the lying mirror

[doug galecawitz]

This my interpretation of the song sweat. Keep in mind that this is merely an interpretation and not the actual meaning. The song most likely does not have an objective and fixed meaning. What it once meant to the writer may not be what it means to the writer now. If you read the disclaimer in my other essays you'll understand my point. That said I'll try to keep this fresh, though it may come off as long winded.

One of the obvious metaphors that came first to me when I heard this as a younger version of myself, was the theme of dreaming within a dream. A kind of multilayered (not unlike the song, and this interpretation) style of thought. The dream within a dream is part of lucid dreaming, where you realize you are inside a dream while dreaming the dream. Fans of Waking Life and The Matrix will understand this principle. This type of thinking can be influenced by drugs (as my early instances of listening to tool were). I remember thinking about how my thoughts raced into ever deeper and interconnected layers when I had taken LSD and mescaline. And recalling this all at a time when I was reading brief history of time, made my thoughts all the more lucid. So the song could be about the use of hallucinogenic drugs or even drugs in general. The idea that you are now experiencing reading MY interpretation of a song that recalls a dream within a dream certainly has all the hallmarks of the pathology of a hallucinogenic drug. that and the fact that the title of the album is Opiate, duh.

All this brings me to another possible meaning in that of the familiarity of all human existence. Who does not know what it means to love, to fear, to lust, to feel hopeless, or hopeful, and to feel one's own self feeling a feeling? This commonality in human existence is familiar to us all despite the fact that we each live seperate subjective lives that resemble each other only superficially when examined in detail. Could the singer be singing about how he hears a song and relates to it, and we as listeners relate?

These cycling thoughts can lead to greater understanding of ourselves and yet they can also be nauseating or can unhinge the fragile hold upon the myth of objective reality that we all must cling to for survival.

But what common experiences do we all have that cause us to sweat, breathe, stare, think, and sink? The breathing and thinking (though it may not always be obvious) are experiences that permeate every living moment of our lives. "I'm breathing so I guess I'm still alive..." and "I think therefore I am" come to mind. What else? Sex is the obvious answer.

During sex breathing is increased in speed and one does begin to sweat. The sinking is could be metaphorical refrence to going "down into" the orifice of one's choice. On the psychological level sex is second only to sustenance for things that the human being attempt to hunt (or fish) in the objective physical world. Perhaps as a few have suggested the meaning of the song could be the search for sex. Or rather the spiritual meaning found through and in sex. The vortex of all human emotion into which we pour most of our creative energies. Again this comes back to that commonality of emotions. Lust is a powerful thing to feel and it can grip the entire human psyche and whip it into a frenzy of fear, excitement, childlike giddy, trauma, lonliness, anxiety, or plain old fashioned romantic love. To contemplate all that sex can give or take from you is enough to make one dizzy. The hunt is the hunt for companionship on a physical and psychological level, to lose one's own identity and become "we". To seek someone to familiarize ourselves with. Seems so familiar. To know. Even the word familiar contains family which implies breeding, which in turn is the end result of sex.

There have also been mentions of sweat as it pertains to nervousness and how this can manifest itself in overly familiar situations that make one dizzy. Kind of the way people prone to anxiety attacks can induce those attacks simply by fearing their anxiety attacks. The idea that the singer is stuck in a situation where they don't want to be there and yet cannot escape. Possibly hunting for a way out. This ties in nicely to the matrix style need for an escape from reality. This can be done with or without drugs simply by contemplating metaphysics. The situtiation need not necessarily be a metaphysical, it could be something as mundane as a business meeting or an encounter with an unfavorable type of person.

The song does seem to delve somewhat into the phenomena of deja vu. Something already seen. That vaguely familiar sense of having gone through something before. Literature, music, and movies have been fascinated with this for a long time and those who have read catch 22 will also be familiar with jamais vu which is when and individual experiences a situation that should seem familar but doesn't, and presque vu, the sense that one is on the verge of a large mental breakthrough, almost seeing the absolute truth about something but not quite getting it. All of these again delve into the areas of metaphysics and the commonality of all life experience.

One meaning that frequently escapes me is the question of who is the "you" that is whispering to the singer? This could be the key that opens up the meaning of the song. Could it be a lover? or god? or religon? or drugs? or the fans? Because the words of the song can all be taken as metaphorical then at the end you eventually have to face the prospect that any word only referrs to other words. And what do those words refer to? Other words. And so on and so forth. If I had to pick another overall theme to this song (and most of Tool's library) it would be the theme of discovery. The long hunt to attain knowledge one does not previously have in all forms. Some psychologist would say that this is one of the most prevalent aspect in every other human behavior. As soon as children begin to display emotions of lust and love they commonly seek the words by which to define those emotions ever more accurately.

