半梦半醒的人生

电影放到三分之二，我睡着了，以致不得不深夜把它从头至尾再看一遍。

这是值得的。这里头全是人生里讲不完的废话，而且它真的就敢用这样一种貌似无聊的宣教的方式讲了出来。也许为了老少咸宜，或者就干脆就是出于编织一个诡计的需要，它赋予自己以最绚烂的形式。但它仍然是一个诡计，对某些人而言，甚至是梦魇。

故事的结构，如同博尔赫斯著名的短篇《环形废墟》。博尔赫斯写道，一位逃亡的魔法师来到了一座庙宇的环行废墟中，他生存的意义就是做梦，为了在梦中塑造一个到达真实世界的“人”，一个将经历与他一样宿命的的幻影。唯一知道这塑造出来的人其实是幻影的，是世界上的火。某天，环行废墟再次遭到火焚。当魔法师走向大火时，火焰非但没有吞噬他的皮肉，反而抚慰他，于是，“他宽慰地，惭愧地，害怕地知道他也是一个幻影，另一个人梦中的幻影。”

《半梦半醒的人生》这部电影，说的则是一个稀里糊涂的年轻男子，在没完没了、如套盒般一个包容一个的梦中，与这样那样的人展开关于人生的哲学、生物学、政治学、符号学之类的探讨，间或参杂某囚徒在狱中的凶狠诅咒、某自杀者在街头的自焚、几男子在加油站中所遇怪事，以及一些童年印象的逝影倏忽，如此整整100分钟。这男子发觉自己无论如何都走不出这个梦魇。他迫切地想要醒来，可是，每次他都是那个无法控制电灯的开关的人——梦中遭遇的一个人物曾告诉他，要知道自己是不是在梦境中，只要看看是不是能够调整房间里的光源就可以了。我们这位可怜的梦境穿梭者，根本找不到梦的源头——也就是所谓现实中的那个他，于是只好倾听各色人等在他的梦里面，无穷尽和他谈论人生如梦的大道理。

确实是足够黑色幽默。这电影耍的是一个机智的阴谋。如果你还记得《爱在黎明破晓时》和《爱在日落余晖时》，你就会明白这是同一个导演（RICHARD LINKLATER）的惯用路数。在那被人戏称为“侃大山电影之最”的两部曲中，RICHARD LINKLATER让一对俊男美女在维也纳和巴黎的街道和河岸走来走去，相互诉说彼此对于人性、政治、文学、自我的感悟，用一种略带惆怅和忧伤的方式说尽了青春的梦想和中年的彷徨。现在，导演自己破了自己的纪录。他在一部以真人表演为水彩创作素材的动画片里到达了侃大山电影的最高境界，那就是：里头所有的人物都在没完没了地演说，连一个出租汽车司机都可以面对镜头大谈特谈自由的意义。

显然，100分钟的时间里，除了被前所未有的视觉效果震撼，你还必须经历一场脑力激荡。整个过程中，不要试图抓住每个善辩的人物的话语意义，因为你终究会发现，你根本就不可能对其中涉及的话题进行归纳和总结。他们似乎说了许多，说得足够深度足够真诚，然而他们又什么都没有说——梦境穿梭者在每一场深奥的言说中离开，发觉自己还是陷在另一场梦中；用脑过度的观众最后只能记住那个在梦里欲罢不能的倒霉蛋。

《半梦半醒的人生》以轻微的悲观主义色彩，展现了关于人之解释、人生之解释的无穷尽性。太多的意义被赋予到一场梦境的追溯中，最后却用以证明梦境的虚幻。看这样的电影是一个翻开心胸享受思维快乐的过程，但愿它不会为你带来痛苦。

PS.《爱在日落余晖时》的悬案在《半梦半醒的人生》中终于得到了解答。Jesse和Céline究竟上了床没有？上了，而且在床上还继续着他们机智的讨论。对于《爱在日落余晖时》的影迷来说，这是一个重大的消息，呵呵。

