{"id":2047,"date":"2021-10-23T09:22:58","date_gmt":"2021-10-23T08:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/?p=2047"},"modified":"2026-06-13T08:11:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T07:11:06","slug":"the-jokes-told-in-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/2021\/10\/23\/the-jokes-told-in-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jokes told in Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Kandersteg\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Previous post: Heaven<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was sitting at a table of a sidewalk caf\u00e9 restaurant with a friend. This was on an impeccably clean and bright traffic-less street. Many of my heavenly dreams look like Switzerland, and for the obvious reason. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where my memory starts, there was a single carrot stick on my otherwise clean plate. A waiter, who looked like American comedian Stephen Colbert, came by, and after taking note of my plate, used a very fine brush to carefully apply salad dressing along its entire length. I said, “Merci beaucoup.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I then ate the carrot stick. My friend said, “But the salad dressing here is awful!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I said, “Yes, but the service is excellent.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is a joke that is funny only in a heaven, and it speaks volumes about what a heaven is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I write about heavens, it’s not any religious heaven. It’s a state of awareness and the dreams that go with it. Read on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a later dream, I was in an office when Stephen Colbert approached me again. He said, “I’ve been working on some comedy skits, and I was wondering whether you’d like to contribute.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was greatly flattered and agreed to take a look at his binder. After reading the first skit quickly, I set it aside, but then picked it up again in disbelief. “Do I understand this correctly?” I asked. “A woman is giving a press conference because she was kicked off a train for not having a ticket?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yes,” he replied. “I think it’s really funny.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay. Still not clear?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the night of this dream, many dreams did not take place in a heaven. We were witnesses of other places and periods of history. For example, we watched a scene in which SS<\/a> officers were conducting a column of prisoners along a war-damaged street in a small town. For reasons we couldn’t make out, one of the prisoners was shot. Almost immediately, a group of partisans descended on the column, rounded up the officers, and executed them in a small alley. Then we left. What was that about? Read on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dreamt of a young European man, perhaps 23, well-built with short black curly hair. The setting was some North African country in the 1920s. I remembered him from an earlier dream. I was a disembodied observer following him through his daily life. He had passed through a bustling and filthy street market before returning to a small flat. I cannot remember that dream now, only that I remembered it in the later dream. In the latter, he was stripped naked by some religious fanatics wearing white gowns. His hands and feet were bound and he was made to lie on a white sheet. There, he was whipped. He did not cry out. I felt distressed at the sight, and suddenly found myself physically present in the dream. I was trapped. I could not return to the last heaven in my current state of distress. I had to force myself awake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The jokes told in a heaven are less mysterious when you understand that a heaven is one kind of dream of many possible dreams, and people are free to choose. A heaven is special not because of its inaccessibility — quite the opposite. It is actually the default dream. If you think it isn’t, ask yourself why you think it isn’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine a theme park with different theme tents. For example, you look inside one tent, are struck in the face with a creme pie, and in retaliation, you pick up a creme pie and throw it at your assailant. You are so insulted and enraged that you do not notice that it is a pie-throwing tent. You were struck not because of who you are or what anyone thinks of you; it is merely the theme of the tent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are other tents. There is a fascism tent, a domestic abuse tent, a fast-food job tent, and so on. Each time, you are curious, then offended, or annoyed, or moved to empathy \u2014 some emotional reaction that draws you inside and which makes you forget the outside. It becomes your reality. Whatever enrages, disgusts, or arouses you, does capture your attention, and you’re in. You’ve forgotten you’re in because being out is irrelevant to what has captured your attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In between tents, some people are making jokes about the people inside the tents. That’s Heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Photo credit<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heaven has its own humor. It’s about us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2063,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[108],"tags":[31,118],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2047"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5257,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2047\/revisions\/5257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}