The sandman: a short story
by Jon Rappoport
September 3, 2015
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Power Outside The Matrix, click here.)
They invited me through the door into the room in the desert.
It was not a place I’d ever visited, and perhaps I’ll never know who they were.
But I was in the room, and there was a man sitting at a steel table. That’s all. The room was white and bare.
This man was looking at me and so I began to speak to him. I don’t remember what I said. I only remember I made every effort to get through.
At moments he seemed to grasp my words, but each time I felt he was on the brink, he looked away and lapsed into his doldrum.
He was in a frozen universe. He was the final and ultimate distracted king of that place. It was all his.
I watched as a series of things happened then. A explosion tore away his castle and lit it on fire. A hand floated through the air and ripped the crown from his head. A tiger approached him and dispensed foul breath into his nostrils.
The man, the king, fell apart. He fell into pieces of plastic flesh that clattered on the floor.
The tiger walked into the wall and through it.
I understood this was my initial introduction to…life on Earth.
I had come from a long distance, and it was meant to inform me of some particular truth.
But what was it?
In those days, I was earnest. I had not yet set myself up in the Western desert as an entrepreneur peddling waking dreams.
In those days, I was looking for the single thing, the clue that would lead me to understand the resident species.
Gradually, in the months after my visit to the room, I began to fathom the lesson. By various means, the residents were turning into bereft creatures. They were involved in a process of emptying out their minds. They were dedicated to this goal, above all others.
They were devotees of the reflex. A thing happens; they respond.
It took me several further years to realize the content of the response made no difference at all.
Ten billion people could pick up a spoon; they could go to war; they could order ice cream.
They were driven to find a sequence in which all would participate.
This, they calculated, was a religion.
And they were arriving at their objective.
One by one, their leaders, who were sure they could remain above the fray, dropped off into the pit below. One by one, they lost their position and joined the rest of humanity.
And in this joining, there was great praise, as if the fall were proof of concept.
As a purveyor of dreams, I had a clear field for my operation.
I set up shop, and I sold them for a mere few dollars. I shaped these dreams—and this is the secret—so they would contain no endings.
They would wind off into murk and fog and cloud and vanishing point.
Living through such a dream would leave a trace in the psyche, a question, a doubt, a disaffection.
A thing to which no reflex would suffice.
It is how a world is born, or reborn.
The subsequent search demands ambition, desire, self-appointed thought, and imagination. From the depths of the swamp, these qualities surface.
My customers are not happy (as they previously defined happiness), but they move, and they learn to pay attention.
Some come to understand that the emergent qualities of the search ARE the goal, and having come back into their possession, they can live again.
They can, each of them, observe the collective reflex in its variations. And each of them can begin to create.
Create what?
New realities without end.
Non-reflexive; limitless.
Of course, I only peddle dreams. I don’t claim to do anything else. I am viewed as a kind of entertainer.
I have my little stand in the lobby of one of the great casinos of the soul, where gamblers lose everything they have, and stumble over to my counter on their way out to the desert.
I don’t call my waking dreams stories, because stories imply a pattern. I avoid patterns because at some point I realized they were boring.
One day a man I’ll call a pit boss came over to me and said he could introduce me to the owner of the casino, a king who could make me famous.
“There’s only one thing,” the pit boss said. “You’ll have to change the content of the dreams. You’ll have to repackage them as Hope. That’s what you need to sell. That’s what we sell, and that’s what people want to buy. It’s our religion. We sell an invisible entity. No one sees it, him, her. But they know the entity is there. They know it because they can’t find the quality of the entity in themselves.”
“Sounds like politics,” I said.
He beamed. “Exactly! Now you’re catching on. Hope is religion is politics. It’s beautiful. It works. It always has. We have a whole lot of front men. They seem to be doing different things, but they’re all doing the same thing. They sell the same thing in different packages.”
I looked at this pit boss very closely. I saw he was made out of steel. It would take a long time for him to decay.
I handed him one of my waking dreams. He looked at it. I heard a soft sputter. Then there was a clanking noise.
