Well, when you're a writer hanging out with musicians and artists, you come to enjoy the various bright colors while hanging onto your own puritan heritage. Idiosyncrasy is no big deal, the amazing thing is talent, where it springs up and what people do with it, and it is no respecter of authority, is immune to condemnation, walks free in the world.
i'm not a doctor but my theory is that the little people are responsible for crazy dreams / by little people i don't mean elves and fairies but the microbiome in our gut / trillions of tiny microbes vying for a piece of real estate and some food (just like us) they're connected to our brain via the vagus nerve (look it up i did) and if stressed out struggling with some strange and ineluctable food may vent their discomfort by torturing their host with weird dreams / i have had dreams so frighteningly weird that i thought i was going to die / i blame it on the IPA and angry microbes
Okay. Mine are not frightening or angry and they seem connected to intellect and I often wake up and sit down and write them out. I don't believe microbes are capable of thought. Or I don't want to believe it. But I'll look up the vagus nerve.
I don't know about the microbes, but the gut and brain apparently "talk" to each other all the time - this is important because this is how we know when we're hungry, among other things. My gastroenterologist calls the gut the "second brain." I've been diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) - the doctors have explained to me that my anxiety upsets my gut, which then sends neurochemicals to the brain, causing more anxiety, and it just keeps cycling over and over again. I've no idea if my gut or my brain is the original source of my health issues, but apparently they egg each other on. I guess the microbes come in because they can cause the gut to change the way it communicates with our brains. I'm not sure if the gut is capable of thought, but it can definitely affect the way our brains work.
Right on! We have a nexus of neurons that sit right above the gut and connect directly with the brain (see https://neuroscience.ubc.ca/our-second-brain-more-than-a-gut-feeling/). As a "wanderer," driving around the countryside almost at random, and, in states where it's legal, stopping to pick up hitchhikers along the way, I've come to pay attention to the sensations that really do seem to be coming from just below my diaphragm.
Once on a winding mountain road in the Sierra Nevada foothills, the track had narrowed down to a single lane of dust, probably a foot deep. For some reason - a"Gut Feeling", at one particular blind turn, I just slowed to a stop. Sure enough, a pickup was coming around the bend, with a local couple who were under the impression that nobody else would be fool enough to be there. As it was, we crashed "gently." I was able to back uphill to a nearby meadow, where we both pulled off the road. His radiator was hissing, bleeding steam and water in both directions! I was really worried for them, having mechanical problems so far from help.
I suppose you might call the driver a "redneck", or at least he came across that way. "What can I do to help you?" I asked. "Can I drive to a garage and have a truck come to help you out?" "I CAN TAKE OF IT MYSELF!" he asserted, annoyed. His partner tried to talk him into accepting some help, but he wouldn't listen to her. Ultimately, when he cooled down some, he confessed "Well, if you have a bit of water in there, that might help." I gave him the gallon plastic jug I had "for emergencies," and left him there to sort things out for himself. I suppose, since he did live within 5-10 miles, that they probably did get out of their predicament alive. At the same time, if I hadn't had that "Gut Feeling" on the verge of that cliff-hanging curve, we might well have crashed with such force that all three of us would have been dead at the bottom of that canyon.
My"Gut Feeling" was also quite good, for the most part, when it came to screening hitchhikers. I can think of at least once, though, when I would have saved myself some anxious moments if I had paid more attention to it.
I was driving north on US 101, not far from San Luis Obispo. There was a hitchhiker by the side of the road, with his thumb out. I slowed to try and gauge him. He was scruffy - and there was some quality about him that had my gut shouting "NO! NO! NO!" Don't ask me what it was - "guts" aren't very good at conversing in English - at least mine isn't!" I had begun to pick up speed again when he put his hands together in prayer, then made the sign of the Cross to accentuate his petition. I stopped. He got in.
Once we were settled, the first thing he said was "You work in the Prison Salon, don't you?" Warning bells began clanging - mostly in my gut! "No, I must look like someone else. Where are you talking about?"
"The San Luis Obispo Men's Colony, of course."
"OOOOOOOPS! This fellow is an escaped convict! What am I going to do now?" I thought. I had been by the Men's Colony before. The West Facility is laid out like a farm, without any perimeter walls, for a "Minimum Security" setup. It would be child's play for an inmate to simply walk off the campus and keep going. As a matter of fact, nearby roads have signs "Prison area. Do not pick up hitchhikers." This fellow, though, had gone a few extra miles, and was "On the Road to Freedom!"
