Ever since I have returned to Perth from the UK, I have had occasional dreams that I am back there. Usually the obsession of my mind is transportation in some way, and the fear of losing my luggage, coupled with a secondary reconsideration and indifference about losing my luggage. A couple of nights ago, for instance, I left some of my suitcases, which were full of raw vegetables, on a city bus, because I could only carry two large suitcases full of shopping. I wondered if the bus company would send the other ones on to me, but I concluded that they wouldn't as I hadn't left a forwarding address.

In last night's dream, I turned a corner on the street, towards UWA, which turned out to be Oxford University, New College. The streets were very labyrinthine, so I immediately lost my way upon turning the corner. I got out of the car to ask directions, and I was immediately immersed in the labyrinth, and the mardi gras that was taking place.

I had to join the party -- which had only women in it -- because my car had been taken, by now, and put on a big truck by a big crane. I thought I'd have to pay to get it back, but it was just being removed for the mardi gras.

I was in a room where there were benches to sit, and the women were getting changed. I found some vaseline and started to apply it to my face, and then I thought, "I wonder whose it is, and why I'm doing this?" I found that gravity was pushing me towards the door, as I sat on the bench, and I tried to explain this to the others, but it didn't bother them.

Note on methodology:

My thesis approach is psychological, which may seem at odds with the literalistic nature by which shamans themselves interpret their experiences. However, the differences between the two approaches can be bridged via phenomenology: that is, one experiences the realm defined by pre-Oedipal consciousness as being very literal and direct. Metaphor ( a feature of language) is phenomenologically quite remote when one is experiencing life in this way.

Perhaps contemporary shamanism might be misunderstood as being simply masochistic -- in the way that I had originally been inclined to misunderstand Bataille.

It seems so if one thinks non-dialectically, but not if one thinks otherwise.

Think of any dangerous, extreme sport. From the point of view of the non-participant, these sports appear to be masochistic. I remember when I did about my seventh skydive, I still felt as if I was holding death close to me, like an icicle close to my breast, for the full duration of the 20 minute ascent. Having completed the jump, however, one feels as if one had developed the capacity to see through -- and beyond -- mountains. One has become superhuman.

Shamanism is precisely like this. Like skydiving, it harnesses the death instinct in such a way that all sorts of limits are drawn upon it -- to the point that it is made to enhance the feeling of being alive, rather than to lead towards actual death (except in the case of rare accidents).

Like skydivers some of us may have obtained a blueprint for repeating death-defying experiments with their own psyches -- without dying.

Is it masochistic?

Not at all, in the sense that such activities are thoroughly opposed to submissiveness of any sort.  The opposite is the case.

I would trade blow for blow against any mechanism that was set up to put me in my place, since I have become naturalised to the enjoyment of all sorts of psychological extremes.