YELLOW SNOW RADIO 2 (Audio transcript)

(SIGNATURE MUSIC)

HOST : “Consciousness”! Where does it come from. where does it go? Can we prove it exists or that it ever existed? That “we” ever existed? Who would we be trying to prove it to? Especially if you don’t think God exists. Is the proof in the pudding? Who baked the pudding, where did the ingredients come from? And is the pudding conscious that after dinner it won’t exist anymore , except as a fond memory in some other dessert’s consciousness? I think therefore I am, or vice-versa? Which came first, the piudding or the chef, the thought or the being who had the thought? Why do I not remember being a baby, was I not thinking then? And is it the thought that counts> In the light of eternity, does it really matter what I think or thought? Is nostalgia a part of consciousness or merely a distraction from it? Can we truly only be conscious in the moment, even though that moment has already passed? Whoops! It’s back again! No, missed it again!! I’ll catch up with it next time! What is a truly conscious moment? Am I over-thinking this, and consciousness only truly happens when we’re thinking on our feet and actually doing something about it? Otherwise, merely prep-work for some existential experience of pure being? Does consciousness have a history, a collective consciousness? Or are we really all alone in the universe, barely a blip in eternity, hardly worth the effort really? Is everything we don’t remember something not real at all? We’re born, we wake up and immediately become conscious of memories, those moments we’ve already missed. Are we developing a history to the detriment of the actual moment? products of a story we didn’t write, that doesn’t begin or end with ourselves, just goes on forever…How can forever have a history? Every conscious explanation just deepens the mystery. Do we choose it to be a mystery? Is that what consciousness is, choosing the mystery that most fascinates and enlivens us? Some people spend their whole life in a fog trying to solve one particular mystery, that fascinates them till the day they die, still only a theory rolling around in their head. The most fascinating mysteries are the ones we can’t possibly solve. There will be no final revelation, the mystery just goes on forever. Are we living in a state of anxious, neurotic trepidation that the mystery will be solved and prove so simplistic and obvious we die realizing we’ve just wasted our whole life fascinated by nothing of any real consequence at all… All we’re left with, a conscious conviction that we ourselves didn’t really matter one iota, and that’s not a mystery, it’s a great void we’ve been killing ourselves to avoid…I could go on forever…And it still wouldn’t change a damned thing! or would it?

Pregnant pause. It’s another intervention from YSR, Yellow Snow Radio, folks, trying to bring you some truth before we’re all just in our graves lying through our dental implants! My guest today, appropriately enough, is a psychiatrist. She specializes in mood-disorders, relationship-issues and anxiety. She studied at the New York University School of Medicine, and she’s been in practice for twenty-plus years, both in private-practice and for the last ten years in residence at Yale-New haven. Psychiatrist, psycho-analyst and psycho-therapist Pamela M. Sledge, MD. Welcome, Dr. Sledge. So can you help me? Am I walking around in a state of concussion, my birth-trauma never fully diagnosed and treated? Doomed to dwell in some subterranean amoebic condition of merely imagined consciousness? Am I just trying to convince myself I’m really alive?

PAMELA : If you’re a corpse, you don’t seem to want to take it lying down.

HOST : You think I’m suffering from some deep existential dread that makes me incapable of any meaningful action?

PAMELA : You seem fascinated by yourself, you don’t find any meaning in that. You’ve bothered to set up all this broadcasting paraphernalia. I’d say you’re pretty active.

HOST : What does the “M”, your middle initial, stand for?

PAMELA : Why don’t we let that remain a mystery.

HOST : I guess I could google you…

PAMELA : Not sure you’ll find the answer on “google”. Unless somebody out there finds me more fascinating than I’d imagine they would.

HOST : You don’t find your life fascinating, your own mind?

PAMELA : I’m not sure other people do.

HOST : OK….So what if I told you I had relationship issues?

PAMELA : I’d ask you to tell me more.

HOST : I haven’t spoken to my father for three years. He refuses to talk to me. I gave up trying.

PAMELA : Is there some particular issue?

HOST : He thinks I’m a conspiracy nut. He doesn’t want to deal with alternative ways of looking at things.

PAMELA : Maybe he just didn’t like your approach?

HOST : He said I was crazy, paranoid.

PAMELA : And are you? Paranoid? You think the world is out to deceive and threaten you?

HOST : I guess I do.

PAMELA : So you live in a constant state of anxiety?

