"Stop. Look. Listen."

Do you realize that you and everybody else are quite literally 'zoned out' for most of every day? Yes, zoned out. And, of course there may be softer, kinder, gentler words to describe that condition, but really, why bother?

Zoned out, and not even aware of it.

Ordinary people just like you are quite unaware of this condition, and even when it's pointed out to them, they remain unfazed, unconcerned, sometimes even unbelieving, and occasionally quite insulted. This is not a flaw in them, necessarily, because all over the globe, approximately six billion people suffer from the same condition, yet, YET, everything get's done, quite on schedule, and if you can be honest for a moment, you realize that things in general, are improving for most of humanity, little by little, year after year. Improvement, worldwide, conducted and coordinated by zoned out humans. (Note: Humans live twice as long today as two hundred years ago, and are more healthy for a majority of their alloted years, and 21st century civilization has practically become the standard way-of-life for the entire globe, notwithstanding pockets of nearly uncivilized, and even barbaric groups tolerated by life here and there (possibly in the same way the body tolerates warts, moles, and even some benign cancers); etc., etc.)

Amazing when you think about it for a second or two - since that's about all the time ordinary people *can* think about it. Yet, all of history is filled with ideas that men live in a dream, that they do not perceive correctly what is going on within and without them, that they are removed from a direct confrontation with life itself; that they are, to update the terminolgy, zoned out while still walking around conducting serious business, running nuclear reactors, state and country governments, and entertaining each other in ever more clever and technologically bizarre ways and means. All of this, while quite zoned out most of the time!

Those few in every generation that catch a glimpse of this for themselves (beyond the oddness of the fleeting sensations that hit everyone sometime in their short lives, leading them to suspect on their own that they are zoned out most of the time), sometimes begin to search the world (or merely their neighborhood libraries and bookstores) for a solution to their partially perceived "problem." However, the bigger problem, never glimpsed, never actually realized, is that their perceptions, while seemingly true and correct to them, are made while in their customary zoned out condition; while quite asleep, they think and even conclude, that they are quite asleep.

No fully awakened human ever walked into your life and after somehow magically waking you up, made you realize your condition - and only when awake can you realize your condition. Yet, you believe you are asleep, living in a thick fog, not perceiving what is going on, and at least one or more giant steps removed from the direct confrontation with life itself you believe you want - but that perception is short-sighted to say the least.

All those descriptions you've read or heard about, of mankind living in a dream or in a shadow world or of being asleep weren't bad. But to see it OUT THERE is one thing. And that's the only place people EVER see it. First, while suspecting oneself is, let us say, a bit distracted, a bit absent-minded, a bit clumsy, one begins noticing distractions, absent-mindedness, and clumsiness in everyone else. And then, they become, let us say, *more convinced* of the world-wide, zoned-out condition they suspect in themselves.

But to see it OUT THERE is one thing.

To see it in your own mind is something else. You realize it is a miracle, with a capital m, that you even got here alive and in one piece. But then you realize it's no miracle, because everybody else is in the same condition. Everyday life, in all parts of the globe -from the barbaric non-civilized parts (of radical islam, yuk, yuk) to the highly sophisticated civilized parts (of New Yawk City, London, Paris, or Rome) - is a dream-world, populated by dream-characters. And it doesn't matter one iota that the president is dreaming he's the president, or that your wife or husband is dreaming they are your spouse. Everything is getting done, quite on schedule, from designing highway systems, traffic flow patterns, and the automobiles that travel them, and it's only rarely that you even hear about massive interstate automobile pile-ups with hundreds dead... right? Right?

To see it in your own mind is something else.

The idea that humanity lives in a fog, a daze or in a semi-state of sleep is the ordinary, zoned-out mind's perception of what is going on. The alternative is beyond that.

If you are a sane person, your body has no question as to what it's doing or as to the reality of food, sex or sleep. It just does what it does, and has nothing to say about it.

You get above the body and are into the world of (the mind of) Man. And now the whole idea of a shadow-world or daydream-world can be explained fairly simply - it is the world of the mind and what gives the mind the ability to even come up with the idea of a shadow-world (and to agree to it) is the unexecuted possibility of being conscious beyond the mind. Otherwise you couldn't even come up with the idea. The mind alone could not come up with the idea that what we perceive mentally to be Life is not a true representation. It could not otherwise conceive of the possibility that though we may be walking around, we are not fully conscious.

Beyond that is where the notion comes from. Beyond that is where you do not stare at Life. It is where there is no inner dialogue and nothing to say about Life. Because anything you say about Life is part of the mind's imprecise reflection.