Carlito Jung's Way

Expositing one of the more coherent dreams in the infamous journal of yore

Doubtless somewhere in this journal there is a more chronologically appropriate analysis of the recursive patterns in my old dreams. But I am still leafing through it slowly. Please allow me some time if you think any of this content is worth reading (or scoffing at). Meanwhile, I thought it may be fun to do a current-day review of some of the obvious thematic similarities that jumped out when I was skimming over these decade old scrawls the other day.

Again, for context, these things were often written later in the day, by the hand of a guy who only apparently only found time to write about his dreams at night when there was free time (sub-optimal, if you know how short term memory works). The more complete ones all seem to be during holidays, too. As I recall, my only skills for remembering dreams came from a blog about lucid dreaming that I became obsessed with in 8th grade, anyway. You may refer to your calendars now to see what year Inception came out. Embarrassing, I know. I only wish I had been more diligent in those efforts, but oh well—‘laissez le bone temples roulette,’ as they say.

March 8, 2015 Sunday Night 11:10 p.m. (Spring Break)

This morning, a vividity spike occurred (I'm coining that, there's no way it exists already) which neared lucidity toward the end. I was in a situation reminiscent of the ATL Falcons, but there were several summer camp-esque kids there. I was killing them all off via a pipe piece that I found. It doubled as a submachine gun and a lightsaber. Eventually two kids with lightsabers faced off against me so I had to switch to a dual blade. I ended up getting kicked down and stabbed. That woke me up.

I feel compelled to perform some exegesis on this. I've noticed this before, but a common theme in these particularly vivid dreams is that I'm being forced to either run or fight for my life. Makes sense, at least, as that would be a memorable event if it did happen in IRL. This happens more than a few times in the journal, as you’ll see when or if I post more. But it often goes like this, either I escape and wake up later with a relatively stable heart rate, or I essentially accept defeat, surrender, and die, only to wake up sweating. This one cracked me up because of the inherently psychotic nature of murdering "summer camp-esque" kids. Then again, I was 17 at the time of writing, so maybe I should give myself props for my subconscious egalitarian mindset. Were I to take on hardened criminals or Nazi stormtroopers, you could rightly criticize me of overvaluing my own strength. But that's obviously not my default setting, as these dreams seem to indicate.

A reasonably observant psychologist would read that dream account and say that I am constantly nervous or anxious at the baseline. She¹ wouldn’t be wrong. "Oh, your anxiety can be ameliorated via therapy," I hear you say. “Why not talk about it and reprogram it into something good?” Well, I am sure they (and you) don’t all say that. One thing that I have heard is, "Win, you’re traps are huge and so well-defined,” to which I respond, “Yes, thank you, I love being tense all the time and cinching off the carotid² artery which supplies oxygen to my brain.”

So, talk-therapy is good for my anxiety, then? What, me and the other 143,999³ real people on this earth? Far as I can tell, there is only one Dr. Melfi. In fact, I'm pretty sure she's a fictional character. So maybe there isn't a single good therapist out there. I don’t know. I've done it before, but I also oscillate between relying on anecdotal evidence and other peoples’ statistical data. Today is leaning more anecdotal.

This is the entire reason I've written any of this down. It's better than getting stuck in the eternal Self v. Self mental debate thought-loop and inevitably concluding you should pity yourself⁴. So, I have decided that writing and coming to some kind of conclusive argument helps, even if it never quite ends. Plus, unnecessary emotional response from pattern recognition is probably what activates or exacerbates schizophrenia (also suboptimal). I have enough beef with the company as it is.

The other day, someone asked me why I even started Substack⁵, I couldn't reveal the secret esoteric cool reason, so I told her the actual causal impetus event that lead to me reopening this journal. Waking up at 4 am, immediately knowing rest isn’t an option, racing thoughts, etc. Novel experiences, I know. But it did help to just write them down, so that I could at least begin to review and process them. I probably cannot articulate why I like it more than talk-therapy. It could just be that I have yet to meet a headshrinker that actually “gets it.” But I also think the real reason is that I like cracking myself up too much. Easier to read the room when the audience is yourself. I am literally smiling right now as I type this because I am thinking about the meme of Joaquin “Joker” Phoenix holding a cigarette and saying “You wouldn’t get it.” That is part of the eternal internal self-dialogue, I suppose. Sometimes you just have stupid thoughts and have to laugh at them. And I hope you do too, dear reader.

Lastly, I just want to remark on this one thing I remember my teacher in fourth grade saying to the class. As if it were so profound, she stated something like ‘Your parents know you even better than you could ever know yourself.’ What poppycock, first of all. I think she was trying to make some point about how people can observe you from their own perspective, and that our own pride/myopia⁶ blinds us to our faults. But even as a ten-year-old, my immediate thought was that that was such an asinine and clearly incorrect statement. Not to mention, aren’t other people’s perspectives also blinded by their own pride, shortcomings, etc.? Even back in those days, I thought and did things that I would never ever intentionally reveal to anyone. But okay, fair enough, perhaps this is oversharing. I’m sure there is some truth to the whole “Neuroplasticity slowing down at the age of 25” thing, but at this rate I think my personality is pretty set in stone. Time will tell. Anyway, thanks for indulging me by reading this.

Also, if you want to read an essay about other fun hypotheses, like the one reference in the footnote, please leave a comment or psychically notify in some way.

1. It would be a she, statistically. This is not misogynistic, it’s sexist. There is a difference, and words have meaning. Perhaps I will expound upon this at a later date.

2. I’ve heard too many people say that this is the jugular vein. From what I can tell, one goes one way, and the other goes the other way. It’s a whole system. Pretty interesting tidbit, I know.

3. Some people actually believe this is the true number. They may be on to something. Have you even seen more than 144,000 people at once before? Are you sure?

4. Footnote: I used to do this with all the time, and still do, with my personal "Universal Synchronicity" hypothesis, and usually it only resulted in what a therapist would call “Cartmann’s Triangle of Rage”. IDK what that is, I never watched South Park.

5. Curiously, “Substack” is flagged as a typo even though I am typing this directly on their website. Seems like an oversight.

6. I guarantee I am more myopic than you, by the way. DM your prescription to me if you believe otherwise.