不好意思，我看本片的时候也半梦半醒……大量的对白，恍惚又不太连续的画面……当然，和看片时的精神状态可能也有关。并不是说影片不好看，至少不是不好。只不过确实有点催眠的效果……很切合影片主题……
我想先说一下它的动画效果（是的，这是一部动画片）。第一眼觉得，哇靠这画得真像啊。然后我马上就警觉了，这不能吧，肯定是拍真人再去做效果的吧。但是它又时不时加进一些变形、迷幻等效果。于是我一直关注着画面，直到July Delpy（“Celine”）和Ethan Hawke（“Jesse”）出现，发现了脸熟的——这也“画”得太像了，一定是真人拍的……
然后我又重新将时间轴拉回前面，关注对白内容。
插说一下，“Celilne”和“Jesse”是来自《Before Sunrise》和《Before Sunset》的角色——严格地说，拍本片时还没有《Before Sunset》——但是情景上似乎在其后，因为此二人上床了，醒来依然在继续着不休而无甚边际的对白。
（少量截图见http://www.douban.com/photos/album/14766171/。）
“人的肉体死去6到12分钟内，大脑仍在活动。而梦境意识下的时间比醒时几乎长无限多。”
“我醒来，10：12。又睡。做了一个长长的复杂的貌似好几小时的梦。然后再次醒来，发现才10：13。”
“就是如此。所以6到12分钟的大脑活动，简直可以就是你的一生了。”
……
“过去40年间，全球人口翻了一倍，如果你真的相信自负的灵魂永恒论，那你的灵魂也不过50%的几率超过40岁。如果要达到150岁，那就只有1/6。”
“你想说啥？轮回不存在？还是我们都是帮年轻的灵魂？或者我们中有一半是轮头一回的人类？”
……
说到我将时间轴重新拉回前面。这片本身对话就多，又深奥、有时晦涩，一不留神顾着看画面，你就根本不理解它在讲什么。原来就不大好懂的影片……
我不大肯定我明白了它想表达的东西。但是很多地方的谈话确实很有意思。主要好几段关于梦境和现实的，正如同前面提到的，这是本片的主题。这种既像实拍又是动画的画面风格本身就是表现梦境的上佳手法，看起来不是真的，又绝对像真的……
片中主角不断地醒来，又不断地发现其实还在梦中。这样的情节乍一听挺恐怖的，但影片中并非如此，而是有趣有深意得多。尤其结合若干段对话中关于梦的阐述，你对这一次又一次的“假醒”会有自己的猜想和看法。片名《Waking Life》也很值得思考。
http://syc0129.blogbus.com/logs/36883702.html

为什么说是“内时间意识”呢？其实这个词放在这里是很不妥当的，深究起来，我就变成现象学的罪人和玩弄者了。
但是在《waking life》中确实不存在——即使存在，也被巧妙地掩盖住了——正常的时间。主角一直在徘徊、画面也一直在徘徊，观众被诱进语言织体的陷阱：只有语言，庞大的且看似杂乱无章的大段独白才是观众有可能把握的——纵然杂乱，却未脱离语法，而在情节和画面中，我们甚至可以说，整部影片都是支离破碎的臆想。这是导演的恶意抑或目的？
或许导演同时希望观众放弃情节，把全部精力投入庄之蝶的禅机。他根本没这个必要，愿意花时间两遍三遍看片子的人根本不会在意什么狗屁情节，这种人都是偏执狂，否则他们宁愿找一张tango唱片听一下算了（顺便说一句，背景音乐恰如其分地选择了能够凸现疲惫、紧张、忧虑和努力把握一丝理性的情绪的tango，太棒了）。

            "Dream is destiny."

            Rock out.

            Rock and roll.

            Go, strings. Begin.

            Sara, will you try that, the thing you asked me about?

            - Yeah. - Will you try it a little more subdued?

            - Okay. - Vibrato. Just try it and see what you think.

            But what I want--

            I mean, I want it to sound rich and maybe almost a little wavy...

            due to being slightly out of tune.

            - Do you want it, um-- - I think it should be slightly detached.

            That's what I was wondering.