HOST : I prefer to think of it as “awareness”.

PAMELA : That you’re being conspired against?

HOST : That I’m not being told the truth. By my government. By the corporate-controlled media. I’m a tax-payer. Don’t I deserve to be told the truth?

PAMELA : You tell me.

HOST : I’m telling you.

PAMELA : You’re also telling your audience that everything is a mystery to you, and that’s what you find fascinating.

HOST : So nothing is a mystery to you?

PAMELA : I don’t think it’s a conspiracy.

HOST : So I should just ignore it and get on with my life, keep my fingers crossed it all turns out for the best?

PAMELA : That would be one approach.

HOST : So much mental illness out there, deranged diseased minds doing sick things, you don’t think it’s connected?

PAMELA : To ignorance? I think everything’s connected.

HOST : But how can we connect the dots if we’re being fed false information?

PAMELA : If you think you’re being fed false information, maybe you need to accept that as one of your dots, and work within those parameters.

HOST : Just deal with my own issues? So I really am alone in the universe?

PAMELA : You don’t have any friends? There are people out there, right out there, right now, outside your door, who need help. help them. Sometimes people choose to see only the big picture, to avoid dealing with the one that’s right in front of their eyes. You don’t have to listen to the media. You don’t have to trust the government. You are the media. Are you telling people the truth?

HOST : I’m not lying.

PAMELA : How do I know that? You might be some government shill trying to confuse everybody. You say you want to turn your life into a fascinating story. You’re as likely to be making things up as anybody is. Just to give yourself something to be fascinated by.

HOST : That this country is becoming a police-state? Swat-teams are invading my consciousness. Armed militia roaming our streets. Constant electronic surveillance.

PAMELA : Are you breaking the law?

HOST : I’m questioning who makes the laws.

PAMELA : And who’s stopping you? I thought you invited me to talk about “consciousness” not ‘conspiracies”?

HOST : Don’t they all amount to the same thing?

PAMELA : Obviously in your mind they do.

HOST : Collective consciousness. Invasion of privacy. restriction of civil liberties. Corrupt puppet politicians. Somebody is conspiring to make me aware of this.

PAMELA : personal or collective parameters?

HOST : You think these people are out there to keep us safe?

PAMELA : You feel threatened?

HOST : I do.

PAMELA : By politicians or muggers? For a start, there’s a difference between “consciousness” and “awareness”. I deal with many mental phantoms that people seem to be “aware’ of but can’t consciously define. If they could, maybe they could consciously embrace their ghosts.

HOST : They wouldn’t be paranoid?

PAMELA : Paranoia, schizophrenia, depression, simple anxiety, they’re not all rooted in fear of a police-state or somebody listening in on their phone-calls.

HOST : It’s just the human condition?

PAMELA : It seems to be.

HOST : You think this is a natural condition?

PAMELA : You think humanity is not a natural evolution?

HOST : As a matter of fact——-

PAMELA : ———-You think what distinguishes us from animals is paranoia, depression etcetera? Not ingenuity or inventio? Technology?

HOST : But where did that come from? The stars? One night some hairy Neanderthal bi-ped just looked up into the sky and decided they could twinkle too!? Radiate into eternity. we are the world and here’s Bono to prove it!!!? Maybe if I just rub these two stones together I can make a spark…Hey, presto, fire, steam, electricity, nuclear fission! Baby-steps at first, food, shelter, self-defense, then great adult clompings all over this natural earth! I can grab this planet by the gridlock, blow it up if I so choose, teach them heavens a lesson they may never remember, put them puny stars to shame———-

PAMELA : ——-Are you clomping all over it?

HOST : Am I the world?

PAMELA : That’s one theory.

HOST : I mean. if it came from the earth, wouldn’t worms be more evolved than humans? When did we consciously decide we weren’t put here to just blend in? Pharmaceuticals! We create problems then solve ‘em, with side-effects, more problems…Where is it taking us, to Mars? At what cost?

PAMELA : The cost of living?

HOST : You don’t think we’ll be taking the same problems to Mars?

PAMELA : I’ve never been to Mars.

HOST : Have you ever thought you might be going insane?

PAMELA : I’ve thought some people would prefer insanity to having to take care of their own needs.

HOST : So people who can’t take care of their own needs….

PAMELA : They’re either seriously sick disabled, or lazy…If they’re not babies or geriatrics. If their bodies are sick, they need to see a doctor. If their minds are sick, maybe I can help them… Do you think you have a sick mind?