"Play it Cool, Girl! Real Cool!" I told myself.
"Where are you headed?" he asked, trying to evaluate the value of this ride.
"The Paso Robles Inn," I replied. I had been there once, and it was the nearest place I could think of that would be a legitimate end point.
"When we get there, we can go to a motel and "shack up!" he fantasized.
"What have I gotten myself in to?" I fretted. I drove along, nearly mute, as he embroidered on his fantasy.
In time, the Paso Robles turnoff came along. I turned left, toward the Inn, on an access road. A light turned red as I stopped beside a mini-mall.
"Oh, look! There's a liquor store! I could sure use a drink! Lend me $5" he said.
"Gladly!" I thought to myself. As soon as he was inside the store, I bailed out on him. Just in case, I gave up on my planned stop for the delicious food they serve at the Paso Robles Inn.
"Boy, that was a close one! I should have listened to my gut," I scolded myself as I drove away - five dollars poorer, but Free At Last!
I just finished reading This is Your Mind on Plants and How to Change Your Mind, both by Michael Pollan, and I reckon that you’re doing perfectly well without any psychedelic therapy, so rest easy, my friend.
Garrison Keillor is the master at taking a moment as his text, any moment. He infuses it with careful observations of the play of opposites, the irony, the paradox. He then simply tells: every word tells, every pause tells, every breath tells. Telling describes, paints for imaginations eager for images, the common colors and unusual shapes of our ordinary, unique experiences.
Today I listened to Garrison Keillor’s, “News from Lake Wobegon”, a report “from way back when” about Thanksgiving Day and families coming home. The artist brought me to tears. He unleashed feelings of “mute longing” surfaced by a story imagined with great skill and cast forth in greater subtly. This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for him.
I missed my family this year and I'm coming to realize that it doesn't really exist anymore. I have a few relations who I talk to on the phone but I think that over the pandemic I've become separated from family and Minnesota and there's no way back. I'm sad about this but we all make our own way in the world and once we leave home there's no going back. I'm married to a woman who is very close to family and I enjoy seeing how happy this makes her. I'm a loner, like most writers --- right? No? I don't know. She's a violinist, a member of the string section. A romance of opposites.
Love how self reflective you are in the midst of your sleepless agony....almost seems that there's a piece of our psyche that specializes in torturing us that's unrelenting....probably all of us have our own version of "life history revisited"at night. Strangely comforting hearing your own version. I think you would be a good candidate to do some kind of dream analysis as, at least from a Jungian perspective, you would be exposed to a completely different view of yourself way beyond your habitual modes of thinking....we're much more interesting creatures than we're used to encountering in our routine lives. I don't assume that you aren't aware of any of this...I just was stimulated by your amazing openness which is not something new for you to do but this time it went a bit deeper.
The thought of Jungian analysis is terrifying. I'm a Minnesotan, I was not brought up to be interesting, I was brought up to be good and have mostly failed at that but am still trying.
If I recall correctly, didn't Charles Dickens character Ebenezer Scrooge have similar hallucinations in his "A Christmas Carol". He thought it was an undigested potato or maybe something else he had eaten. The story infers that Ebenezer had "daddy" issues and felt unloved. He went on to abuse his employee and society in general. The dreams were a self-examination of purpose and self-character. It was his last chance to turn the train around. He chose to love and help his fellow man. He gave of himself and found that others gave back to him in multitudes. There could be a lesson in this story for all.
You're absolutely right, of course, and the challenge is to extricate the moral of the story from the Christmas tradition, which is so heavy and tyrannical and overgrown. Less is more, where Christmas is concerned. For me, Christmas Eve service att church with people holding candles and singing "Silent Night" and then the walk home through the dark city and a little breakfast with family and a stocking with an orange in the toe and some caramels and little gewgaws and maybe a small tree with a few lights –– that's the perfect Christmas. And maybe a pork roast and a cherry pie.
Garrison....you've got to tell me what it means to be a Minnesotan not only so I can understand your mindset/but the Minnesotan Soul in general. Which brings me to needing help understanding a couple in their 60's ( grandparents)who recently moved to CT to reside at the Condo where I live. They are quite aloof and pretty much mind their own business.I remember in one essay of yours you characterized Minnesotan's as on the judgmental side. So much for that.