            Yeah, yeah, you got it.

            Snazzy.

            Okay, pick up to 20 please.

            - Erik, this is a pickup to 20. - Okay.

             1, 2, 3.

            Hey, man, it's me. Um, I just got back into town.

            I thought maybe I could bum a ride off you or something, but that's cool.

            I could probably just take a cab, something like that. Um--

            Yeah, I guess I'll hang out with you later, something like that.

            Ahoy there, matey! You in for the long haul?

            You need a little hitch in your get-along, a little lift on down the line?

            Oh, um, yeah, actually, I was waiting for a cab or something, but if you want to--

            All right. Don't miss the boat.

            - Hey, thanks. - Not a problem.

            Anchors aweigh!

            So what do you think of my little vessel?

            She's what we call "see-worthy." S-E-E. See with your eyes.

            I feel like my transport should be an extension of my personality.

            Voila. And this? This is like my little window to the world,

            and every minute, it's a different show.

            Now, I may not understand it. I may not even necessarily agree with it.

            But I'll tell you what, I accept it and just sort of glide along.

            You want to keep things on an even keel I guess is what I'm saying.

            You want to go with the flow. The sea refuses no river.

            The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving.

            Saves on introductions and good-byes.

            The ride does not require an explanation.

            Just occupants. That's where you guys come in.

            It's like you come onto this planet with a crayon box.

            Now, you may get the 8-pack, you may get the 16-pack.

            But it's all in what you do with the crayons,

             the colors that you're given.

              Don't worry about drawing within the lines or coloring outside the lines.

              I say color outside the lines. Color right off he page.

              Don't box me in. We're in motion to the ocean.

              We are not landlocked, I'll tell ya that.

              So where do you want out?

              Uh, who, me? Am I first?

              Um, I don't know. Really, anywhere is fine.

              Well, just--just give me an address or something, okay?

              Tell you what, go up three more streets,

              take a right, go two more blocks,

              drop this guy off on the next corner.

              - Where's that? - I don't know either, but it's somewhere,

              and it's gonna determine the course of the rest of your life.

              All ashore that's going ashore.

              Toot toot!

              The reason why I refuse to take existentialism...

              as just another French fashion or historical curiosity...

              is that I think it has something very important to offer us for the new century.

              I 'm afraid we're losing the real virtues of living life passionately,

              the sense of taking responsibility for who you are,

              the ability to make something of yourself and feeling good about life.

              Existentialism is often discussed as if it's a philosophy of despair.

              But I think the truth is just the opposite.

              Sartre once interviewed said he never really felt a day of despair in his life.

              But one thing that comes out from reading these guys...

              is not a sense of anguish about life so much as...

              a real kind of exuberance of feeling on top of it.

              It's like your life is yours to create.

              I've read the post modernists with some interest, even admiration.

              But when I read them, I always have this awful nagging feeling...

              that something absolutely essential is getting left out.

              The more that you talk about a person as a social construction...

              or as a confluence of forces...

              or as fragmented or marginalized,

              what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses.

              And when Sartre talks about responsibility,

              he's not talking about something abstract.

              He's not talking about the kind of self or soul that theologians would argue about.

              It's something very concrete. It's you and me talking.

              Making decisions. Doing things and taking the consequences.

              It might be true that there are six billion people in the world and counting.

              Nevertheless, what you do makes a difference.

              It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms.

              Makes a difference to other people and it sets an example.

              In short, I think the message here is...

              that we should never simply write ourselves off...

              and see ourselves as the victim of various forces.

              It's always our decision who we are.

              Creation seems to come out of imperfection.

              I t seems to come out of a striving and a frustration.

              And this is where I think language came from.

              I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation...

              and have some sort of connection with one another.

              And it had to be easy when it was just simple survival.

              Like, you know, "water." We came up with a sound for that.

              Or, "Saber-toothed tiger right behind you." We came up with a sound for that.

              But when it gets really interesting, I think,

              is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate...

              all the abstract and intangible things that we're experiencing.

              What is, like, frustration? Or what is anger or love?

