The second category, in which the smoker conceives of a new way
of looking at something, which may be a concrete representation of an abstract idea, seems to be the easiest form of insight for smokers to communicate. Here are three examples:Thoughts
on taking a shower, stoned, one evening. Shall I take a longer shower than
usual tonight? No. Then yes. Then: why, even though longer showers are more
enjoyable, do I not usually take them? Normally, I have a variety of ways and
excuses to avoid taking a long shower: I don't have time, there's work to be
done, we'll run out of hot water, or whatever. In fact, these answers come so
automatically that I normally don't even ask the question.
But tonight I feel free and easy, and I take a longer shower. I
start thinking about how sometimes you have to look for the barrier on the road
(in this case, the short shower rule), take it off the road (examine it
closely), drive your car through that spot (violate the rule), and then put the
barrier back on the road for the next person (actually, for yourself, the next
time you travel this path).
An image of
psychotherapy: like Alice, we all fall down the rabbit hole occasionally.
A person in trouble is one who has fallen in, and is stuck on a ledge. The task
of the therapist is to direct the person to let go of the ledge, even though
this means a further fall. But only on the ground, at the real bottom of the
hole, can the fallen person find the steps which lead back up.
"Trust me," says the therapist. "You're not the
first person to fall down the hole. I know how it works. There is a way to
complete the fall without getting hurt, and there's also a way up when you can
get to the bottom." In an emergency, the therapist or a friend can
sometimes throw down a rope, but this is unreliable, and it doesn't help the
person learn what to do the next time he falls.
Perhaps there is a kind of circulating dream library, like a central service film distribution company, from which the unconscious borrows dreams. The particular faces might be interchangeable for each person, but there is still a finite number of dreams. Some of them are classics, like the dream you have when you're a kid about the creature in the wall, or the one in which you're traveling somewhere and never reach your destination. And some get retired after a while, to be shown only in dream festivals and in late-night dream television.