Sljslj

WHAT IS REALITY?

Everything around me
Is this reality?
I can't accept that this all
Life has to offer
Maybe it's just insanity
But I question
What is reality?

Have you never wondered?
I think you have
About something beyond
What you can perceive
With your lonely five senses
I think you have

Why must we be confined to three dimensions?
To 10 million colors?
And 20 thousand frequencies?
Is it possible we're just idiots, fools
Too slow to see something that's all around

Have you ever wondered?
I think you have
About the limits of our thinking
And all the things we'll never know
About the world where we'll spend all our days
I think you have
You must have, you must have

Everything around me
Is this reality?
I can't accept that this all
Life has to offer
Maybe it's just insanity
But I question
What is reality?

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VEGANGELICA

Thoughtful lyrics, Sljslj.

The answer is "yes," I've wondered, and "no" we aren't idiots. Our senses work very well for allowing us to survive on earth. You're right that our bodies aren't aware of all stimuli. That's when machines are useful to measure energy and particles to which we are blind, often literally!

The lyrics have a few typos that I'll correct here so you can correct them if you want: accept (instead of except), reality (instead of relaity), perceive instead of percieve, and confined *to* three dimensions.

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Sljslj

Thanks for pointing those out. I wasn't exactly sober when writing that, so it was bound to happen.

I really think that, on a universal scale, we are idiots and that our brains are very limited in what we can observe. I believe there's a whole other reality (probably more than one) in existance all around us that we will never see. This poem and it's theme were heavily inspired by reading trip reports on Erowid ( Erowid Experience Vaults: Salvia divinorum (also Salvia) Main Index check it out if you like), and it really made me think about what we call reality.


Erica, would you consider joining the lyrics contest thread I made? It's pretty fun and interesting. Think about it, at least.

Thanks, Erica. You're awesome.

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VEGANGELICA

The trip reports at the Erowid website compiling people's descriptions of experiences when taking psychoactive drugs etc. do look very interesting. The take-home message I get from that site is this: mess up the human brain's functioning, and you create a lot of self-generated perceptions and emotions that only exist in the mind and don't represent any external reality.

I remember reading in college about how the brain processes visual information in a step-wise fashion, so lesions can result in odd perceptions. For example, our experience of motion can be separated from our experience of sight, such that people with lesions in the brain areas responsible for perceiving motion see the world as if it were a series of still pictures, but they can no longer judge how fast things are moving (which makes knowing when to stop pouring a drink impossible). This doesn't mean that reality isn't moving, but they've lost the ability to perceive that, of course. I think drugs, like brain lesions, do create altered perceptions...but they don't reveal anything new about reality, although they *do* reveal a lot about how the human brain functions (or doesn't).

I've seen your lyrics competition and I'm glad you're getting some participation, Slj, but I really feel that, for me, putting up lyrics in a competition would sap out the pleasure I take in writing them. I like art because there is fundamentally no right or wrong, no intrinsic "good" or "bad." Thank you for asking me about it, though!

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Sljslj

I repsectfully disagree with that, Erica. I believe that drugs like Salvia and DMT are essentially a tool to open up a different dimension of reality that would otherwise be very difficult or impossible to access. The fact that there is a biological reason why hallucinogenic drugs do what they do doesn't make me think otherwise; I believe that the brain and the spirit are directly conncted, and certain hallucinogens cause the connection to become much stronger than it would be under normal circumstances. There actually is a theory that the drug DMT activates the same part of the brain that is when someone is close to death (the so-called "light at the end of the tunnel"), which may mean that DMT is a sort-of portal to heaven, if such a place exists.

Obviously none of the above can be proven, but it's something to think about.

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Sljslj

Intended to be blackened thrash metal.

SET ON FIRE

Whether you're the disease or the diseased
Whether you're the bringer of death or the deceased
Whether you're the lie or the liar
Tonight, your soul will be set on fire

You lock yourself away
To keep the demons at bay
But they're just like you
They are you, you fool
They do not play the rules

Whether you're the disease or the diseased
Whether you're the bringer of death or the deceased
Whether you're the lie or the liar
Tonight, your soul will be set on fire

Will you ever stop
This war with hell that you wage
Probably not
'Cause your mind never seems to be on the same page
As your soul
Set on fire

Whether you're the disease or the diseased
Whether you're the bringer of death or the deceased
Whether you're the lie or the liar
When you want what you can't have
You see it, but your hands can't grab
You cannot have what you desire
Tonight, your soul will be set on fire

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Arya Stark

I feel like the last thing you wrote wasn't really creative. If you hadn't said it was Thrash metal or whatever, I would have guessed it on my own, you know?

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MB Journal.
Azucar y Especia. My blog.

Sljslj

I know. I can't break new ground with everything I write, though I did in a way. I've never written something like this, so it's a new thing for me. I know there are plenty of lyrics out there just like this, but it doesn't bother me much, as I achieved what I set out to with it.

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Sljslj

DOOR

God, my head hurts so bad
But not as much as my soul

I'm heading down a dark corridor
With only a dead-end in sight, but...
Is that a door?

Sometimes I lose my feet
And next thing I know
I've taken forty steps back
And returned to where I began
My comfort-zone

But the bliss of this place is an illusion
Where I'm constantly distracted
By a false solution
Told I'm doing fine, that I'm winning
But I'm losin', losin'

Losing myself to myself
Putting my conscience high on a shelf
To be forgotten

God, my head hurts so bad
But not as much as my soul

When I stand, if I stand
To begin again down that dark hallway
It will be the brightest day
As that place becomes a ghost

When I reach that door, if it exists
I will open it with a bit of effort
But nothing compared to the thousand steps
It will take to have the knob within my grasp

Anxiety, pain, and fear are no longer
I am home

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Sljslj

GOD?

There's something very wrong
This world ain't what it used to be
Something I can feel, but I cannot see
Is it God?

Is time fast or slow?
Will we ever know?
Or will we die before we ever turn around?
See what's coming

Maybe it's nothing
Paranoia, insanity, ****ing useless wondering
But if there's something to this
I hope I die before I see what's coming
Don't turn around

Life is a chaotic song
That's been forced into my ears, my brain
Once I did feel it was meant to entertain
Me, and the idea that everything's okay
But something's very wrong
That song... is it God?

Where the hell do we go?
When the song begins to slow?
Into a viola-driven sound
We'll hear it coming
Cause it will be all around

There's something very wrong
This world ain't what it used to be
Something I can feel, but I cannot see
Is it God?

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