I have two bodies. I only want one.

It's so hard to say and explain the thoughts that have been in my head lately, but I'll just try to get it out anyway.

It's like I have two bodies. One is this material, clothes-wearing, skin covered, sack of flesh and bones, axons and neurons. I'll call this "Body One". The other body is what we get in our lucid dreams. It is centered, and deep, and there, and maybe holy if you can call it that, and it's wonderful, and elite, and good. I'll call this "Body Two".

Sitting here, I'm typing and doing things, and talking, and using WORDS, with "Body One". But I feel like I'm not communicating at all. Its like I'm a robot, and these movements and things are meaningless and dull. This same "Body One" is the one that says "go here, do this, buy this, watch this, agree with this, be this." This body thta I'm in is so PASSIVE, so seemingly fake, so controlled by materials of null value, and I don't want it. I want to always feel like I'm in "Body Two"

In "Body Two", that I only experience in my lucid dreams, I KNOW myself. I'm free from all these material, fake, ties that hold me to this world, that force me to accept the life that I live. It's like being in this "Body Two" is what we're all supposed to be lead up to, if not in death, then in a polarization of thought and consciousness that brings us all up to this higher level. Still get what I'm saying?

I can finally see why certain religious people do away with their material things, and concentrate on "searching inside themselves." Maybe they're looking for this "Body Two" that I feel in my dreams. WHATEVER. I can't explain anymore, and I can't use these stupid human fingers anymore. They sicken me. It sickens me that some people love their clothes and neckleces and jewelry and things that they don't see the bigger picture. It sickens me that I was, and still in a way, am, one of these people. And it sickens me that right after posting this, I'll go to a clothes website, or play videogames, and just kind of surrender to this material world. I'm done.

What wrong with that? If you think that you will be in body 2 when you die, then you better start living it up in body one, because once you die, your not getting that back. Its kind of sad really, theres no reason you should hate your life. You should be out enjoying your life not sitting around feeling ashamed of it.

Stupid human fingers? Humans built great things with their hands, they can paint with them, play music, write a story, build a house, hold a baby. What can people NOT do with them? Don't limit yourself, almost anything done in a dream can be done in real life, with enough work.

It sickens you that people enjoy the gift of life? Personlly, I think its kind of sad that someone would want to waste it.

Wow, alric, i never thought of it that way. I guess i should live it up while i have this, and enjoy the life I have.

The trick is for the two bodies not to be divided any more. Lucid dreaming is one of a number of things that will eventually reunite the two. That was, as far as I can tell, the ultimate point of what Castaneda was writing about. It's the point Ruiz is making in Four Agreements. It's the idea behind a lot of the Hindu scripture I've read. Hell, that idea even made it, in a roundabout way, into some of the Subgenius writings. You get conned out of body two by everyone who ever tells you how life is supposed to be in body one, and most of them don't even know they're doing it. At least you're aware of the split. You're a step ahead of most. Putting the two bodies back together, as far as I'm concerned, is religion. It's what philosophy is trying to do when it's worth it's words.

I find a similar kind of dissociation when I feel depressed.

There is my perfect self, and my ideal self. Sometimes I feel that I am my ideal self - kind, noble, creative, humble, etc. This is when I am happy. And there is my imperfect self. The one that commits the sins. The one who I don't want to be. Usually I feel imperfect when I have acted in a way which is not in accordance with the way I want to be. For me to move on and become happy and become perfect again I have to accept these shortcomings, and remind myself that what I am is whatever I believe I should be.