1 result for (book:sdpc AND heading:"part two chapter 8" AND stemmed:who)
[... 42 paragraphs ...]
He says, ‘I breathe, but who breathes, since consciously I cannot tell myself to breathe or not to breathe?’ He says, ‘I dream. But who dreams? I cannot tell myself to dream or not to dream.’ He cuts himself in half and then wonders why he is not whole. Man has admitted only those things he could see, smell, touch or hear; and in so doing, he could only appreciate half of himself. And when I say half, I exaggerate; he is aware of only a third of himself.
If man does not know who breathes within him, and if man does not know who dreams within him, it is not because there is one self who acts in the physical universe and another who dreams and breathes. It is because he has buried the part of himself which breathes and dreams. If these functions seem so automatic as to be performed by someone completely divorced from himself, it is because he has done the divorcing.
The part of you who dreams is the ‘I’ as much as the part of you who operates in any other manner. The part of you who dreams is the part of you who breathes. This part of you is certainly as legitimate and necessary to you as a whole unit is, as the part who plays bridge or Scrabble. It would seem ludicrous to suppose that such a vital matter as breathing would be left to a subordinate, almost completely divorced, poor-relative sort of a lesser personality.
[... 3 paragraphs ...]
In your quiet unguarded moments, you still say, ‘Who breathes? Who dreams? Who moves?’ How much easier it would be to admit freely and wholeheartedly the simple fact that you are not consciously aware of vital parts of yourself and that you are more than you think you are.
[... 11 paragraphs ...]
Who do I share this image with?
What ghost haunts this house?
I smile and reach for a cup of tea
And motions beyond my will begin.
My fingers move smoothly out
And lift the curving spoon.
With just the proper touch
They pick the china saucer up.
Yet I have nothing to do with this.
Who moves the cup? Who moves?
And while I speak to you, my lungs
Rise and fall behind breastbones,
Fill their secret tissue mouths
With the air that swirls in this bright room.
They breathe for me the very breath
Upon which all I am depends,
Yet I do not know how this is done.
Who is this ghost,
This other one?
Who moves the lung? Who breathes?
While I sleep and lie stretched out,
Eyelids closed and pupils dark,
Who walks wide-eyed downstairs
Through the door in the cold night air,
And travels where I have never been?
Who leaves clear memories in my head
Of people I have never met?
Who takes these trips while I
Never lift one inch from bed?
Who dreams?
The mover, the breather, the dreamer
Shares with me this fond flesh.
He is a twin so like myself
That I cannot recognize his face.
He goes his way and I go mine.
We never meet head-on, and yet
I am aware of this ghost
Behind my every word or act.
Who moves? Who breathes?
Who dreams?
[... 1 paragraph ...]