david lynch

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David Lynch, untitled (los angeles), 1979, archival silver gelatin print, 11 x 14 inches, copyright and courtesy of the artist

David Lynch, untitled (factory photos), copyright and courtesy of the artist

interview

by ALEPH MOLINARI

portrait by LYKKE LI

 

To artist and filmmaker David Lynch, magic isn’t limited to the silver screen. It envelops everything around us and within us, uncreated and eternal. It takes us back to the unified field of consciousness.

 

ALEPH MOLINARI — It’s a pleasure to meet you, David. I have to tell you that I grew up with your drawings and photographs because you had an exhibition at OMR gallery in the 1980s, and my mother bought a lot of your work. So, they were part of my imaginative world before your films.

DAVID LYNCH — Where was this gallery?

ALEPH MOLINARI — It was in Mexico City. I think you were shooting Dune at the time.

DAVID LYNCH — I was shooting Dune, absolutely.

ALEPH MOLINARI — This issue of Purple is about magic. It’s about transformation, about seeing the invisible and reconsidering the paradigms of reality. In many ways, your films embody the magical, the surreal, and the dreamlike, and they always propose alternate worlds. Do you see cinema as a form of magic?

DAVID LYNCH — Absolutely. In a way, it is. Magic can be something that is unusual or rare, and it has qualities that are quite extraordinary — magical qualities. And cinema has the ability to create other worlds that people can go into, where they can have experiences. So, it’s really a wonderful, magical medium.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Yes, and it’s a medium that you use in a meta way because in your films, there’s always a dream within a dream. And this is what gives that uncanny feeling to cinema and to your films.

DAVID LYNCH — Well, I don’t know. It’s always in the eye of the beholder. If there are a hundred people in a theater watching the same film, there’s going to be a hundred different takes on that film. Maybe some are very similar, but the more abstract the film is, the more widely different those takes are. It’s just amazing. The same film, viewed by many different people, will get many different reactions. And that’s another way film is magical.

ALEPH MOLINARI — In the sense of opening a multiplicity of frames of perception for different people… I’m also interested in how you built this Lynchian world because there’s a very particular American surrealism and eeriness to your cinema. Is it because you feel that America, in a way, has an eerie or occult quality to it?

DAVID LYNCH — I don’t think about things like that unless I get ideas. And I always say that’s another magical thing: where do ideas come from? Everybody would love to get great ideas, but how do you do it? Where do they come from? How do you catch them? It’s been my experience that many ideas are conjured up for me by the world. I could just be going down the street, and an idea will pop into my head. I don’t even know what conjured it up. Or you could read a story or get an idea from a newspaper. There are ideas around every corner, and once in a while you catch a great idea from one medium or another. I always say that you can get ideas for cinema, for furniture, for music, for all kinds of things. And so, how do you catch these ideas? That’s the trick.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Yes. In that sense, Jeff Wall says that his best photographs are the ones he doesn’t take, the ones he sees on the street, that he then thinks about and reproduces elsewhere. So, it’s about what unfolds and detonates an idea. For you, meditation is very important in that process, and you’ve been doing it for decades in a very disciplined way. Do you see Transcendental Meditation as a magical practice that can bring about that creativity?

DAVID LYNCH — Absolutely. If people really understood what was going on in our world — especially at the very depth of our world — they would grab onto Transcendental Meditation and not let go. Transcendental Meditation is a technique that’s easy and effortless, and it allows anyone to dive within. And this within is not higher or lower. It’s within, within, within. I’ll give you an example. Scientists first started looking into matter, and they found cells. Then they went deeper, and they discovered molecules. Imagine the day they discovered these molecules — holy jumping George, what’s going on?! And then they discovered atoms even deeper, and down below subatomic particles, all the way down to the elementary particles, the smallest particles in manifestation. And beyond that, they called it the unified field — the unity of all the particles and all the forces of manifestation and creation. And even scientists say that everything comes from this field, in a process of spontaneous, sequential symmetry breaking, implying that this unified field is perfect symmetry.

ALEPH MOLINARI — And how would you describe this unified field?

DAVID LYNCH — This field has always and forever been there. It has never not been there. It is eternal and uncreated. It’s a field of pure consciousness. And there’s another saying: “Consciousness alone is.” When you dive within, you can reach this field, this ocean of pure consciousness. And every time you transcend and experience this field, you enliven it. You infuse it, and you start growing more and more consciousness: that ball of consciousness that you had to start with will grow and grow the more you transcend. Now, there are qualities to consciousness. Consciousness is unbounded intelligence, creativity, happiness, love, energy, power, and peace — all positive. Imagine diving within and experiencing unbounded creativity. Unbounded intelligence is there. Unbounded happiness is there. As a side effect of experiencing this pure consciousness, negativity starts to lift away.

ALEPH MOLINARI — What, in your experience, has been the most effective way of encouraging people to take this inner dive? Because it seems to me that it’s urgent for us to wake up and tap into these inner sources.