“I can’t process this,” he said. “I’m not set up to do it.”
“But maybe,” I said, “the person who designed you can take a look at the dream.”
He shook his head. “Another machine designed me,” he said. “And another machine designed him.”
“How far back do these machines go?” I asked.
“Way, way back. Back to the original machine.”
“Original?” I said.
He nodded. “That’s the ultimate article of faith. A machine that sprang up out of nothing. A miracle.”
He went silent. His eyes froze. He stood there.
He had ceased to function.
A small piece of paper appeared in his hand. I took it. There was a message:
“Hello. I am the president of Consolidated Universal Networks. I think you may have a future in television news. I am always looking for the next great anchor. If you’re interested, just wave your hand and a representative will approach you.”
This happened many, many, many years ago. I’m still here, peddling my waking dreams. It’s interesting work. I’ve yet to experience any symptoms of boredom.
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.
Outside the Reality Machine 
Life is just a never ending giant Soap Opera, where everything is possible.
This is probably why I always like that concept.
When I was a kid, my mother used to read me stories at bedtime. I was never satisfied, I didn’t want it to end. I thought endings didn’t make sense. Life never ended in my mind, so how can a story end? So I always created another episode of the story… a story that would never end. I guess this is how I’ve developed my imagination.
So let’s see the continuation of Jon Story:
What happened to the man in the room in the desert, the King?
“The man, the king, fell apart. He fell into pieces of plastic flesh that clattered on the floor.”
And just like people said about Humpty Dumpty, that:
“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty
Dumpty together again”. They were wrong.
Because, a few centuries later, the King came back on Earth and bumped into a man he felt he once knew, but he couldn’t remember who he was or where he met him. Out of curiosity, he approached him. The man was peddling waking dreams and hand him one. He bought it and left.
He read the brochure, but did not understand it and almost threw it away. But he was a stubborn person, a hard headed man. So he kept it and read it again and again. He read it for 10 years in a row, every night before going to bed. He was determined to find the meaning of it. This brochure tortured him, it intrigued him to the point of almost losing his mind.
Then, one night, out of nowhere, it struck him like a flash of lightning. He understood it perfectly. He started putting it into action and was flabbergasted by the results. So he decided to also become a peddler of waking dreams.
————————–
– Will he have success?
– Will we ever hear again about the Pit Boss?
– What happened to the president of Consolidated Universal Networks?
To find out:
Stay tune for another episode of the most famous Soap Opera of all times
“The Sandman”.
Would make a great story. What crossed my mind while reading..
I can’t watch tv but I’d like to read what happens next. there must be few more episodes about his stubburnness though, of the man that king handed the brochure.
That’s what makes it so stimulating and interesting… it never ends. So why don’t you try yourself to write the next episode? I would surely read it with delight.
If we really think about it, all of us could write episodes till the end of time and never run out of imagination. All outcomes would be welcomed and there are a quadrillion of possibilities. That would be a good way to exercise our imagination and creativity.
Post-Scriptum :
I know a lot of people who scorn soap operas. That’s a mistake.
I have a few friends (men and women) who follow soap operas and I can tell you that they are the friends, which in my opinion, have the most brilliant imagination skills.
That is because everything is possible in soaps. So after listening for a little while, you can’t help it, you start competing with the writer’s imagination. It’s really an interesting challenge. And, not always, but very often, you come out with a better outcome of the present situation than the writers did. Your mind is always creating the next episode… and it is fun to do. It really stimulates your imagination and creativity.
I always wanted to create a soap opera. It’s not the imagination that is lacking, it is the skill to write it, a skill that I don’t seem to have. I could imagine any kind of situation, but I would need some real good skilled writers to write the script.
@ Q
“I know a lot of people who scorn soap operas. That’s a mistake.”
“The medium is the message..” -Marshall McLuhan
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
I didn’t understand one thing that he said. First, his accent is very hard to understand, I missed half of his words.
