Ha ! 'Slackers', 'lazies', 'losers' ...

[Monica]

for all the people who want to stay asleep they need even more, and higher "quality" distractions to remain asleep. The easiest way to distract/entertain is with division and noise be it in the form of killing virtual people, becoming engrossed in the drama of shallow impatient characters, fantasizing about living like a famous musician, etc.

Oh wow, I hadn't thought of it that way! So it really is providing a service to them, if they are choosing to stay asleep.

On the other hand, in the case of good quality movies, etc. in which there is character development, a person might actually process the movie character's experiences as a sort of vicarious catalyst.

Just as we see representations of archetypal energies in real-life characters and characters in great works of literature, so too can we learn from the experiences of well-developed movie characters.

My husband has an uncanny ability to remember, verbatim, dialog from movies he saw 30 or 40 years ago. Sometimes when we are experiencing some situation with a person, he might remember a scene from a movie, and quote the dialog, because it fits the situation perfectly. I was always amazed at his ability to do this, and one day I realized that, to him, those movies had served the purpose of allowing him to experience various situations that he never would have experienced in real life, or, in other cases, reinforced a certain pattern of catalyst. Same with dreams.

I once read a book called Joy's Way which stated that real life, dream time, movies, etc. are all enactments of archetypal energies, and the shaman's way is to view each incident, whether 'real' or in a movie or book, ie. anything that captures our attention, as a catalyst. I found this idea very intriguing and have attempted to apply it in my life.

Surely, spending hours in front of a tv or computer can be an easy way to stay asleep. But, if we pay attention to the archetypal patterns in the movie, game, etc. then it could have some redeeming value.