On another serene trip home, I had the pleasure of experiencing my mind leaving my body. Not an out of body experience, mind you - the mere prospect of something that dramatic is frightening (perhaps second only to lucid dreaming). No, what I experienced was, for a few minutes, the complete dissocation between body and mind - as though I was existing in the purest sense of the word, with my mind opening up to the endless possibilities of imagination.

Naturally, I was not conscious of this at the time. I don't know that it is possible to reach such a state and be aware of it. I am reminded of how an old teacher talked about Zen to me. He gave the example of "The man shoots the target" being transformed into "Shooting happens". It's hard to condense the feelings this conveys - indeed, I am not blessed with the gift of insight and expression, but it is no big disappointment. Although I may not be able to convey the euphoria to you, gentle reader, 'tis a feeling that I can somehow capture perfectly without thinking too much about what it is exactly. And isn't that what it's all really about?

It sort of gave me the feeling that this body of ours really is a shell, but a shell that houses something that perhaps very few of us can comprehend. It is something greater than this mass of neurons and electrical impulses, for one. Some of you may be familiar with a Japanese movie called Ghost In The Shell. I haven't seen it, nor do I have the foggiest idea what it's about, but I was, funnily enough, reminded of its title when pondering such matters. Perhaps the ghost is our soul, although I wonder what symbolism lies beneath such an association.

Would we be all-powerful were we not restricted by our body? Does such talk even make such sense? I fear not, and so I shall stop rambling.

All this talk of body-mind dissociations reminds of a Grateful Dead song title, Mud Love Buddy Jam (a cute play on "Your Mind Has Left Your Body Jam"). I still remember those summer afternoons I spent reading endless amounts of track listings over and over, for no real reason. I suppose it gave me something to do, and again, irrational though it may be, I enjoyed it. Life's strange that way, isn't it?

I mentioned earlier that I felt like doing something life-changing. Of course, such things are not feasible unless carried out in baby steps. I think I shall try something different this week, although I'm not exactly sure what. I suppose essentially my goal is to do something out of the ordinary, to break the routines that I've so firmly set up for myself. I normally love order and precision, but perhaps there is value in going against them (once in a while, of course). I fear that otherwise my life is heading for a supremely sedantry path, a path that I am not sure that I really want to go down. Or, at least, not while I still have the ability to choose not to walk down it.

Is there inherent value in change? Does such a question make sense in the first place? I suppose it's too broad to be really answered, but I wonder whether I yearn for this change simply for change's sake, and whether this talk of a "sedentary life" is just me trying to kid myself. It's often amusing to try to figure out this little dilemmas I create, but right now I just feel like screeeeaming!