Second, I’m left with the impression that he said nothing at all except listening to himself. That is the kind of boring lecture I can’t stand. This guy looks like a PHD professor at the University who thinks he’s so smart and knows it all.
Please explain me what he meant or said .. if he ever even said anything meaningful.
The only thing that I understood, is when he said that a football game would have no meaning if the crowd wasn’t there.
Well, I believe it would still have meaning for the players of both teams
It’s almost like if he said movies and books wouldn’t mean nothing if no one read them or watch them. What kind of a reasoning is that?
And what is the relation to my posts? I’m not following you here.
I don’t like soap operas, but I like comedy. Seriously, if we are talking about tv, nothing possibly come out from that light besides comedy.
not scripted but general comedy. Bad guy coming into the room, yelling “what the fuck am I doing with my life, why am I so serious, what is this shit, why all you looking at me, what the fuck I’m outta here man”
What an amazing short story. wow, man..just wow. I’m stunned sitting behind this computer screen here mind full of shapes and forms and concept and content.
I read this quote the other day, thought I might share “Man’s status in the natural world is determined, therefore, by the quality of his thinking.”
“We can only escape from the world by outgrowing the world. Death may take man out of the world but only wisdom can take the world out of the man. As long as the human being is obsessed by worldliness, he will suffer from the Karmic consequences of false allegiances. When however, worldliness is transmuted into Spiritual Integrity he is free, even though he still dwells physically among worldly things.” M. Palmer Hall
waking into a computer terminal, same as the other day..everyday — you will be remembered sandman. You did good.
I want to make a rappaport statue, named sandman. shit. write down to bottom of it “still standing”.. man. my mind is blow with this piece of writing. this is against all science, all thinking, everything. this is pure fucking dope. keep peddling them dreams sandman, dayum
I want to make a Jon Rappaport statue on giza plateau, high, bold eyebrows just like cookie monster in sesame street. Same as his photo on about page at nomorefakenews.com
Does anyone know any good true TI people that are going thru what I am please let me know I need some to talk with thanks
well, hello.. I got a quick question:
what’s a “TI” ?
like some kind of B.A, like in A team, which have been aired in this 3rd world country for some time when I was a kid?
(look, I’m serious)
?
nevermind..what’s a “TI”?
@ Q
Autumn 1932, London, England: Cold grey October day, wind gusting….
I step out of the front lobby doors of the Sandman Castle Inn, put my hands in my overcoat pockets and pulled the long coat closer around me, against the bitter chill of fall wind, the world was getting colder; It had been a long trip by steamer, bedded down in dingy digs, but here I was in London, England three weeks later…standing, waiting…for what?
I stared out into the lane and there on the opposite side of the street was a black government issue Studebaker; in the front seat sat a burly fellow in a long coat and brimmed hat. He casts his eyes sideways through the driver side window at me and gave me the nod to get in. I walked across Alexander Bain lane and entered the back driver side door and fell into the plush red, velour seat.
The seat was warm, like it had been heated under the buttocks of a healthy dame, I slunk into the spot and felt the shudder of the outside cold fall away.
The driver sped off as soon as the car-door *clicked*….travelling at a furious speed, the driver took a right, a fast left, another right followed by two successive rights and five minutes later we arrived at what looked like another hotel.
I peeled my carcass of the warm back seat exclaiming “We’re here!”, the driver nodded and gave me a look from his rear view mirror and in a low, deep raspy accented voice he said…”Room twenty tree”.
I said “Room twenty-three”, he said “Gjess”.
The driver was a foreigner, from Italy or Spain or somesuch place. He had one of those tiny little pencil thin moustaches that curled at the ends…and that look in his eye. That insane look of a foreigner.
I exited the big car an it sped off pulling the cardoor from my hand; a quick right and the car was gone down some quaint back street. Into the cool morning air of England.
I looked up and saw a small sign, squinting I read: Sandman Castle Inn Rear lobby.
“Fuck we’re back were we started..I thought. I flicked my cigarette butt out into the street and pull my coat close and walked into the back lobby.
