Waking Life2001

Pinball Playing Man:
And that's what time is. That's what all of history is, this kind of continuous, you know, daydream or distraction. And so I read that, and I was like, 'Well, that's weird.' And then that night, I had a dream, and there was this guy in the dream who was supposed to be a psychic. But I was skeptical. I was like, 'He's not really a psychic' I was just thinking to myself. And then suddenly, I start floating, like levitating up to the ceiling. And as I almost go through the roof, I'm like, 'OK, Mr. Psychic, I believe you. You're a psychic. Put me down, please.' And I float down, and as my feet touch the ground, the psychic turns into this woman in a green dress. And this woman is Lady Gregory. Now, Lady Gregory was Yeats' patron, this, you know, Irish person. And though I'd never seen her image, I was just sure that this was the face of Lady Gregory. So we're walking along, and Lady Gregory turns to me and says, 'Let me explain to you the nature of the universe.' Now, Philip K. Dick is right about time, but he's wrong that it's 50 A.D. Actually, there's only one instant, and it's right now, and it's eternity. And it's an instant in which God is posing a question, and that question is basically, 'Do you wanna, you know, be one with eternity, do you want to be in heaven?' And, we're all saying, 'Nooo thank you, not just yet.' And so time is actually just this constant saying 'No' to God's invitation. I mean, that's what time is. I mean, and it's no more 50 A.D. than it's 2001, you know? I mean, there's just this one instant, and that's what we're always in. And then she tells me that actually this is the narrative of everyone's life. That, you know, behind the phenomenal difference there is but one story, and that's the story of moving from the 'No' to the 'Yes.' All of life is like, 'No thank you, No thank you, No thank you.' And then, ultimately, it's, 'Yes I give in, Yes I accept, Yes I embrace.' I mean, that's the journey. Everyone gets to the 'Yes' in the end, right? So we continued walking, and uh, my dog runs over to me. And so I'm petting him. I'm really happy to see him, you know. He's been dead for years. So I'm petting him and then I realize there's this kind of gross oozing stuff coming out of his stomach. And I look over at Lady Gregory, and she sort of coughs. She's like, 'Oh, excuse me.' And there's vomit like dribbling down her chin, and it smells really bad. And I think, 'Well, wait a second. That's not just the smell of vomit' which is, doesn't smell very good. 'That's the smell of dead person vomit. You know, it's, like, doubly foul.' And then I realized I'm actually in, you know, the land of the dead. And everyone around me was dead. My dog had been dead over ten years. Lady Gregory had been dead a lot longer than that. When I finally woke up, I was like, 'Whoa. That wasn't a dream. That was a visitation to this real place, the land of the dead.'...Oh, man. It was just like one of those, like, life-altering experiences. I mean, I could never really look at the world the same way again after that.

The Dreamer:
I mean, how did you, how did you finally get out of the dream? See, that's my problem. I'm like I'm trapped. I keep, I keep thinking that I'm waking up, but I'm still in a dream. It seems like it's going on forever. I can't get out of it. I wanna wake up for real. How do you really wake up?

Pinball Playing Man:
I don't know. I don't know. I'm not very good at that anymore. But, um, if that's what you're thinkin', I mean, you probably should. I mean, you know, if you can wake up, you should, because, you know, some day, you know, you won't be able to, so, just, uhm, but it's easy, you know - just, just wake up.