HOST : If I do, you’re not helping me.

PAMELA : I didn’t realize you just wanted a free session.

HOST : Let’s talk about pharmaceuticals… I assume you prescribe lots of pharmaceuticals.

PAMELA : As a last resort. You’d be amazed how many people just need somebody to talk to…Freely…Without fear of consequences…

HOST : Except a bill through the mail?

PAMELA : We pay for entertainment, we pay for food and shelter, some people pay for sex, some people deem it worthwhile to pay for somebody to talk to…Freel;y.

HOST : Without consequences.

PAMELA : Without judgment or recrimination.

HOST : You think talking can alter their consciousness?

PAMELA : I think anything can alter your consciousness. Without pharmaceuticals. Without preaching.

HOST : You think I’m preaching?

PAMELA : I think you’re trying to tell people what they should or shouldn’t believe. I don’t think you can do that.

HOST : Isn’t that what the government and the media are trying to do all the time?

PAMELA : And you’re just joining in the fray. It’s “your” truth, a mediated truth. People need to decide their own truth for themselves.

HOST : Not easy when you’re being bombarded by so-called popular culture.
PAMELA : I didn’t say it was easy. But revelations don’t always come through hard work.

HOST : I’m just imparting an alternative point-of-view.

PAMELA : I think you’re trying to provoke a revelation. Isn’t that what preachers do?

HOST : I’ve never said I know what the truth is. I have said that sometimnes I feel I’ve been lied to.

PAMELA : You “feel”?

HOST : And I thik I’ve been lied to! I believe I’ve been lied to. I am “aware” that I’m being lied to. I look at the objective evidence.

PAMELA : The “objective evidence” is all around us!

HOST : But a lot of it doesn’t make sense.

PAMELA : Every case is a separate case.

HOST : Too mant nut-casesaround at the moment.

PAMELA : And I’m sure some people would consider you just one of them! You’ve heard the cliché, all psychiatrists must be crazy otherwise they wouldn’t want to be around crazy people all the time. And all surgeons are sad-masochists. All purveyors of pharmaceuticals either sheisters or aliens determined to derange the human DNA…

HOST : Make them slaves to pharmaceuticals!

PAMELA : Or slave to conspiracy theorists?

HOST : Did I bring up the aliens?

PAMELA : Have you never felt alienated?

HOST : I’ve never felt like I’ve come from another planet. have you? I have felt somebody has re-written my history to suit their own needs.

PAMELA : Your history?

HOST : The history I was taught. Do you really think the rich have ever given a damn about the poor?

PAMELA : I’ve heard it said that conspiracy theories are only for losers, who need to believe the odds were always stacked against them, they had no chance from the get-go.

HOST : Wouldn’t that be because the winners are obviously in on the conspiracy? they’;re more interested in making sure it’s covered up.

PAMELA : Give me the strength…and the serenity…

HOST : A recipe for apathy?

PAMELA : Wise words.

HOST : They came for the Jews…Now they’re coming for everybody…. Though apparently a lot of ‘them” are Jews themselves….

PAMELA : meanwhile you sit on your soap-box and throw suds in everyone’s eyes?

HOST : It’ll either blind ‘em or rinse out the laundering! Maybe take a closer look at their assumptions? You’re either with ‘em or against ‘em?

PAMELA : I’m not against anybody.

HOST : Not even the alines? Have you ever had contact?

PAMELA : With aliens?

HOST : Not some secret abduction where you remember nothing but some vague anal probing, but a real dialogue, while you were conscious…?

PAMELA : have you?

HOST : As a matter of fact…You think if they can create Star Wars in 3-D, clone sheep and build robots they can’t create aliens? That look like we’ve been prepped to imagine aliens look like, and behave like we might expect aliens to behave….Implant a memory chip in your consciousness so you genuinely believe you yourself are an aline or at least being attacked by one! You think the whole of history isn’t just one conspiracy after another…Those who are so much smarter and more ruthless than the average Joe…And I’m not talking “silly season” or “fear-factor” or controversial late-night radio and TV chat-show provocations… Didn’t our President, that devout Christian Ronny Reagan once suggest it would at least unite humanity against a “common enemy”…We’d all simply revert to our monkey-minded ‘survival of the species”…. Not that I believe evolution isn’t as riddled with non-science as anything in the scriptures…

PAMELA : If aliens are in fact among us, inter-stellar trans-dimensional beings with access to technologies we’ve hardly dreamed of yet…If they had wanted to destroy us we would already have been packed off into ancient history in some extra-terrestrial memory-bank… So I’m trusting, like myself, they have chosen to give humanity ninety-nine percent of the doubt, that ninety-nine percent of humans are basically good, peace-loving people who just want to do a job well and earn a living for themselves and their family. And it’s my job to help ourselves stay at least ninety-nine percent sane…

HOST : Even though ninety-nine percent of the world seems to be operating under lunacy?