Here we come to the search for meaning besides that of physical or spiritual. When a person ceases to believe in a higher power or god they are saddled with the equally liberating and terrifying freedom to define the meaning of there life. And the meaning of that life may very well become the search for meaning. The hunter trying to fathom the hunt while in it's midst. Dreaming within the dream.
As Yogi Bera said it's deja vu all over again.

I'm sure there's a thousand things I'm forgetting and a thousand more I haven't thought of. I hope this has been enlightening in some way and I apologize if it sounds a tad muddled.

[ohgoodbe]

This my interpretation of the song sweat. Keep in mind that this is merely an interpretation and not the actual meaning. The song most likely does not have an objective and fixed meaning. What it once meant to the writer may not be what it means to the writer now. If you read the disclaimer in my other essays you'll understand my point. That said I'll try to keep this fresh, though it may come off as long winded.

One of the obvious metaphors that came first to me when I heard this as a younger version of myself, was the theme of dreaming within a dream. A kind of multilayered (not unlike the song, and this interpretation) style of thought. The dream within a dream is part of lucid dreaming, where you realize you are inside a dream while dreaming the dream. Fans of Waking Life and The Matrix will understand this principle. This type of thinking can be influenced by drugs (as my early instances of listening to tool were). I remember thinking about how my thoughts raced into ever deeper and interconnected layers when I had taken LSD and mescaline. And recalling this all at a time when I was reading brief history of time, made my thoughts all the more lucid. So the song could be about the use of hallucinogenic drugs or even drugs in general. The idea that you are now experiencing reading MY interpretation of a song that recalls a dream within a dream certainly has all the hallmarks of the pathology of a hallucinogenic drug. that and the fact that the title of the album is Opiate, duh.

All this brings me to another possible meaning in that of the familiarity of all human existence. Who does not know what it means to love, to fear, to lust, to feel hopeless, or hopeful, and to feel one's own self feeling a feeling? This commonality in human existence is familiar to us all despite the fact that we each live seperate subjective lives that resemble each other only superficially when examined in detail. Could the singer be singing about how he hears a song and relates to it, and we as listeners relate?

These cycling thoughts can lead to greater understanding of ourselves and yet they can also be nauseating or can unhinge the fragile hold upon the myth of objective reality that we all must cling to for survival.

But what common experiences do we all have that cause us to sweat, breathe, stare, think, and sink? The breathing and thinking (though it may not always be obvious) are experiences that permeate every living moment of our lives. "I'm breathing so I guess I'm still alive..." and "I think therefore I am" come to mind. What else? Sex is the obvious answer.

During sex breathing is increased in speed and one does begin to sweat. The sinking is could be metaphorical refrence to going "down into" the orifice of one's choice. On the psychological level sex is second only to sustenance for things that the human being attempt to hunt (or fish) in the objective physical world. Perhaps as a few have suggested the meaning of the song could be the search for sex. Or rather the spiritual meaning found through and in sex. The vortex of all human emotion into which we pour most of our creative energies. Again this comes back to that commonality of emotions. Lust is a powerful thing to feel and it can grip the entire human psyche and whip it into a frenzy of fear, excitement, childlike giddy, trauma, lonliness, anxiety, or plain old fashioned romantic love. To contemplate all that sex can give or take from you is enough to make one dizzy. The hunt is the hunt for companionship on a physical and psychological level, to lose one's own identity and become "we". To seek someone to familiarize ourselves with. Seems so familiar. To know. Even the word familiar contains family which implies breeding, which in turn is the end result of sex.

There have also been mentions of sweat as it pertains to nervousness and how this can manifest itself in overly familiar situations that make one dizzy. Kind of the way people prone to anxiety attacks can induce those attacks simply by fearing their anxiety attacks. The idea that the singer is stuck in a situation where they don't want to be there and yet cannot escape. Possibly hunting for a way out. This ties in nicely to the matrix style need for an escape from reality. This can be done with or without drugs simply by contemplating metaphysics. The situtiation need not necessarily be a metaphysical, it could be something as mundane as a business meeting or an encounter with an unfavorable type of person.

The song does seem to delve somewhat into the phenomena of deja vu. Something already seen. That vaguely familiar sense of having gone through something before. Literature, music, and movies have been fascinated with this for a long time and those who have read catch 22 will also be familiar with jamais vu which is when and individual experiences a situation that should seem familar but doesn't, and presque vu, the sense that one is on the verge of a large mental breakthrough, almost seeing the absolute truth about something but not quite getting it. All of these again delve into the areas of metaphysics and the commonality of all life experience.