I can't help but wonder how your fearfulness of Jungian Analysis came about .....it is a VERY different animal from traditional psychoanalysis or more pointedly Freudian analysis. It's way less about labeling behaviors and pathology and much more about simply understanding the deeper forces that compel us ....being Good as you described it is nearly impossible when one has their Shadow Self to contend with...if not acknowledged or suppressed it develops volcanic potential. This is a major problem with Spiritually minded people
In my view,you are an interesting person in your own right regardless of the humdrum dimension of life,with a deep comprehension of the American psyche and also seem contented and happy with your life.
Most people generally would not chose to go into analysis unless they were in a certain degree of pain and had the means to afford it.I guess for me it would immensely entertaining to hear how "your analysis" was going over time if you ever decided to. You could call it "Garrison in Analysis " BTW NYC is full of Analysts.
Well ....enough of this imaginal thinking on my part and BTW again...your response made me LOL in a respectful way as your blunt assessments always do.
Jeannine...I read about this gut brain connection not to long ago as well....it does make one wonder which one is causing the other and vise versa. Kind of like the chicken or the egg problem ....which is first. I liked the way you went about trying to describe this conundrum! Would it were simply a matter of what Garrison recently ate....that throws the whole "dream analysis" speculation I came up with below out the window.
Rohan...would it were true that those pesky microbes were causing such havoc with our brains and nervous system....it would be a relief to blame them for a lot of our psychic chaos that we as humans are perpetually subject to. Could this explain someone like Trump....
that it's his diet that's causing all his hideous chaos inducing behaviors. I agree it could be a major factor in our psychic life but ultimately the alchemy of human emotion could be a more complex mixture. Jeannine really fleshed out the dichotomy of the mind/ body interactive system.
Poetry masquerading as prose, wisdom pretending to be wit, faith and truth disguised as dreams. A gem. I'm 79 and I also write. Or wrote. Maybe tomorrow morning. Thanks.
GK, you are wonderfully gay adjacent & the lgbtq community loves you for it! Happy Thanksgiving!
Well, when you're a writer hanging out with musicians and artists, you come to enjoy the various bright colors while hanging onto your own puritan heritage. Idiosyncrasy is no big deal, the amazing thing is talent, where it springs up and what people do with it, and it is no respecter of authority, is immune to condemnation, walks free in the world.
i'm not a doctor but my theory is that the little people are responsible for crazy dreams / by little people i don't mean elves and fairies but the microbiome in our gut / trillions of tiny microbes vying for a piece of real estate and some food (just like us) they're connected to our brain via the vagus nerve (look it up i did) and if stressed out struggling with some strange and ineluctable food may vent their discomfort by torturing their host with weird dreams / i have had dreams so frighteningly weird that i thought i was going to die / i blame it on the IPA and angry microbes
Okay. Mine are not frightening or angry and they seem connected to intellect and I often wake up and sit down and write them out. I don't believe microbes are capable of thought. Or I don't want to believe it. But I'll look up the vagus nerve.
I don't know about the microbes, but the gut and brain apparently "talk" to each other all the time - this is important because this is how we know when we're hungry, among other things. My gastroenterologist calls the gut the "second brain." I've been diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) and IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) - the doctors have explained to me that my anxiety upsets my gut, which then sends neurochemicals to the brain, causing more anxiety, and it just keeps cycling over and over again. I've no idea if my gut or my brain is the original source of my health issues, but apparently they egg each other on. I guess the microbes come in because they can cause the gut to change the way it communicates with our brains. I'm not sure if the gut is capable of thought, but it can definitely affect the way our brains work.
Right on! We have a nexus of neurons that sit right above the gut and connect directly with the brain (see https://neuroscience.ubc.ca/our-second-brain-more-than-a-gut-feeling/). As a "wanderer," driving around the countryside almost at random, and, in states where it's legal, stopping to pick up hitchhikers along the way, I've come to pay attention to the sensations that really do seem to be coming from just below my diaphragm.
