{"id":1832,"date":"2024-06-08T07:48:45","date_gmt":"2024-06-08T14:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/?p=1832"},"modified":"2024-06-08T07:48:45","modified_gmt":"2024-06-08T14:48:45","slug":"comments-on-rals-post-on-asemic-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/comments-on-rals-post-on-asemic-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Comments on Ral’s Post on Asemic Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTS ON RAL\u2019s \u201cWhat is the Value of Asemic Writing\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Paco Mitchell<\/u><\/strong><\/span>
\nRuss, What a fascinating question: Whether dreams are asemic or not? How about both? Yes and
\nno? Looking forward to reading what you come up with.
\nMeanwhile, I am wondering whether there may be an asemic assumption \u201cbuilt in\u201d to the
\nprejudicial idea that only humans can write. I don\u2019t KNOW that for a fact, but as I mull over
\nyour post, I am reminded of one of several powerful HERON DREAMS I had over the years.
\nI want to tell that dream here, in case it will give us more to speculate on the question of
\n\u201canimal speech.\u201d I have long since thought that animals, especially birds and mammals, have
\nlanguages. This dream dates from at least half a century ago:<\/p>\n

SPEECH OF THE SWALLOWS DREAM
\nI see two swallows sitting on the \u201ctelephone\u201d wires running into my Blue Heron Foundry
\nbuilding. [In actuality, at the time of the dream in the late 1970s or early 1980s, there were
\ntwo telephone cables running into the foundry building.] The swallows are chattering away,
\nthe way swallows do. I realize that I can understand the speech of the swallows. I know what
\nthey are saying. Furthermore, I can see the swallow-words spelled out in high relief. The
\nbirds have their own archaic vocabulary. It corresponds to no human alphabet. What amazes
\nme is that the speech of the swallows is rendered in a never-before-seen alphabet, each letter
\ncarved out of solid blocks of hard stone, like basalt. The \u201cletters\u201d are all about 30ft. to 40 ft.
\nhigh. It is an ancient alphabet that far pre-dates the earliest human alphabets (like
\ncuneiform, hieroglyphics, Hebrew, etc.)
\nI am stunned to realize that I can understand what the swallows are saying, in English
\ntranslation. I can also see, in the dream, the graphic representation of the \u201cswallows\u2019
\nalphabet.\u201d I realize that I can understand both the \u201cstone-carved original letters\u201d and the
\nEnglish translations thereof. As I begin approaching the waking state, I try to decide which
\nimage I will carry into consciousness with me. When I wake up, I can no longer remember or
\nvisualize what the 40-ft. stone letters are, nor can I remember the English translation. [End of
\ndream.]
\nThe implicit idea in that dream was clear: Swallows\u2014and therefore other birds and
\nanimals\u2014have their own forms of speech, which apparently involves having their own
\n\u201calphabets.\u201d Would it be, perhaps, an \u201casemic alphabet\u201d?
\nDid the tiny swallows themselves\u2014Masters of Graceful Flight and Beauty, sacred to the
\nancient love-goddess Aphrodite\u2014carve the monstrous-sized letters in stone? If not, then just
\nwho did carve them? I admit, I have no trouble at all assigning formidable powers to those
\nsacred birds. But the sheer size of the letters, and the obdurate material of their realization, set
\nme back on my heels in amazement.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/u><\/p>\n

John Woodcock<\/a><\/p>\n

“Are dreams asemic?” Such an amazing provocative question, Russ. Has it ever been asked before? I am thinking that this question, given by psyche, is quite different from the neurobiological stance today that dream are meaningless. This dominant stance\u00a0simply leads us away from dreams and towards our collective fate. But psyche posing the question draws us deeper into the nature of dreams. Much to ponder, thanks!<\/p>\n

Suzan Rood Wilson<\/a><\/p>\n

As analysts, we have to take each and every dream as asemic. As Jung said, we do not know what a dream means. But the dream itself seems to find its way to meaning. We should not, as helpers, ascribe meaning to it. The dream has a way of creating meaning. We must notice, we must do our best to see the untying of the massa confusa. This is totally anathema to AI, incidentally. \u201cAnalyzing\u201d a dream has gotten away from its original meaning. \u201cAnalysis\u201d comes from the Greek prefix \u201cana-\u201c which comes from the notion of \u201cagainst\u201d or \u201cun\u201d as in the idea of doing the opposite of what the next part of the entire word implies. The etymology of the last part of the word \u201canalysis\u201d is \u201c-lysis.\u201d Its root comes from the words related to \u201ctying up\u201d or \u201cbringing together,\u201d as in an elision, a liaison, a ligament. So an \u201canalysis\u201dhas to do with pulling apart what has been tied together. As when a complex balls up the messy neuroses that shows up in dream imagery.<\/p>\n

It is only the feeling that there is an inherent meaning already, brought in the dream as an asemic display. The meaning finds itself. There is an accompanying feeling that attends asemic dreaming. It is that sudden knowledge that there IS a meaning and that when it is untied, the mass of threads, opened just enough to see the components that give what seems like nonsense, a deep feeling sense.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Suzan Rood Wilson<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I just woke up to a dream or the first thought or the words that spring into consciousness right out of sleep.<\/p>\n

It was this verbatim: \u201cArtificial Intelligence has no possible way of enduring Negative Capability.\u201d Those were the words.<\/p>\n