              When I say "love,"

              the sound comes out of my mouth...

              and it hits the other person's ear,

              travels through this Byzantine conduit in their brain,

              you know, through their memories of love or lack of love,

              and they register what I'm saying and say yes, they understand.

              But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert.

              They're just symbols. They're dead, you know?

              And so much of our experience is intangible.

              So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It's unspeakable.

              And yet, you know, when we communicate with one another,

              and we--

              we feel that we have connected,

              and we think that we're understood,

              I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion.

              And that feeling might be transient, but I think it's what we live for.

              If wee looking at the highlights of human development,

              you have to look at the evolution of the organism...

              and then at the development of its interaction with the environment.

              Evolution of the organism will begin with the evolution of life...

              perceived through the hominid...

              coming to the evolution of mankind.

              Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon man.

              Now, interestingly, what youe looking at here are three strings:

              biological, anthropological--

              development of the cities, cultures--

              and cultural, which is human expression.

              Now, what youe seen here is the evolution of populations,

              not so much the evolution of individuals.

              And in addition, if you look at the time scales that's involved here--

              two billion years for life,

              six million years for the hominid,

                      years for mankind as we know it--

              you're beginning to see the telescoping nature of the evolutionary paradigm.

              And then when you get to agricultural,

              when you get to scientific revolution and industrial revolution,

              you're looking at years, years, years.

              You're seeing a further telescoping of this evolutionary time.

              What that means is that as we go through the new evolution,

              it's gonna telescope to the point we should be able to see it manifest itself...

              within our lifetime, within this generation.

              The new evolution stems from information,

              and it stems from two types of information: digital and analog.

              The digital is artificial intelligence.

              The analog results from molecular biology, the cloning of the organism.

              And you knit the two together with neurobiology.

              Before on the old evolutionary paradigm,

              one would die and the other would grow and dominate.

              But under the new paradigm, they would exist...

              as a mutually supportive, noncompetitive grouping.

              Okay, independent from the external.

              And what is interesting here is that evolution now becomes an individually centered process,

              emanating from the needs and the desires of the individual,

              and not an external process, a passive process...

              where the individual is just at the whim of the collective.

              So, you produce a neo-human with a new individuality and a new consciousness.

              But that's only the beginning of the evolutionary cycle...

              because as the next cycle proceeds,

              the input is now this new intelligence.

              As intelligence piles on intelligence,

              as ability piles on ability, the speed changes.

              Until what? Until you reach a crescendo in a way...

              could be imagined as an enormous instantaneous fulfillment of human,

              human and neo-human potential.

              It could be something totally different.

              It could be the amplification of the individual,

              the multiplication of individual existences.

              Parallel existences now with the individual no longer restricted by time and space.

              And the manifestations of this neo-human-type evolution,

              manifestations could be dramatically counter-intuitive.

              That's the interesting part. The old evolution is cold.

              It's sterile. It's efficient, okay?

              And its manifestations are those social adaptations.

              You're talking about parasitism, dominance, morality, okay?

              Uh, war, predation, these would be subject to de-emphasis.

              These would be subject to de-evolution.

              The new evolutionary paradigm will give us the human traits of truth, of loyalty,

              of justice, of freedom.

              These will be the manifestations of the new evolution.

              That is what we would hope to see from this. That would be nice.

              A self-destructive man feels completely alienated, utterly alone.

              He's an outsider to the human community.

              He thinks to himself, "I must be insane."

              What he fails to realize is that society has, just as he does,

              a vested interest in considerable losses and catastrophes.

              These wars, famines, floods and quakes meet well-defined needs.

              Man wants chaos.

              In fact, he's gotta have it.

              Depression, strife, riots, murder, all this dread.

              We're irresistibly drawn to that almost orgiastic state...

              created out of death and destruction.

              It's in all of us. We revel in it.

              Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things,

              painting them up as great human tragedies.

              But we all know the function of the media has never been...

              to eliminate the evils of the world, no.

              Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them.

              The powers that be want us to be passive observers.

              Hey, you got a match?

