EF 6.1: Soul

Feat. The Music of The Moody Blues

“Joe Gardner, where have you been?”

Surely Pixar couldn’t make a more woo-woo movie than 2015’s Inside Out, right? “Hold my glass,” says Writer/Director, Pete Docter. We’re going full astral plane in 2020🦋🔮

Do kids like this movie? I’m curious. Also curious about your experience with Astral Projection. So feel free to skip to that section if you so desire.

The Plot

“I would die a happy man if I got to play with Dorthea Williams.” Says Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), a talented but aloof jazz pianist. Well, Joe, be careful what you wish for.

Just moments after finally being offered his big break, blinded by elation, Joe falls through an open man-hole cover to his death. But from his POV he lands on a deep-space conveyor belt headed for “The Great Beyond,” a blinding star-like energy orb which, depending on your belief system, could be taken to represent either a gateway to heaven, rebirth, or eternal nothingness.

Joe panics, “I don’t wanna die!” Lucky for him, there’s some death wiggle room for those willfully determined to survive. He runs as fast as he can away from the Great Beyond, falls off of the conveyor belt, and lands in “The Great Before,” the place where souls develop before they enter their Earth bodies. From here he will be given a chance to return to his life, but only if he can overcome his greatest challenge yet – Soul #22

“I’m gonna make you wish you never died.”

My two favorite characters in this movie are actually “the bad guys.” The first is Soul #22 (Tina Fey). #22, as in the 22nd soul ever forged, as in she’s been stuck here F-O-R-E-V-E-R. Why? She sees no point in living. And she hasn’t even been here yet! Joe will be tasked with mentoring Soul #22. His job is to help her find her “spark” – something she enjoys about life.

His return to Earth hinges upon her discovering this. But he’s got his work cut out for him, to say the least. She’s already chewed through a laundry list of previous mentors – Failed by the likes of Jung, Ghandi, Copernicus, Muhammed Ali, and Mother Teresa (“I made her cry!😈”) To name a few.

Joe must assist 22, all while evading the tireless investigation of anal-retentive soul-cop, Terry (my other favorite character). Terry knows there’s a dead soul “missing.” And he’ll stop at nothing to find the conveyor-belt jumper-off-er, despite his co-workers roasting him over taking his job a little too seriously.

What is The Astral Plane?

I am confident some of my readers are more familiar with this topic than myself, while other are less so. I am happy to attempt to bridge this divide. The key being, attempt.

The Astral Plane refers broadly to higher dimensions of consciousness (4D, 5D, 6D, and beyond) which contain valuable information about the universe and our place within it. We have all tapped into this ethereal realm at some point in our lives, some of us more frequently than others.

Now, I’ve never been a dis-believer in any of this higher dimension stuff. But at the same time, for most of my life, and even most of the time now, I simply cannot fathom, much less relate to this idea that far more information is available about my world and my social relationships than I can consciously comprehend. And I think the reason for this goes back to the idea of, unless you can see it, how will you know it’s missing?

The Holy Grail of Psychotherapy⏱

Why were Freud and Jung so obsessed with Dreams? Because we are all unconsciously aware of higher dimensional information. This is why it sometimes leaks into our awareness when we dream at night, for instance. And we wake up haunted the next day. The psychologists were trying to tease out of the unconscious the information which would lead to their patients finally understanding the origins of their own suffering.

There’s No Place Like Home👠🌈

Sometimes, if we are focused, and lucky enough, we can consciously experience these higher dimensions while we’re awake. When we do we often have thoughts and feelings associated with revelation or realization.

What sort of realizations? For starters, realizations about you, in relationship to your friends and family, plants and animals and the natural world. Some examples of revelations might be, “it’s not my fault I’m not perfect, and maybe I should be kinder towards myself.” Or, “now I better understand my parents, and I love them and value them.” Or, I really love my friends, siblings, or significant other and I wouldn’t trade the experiences I’ve shared with them for anything in the world.

Having these sorts of revelatory experiences are correlated with lasting positive changes in subjective well being, feelings of greater connection, feelings of gratitude, cessation of addiction, and a myriad of other positive things.

How to access higher dimensions🤹🏽‍♀️

We can consciously access higher dimensions via intentional activities like meditation, lucid dreaming, entering an artistic or athletic flow-state, successful social interaction, or use of marijuana or psychedelics.

HDs can also be accessed unintentionally, when extraordinary events happen to us, such as near death experience, death of a loved one, birth of a child, meeting our favorite celebrity, or close encounter (such as with a wild bear in the woods). Other ways I’m forgetting?

I will leave you with “The Voice” (1981) by The Moody Blues. It’s rock, not jazz bc I wanted to give you a song with lyrics that fits the theme. But Jon Batiste and Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’ soundtrack for this movie is amazing. Well deserving of the Oscar. So check that out too!

E.F.