POWERFUL WANTS

Today I fell asleep while doing a nice headstand. This never happened to me before. I almost couldn’t believe it myself, but then, when one hears about people falling asleep in all sorts of positions and situations, I decided that it wasn’t a big deal after all. I usually stand on my head about half an hour, so the REM time must have been a fraction of that. I don’t think I had any significant dreams, though. If I did, I don’t remember.

What I did think however, just before and after, was the relation between being out of consciousness, as it were, and the capacity to focus. It dawned on me that in my yoga practice, which doesn’t rely on anything demanding, even though there are some people who would swear that they’ll never be able to do what I do, I often focus not on some idea of a whole experience, but parts. I decided that the only reason why I fell asleep on my head today is due to the fact that I’m an expert in fragments – or so I like to believe. Sleeping is itself one of the most fascinating fragmentary activities, as its experience relies entirely on a radical break with conscious consciousness. When you are asleep you are out of it – unless you possess some unusual mental power that enables you to think otherwise.

Now to the interesting part. Some of you might like to know what I was focusing on before all these dreams on their heads got their energies channeled through fragments. While listening to Bach’s cello suites, I thought of just how much some people want us, by whole not by part. The strategies they devise can be mindboggling. Particularly acts whose articulations are unambiguously invisible but whose manifestations are ambiguously visible are interesting. They are most fascinating insofar as they allow us to dissociate the agent from the thoughts that the agent provokes in us by doing nothing, saying nothing, or saying everything at once. Thought thus dissociated from its container, as it were, can be considered as full of itself as anything. As such, you approach it with reverence, as if it were a God. You pose questions to it. You know it will not answer, but you believe that it can give you a sign. For those of you ready to go to bed, but who can’t think of a question, try this one: how do we distinguish between head-thoughts and head-stands? Bach will answer that one in your dreams. Hammering thoughts with a toccata will not be the worst that can happen to your heads.