by philosophy), and I'm glad for that.  However, I still wonder if it does have some kind of effect on possibilities or possible worlds that are the outcome of the way we think.  There really is no way to investigate this or test it empirically, it's just a flaw of the mind - a phantom.  Does thinking your plane is going to crash affect the outcome? No; but the last time something good or bad happened to you did you think about it previously?  Probably not.  The person who won the lottery probably didn't expect to win it either - it's just how it works.  So I suppose the idea is to give thought to things, but not too much; either way, I still find my mind at times fracturing into what seems like hundreds of possibilities for every action I make.