Untitled - Awaken Video

Chapter 1. World Views 6
as memories, as completely random neuronal firings, as the brain working out its
problems by bringing itself back into balance, as the soul visiting other places, or
as a spirit visiting the individual. There are rules, then, for how a dream is to be
interpreted and dealt with depending on the cultural surroundings. The abstract
concept of dream fits into a nice cubby-hole somewhat like a postbox at the post
office. This post office-style arrangement of reality is called a matrix, and there are
cultural rules governing how all pieces of information are to be handled, how they
are to be stored, how each piece relates to the others, etc.
Those who suffer from mental disorders are often operating with a different set
of rules than others around them. Because of this, they tend to behave or react in
some very socially inappropriate ways. They work by a completely different set of
rules than those they were taught as children, and this idiosyncratic set of rules is
often in conflict with the general or consensus set of rules (the common worldview) of
people they work or interact with. In some cases, these folks appear to understand
consensus reality (that which members of a defined group agree upon), but have
very often added, for reasons only known to themselves, other supplementary rules
which can result in some very bizarre behavior patterns. In other cases, there are
those who seem completely incapable of functioning within the matrix as prescribed
by their group, and these are often institutionalized for their own protection.
Interestingly enough, somewhere in this discussion, foreigners must fit. Anthropologists
are well acquainted with this phenomenon of culture clash.
A young student from the University of New Mexico finds his first assignment
in Zaïre. The first 6 months of the assignment are spent by his being the
laughing stock and endless source of entertainment for the locals. They love
to tell him little harmless lies such as a spirit-lives-in-everyone’s-left-nostril
or the death sentence is applied for burping at the dinner table, and for
enjoyment, they often work very hard to set up a whole variety of situations
simply to watch his inappropriate reactions.
On the other hand the tribal members think the student a fool for not
knowing that medicines must be applied with certain feathers to be truly effective
or that the eyeballs of sheep are delicacies to be served only to honored
guests.
The difference between a foreigner and one with a mental disorder is that the normal,
but naive, foreigner is able to quickly learn about and adapt to his new setting. Very
soon, out of a sense of self preservation, he learns which behaviors his adopted culture
deems crazy and consciously drops them from his repertoire, and even though he
may always be considered a foreigner, his attempts and successes in trying to learn
the new culture gradually become acceptable to the locals to a degree which is
defined by that group.