Once on a winding mountain road in the Sierra Nevada foothills, the track had narrowed down to a single lane of dust, probably a foot deep. For some reason - a"Gut Feeling", at one particular blind turn, I just slowed to a stop. Sure enough, a pickup was coming around the bend, with a local couple who were under the impression that nobody else would be fool enough to be there. As it was, we crashed "gently." I was able to back uphill to a nearby meadow, where we both pulled off the road. His radiator was hissing, bleeding steam and water in both directions! I was really worried for them, having mechanical problems so far from help.
I suppose you might call the driver a "redneck", or at least he came across that way. "What can I do to help you?" I asked. "Can I drive to a garage and have a truck come to help you out?" "I CAN TAKE OF IT MYSELF!" he asserted, annoyed. His partner tried to talk him into accepting some help, but he wouldn't listen to her. Ultimately, when he cooled down some, he confessed "Well, if you have a bit of water in there, that might help." I gave him the gallon plastic jug I had "for emergencies," and left him there to sort things out for himself. I suppose, since he did live within 5-10 miles, that they probably did get out of their predicament alive. At the same time, if I hadn't had that "Gut Feeling" on the verge of that cliff-hanging curve, we might well have crashed with such force that all three of us would have been dead at the bottom of that canyon.
My"Gut Feeling" was also quite good, for the most part, when it came to screening hitchhikers. I can think of at least once, though, when I would have saved myself some anxious moments if I had paid more attention to it.
I was driving north on US 101, not far from San Luis Obispo. There was a hitchhiker by the side of the road, with his thumb out. I slowed to try and gauge him. He was scruffy - and there was some quality about him that had my gut shouting "NO! NO! NO!" Don't ask me what it was - "guts" aren't very good at conversing in English - at least mine isn't!" I had begun to pick up speed again when he put his hands together in prayer, then made the sign of the Cross to accentuate his petition. I stopped. He got in.
Once we were settled, the first thing he said was "You work in the Prison Salon, don't you?" Warning bells began clanging - mostly in my gut! "No, I must look like someone else. Where are you talking about?"
"The San Luis Obispo Men's Colony, of course."
"OOOOOOOPS! This fellow is an escaped convict! What am I going to do now?" I thought. I had been by the Men's Colony before. The West Facility is laid out like a farm, without any perimeter walls, for a "Minimum Security" setup. It would be child's play for an inmate to simply walk off the campus and keep going. As a matter of fact, nearby roads have signs "Prison area. Do not pick up hitchhikers." This fellow, though, had gone a few extra miles, and was "On the Road to Freedom!"
"Play it Cool, Girl! Real Cool!" I told myself.
"Where are you headed?" he asked, trying to evaluate the value of this ride.
"The Paso Robles Inn," I replied. I had been there once, and it was the nearest place I could think of that would be a legitimate end point.
"When we get there, we can go to a motel and "shack up!" he fantasized.
"What have I gotten myself in to?" I fretted. I drove along, nearly mute, as he embroidered on his fantasy.
In time, the Paso Robles turnoff came along. I turned left, toward the Inn, on an access road. A light turned red as I stopped beside a mini-mall.
"Oh, look! There's a liquor store! I could sure use a drink! Lend me $5" he said.
"Gladly!" I thought to myself. As soon as he was inside the store, I bailed out on him. Just in case, I gave up on my planned stop for the delicious food they serve at the Paso Robles Inn.
"Boy, that was a close one! I should have listened to my gut," I scolded myself as I drove away - five dollars poorer, but Free At Last!
I just finished reading This is Your Mind on Plants and How to Change Your Mind, both by Michael Pollan, and I reckon that you’re doing perfectly well without any psychedelic therapy, so rest easy, my friend.
Garrison Keillor is the master at taking a moment as his text, any moment. He infuses it with careful observations of the play of opposites, the irony, the paradox. He then simply tells: every word tells, every pause tells, every breath tells. Telling describes, paints for imaginations eager for images, the common colors and unusual shapes of our ordinary, unique experiences.
Today I listened to Garrison Keillor’s, “News from Lake Wobegon”, a report “from way back when” about Thanksgiving Day and families coming home. The artist brought me to tears. He unleashed feelings of “mute longing” surfaced by a story imagined with great skill and cast forth in greater subtly. This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for him.
I missed my family this year and I'm coming to realize that it doesn't really exist anymore. I have a few relations who I talk to on the phone but I think that over the pandemic I've become separated from family and Minnesota and there's no way back. I'm sad about this but we all make our own way in the world and once we leave home there's no going back. I'm married to a woman who is very close to family and I enjoy seeing how happy this makes her. I'm a loner, like most writers --- right? No? I don't know. She's a violinist, a member of the string section. A romance of opposites.