AI\u2019s sole purpose is either to find or to inject meaning non-organically into a given situation. So dreams MUST be interpreted logically in AI. Asemia must never exist there because it cannot be explained and tolerated. AI has no ability to \u201cwait\u201d withOUT explanation, without \u201cmaking meaning\u201d immediately, or as the 19th century poet, Keats knew so young and so well, \u201cwithout any irritable reading after fact and reason.\u201d What does AI know what the psyche wants to mean? Nope. We must be in WuWei, the Asian concept of \u201cwaiting\u201d for the meaning, in the conscious tension of being at home in opposing forces. In Negative Capability. If you have not yet caught on, this was what Jung first understood what alchemy was. The ability to be in the unknown, to observe, to wait, for what the psyche wants, not what the intellect wants post haste, and for the psyche to be the active motive in observing the transcending and uniting experience that arises without my mind, without my intellect, and to submit to the answer my Unconscious wants. We must have patience. We must be pregnant with this tension to begin to move into a new \u201cmatrix,\u201d a word that derives from\u201dmother\u201d \u201cmatter\u201d and \u201cwomb.\u201d To be born absolutely organically from tension to a NEW matrix. Always a new womb from which we must constantly be born from and into yet another matrix. This is how we learn. We get curious. We are, as Jung said in the Mysterium, \u201ccompelled\u201d to know new things. Either by a \u201cmere interest or by compulsion proper.\u201d Check my quote. I just woke up, lying in bed and allowing my thoughts to chop logic, NOT to know.<\/p>\n

It is not a simple task to let ideas live semi-consciously inside you. The unconscious has to prepare you for that Transcendent. Not a Hegelian \u201csynthesis.\u201d Not at all. It is state of the Tertium Non Datur, the Third or Transcendent not yet in existence. Not quite yet. It is the promise of some new position or understanding that is coming and quickening.<\/p>\n

THIS is what defies AI. Asemia chops logic (with apologies to William James here). To be human often requires having no explanation or good answers. Or some meaning served up like the world\u2019s fastest food, just to stave off the hunger of anxiety and of needing an answer fast. Now.<\/p>\n

AI cannot tolerate the process of waiting for meaning. Asemic writing is in the right direction of allowing the unconscious to move according to its own purpose. And we cannot know that before we DO know that.<\/p>\n

Today is the 63rd memorial of Jung\u2019s death. Imagine, because you CAN, what Jung would have thought of this predigested meal, served up by AI. He would not very likely stand for it. And here we are, on the 63rd memorial of his death, grappling still with the questions Jung also grappled with, night after night, for years, being dragged by his ears into Asemia.<\/p>\n

We must go slowly. Bring out the pen, the paper, the stamps. Snail Mail a thought. You will have to wait days, not nanoseconds, for the impact of your thoughts on another human being. Somebody please proofread this! I need a biobreak!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

John Woodcock<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Depth psychology treats dreams, just as you say, Suzan, as being inherently meaningful (there is an inherent meaning already…). This inherent meaning has to be teased out (analysis) again as you say, and, yes we are not to ascribe meaning to dreams.\u00a0What appears to be nonsense holds (hidden at first) meaning. But the concept of asemic is pointing to something radically different from all this, I think. There is no meaning to be (eventually) found or discovered. I don’t believe it is a matter of dreams being inherent meaning “brought to an asemic display” so that it can “find itself”, as you suggest above. If dreams are asemic, we probably have to drop current ideas of meaning, finding meaning, dreams as meaning, unconscious meaning etc. This what I find exciting! In my musings subsequent to Russ’ post, I thought of Barnett Newman’s “Zip” paintings along with Heidegger’s “Contributions to Philosophy” which is his version of The Red Book, an almost crazy book. “Inception” comes to mind. There is huge interest at this time in how meaning itself comes to be! Not comes to be discovered but comes to be. “Spitting fissure” comes to mind. So this concept is very psychoactive for me in the light of my work on “the threshold”, ie where the asemic action is… All the best, John<\/p>\n

Tanya Hurst<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

I was thinking about asemic writing, and I realized that some of my poetry (used loosely) really grabs images, and words, sometimes from songs, and puts them together, and they truly have no \u201cmeaning.\u201d Though I might begin with a meaning in mind, when\u00a0I let go of ego control of the outcome, something else comes about. What grabbed me just now in reading about asemic dreams, and thinking about those poems, is that while there is no \u201cmeaning,\u201d there is no meaning needed. A \u201cfeeling,\u201d is evoked. In this way it seems, though I may not find meaning, there is a feeling and the feeling seems to \u201cknow\u201d and perhaps not \u201csolve,\u201d but relieve, express, or present something other that what the words themselves would define. My poems seem meaningless to me still, yet I can recall the writing and experience something being worked within me, and so I am fond of and thankful for them. I\u2019ve only ever read two poems aloud to others on one occasion, and the reading evoked feelings in the listeners. Perhaps the listener might imagine a meaning but can never be truly certain. No resolution through meaning, yet something if not resolved, is moved. So too with my dreams. I can attempt to find meaning, but often the dream evokes deep emotion without the need of meaning, and seems to be communing with something within myself that even I do not know, but that I experience.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

COMMENTS ON RAL\u2019s \u201cWhat is the Value of Asemic Writing\u201d Paco Mitchell Russ, What a fascinating question: Whether dreams are asemic or not? How about both? Yes and no? Looking forward to reading what you come up with. Meanwhile, I am wondering whether there may be an asemic assumption \u201cbuilt in\u201d to the prejudicial idea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coming-soon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1833,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832\/revisions\/1833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ralockhart.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}