The Hollow Men, QI, a 90’s rock band and Franz Schubert – a strange journey into my mind.

I have always liked poems and songs working together.

I think a lot of song lyrics are the most beautiful prose and  lot of poems could be made more powerful with music, but what I’m really talking about here is when someone uses a line or two from a poem or play in their music, either to preface it, as a quote or to sum it up.

I was reminded of this the other day when I was listening to a TV program and the host said, “not with a boom but a whimper…” I thought – where’s that from? – It definitely rings a bell, so I hit google.

I quickly found the quote, ‘not with a bang but a whimper’ from T.S. Elliot’s The Hollow Men – a great poem, but not one I had been familiar with. When I got to the last verse it read…

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

There was that bell again, but this time it was the repetition of This is the way the world ends. Where did I know it from. A bit more searching and I found my answer.

There was a band in the 90’s called EMF. They released an album in 1991 called Schubert Dip, which included a track called Longtime. I was a fan at the time, but I probably hadn’t listened to this particular track for over 20 years. Yet here, sparked by a misquote of a poem, I had been drawn back to EMF who had themselves misquoted the poem at the start of one of their tracks. Their quote went

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a band…

Here is the song itself in case you’re interested…

Have a wonderful day, with your wonderful brain, making connections, remembering long forgotten things and generally following your thoughts 🙂

Can you see what you think?

Do you see pictures in your mind?

As a hypnotist, I often ask people to visualise things in their minds eye, but some people have real problems doing this.

Part of this comes down to how we perceive the world.

There are 3 basic categories

Visual – People who connect with the world via images

Audio – People who connect with the world via sound

Kinaesthetic – People who connect with the world via feelings

Understandably, visual types are often the best at ‘seeing’ things in their mind, but anyone can do it.

The trick is to start small.

If you can describe your front door, then the image is in there somewhere.

What colour is your door? Where is the handle and what is it made of? Is there a letter box? Where is it placed? Which way does it open? What do you see when you open your door?

Another thing you might want to ‘see’ is your morning routine – what do you do? What do you see as you do it? What does your bathroom look like?

If you can answer these questions the images are there – you just need to relax and let yourself access them.

When you have a few minutes to relax, just close your eyes and let an image or a colour appear – you can try to manipulate it or you can just let the images flow and see where they take you. The better you get at this, the more you can notice the random images and see what they tell you about what you are thinking.

It’s a bit like dream interpretation – the meanings can be a bit obscure, but they are there.

Which reminds me – if you dream, (which you do, even if you can’t remember them) then you can create images – because that’s how you dream. You see pictures almost as though you are in your own personal movie.

Have fun exploring your subconscious.