The state of our collective unconscious

[thelerner]

I was writing about dreams and how mine were influenced by the movies and shows I watch.  I realize I'm hooked on some pretty dark shows, like HBO's Game of Throwns, HBO's West World.  I just started watching Stranger Things on Netflix.

 

These are all very dark paranoid shows.  They say there's a part of our consciousness that can't tell fiction from fact.  If so, watching some of these ultra violent shows, like West World and Game of Thrones can't be good for my and perhaps societies collective unconscious. 

 

These types of shows aren't anything new, but the quality of them, and there graphic, often shocking nature probably is.  Take Game of Thrones, good guys bite the dust more often and painfully then the bad.  Woman, children even babies aren't safe. 

 

For all that, West World might be darker, with its paranoid musing on free will.  We see the past(?) good guy rape his first love, and murder woman and children just to explore his bad side.  Older shows on regular TV could certainly be violent, but rarely created the deeper attachments that these shows do over there long costly (West World episode 1, $25 million!) runs  There is an emotional depth to these shows, especially once your hooked. 

 

I don't think such shows are part of a conspiracy, rather they're giving us what we want.  Yet they're also costing us our.. well.. innocence.  On some level these shows affect our collective subconscious. 

[Miffymog]

There is so much thought that is put into these programs in order to make them as addictive as possible. There is not one word, shot, or intimation that is unconsidered. Teasing/playing/flirting with the darker sides of our personality is a very effective way to entice us. That mild adrenaline rush as we watch a particular scene – completely contrived and very deliberate.

 

Your higher self has identified it and is telling you something ...

[Brian]

Until a few years ago, I would have chalked up the pattern you describe as merely motivated by a quest for commercial success but I now recognize it as a superficial manifestation of a deeper concern. It's an ancient song with many verses, sung in rounds. Not a conspiracy in the conscious sense but darkness feeds on darkness.

[Jetsun]

The violence has become much more graphic in recent years, programmes like Narcos and Got have amazing stories but really graphic explicit violence. People must enjoy and get off on it, seems to have got worse since the "Saw" films were so successful.

[Marblehead]

I don't watch them and wouldn't even if someone asked me to.  IMO they are counter-productive.

[3bob]

"train wrecks" so to speak are not so easy to look away from.

[thelerner]

Yet its not without merit.  Take West World which I considered 'worse'.  Its well done and entertaining.  Much graphic violence and gratuitous nudity but it also has its share of philosophical gems. 

 

Few shows have you questioning the nature of human consciousness; what is free will, what is freedom, like West World.  In its sophistication it doesn't allow easy answers, few are totally good or bad.  For all its violence there is, imo a sympathy for all.   

 

Karma is at work, violent delights do lead to violent ends, but there is a deeper theme that for hosts and guests, the true path is finding your Real Self and being fully aware.  And the key to awareness comes from solving the maze by going inside.