A few nefarious faces stared back at me, even the bellhop looked like a prize-fighter, I trudged to the elevator and the accordion door opened and I entered the lift.
A dwarf with a red pillbox hat squeezed out “What floor pleez”, and with my back pushed up against the rear of the elevator I said “Twenty-three”.
The midget cranked the handle forward and a sudden jolt and the elevator rose fast and came to a quick stop, squeaky said “Second four, bangwit halls, convention wooms, and our wonderful Sandman Castle Inn gift shrop, Twentyyy threeee is that large room to your wight sir.”…squeeky little…I thought. Another refugee from some foreign place.
I walked out into the large hallway turned to the right and walked up to the double doors of room 23.
I opened the right side of the door and entered the room.
“Professor McLuhan!…come on in sir.” exclaimed a young college type in a three-piece suit. Over the din of the room. “Welcome.” He said, “Can I take your coat and hat, Professor?”
I took off my long coat and walking further into the room… I handed it to him.
The room was filled with men in dark suites, college types, older greying professors with german accents, more refugee types and government men with their cheap government suites.
“Your speaking in one half-hour sir,” quipped the coat-holder “…the title of your lecture will be: The Medium Is The Message, am I correct Professor.”
“Yes..ah..The medium is the…message…um…what is that crowd gather around over there, in the corner” I exclaimed.
Oh that professor is a…Tele-vision”
I squawked “Television?”
“Yes professor, moving pictures…television pictures.”
I walked over to the crowd gather around some…thing… television, I knew not what.
After nudging my way through the crowd I came to the center of it all. There on a table sat a black box with glass front on the box. Black and white images flickered on the surface of the glass front. Silent images of a dancer dancing, then it changed to a horse running and then a man walking. Magically images like at the movies flickered across the screen, first one and then another. I was mesmerized.
A man in the crowd said “Its the newest thing. Twenty years from now they will be all over the world. We can put little plays on it. Little shows to keep them watching it. Operas… and they will change every half hour or so and then another story. And then a new one will start…It doesn’t matter what they see the whole process is about hypnosis.
You see the machine hypnotize people, the images flicker at a certain rate, and the viewer’s brain goes into an alpha wave after about twenty minutes. They lose touch with their critical thinking. The mind doesn’t see anything of significance, and so slips into the alpha rhythm.
And is therefor highly susceptible to suggestion. It works regardless of the images. The images simply keep them watching the screen…stops them from getting bored. The images are irrelevant to the workings of the machine.
Twenty minutes in front of this and you can say anything to them, and they will believe it. It will be a great teaching tool.”
I looked at the speaker and said “It’s not so much the message as the sender that is sent.”
“He exclaimed “Yes…right! That’s exactly right. The sender is sent.”
I looked around the room at the glowing faces watching and listening to what was being said with a glee.
At that very moment the world had changed; it would never be the same from now on. I felt alone in the room.
The message that I carried was more important than anything I had realized before. Was this lecture room interested in my message or were they interested in the messenger. I felt a growing fear take hold of me.
My hypothesis was confirmed today and I understood as the Gutenberg medium had changed medieval man and brought in the church and the monarchy and entrenched in the mind of the individual their absolute control.
The television would change modern man forever.
His thoughts would be thought for him. They would grind up and homogenized and force feed to a public at large anything at all, anything they desired.
Through a mechanical box, a magic box, a magical hypnosis mind box that plays pictures.
I ran the opening line of my lecture through my head.
“The Medium is the Message.”
Sorry for no replying sooner. I just saw your post tonight.
Thank you for the clarification of the Medium is the Message.
No wonder I couldn’t understand it, because, you see, I always listen to my soaps in my bed at night time with my eyes thightly closed. I prefer listening than watching. Watching distracts me, it ruins my concentration. So I guess I never was hypnotized by the flikering images. I even turn my back to the television set to make sure that when I close my eyes it’s completely dark
Same thing with the Alex Jones show, I prefer listening to it than watching it. I retain more of the information by just listening.