PAMELA : I’d dispute your mathematics…

HOST : At the mercy of demagogues, snake-oil salesmen, war and fear-mongering psychopaths!

PAMELA : Are we clearing the air here or just muddying the waters? You know why they call us “shrinks”? because we try to help people turn their mental mountains into molehills…that we can all overcome…

HOST : maybe I need to call my father and apologize…?

PAMELA : Maybe he needs you to need to call him. It’s a question of who is going to make the first move.

HOST : The aliens, the psychopaths or the average-Joe good guys?

PAMELA : Are you ready to make a conscious decision? Or are you just going to keep talking and talking for the rest of your life?

HOST : You think I should go volunteer at a soup-kitchen? You don’t think there’s a conspiuracy to humiliate at least fifty of the ninety-nine percent? Poverty can play havoc with your self-esteem.

PAMELA : Who knows, humility may most impress the aliens. But a theory with no practical purpose, consciousness without action, a bit of a limp lettuce! Every act should be a revelation. Every revelation should seed new action.

HOST : So what about monks mediatating on top of a mountain? Praying for peace? By emptying their mind?

PAMELA : Have you ever tried meditating? It’s hard work. very consciously undertaken.

HOST : Is that the ultimate revelation, that we can be uttery unconscious and not be actually dead?

PAMELA : They’re not comatose. Have you ever been in the presence of someone who is meditating, not just working towards it?

HOST : In a state of bliss? Nirvana? Completely off the rat-race map?

PAMELA : Some advanced yogi can actually levitate, even transform themselves into pure light.

HOST : You’ve seen this?

PAMELA : I’ve read about it, from credible——-

HOST : ——-And who does it enlighten, them, you, us…Or just people who can’t take the heat and need to get out of this kitchen?

PAMELA : It’s a conscious choice. Are you judging it?

HOST : I’m questioning its’ value to the rest of us.

PAMELA : Charging the batteries. How do you charge your batteries? Caffeine? Alcohol? Nicotine? Cocaine? The quick fix? In the long-term depleting your batteries. You could equate meditation with solar-power. Completely sustainable. If even one person in this world can attain peace of mind…

HOST : But they do grow old and die. Well=prepared for bliss, no doubt…

PAMELA : They’ve lost nothing because they know they had nothing to lose really and all eternity to gain. The body, pretty much a computer with a shelf-life for obsolescence. But the consciousness lives on forever.

HOST : The empty consciousness?

PAMELA : If you believe space is really all there is, the universe random particles essentially inert but occasionally sparked into life, roused to action…

HOST : By what, the fingering of God?

PAMELA : It’s a mystery to me. But fascinating.

HOST : So you think it’s all in the mind?

PAMELA : If I personally choose to go to the moon, it will not be in a rocket. You control your own mind, otherwise you’re an alien even in your own world. When you have no doubt that what you are experiencing is the whole universe.. And you’re a slave neither to superior or psychopathic forces. It’s the doubts will put chains around your neck. You cannot be fully conscious and have doubts.

HOST : And the sub-conscious?

PAMELA : Needs to be un-sublimnated. Or that will fall easy prey to anybody who chooses to tap into it.

HOST : We’re running out of time…One last question, Dr. Sledge…Do you think Freud changed the world for the better?

PAMELA : Do you feel any better for it?

HOST : (pause) Maybe it’s my mother I need to call… And on that note, I’d like to thank my guest, Pamela M. Sledge MD, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and psychotherapist, for joining me here on YSR…For offering us a free introductory session…

PAMELA : My pleasure…

HOST : And to all those extra-terrestrials out there who might be listening, please, bear with us, we’re not as bad as you might think. Don’t judge the palm-tree for fruiting a few bad coconuts! This is your host, me, whoever or whatever I am, wishing the whole universe a very good night….And sweet dreams!!!!

(MUSIC : Jim Reeves “Welcome to my World”)