One meaning that frequently escapes me is the question of who is the "you" that is whispering to the singer? This could be the key that opens up the meaning of the song. Could it be a lover? or god? or religon? or drugs? or the fans? Because the words of the song can all be taken as metaphorical then at the end you eventually have to face the prospect that any word only referrs to other words. And what do those words refer to? Other words. And so on and so forth. If I had to pick another overall theme to this song (and most of Tool's library) it would be the theme of discovery. The long hunt to attain knowledge one does not previously have in all forms. Some psychologist would say that this is one of the most prevalent aspect in every other human behavior. As soon as children begin to display emotions of lust and love they commonly seek the words by which to define those emotions ever more accurately.

Here we come to the search for meaning besides that of physical or spiritual. When a person ceases to believe in a higher power or god they are saddled with the equally liberating and terrifying freedom to define the meaning of there life. And the meaning of that life may very well become the search for meaning. The hunter trying to fathom the hunt while in it's midst. Dreaming within the dream.
As Yogi Bera said it's deja vu all over again.

I'm sure there's a thousand things I'm forgetting and a thousand more I haven't thought of. I hope this has been enlightening in some way and I apologize if it sounds a tad muddled.


Dear doug,
You must be on LSD again or some other type of drug to even write this much about one song, i constantly view submissions from Tool fans who over exaggerate on what he (Maynard) is actually writing about. Just listen to it, feel it, and let it take you there, to that place, you know what i'm talkin about. (well i hope you do). Although some of your points maybe correct, you're diggin way to deep man, especially for this song, which was at the beginning of his career and his writing and lyrics were so much more simple than say a song like "Lateralus". Just a thought...

[Wave.Existance.Tears]

I don't agree with the first part. Its fine to write a lot, but yeah, the rest is tried and true. Tool admitted that they got their least intelligent, deep material out of the way for Opiate to gain some fans and respect, for crapshoot stuff was popular in metal at the time.
This isn't their philosophical material, lolz.

[ohgoodbe]

I don't believe it's bad to write alot either, but to make a point and have someone else understand it, you cannot go to far into it or you will lose ground on what you started off writing about. Believe me i know, i've written many papers for online classes and know for a fact that people don't reply to superlong overstated submissions. I was the first person to respond to this submission and it was written over a year ago. That's all i was trying to say, but didn't feel like writing it all out the first time.

[Wave.Existance.Tears]

Yeah, true dat. An essay that long on an Opiate track, sheesh.

[Tertius Oculum]

If I could write essay's like that, willingly, I wouldn't hate college as much as I do.

[endless_nameless]

Fuck the naysayers, this is a great post. I think Sweat is actually one of the deepest, or at least most metaphysical, songs Tool has written; a preview of things to come, a song ahead of it's time.


One of the obvious metaphors that came first to me when I heard this as a younger version of myself, was the theme of dreaming within a dream. A kind of multilayered (not unlike the song, and this interpretation) style of thought. The dream within a dream is part of lucid dreaming, where you realize you are inside a dream while dreaming the dream. Fans of Waking Life and The Matrix will understand this principle. This type of thinking can be influenced by drugs (as my early instances of listening to tool were). I remember thinking about how my thoughts raced into ever deeper and interconnected layers when I had taken LSD and mescaline. And recalling this all at a time when I was reading brief history of time, made my thoughts all the more lucid. So the song could be about the use of hallucinogenic drugs or even drugs in general. The idea that you are now experiencing reading MY interpretation of a song that recalls a dream within a dream certainly has all the hallmarks of the pathology of a hallucinogenic drug. that and the fact that the title of the album is Opiate, duh.

Yeah, it seems that the idea of life being a dream within a dream is perhaps the central idea of Tool's philosophy. Life is but a dream, and to escape the dream world and find the real we must crucify the ego. This idea that the external world of time, space and impermanence is illusory is consistent with many of the world's great religions and spiritual traditions, though not all.

All this brings me to another possible meaning in that of the familiarity of all human existence. Who does not know what it means to love, to fear, to lust, to feel hopeless, or hopeful, and to feel one's own self feeling a feeling? This commonality in human existence is familiar to us all despite the fact that we each live seperate subjective lives that resemble each other only superficially when examined in detail. Could the singer be singing about how he hears a song and relates to it, and we as listeners relate?
You're describing the archetypes of human existence, found in the collective unconscious of our species; beneath this apparent chaos of diversity their lies a core of commonality.

These cycling thoughts can lead to greater understanding of ourselves and yet they can also be nauseating or can unhinge the fragile hold upon the myth of objective reality that we all must cling to for survival.