              And they haven't given us any other options...

              outside the occasional, purely symbolic,

              participatory act of voting.

              You want the puppet on the right or the puppet on the left?

              I feel that the time has come to project my own...

              inadequacies and dissatisfactions...

              into the sociopolitical and scientific schemes,

              Let my own lack of a voice be heard.

              I keep thinking about something you said.

              - Something I said? - Yeah.

              About how you often feel like you're observing your life...

              from the perspective of an old woman about to die.

              - You remember that? - Yeah. I still feel that way sometimes.

              Like I'm looking back on my life.

              Like my waking life is her memories.

              Exactly.

              I heard that Tim Leary said as he was dying...

              that he was looking forward to the moment...

              when his body was dead, but his brain was still alive.

              They say that there's still to minutes of brain activity after everything is shut down.

              And a second of dream consciousness, right,

              well, that's infinitely longer than a waking second.

              - You know what I'm saying? - Oh, yeah, definitely.

              For example, I wake up and it's :

              and then I go back to sleep and I have those long, intricate,

              beautiful dreams that seem to last for hours,

              and then I wake up and it's... : .

              Exactly. So then to minutes of brain activity,

              I mean, that could be your whole life.

              I mean, you are that woman looking back over everything.

              Okay, so what if I am? Then what would you be in all that?

              Whatever I am right now.

              I mean, yeah, maybe I only exist in your mind.

              I'm still just as real as anything else.

              Yeah.

              - I've been thinking also about something you said. - What's that?

              Just about reincarnation and where all the new souls come from over time.

              Everybody always say that they've been the reincarnation...

              of Cleopatra or Alexander the Great.

              I always want to tell them they were probably some dumb fuck like everybody else.

              I mean, it's impossible. Think about it.

              The world population has doubled in the past years, right?

              - So if you really believe in that ego thing of one eternal soul, - Mm-hmm.

              then you only have a % chance of your soul being over .

              And for it to be over years old, then it's only one out of six.

              So what are you saying then? Reincarnation doesn't exist...

              or that we're all young souls like where half of us are first-round humans?

              No, no. What I'm trying to say is that somehow I believe...

              reincarnation is just a--

              a poetic expression of what collective memory really is.

              There was this article by this biochemist that I read not long ago,

              and he was talking about how when a member of a species is born,

              it has a billion years of memory to draw on.

              And this is where we inherit our instincts.

              I like that. It's like there's, um,

              this whole telepathic thing going on that wee all a part of,

              whether wee conscious of it or not.

              That would explain why there's all these, you know,

              seemingly spontaneous, worldwide, innovative leaps in science, in the arts.

              You know, like the same results poppin' up everywhere independent of each other.

              Some guy on a computer, he figures something out,

              and then almost simultaneously, a bunch of other people all over the world...

              - figure out the same thing. - Mm-hmm.

              They did this study. They isolated a group of people over time,

              and they monitored their abilities at crossword puzzles...

              in relation to the general population.

              And then they secretly gave them a day-old crossword,

              one that had already been answered by thousands of other people.

              Their scores went up dramatically, like percent.

              So it's like once the answers are out there,

              you know, people can pick up on 'em.

              It's like we're all telepathically sharing our experiences.

              I'll get you motherfuckers if it's the last thing I do.

              Oh, you're gonna pay for what you did to me.

              For every second I spend in this hellhole,

              I'll see you spend a year in living hell!

              Oh, you fucks are gonna beg me to let you die.

              No, no, not yet.

              I want you cocksuckers to suffer.

              Oh, I'll fix your fuckin' asses, all right.

              Maybe a long needle in your eardrum.

              A hot cigar in your eye.

              Nothin' fancy.

              Some molten lead up the ass.

              Ooh!

              Or better still,

              some of that old Apache shit.

              Cut your eyelids off. Yeah.

              I'll just listen to you fucks screamin'.

              Oh, what sweet music that'll be.

              Yeah. We'll do it in the hospital.

              With doctors and nurses so you pricks don't die on me too quick.

              You know the best part?

