Eighth Lecture

Of course, one does advance to these observations, and in relation to these observations, beautiful results can certainly be seen. But what is not noticed is that, firstly, when a person abandons themselves a little, I would say with a touch of contemplation, lets themselves go a little and lets their thoughts run free, they can then perceive how something is mixed into this ordinary train of thought, which follows on from the external course of events, that is not unlike dreaming, even when we are awake. One could say that from the moment we wake until we fall asleep, while we are making an effort to adapt our thoughts to the external circumstances in which we are immersed, there is a kind of vague dreaming. It can seem to us, in a sense, like two currents that are there: the upper current, which we control with our arbitrariness, and a lower current, which actually runs much as dreams themselves run in their succession of images. Of course, you have to give yourself a little to your inner life if you want to notice what I am talking about right now. But it is always there. You will always notice: there is an undercurrent. Thoughts swirl around in just as pictorial a way as they do in dreams, where the most colorful things line up next to each other. Memories arise from all sorts of things, and just as in dreams mere similarity of sound may call other thoughts and connect them with them. And people who let themselves go inwardly, people who are too indolent to adapt themselves to outer conditions with their train of thought, they may notice how there is an inner striving to give themselves up to such waking dreams.