DAVID LYNCH — Absolutely, Aleph. This technique is for the world. Why? Because, as Maharishi said, the times demand it. This world is getting pretty scary, and we want to get things straightened out and stop this suffering and this ridiculous behavior. So many people are not happy and are suffering to one degree or another. We could have a world where people are happy and super creative. Inventions could come that could make life fantastic and we could be enjoying life, being kind and helping one another. Every human being has full potential, and this is called enlightenment, which means that you’ve unfolded all this consciousness; you’ve unfolded totality. You enjoy total fulfillment and liberation for the first time in your life. You feel freedom. Bliss beyond the beyond.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Do you think that magical and spiritual practices throughout history are interpretations of this unified field?

DAVID LYNCH — Everything that is comes from the unified field. So, in that sense, all the different techniques and practices come from that field. I remember Maharishi saying something about Paramahansa Yogananda, who brought Kriya Yoga and wrote The Autobiography of a Yogi. Maharishi said, “Yogananda brings the airplane method, and I bring the rocket ship method.” So, Transcendental Meditation is like being put on a super fast lane to enlightenment. People think it’s very difficult because in the past hundreds of years in India, it was thought that to be a serious seeker, you had to go to a cave and renounce everything. No, this practice is for the householders, the people who work, the creatives. You meditate 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the afternoon. The rest of the time, you just go about your business and watch things get better and better.

ALEPH MOLINARI — When did you start practicing Transcendental Meditation, and how much time did it take for you to crystallize it into a daily practice?

DAVID LYNCH — I started on July 1, 1973 at about 11 in the morning, and I’ve been meditating twice a day since then. I’ve never missed a meditation in 50 years. I took it seriously from day one. The most we can do as human beings is to dive within and bring out our full potential.

ALEPH MOLINARI — The problem is that the world today is pushing completely against that. Meditation is seen as an anti-industrial activity. It’s a pause that people are not willing to take. And today with social media, it’s getting even more difficult for people to get away from their phones and this whirlpool of information that is destabilizing the connection between the body and the mind.

DAVID LYNCH — Absolutely. It’s exactly what you said. The world is going faster and faster. I equate it with waterskiing. When you go very fast on water skis, it keeps you on the surface. If the boat slowed down, you would start sinking down into the water. So, it’s very important to slow down and get down in there. If people understood the benefits, they would do it. And it’s not a religion. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Catholic or a Buddhist or you follow Muhammad. No matter the walk of life, the skin color, politics, or religion — baloney! It’s for all human beings. We all have this nervous system, which is built for transcending, and here’s a technique that just utilizes the human nervous system. Then you can go back to this fast-paced world, but you have greater power. When you come back out, you’ll leave all those non-meditators behind. They’ll wish they’d started when you started. Stress and negativity can really hurt your work. It leads people to do strange things, like take drugs or hurt others. It’s very dangerous, this stress, and what it makes a human being do. Dive within to get rid of the stress, clean the machine, and bring in the gold of happiness, creativity, intelligence, peace.

ALEPH MOLINARI — So, it’s a technique but also technology because it’s built into our system. In a way, is this the ultimate act of magic — to take that deep dive and connect with this unified field?

DAVID LYNCH — Absolutely. That’s exactly right. It’s a technology of consciousness, and it’s magical what it does for the human being. Magical.

ALEPH MOLINARI — And do you find that meditation has changed the way you create art, the way in which ideas and creativity well up from within?

DAVID LYNCH — I didn’t really change in that way so much. What I found in doing TM is happiness in the doing. I just got happier inside. And I’ve found that if you don’t have this bubble of happiness inside, you can really be in trouble. You are just going to suffer. But if you start meditating, you get this bubble of happiness growing. Your boss is yelling at you, and it becomes almost funny to you. You see this yelling almost as a sign of weakness, and you even start feeling sorry for your boss. You may even go and give your boss a big hug and say, “Settle down, everything’s okay.”

ALEPH MOLINARI — What about mantras? These are sounds and vibrations, and in a way, they become keys to tap into inner realms.

DAVID LYNCH — There are many forms of mantra meditation, and the mantra is very specific. It has to be life-supporting at every level as you go deeper. It’s the key that opens the door to the deepest level. It’s like a little boat that’ll float you right to the door. And in the boat, there’s a little gold key that will open the door to the transcendent, to that ocean of pure consciousness. And it works.

ALEPH MOLINARI — There are also many artists whose creative energy is rooted in trauma or based on expressing “darker” emotions, and sometimes they create beautiful things in the process. And they’re not willing to let go of that.

DAVID LYNCH — Well, there are two different kinds of anger. There’s being very strongly against something you consider bad. Righteous anger, that’s fine. But bitter, selfish, anger… No one wants to be around that kind of person. They are poisoning themselves and the environment. Maybe it goes into their work, but that person could be happy inside and do even better work. People who are depressed or angry don’t feel like creating. Some people might say: “I won’t have any edge. I’m an artist. I don’t want to do some fucking thing that everybody else does. I want to do my own thing, and I want to keep my edge. So, you guys can go off and do your TM, but I’m going to do this fucking thing.” And they just go on like that — peachy keen, but they’re missing the whole thing. This field within is for the angry person, too. It’ll help so much in all the things we want help in. You won’t get writer’s block, your ideas will flow, happiness and creativity will grow. And it’s an inner peace. It’s like you can just roll with the flow way more easily.

ALEPH MOLINARI — Can you imagine what society would be like if everybody meditated for 20 minutes a day?

DAVID LYNCH — Completely.

END