Global Village Voice: This Pale Blue Dot
We are the World, We are the Children
We live on a pale blue dot in the dramatic vastness of the cosmic stage of the universe. It is this cosmos and the pale blue dot that dreams and Dream Vision speaks to us about in our nightly mentations. Carl Sagan's This Pale Blue Dot (see video) provides us with a perspective in which we can view ourselves and our relationship to the cosmos. Many Dream Visions have expressed this literary notion, such as that of the Roman philosopher Cicero's Dream of Scipio in which the literary character Scipio Aemilianus has a cosmological dream journey. Dante's Divine Comedy speaks to us of a poets journey and descent into the darkness of the underworld of hell and his ascension to the heights of Heaven. Mohammad's cosmic magic carpet Dream Vision journey which still organizes the Islamic community is another such dream. Mohammad's dream inspired by the archangel Gabriel the chief messenger of God, was intended to create a theological dialogue between Judaism, Christianity and Islam. What happened to that dialogue? What happened to that dream?
Dream Vision has always provided a durable literary device for understanding and communicating the mysteries of the mind and humanities relationship to the nature of the universe. A characteristic of Dream Vision is a narrator of a story who falls asleep and dreams. In them, the narrator meets a guide. When I collected the dreams of many people, it became evident that all dreams represent life journeys that require a guide. Using Wikipedia print pages and You Tube videos I present to you the reader and viewer topics which are relevant to this inner journey.
The opinions expressed in the Wikipedia print pages and You Tube videos you can watch that are part of this article, are not necessarily the opinions of the International Institute for Dream Research (IIDR). Instead they serve to provide a communication platform and forum for the marketplace of thought and ideas on the Internet. They provide a cosmological journey narrated by a variety of narrators and narrative points of view. Some of which may be reliable, others may be seen as unreliable or outdated. My own narrative point of view can be found in my book Mysteries of the Dream in the Global Village: A Cultural Guide for Dreamers, Dreams and Dreaming.
The Wikipedia print pages and You Tube video collage of sound and image represents a digital polyphonic frame story in the sense of Mikhail Bahktin's The Dialogic Imagination. I have provided a polyphony of dreams, visions and voices, sometimes in harmony, sometimes in conflict. Out of these you must create and develop your own voice and vision. This Internet, Wikipedia and You Tube montage of the world represents the conscious dreaming that we call the imagination. The dream, too, is such an artwork. To illustrate such an artistic polyphony of voices we can watch and hear the music video;
- We Are The World (watch music video)
- I Believe is a Canadian song that provides a similar sentiment.
Dreaming in the Information Age (read IIDR interpretation A Kodak Moment and The Information Industry) shows us the radical changes of the perception of our place in the universe. The IIDR is dedicated to making the Dream Visions of our pale blue dot visible, in effort to promote peace on our fragile planet. For those wanting to read the entire Global Village Voice article, click on the link.