Posted on January 24, 2011 - by David

Jared Loughner’s Language, Logic, and Lucid Dreams

Of the various writings, videos, and recollections of teachers, classmates, and former friends with which we are left to piece together a picture of Jared Loughner’s mind before the shooting, the most intelligible is a poem titled ‘Meat Head’ that he wrote for one of his classes at Pima Community College last fall.

Meat Head

Awaking on the first day of school
Pain of a morning hang over
Attending a weight lifting class for college credit
Attempting to exercise since freshmen year of high school
Crawling out of bed and walking to the shower
Warm water hitting my back
Eureka

Thoughts of being promiscuous with a female again
Putting on a old medium red tee shirt, light brown cameo shorts, and black Adidas
For breakfast a glass of water, cold pepperoni pizza, and two Advil
Bringing my Nano Ipod with heavy metal music
Taking the local bus on a overcast morning
Waiting with crack heads after their nightly binge
Bus is cheap, two dollars for a ride anywhere in the city
Sitting in back against a hard plastic seat
Staring at stop lights, brand new cars, and graffiti
Coming to a slow halt in front of the school
Entering the gym as the glowing florescent lights are humming
Next to the treadmills, putting a green foam mat on the ground
Stretching for fifteen minutes, loosening the muscles in my legs, back and arms
Cleaning the mat with anti-bacterial spray and a paper towel
Jogging for ten minutes, my heart beating, beating, beating
Pain in my right side of the last minute of twenty
Looking around, the cute women are catching my eye
Probably waiting for their hot boyfriends wandering in the locker room
All the men are in shape with their new white tank shirts, basketball short, and Nike shoes
Confusing look on my face of no idea what to do
Deciding to copy other men’s routines of
Arm Curls, Leg presses, Rows, Squats, Military something’s, and Isolated whatever’s
65 minutes
Leaving the gym thinking
Waiting for the bus with alcoholics that are going to the bars early
Coming home for another shower
While grabbing the white towel, the eureka moment is lingering
Quick nap and lunch is on my mind
Setting the alarm one hour before getting ready for my next class
Getting into bed

Falling asleep

The title already suggests a problematic identity; (for any who might not know), ‘meathead’ is a derogatory term for jocks, muscular men, athletes, etc., but the poem focuses on Loughner’s own time in the gym, so he is criticizing himself? He has been “attempting to exercise since freshmen year of high school,” (this “attempting” implies a lack of success), and yet the title and tone suggest he sees himself as different from, and possibly somehow superior to, those working out around him. He has trouble looking the part, as his gym clothes are mismatched and worn out (“old medium red tee shirt, light brown cameo [probably meant camo] shorts, and black Adidas”) while the others “are in shape with their new white tank shirts, basketball short, and Nike shoes.” Not only does he feel like he looks out of place, he’s not sure how to act (“confusing look on my face of no idea what to do”), so he ends up “deciding to copy” what others do. It seems Loughner relates his lack of romantic or sexual involvement with the opposite sex to his inability to be like these other men, and while there is clearly an element of sexual tension in the poem, I don’t think it is as simple as Loughner being some kind of sex-crazed pervert. In fact, a MySpace posting from November 17^th (“It hurts to have been never sexually active at 22!”) reveals that it is not so much a lack of sexual activity that is the problem, but his consciousness that in this society, a 22-year old virgin would probably be deemed abnormal. The people Loughner connects himself to most closely are the “crack heads” and “alcoholics” with whom he waits for the bus, and even this mention of public transportation seems another to reflect upon his inadequacy – he notes the contrast as he views “brand new cars, and graffiti” from his “hard plastic seat” on the “cheap” bus.