              The best part is you dick-smokin' faggots will have your eyelids cut off,

              so youl have to watch me do it to you, yeah.

              You'll see me bring that cigar closer and closer...

              to your wide-open eyeball...

              till you're almost out of your mind.

              But not quite...

              'cause I want it to last a long, long time.

              I want you to know that it's me,

              that I'm the one that's doin' it to you.

              Me!

              And that sissy psychiatrist?

              What unmitigated ignorance!

              That old drunken fart of a judge!

              What a pompous ass!

              Judge not lestye be judged!

              All of you pukes are gonna die the day I get out of this shithole!

              I guarantee youl regret the day you met me!

              In a way, in our contemporary world view,

              It's easy to think that science has come to take the place of God.

              But some philosophical problems remain as troubling as ever.

              Take the problem of free will.

              This problem's been around for a long time,

              since before Aristotle in B.C.

              St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas,

              these guys all worried about how we can be free...

              if God already knows in advance everything you're gonna do.

              Nowadays we know that the world operates according to some fundamental physical laws,

              and these laws govern the behavior of every object in the world.

              Now, these laws, because they're so trustworthy,

              they enable incredible technological achievements.

              But look at yourself. We're just physical systems too.

              We're just complex arrangements of carbon molecules.

              We're mostly water,

              and our behavior isn't gonna be an exception to basic physical laws.

              So it starts to look like whether it's God setting things up in advance...

              and knowing everything you're gonna do...

              or whether it's these basic physical laws governing everything.

              There's not a lot of room left for freedom.

              So now you might be tempted to just ignore the question,

              ignore the mystery of free will.

              Say, "Oh, well, it's just an historical anecdote. It's sophomoric.

              It's a question with no answer. Just forget about it."

              But the question keeps staring you right in the face.

              You think about individuality, for example, who you are.

              Who you are is mostly a matter of the free choices that you make.

              Or take responsibility. You can only be held responsible,

              you can only be found guilty or admired or respected...

              for things you did of your own free will.

              The question keeps coming back, and we don't really have a solution to it.

              It starts to look like all your decisions are really just a charade.

              Think about how it happens. There's some electrical activity in your brain.

              Your neurons fire. They send a signal down into your nervous system.

              It passes along down into your muscle fibers.

              They twitch. You might, say, reach out your arm.

              Looks like it's a free action on your part,

              but every one of those-- every part of that process...

              is actually governed by physical law:

              chemical laws, electrical laws and so on.

              So now it just looks like the Big Bang set up the initial conditions,

              and the whole rest of our history,

              the whole rest of human history and even before,

              is really just sort of the playing out of subatomic particles...

              according to these basic fundamental physical laws.

              We think wee special. We think we have some kind of special dignity,

              but that now comes under threat.

              I mean, that's really challenged by this picture.

              So you might be saying, "Well, wait a minute. What about quantum mechanics?

              "I know enough contemporary physical theory to know it's not really like that.

              "It's really a probabilistic theory.

              There's room. It's loose. It's not deterministic."

              And that's gonna enable us to understand free will.

              But if you look at the details, it's not really gonna help...

              because what happens is you have some very small quantum particles,

              and their behavior is apparently a bit random.

              They swerve. Their behavior is absurd in the sense that it's unpredictable...

              and we can't understand it based on anything that came before.

              It just does something out of the blue, according to a probabilistic framework.

              But is that gonna help with freedom?

              Should our freedom just be a matter of probabilities,

              just some random swerving in a chaotic system?

              That just seems like it's worse. I'd rather be a gear...

              in a big deterministic, physical machine...

              than just some random swerving.

              So we can't just ignore the problem.

              We have to find room in our contemporary world view for persons,

              with all that that it entails; not just bodies, but persons.

              And that means trying to solve the problem of freedom,

              finding room for choice and responsibility...

              and trying to understand individuality.

              You can't fight city hall, death and taxes.

              Don't talk about politics or religion.

              This is all the equivalent of enemy propaganda rolling across the picket line.

              " Lay down, G.I. Lay down, G.I."

