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On Dreamshaping: Nowhere to Hide
Mark McNease
Wherever I go, there I am!
It’s an old adage, meant to be humorous but with a grain of truth to it. The one thing I cannot escape is also the one thing I spend so much time attempting to flee: myself. My repetitive thoughts, my obsessions, my fixations, all playing out in loops that sometimes remind me of spools of yarn that have become entangled. Do I do this today? Do I do that? If I don’t to this, will I feel freer? What will bring me the simple relief I crave?
Another common analogy is that nearly all of us possess – or are possessed by – a monkey mind. This one is self-explanatory: what is something monkeys are known for? Jumping! Limb to limb, restless, never ceasing to move. That is a good description of our minds. It certainly captures what I experience almost every day. And the more I attempt to stop jumping, to settle on one fragile limb and stay there, the more another limb grabs my attention and within an instant I’ve jumped to that one. On and on, hour after hour, day after day.
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On Dreamshaping: Groove Is In the Mind
Mark McNease
On Dreamshaping is a weekly blog about shaping the dreams we live.
Remember that song by Deee-Lite, Groove Is In the Heart? It popped into my head when I was thinking about this blog post. The difference is that the song is very upbeat and infectious, but what I’m writing about is the opposite – or it’s infectious in a bad way.
I’m talking about the grooves we create, deepen, and tread in our minds. The mental repetitions that make up much of our daily thinking. So much that it’s hard to really call it thinking. When I’m walking around half-conscious, repeating the same threads of conversation to myself, the same angers, frustrations, and stuckness, can it be said that I’m thinking at all? This is a trap, a series of grooves, that my mind sinks into with alarming frequency.