Enter Galactic
Bluelighter
Hello PD. Just some stuff I've been thinking about:
First of all, if you don't know what the hero's journey is you should read up on it. It's basically a structure for writing, described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, in which he perceives that all great myths follow the same structure, and that they come from the same source: the collective unconscious. I find it strange that there isn't more discussion about this, or maybe I just haven't searched well enough. To me this structure is profound because, as you may be aware, it can absolutely be applied to any movie, book, or story that tells a narrative. Experimental films are a good example of something that actually strays from this structure, but they aren't very popular simply because of the fact that they stray from the only story that has any meaning to us. There are stories that differ from the monomyth to play with our expectations of it (see the coen brothers for example), and these are only effective because of the fact that the monomyth is so well established in our movies. My point is that when you break down any narrative story, that even most of the songs we listen to follow, some variation of the hero's journey structure is there.
This has been related to psychedelics by other people, but I've never seen it as more than slightly mentioned in most cases. To understand how psychedelics are related to the hero's journey, you only need to see this diagram:
http://i.imgur.com/wgJWm.jpg
I was sitting in my screenwriting class as my teacher described this structure, and I thought to myself, boy this sounds similar to a psychedelic trip. Then when I did the reading which my lazy ass should have done already, I see that The Writer's Journey mentions the idea that the structure comes out of the collective unconscious.
Indeed there is a strong connection between this story and our (collective?) subconscious as seen through the lens of the psychedelic experience. I remember reading a discussion on this board about describing the psychedelic experience to someone. There was this idea that I've heard elsewhere and that seems to strike a chord with psych users, and that is that the psychedelic experience is like life compacted into a few hours, or that life is just like the psychedelic experience slowed down. Which is a pretty damn good way of describing a structure for a movie (or any story). The stories we see and read in this culture everyday are just about someone's life but with time speed up.
And here's where I'll get crazy on you. I believe that the reason our culture feels the need to constantly watch, read, and listen to this story is because that's the closest thing that our society has to experiencing, what I might call spirituality. The difference is that in a psychedelic trip, we experience this story directly, while when hearing this story at church (the story of christ is one of the oldest versions of the monomyth), or in seeing this story at the movies, we experience it indirectly. The powers to be dangle it infront of us like a carrot, and, in the name of God, ban anything that might help us see that we're experiencing this story directly. So when science started to contradict religion and the story of christ became less believable, people began more and more to look for this experience else where, and that's why today most people sit infront of a Television every night after working a job that may feel meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe.
Of course that begs the question, what is the grand scheme of the universe anyways? Are psychedelics just another way of creating meaning in a meaningless existence? Filling the void so to speak. Maybe, but then again, perhaps the true meaning of our existence is merely the meaning we create ourselves, and I can't imagine that too many people are satisfied with the meaning that our society has created by spoon feeding everyone the monomyth.
First of all, if you don't know what the hero's journey is you should read up on it. It's basically a structure for writing, described by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, in which he perceives that all great myths follow the same structure, and that they come from the same source: the collective unconscious. I find it strange that there isn't more discussion about this, or maybe I just haven't searched well enough. To me this structure is profound because, as you may be aware, it can absolutely be applied to any movie, book, or story that tells a narrative. Experimental films are a good example of something that actually strays from this structure, but they aren't very popular simply because of the fact that they stray from the only story that has any meaning to us. There are stories that differ from the monomyth to play with our expectations of it (see the coen brothers for example), and these are only effective because of the fact that the monomyth is so well established in our movies. My point is that when you break down any narrative story, that even most of the songs we listen to follow, some variation of the hero's journey structure is there.
This has been related to psychedelics by other people, but I've never seen it as more than slightly mentioned in most cases. To understand how psychedelics are related to the hero's journey, you only need to see this diagram:
http://i.imgur.com/wgJWm.jpg
I was sitting in my screenwriting class as my teacher described this structure, and I thought to myself, boy this sounds similar to a psychedelic trip. Then when I did the reading which my lazy ass should have done already, I see that The Writer's Journey mentions the idea that the structure comes out of the collective unconscious.
Indeed there is a strong connection between this story and our (collective?) subconscious as seen through the lens of the psychedelic experience. I remember reading a discussion on this board about describing the psychedelic experience to someone. There was this idea that I've heard elsewhere and that seems to strike a chord with psych users, and that is that the psychedelic experience is like life compacted into a few hours, or that life is just like the psychedelic experience slowed down. Which is a pretty damn good way of describing a structure for a movie (or any story). The stories we see and read in this culture everyday are just about someone's life but with time speed up.
And here's where I'll get crazy on you. I believe that the reason our culture feels the need to constantly watch, read, and listen to this story is because that's the closest thing that our society has to experiencing, what I might call spirituality. The difference is that in a psychedelic trip, we experience this story directly, while when hearing this story at church (the story of christ is one of the oldest versions of the monomyth), or in seeing this story at the movies, we experience it indirectly. The powers to be dangle it infront of us like a carrot, and, in the name of God, ban anything that might help us see that we're experiencing this story directly. So when science started to contradict religion and the story of christ became less believable, people began more and more to look for this experience else where, and that's why today most people sit infront of a Television every night after working a job that may feel meaningless in the grand scheme of the universe.
Of course that begs the question, what is the grand scheme of the universe anyways? Are psychedelics just another way of creating meaning in a meaningless existence? Filling the void so to speak. Maybe, but then again, perhaps the true meaning of our existence is merely the meaning we create ourselves, and I can't imagine that too many people are satisfied with the meaning that our society has created by spoon feeding everyone the monomyth.