Love how self reflective you are in the midst of your sleepless agony....almost seems that there's a piece of our psyche that specializes in torturing us that's unrelenting....probably all of us have our own version of "life history revisited"at night. Strangely comforting hearing your own version. I think you would be a good candidate to do some kind of dream analysis as, at least from a Jungian perspective, you would be exposed to a completely different view of yourself way beyond your habitual modes of thinking....we're much more interesting creatures than we're used to encountering in our routine lives. I don't assume that you aren't aware of any of this...I just was stimulated by your amazing openness which is not something new for you to do but this time it went a bit deeper.
The thought of Jungian analysis is terrifying. I'm a Minnesotan, I was not brought up to be interesting, I was brought up to be good and have mostly failed at that but am still trying.
If I recall correctly, didn't Charles Dickens character Ebenezer Scrooge have similar hallucinations in his "A Christmas Carol". He thought it was an undigested potato or maybe something else he had eaten. The story infers that Ebenezer had "daddy" issues and felt unloved. He went on to abuse his employee and society in general. The dreams were a self-examination of purpose and self-character. It was his last chance to turn the train around. He chose to love and help his fellow man. He gave of himself and found that others gave back to him in multitudes. There could be a lesson in this story for all.
You're absolutely right, of course, and the challenge is to extricate the moral of the story from the Christmas tradition, which is so heavy and tyrannical and overgrown. Less is more, where Christmas is concerned. For me, Christmas Eve service att church with people holding candles and singing "Silent Night" and then the walk home through the dark city and a little breakfast with family and a stocking with an orange in the toe and some caramels and little gewgaws and maybe a small tree with a few lights –– that's the perfect Christmas. And maybe a pork roast and a cherry pie.
You are right, of course, simple is best. Thank you. Enjoy the season and God bless you and your family.
Garrison....you've got to tell me what it means to be a Minnesotan not only so I can understand your mindset/but the Minnesotan Soul in general. Which brings me to needing help understanding a couple in their 60's ( grandparents)who recently moved to CT to reside at the Condo where I live. They are quite aloof and pretty much mind their own business.I remember in one essay of yours you characterized Minnesotan's as on the judgmental side. So much for that.
I can't help but wonder how your fearfulness of Jungian Analysis came about .....it is a VERY different animal from traditional psychoanalysis or more pointedly Freudian analysis. It's way less about labeling behaviors and pathology and much more about simply understanding the deeper forces that compel us ....being Good as you described it is nearly impossible when one has their Shadow Self to contend with...if not acknowledged or suppressed it develops volcanic potential. This is a major problem with Spiritually minded people
In my view,you are an interesting person in your own right regardless of the humdrum dimension of life,with a deep comprehension of the American psyche and also seem contented and happy with your life.
Most people generally would not chose to go into analysis unless they were in a certain degree of pain and had the means to afford it.I guess for me it would immensely entertaining to hear how "your analysis" was going over time if you ever decided to. You could call it "Garrison in Analysis " BTW NYC is full of Analysts.
Well ....enough of this imaginal thinking on my part and BTW again...your response made me LOL in a respectful way as your blunt assessments always do.
Jeannine...I read about this gut brain connection not to long ago as well....it does make one wonder which one is causing the other and vise versa. Kind of like the chicken or the egg problem ....which is first. I liked the way you went about trying to describe this conundrum! Would it were simply a matter of what Garrison recently ate....that throws the whole "dream analysis" speculation I came up with below out the window.
Rohan...would it were true that those pesky microbes were causing such havoc with our brains and nervous system....it would be a relief to blame them for a lot of our psychic chaos that we as humans are perpetually subject to. Could this explain someone like Trump....
that it's his diet that's causing all his hideous chaos inducing behaviors. I agree it could be a major factor in our psychic life but ultimately the alchemy of human emotion could be a more complex mixture. Jeannine really fleshed out the dichotomy of the mind/ body interactive system.
Poetry masquerading as prose, wisdom pretending to be wit, faith and truth disguised as dreams. A gem. I'm 79 and I also write. Or wrote. Maybe tomorrow morning. Thanks.