It's all part and parcel, life and work and dream. You can't separate things out. Or, rather, you can, but don't be surprised when you kill your lab subject. This is what happens when you perform an autopsy on a living entity. The question you need to ask, I think, is what is gained? How will vivisection enhance my ability to receive and retransmit the vision? I get up in the morning. I eat my bowl of prunes while reading the latest Menlo comic though the haze of last night's nightmare. I walk up to the attic and begin the day's transcription. The transcription is sure to be informed by the prunes, the Menlo strip and the nightmare. But make no mistake, the Menlo strip is informed by the prunes and the nightmare and yesterday's transcription. And tonight's nightmare will be informed by the prunes and the Menlo strip and today's transcription.

And the prunes?

Well, as Dr. Kellogg said, sometimes a prune is just a prune. But I feel generous today, so I'll go out on a limb and say my perception of the prune it's taste, color, texture and smell, the sound it makes as I bite into it, not to mention its effect on my colon is informed by the comic, the nightmare and the latest transcription. Now that's just one interaction drawn from the first few minutes of the new, waking day. There are countless other interactions, each informing, each being informed, like the web of Indra. It's a unified field, constantly in motion.

And is it moving to a purpose? To a grand plan?

That's the question each must ask. Today I would answer yes. Today the prunes were marvelous.

Q (suddenly shouting): The light's red! It's red!

A (something unintelligible over the screech of brakes, then): Sorry about that.

Is there any chance we could do this someplace other than the car? Could we go to a coffee shop, for instance?

Relax. I'll pay more attention. I promise.

Q (sometime later): You went through a period of monasticism after the Blackwood Smith session.

It was a brief sojourn and it wasn't really associated with any specific contemplative tradition.

Where did this take place?

I'd rather not say beyond the comment that I had, at all times, a magnificent view of the Atlantic Ocean. And that the cooks put vinegar on my french fries. (long pause as we negotiated our way down an uninviting series of alleys) I wasn't an invited guest of my hosts. I was in hiding, really. Some of the monks discovered my existence and became guardians, brought me food and chanted for my recovery. But the fact of my existence was kept from the Abbot. The important thing about that period is that I had no access to my own library beyond a handful of paperbacks I'd thought to grab when I fled Blackwood. So my reading was determined by the texts the monks brought to me. And in this way I read deeply in things I might never have explored otherwise. I had a perch in a crevice of a cliff wall and I would sit wrapped in robe and blankets and just fall into some strange and wonderful narratives. These books changed me for a time and for a while I renounced, really repented is the word, my desire to codify the dreamlife into The Dreamlife.

Can you give us some titles of the books you read while sitting on those cliffs?