strange dream: I am the reincarnation of Bugs Bunny

Submitted by Tom Swiss on Wed, 08/29/2012 - 14:20

I rarely remember my dreams. Generally it's only if I wake up in the middle or right after one, or if something reminds me of one shortly after I wake up, that I'll recall a dream. Otherwise they're lost with the dew.

Saturday morning, around 4:30am, I woke myself up from a dream. In that dream, I somehow knew that the reality I was experiencing was an illusion, and was determined to push through it. (I'll punt for now the question of whether "ordinary" reality is an illusion, and make the provisional and practical assumption that the reality I usually experience more or less corresponds to an external physical universe.) I made some sort of physical/mental effort that's hard to describe (though it's worth noting that it was somehow centered in the belly, the hara, the dantien) and woke up. I only remember the tail end of the dream, and that vaguely, but I have the sense that there were nested realities within the dream before breaking out of that final (?) one.

I probably would have gone back to sleep and not remembered anything of it in the morning, but my phone buzzed with a text message that turned out to be an automatic alert from the server at my day job. (A low memory condition -- I need to reset the threshold for that alarm, it's triggering too often to be useful.) Since the phone was set to vibrate rather than ring I probably would have slept through it, but as I was awake already, I got up to check it. That put me next to the computer, in place to leave a note to myself about the dream.

Still half-asleep, here's what I wrote (with a few typos fixed):

weird dream, one of those "what's real, not this, time to really wake up" things. sci-fi action movie undertones, "will our hero see through the illusions". The last level, pushing up through it, a sort of voice, "should have known it would be *you* that saw (got?) through it"...and, meaningful in context however weird, a glimpse of the face of, and a knowledge that I am...the Trickster/Bugs Bunny.

Yes. I am, in Leary's use of the term, the re-incarnation of Bugs Bunny.

A little context might make the idea of being the reincarnation of Bugs Bunny a little less capital-C Crazy. Timothy Leary used to speak of himself as the "reincarnation" of anyone who had made a strong imprint on his nervous system -- for example, he spoke of himself as a reincarnation of Aleister Crowley, even though his life and Crowley's overlapped. (If I recall correctly, Robert Anton Wilson talks about Leary's idea in Cosmic Trigger. I don't have my copy handy to check my source as I'm writing in a coffeehouse.)

So we could phrase the idea in a less shocking way as "Bugs Bunny made a strong imprint on my nervous system." Which is certainly true. Bugs has always been, and remains, a hero of mine.

I was reminded of this recently by an internet meme posted by the inimitable George Takei, original source unknown:

When I shared, I noted, "Bugs Bunny: Trickster. ("You keep outta this, he doesn't have to shoot you now.") Warrior. ("Of course you realize, this means war!") Wisdom teacher. ("Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.") Cross-dresser."

Of course Bugs is a Trickster -- as pop culture scholar Robert Thompson put it, "If you want to teach Folklore 101, and you need an example of a Trickster, Bugs Bunny is it.". Bugs and Daffy were the first prophets of Eris I met, and almost certainly helped prepare my mind to accept the truth of the Goddess. Bugs's Trickster nature gets a few nods in the psychedelic science-fiction classic The Illuminatus! Trilogy.

And what a fighter! We regularly see him overcome larger or better-armed opponents, including the boxing champion. (See the toon on YouTube.) He perseveres and overcomes not by strength but by his wits and his determination.

So by all means, I recommend letting Bugs make an imprint on your nervous system too.

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