When read, ‘Meat Head’ is more depressing than disturbing, especially if one forgets for a moment who wrote it. But apparently the style of his presentation in class didn’t quite match the overall flatness of the poem. According to Don Coorough, a classmate who provided copies of two of his poems to the media, Jared “had the poem memorized, and he stood up in class and performed it with great drama — at one point, grabbing his crotch.” This performance, along with his inappropriate emotional responses to others’ poems (he laughed and joked as a tearful female student read a poem about abortion), contributed to the complaints which resulted in his suspension from Pima.

Another poem, ‘Dead as a dodo,’ may be an attempt to paint an allegorical scene, though it’s anyone’s guess who the dodo is (is it Loughner? Giffords?) or what the other objects, creatures, and movements might symbolize.

Dead as a dodo

On the island of Mauritius a heavy storm is leaving.
In the fields of the ancient wild forest a wild field of mushrooms is growing.
Snails and grasshoppers are ready for the warmth.
The old grass growing with lizards are jolting for crickets while snakes looking for lonely mice.
Falcons are flying for pray.
Shallow light Blue Ocean shimmering at each wave as the black clouds are rolling.
Waves are lapping.
Fisherman on the reefs are casting their poles.
In warm water a pack of clown fish are floating.
Tiger sharks are swimming free.
Steel drums beating in the distance.
The full moon slowly setting for the sun is rising.
At the local cemetery there is weeping.
The dodo is finally dieing.

But one wonders, why was this kid taking a poetry class when the unanswered question which proved nearly fatal for Rep. Giffords was, “what is government if words have no meaning?” His friends, at 4:06 in the video below, describe Jared’s obsession with what he perceived as the meaninglessness of language:

“He was obsessed with how words were meaningless, you know, you could say, “oh, this is a cup,” and hold a cup, and he’d be like, “oh, is it a cup? or is it a pool? is it a shark? is it an airplane?”

While his friends, and others since the shooting, have interpreted these statements as nonsensical, he is on to something very real here, despite his difficulty in expressing it: Jared realized that words, as symbols, are arbitrary, given their meaning by the history of their (socially agreed upon) use. There is nothing in the physical composition of the object we call a “cup” that makes us use that sound and those letters to refer to it, and for Jared this arbitrariness was equal to unreality. This fact of culture, overlooked or taken for granted by most, seems to have been both exhilarating and terrifying for Loughner; exhilarating because it meant there was no good reason why he should be constrained by social conventions, and terrifying because he was, in fact, constrained – someone or something else was “controlling the grammar.”

In addition to discovering the arbitrary nature of symbols, Jared senses the importance of logic in our culture,  and his attempts to make sense of his reality rest largely on a series of if-then syllogisms like those in the video above. He seems to think that by formulating his delusional beliefs, (which he takes as facts), into logical statements, he has proven these beliefs true to his (at the time he made the videos, probably imagined, but now very real) “listener.”

Of course, since the premises themselves are faulty, nearly all of Jared’s syllogisms fail, except perhaps the following:

All humans are in need of sleep

Jared Loughner is a human

Hence, Jared Loughner is in need of sleep

If we consider what Loughner does (or tries to do) when he sleeps, our image of him becomes even more interesting: according to his friends, Jared was an enthusiastic practitioner of lucid dreaming. His own writings refer to “conscience dreaming” by which he presumably meant “conscious dreaming” (another term for lucid dreaming. Apparently, he preferred the dream world to waking world, feeling a greater sense of freedom and control while asleep.

Examined in the light of Liah Greenfeld’s hypothesized mental processes, Jared Loughner’s struggle to determine his own reality demonstrates fundamental problems with his Identity which manifested in problems with the Will. But one of the most important questions – from a legal standpoint at least – will be whether or not Loughner fully understood and was in control of his actions when he opened fire on January 8th. The evidence indeed suggests this was a willful act – planned ahead of time, and executed according to plan, so how do we reconcile this with the image of a deranged mind? In my next post on the subject, I’ll look at how Loughner’s delusional beliefs and other psychotic symptoms fit into existing definitions of mental illness, and consider what this might tell us about Jared’s mindset the moment he pulled the trigger.