              We saw it all through the th Century.

              And now in the st Century, it's time to stand up and realize...

              that we should not allow ourselves to be crammed into this rat maze.

              We should not submit to dehumanization.

              I don't know about you, but I'm concerned with what's happening in this world.

              I'm concerned with the structure.

              I'm concerned with the systems of control,

              those that control my life and those that seek to control it even more!

              I want freedom! That's what I want!

              And that's what you should want!

              It's up to each and every one of us to turn loose and just shovel the greed,

              the hatred, the envy and, yes, the insecurities...

              because that is the central mode of control-- make us feel pathetic, small...

              so we'll willingly give up our sovereignty, our liberty, our destiny.

              We have got to realize that we're being conditioned on a mass scale.

              Start challenging this corporate slave state!

              The st Century is gonna be a new century,

              not the century of slavery, not the century of lies and issues of no significance...

              and classism and statism and all the rest of the modes of control!

              It's gonna be the age of humankind...

              standing up for something pure and something right!

              What a bunch of garbage-- liberal Democrat, conservative Republican.

              It's all there to control you. Two sides of the same coin.

              Two management teams bidding for control!

              The C.E.O. job of Slavery, Incorporated!

              The truth is out there in front of you, but they lay out this buffet of lies!

              I'm sick of it, and I'm not gonna take a bite out of it! Do you got me?

              Resistance is not futile. We're gonna win this thing.

              Humankind is too good! We're not a bunch of underachievers!

              We're gonna stand up and we're gonna be human beings!

              We're gonna get fired up about the real things, the things that matter:

              creativity and the dynamic human spirit that refuses to submit!

              Well, that's it! That's all I got to say! It's in your court.

              The quest is to be liberated from the negative,

              which is really our own will to nothingness.

              And once having said yes to the instant,

              the affirmation is contagious.

              It bursts into a chain of affirmations that knows no limit.

              To say yes to one instant...

              is to say yes to all of existence.

              The main character is what you might call "the mind."

              It's mastery, it's capacity to represent.

              Throughout history, attempts have been made...

              to contain those experiences which happen at the edge of the limit...

              where the mind is vulnerable.

              But I think we are in a very significant moment in history.

              Those moments, those what you might call liminal,

              Limit, frontier, edge zone experiences...

              are actually now becoming the norm.

              These multiplicities and distinctions and differences...

              that have given great difficulty to the old mind...

              are actually through entering into their very essence,

              tasting and feeling their uniqueness.

              One might make a breakthrough to that common something...

              that holds them together.

              And so the main character is, to this new mind,

              greater, greater mind.

              A mind that yet is to be.

              And when we are obviously entered into that mode,

              you can see a radical subjectivity,

              radical attunement to individuality, uniqueness to that which the mind is,

              opens itself to a vast objectivity.

              So the story is the story of the cosmos now.

              The moment is not just a passing, empty nothing yet.

              And this is in the way in which these secret passages happen.

              Yes, it's empty with such fullness...

              that the great moment, the great life of the universe...

              is pulsating in it.

              And each one, each object, each place, each act...

              Leaves a mark.

              And that story is singular.

              But, in fact, it's story after story.

              Time just dissolves into quick-moving particles that are swirling away.

              Either I'm moving fast or time is. Never both simultaneously.

              It's such a strange paradox. I mean, while, technically,

              I 'm closer to the end of my life than I've ever been,

              I actually feel more than ever that I have all the time in the world.

              When I was younger, there was a desperation, a desire for certainty,

       &nb

本来就从早到晚累了一天，看完Waking Life更是连脑子都累晕了。

冲着Ethan Hawke 和 Julie Delpy 才一直找这部电影，一买回来就迫不及待要看，没想到是动画片，更没想到是我非常不喜欢的风格的动画片，忍着看了几眼，实在看不下去，而且根本就看不到Ethan Hawke 和Julie Delpy 的影子，当时那个失望哦。今天突然很不甘心又重拾起来，因为豆瓣上的评价都是很好的，没理由那么难看呀。结果基本上是用快进在看，看到对白有点意思才停下来，因为动画画面晃来晃去的基本上都差不多，之所以晃因为表现的是梦境，说实话看久了头都会晕。结果是有意思的对白越来越多，后来就都能慢慢的看了。看完之后觉得很惊讶，没想到拍过那么浪漫的Before Sunrise和Before Sunset的导演会拍出这样严肃的电影，而且是用动画。明明说的是一个人的醒不过来的梦境，却又每一句话都在说现实。

其中说到一个人如何能在梦中知道自己是在做梦，可以抓住几个迹象，比如去关一盏灯，一直关不上，又比如自己在飞，再比如一直看不清钟表上的时间，当然这迹象大概都会因人而异。这阵子正读南怀谨讲的圆觉经，说到人要在梦中知道自己在做梦是非常难的。又说“一般人所讲人生如梦，那是在痛苦烦恼时偶尔的感叹而已，并没有真把人生当做是梦。”而电影里则说：dreams are real only as long as they last.
              Can't you say the same thing about life?

 

这是一部如果能坚持看完就一定会想很多的电影，而且也不会因为画面难看就给它打低分。除非在看的时候昏昏欲睡以致真的睡着。最后总算在花絮里看到一段真人出演版，感觉像赚到了。其实Ethan Hawke 和 Julie Delpy 演的那一段还是很意思的，虽然很短，录全文如下：

(A couple are in bed talking -- Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke)

I keep thinking about something you said.

Something I said?

Yeah. About how you often feel like you're observing your life from the perspective of an old woman about to die. You remember that?

Yeah. I still feel that way sometimes. Like I'm looking back on my life. Like my waking life is her memories.

Exactly. I heard that Tim Leary said as he was dying that he was looking forward to the moment when his body was dead but his brain was still alive. You know they say that there's still six to twelve minutes of brain activity after everything else is shutdown. And a second of dream consciousness, right, well, that's infinitely longer than a waking second. You know what I'm saying?

Oh, yeah, definitely. For example, I wake up and it is 10:12, and then I go back to sleep and I have those long, intricate, beautiful dreams that seem to last for hours, and then I wake up and it's ... 10:13.

Yeah, exactly. So then six to twelve minutes of brain activity, I mean, that could be your whole life. I mean, you are that woman looking back over everything.

Okay, so what if I am? Then what would you be in all that?

Whatever I am right now. I mean, yeah, maybe I only exist in your mind. I'm still just as real as anything else.

Yeah. I've been thinking also about something you said.

What's that?

Just about reincarnation and where all the new souls come from over time. Everybody always say that they've been the reincarnation of Cleopatra or Alexander the Great. I always want to tell them they were probably some dumb fuck like everybody else. I mean, it's impossible. Think about it. The world population has doubled in the past 40 years, right? So if you really believe in that ego thing of one eternal soul, then you have only 50% chance of your soul being over 40. And for it to be over 150 years old, then it's only one out of six.

Right, so what are you saying? That reincarnation doesn't exist, or that we're all young souls like where half of us are first round humans?

No, no. What I'm trying to say is that somehow I believe reincarnation is just a - a poetic expression of what collective memory really is. There was this article by this biochemist that I read not long ago, and he was talking about how when a member of our species is born, it has a billion years of memory to draw on. And this is where we inherit our instincts.

I like that. It's like there's this whole telepathic thing going on that we're all a part of, whether we're conscious of it or not. That would explain why there are all these, you know, seemingly spontaneous, worldwide, innovative leaps in science, in the arts. You know, like the same results poppin' up everywhere independent of each other. Some guy on a computer, he figures something out, and then almost simultaneously a bunch of other people all over the world figure out the same thing. They did this study. They isolated a group of people over time, and they monitored their abilities at crossword puzzles, right, in relation to the general population. And they secretly gave them a day-old crossword, one that had already been answered by thousands of other people, right. And their scores went up dramatically, like 20 percent. So it's like once the answers are out there, people can pick up on 'em. It's like we're all telepathically sharing our experiences.