Must we cling to it for survival? I think that is the question: if we let go of the ego, will there really be anything to catch us? It's like a leap of faith.

One meaning that frequently escapes me is the question of who is the "you" that is whispering to the singer? This could be the key that opens up the meaning of the song. Could it be a lover? or god? or religon? or drugs? or the fans?

That's a good question. My guess is the Self, the source mentioned in Reflection; in a word, God.

Here we come to the search for meaning besides that of physical or spiritual. When a person ceases to believe in a higher power or god they are saddled with the equally liberating and terrifying freedom to define the meaning of there life. And the meaning of that life may very well become the search for meaning. The hunter trying to fathom the hunt while in it's midst. Dreaming within the dream.
As Yogi Bera said it's deja vu all over again.

Like dogs chasing our own tails, the trail of smoke and reason. It's amazing how much of Tool's philosophy is contained in their first song. It's like they showed us a preview of the end, and then backtracked to fill in the missing steps.

Just one question though, Doug, if you're still around - why did you call this thread the lying mirror? I'm guessing it has something to do with the outer world being a reflection of our own consciousness that lies to us by convincing us it is the "real" world, when in fact it is maya, or illusion. The question is whether this is true...because if so, to borrow a phrase, this changes everything.

[aenima19]

This my interpretation of the song sweat. Keep in mind that this is merely an interpretation and not the actual meaning. The song most likely does not have an objective and fixed meaning. What it once meant to the writer may not be what it means to the writer now. If you read the disclaimer in my other essays you'll understand my point. That said I'll try to keep this fresh, though it may come off as long winded.

One of the obvious metaphors that came first to me when I heard this as a younger version of myself, was the theme of dreaming within a dream. A kind of multilayered (not unlike the song, and this interpretation) style of thought. The dream within a dream is part of lucid dreaming, where you realize you are inside a dream while dreaming the dream. Fans of Waking Life and The Matrix will understand this principle. This type of thinking can be influenced by drugs (as my early instances of listening to tool were). I remember thinking about how my thoughts raced into ever deeper and interconnected layers when I had taken LSD and mescaline. And recalling this all at a time when I was reading brief history of time, made my thoughts all the more lucid. So the song could be about the use of hallucinogenic drugs or even drugs in general. The idea that you are now experiencing reading MY interpretation of a song that recalls a dream within a dream certainly has all the hallmarks of the pathology of a hallucinogenic drug. that and the fact that the title of the album is Opiate, duh.

All this brings me to another possible meaning in that of the familiarity of all human existence. Who does not know what it means to love, to fear, to lust, to feel hopeless, or hopeful, and to feel one's own self feeling a feeling? This commonality in human existence is familiar to us all despite the fact that we each live seperate subjective lives that resemble each other only superficially when examined in detail. Could the singer be singing about how he hears a song and relates to it, and we as listeners relate?

These cycling thoughts can lead to greater understanding of ourselves and yet they can also be nauseating or can unhinge the fragile hold upon the myth of objective reality that we all must cling to for survival.

But what common experiences do we all have that cause us to sweat, breathe, stare, think, and sink? The breathing and thinking (though it may not always be obvious) are experiences that permeate every living moment of our lives. "I'm breathing so I guess I'm still alive..." and "I think therefore I am" come to mind. What else? Sex is the obvious answer.

During sex breathing is increased in speed and one does begin to sweat. The sinking is could be metaphorical refrence to going "down into" the orifice of one's choice. On the psychological level sex is second only to sustenance for things that the human being attempt to hunt (or fish) in the objective physical world. Perhaps as a few have suggested the meaning of the song could be the search for sex. Or rather the spiritual meaning found through and in sex. The vortex of all human emotion into which we pour most of our creative energies. Again this comes back to that commonality of emotions. Lust is a powerful thing to feel and it can grip the entire human psyche and whip it into a frenzy of fear, excitement, childlike giddy, trauma, lonliness, anxiety, or plain old fashioned romantic love. To contemplate all that sex can give or take from you is enough to make one dizzy. The hunt is the hunt for companionship on a physical and psychological level, to lose one's own identity and become "we". To seek someone to familiarize ourselves with. Seems so familiar. To know. Even the word familiar contains family which implies breeding, which in turn is the end result of sex.

There have also been mentions of sweat as it pertains to nervousness and how this can manifest itself in overly familiar situations that make one dizzy. Kind of the way people prone to anxiety attacks can induce those attacks simply by fearing their anxiety attacks. The idea that the singer is stuck in a situation where they don't want to be there and yet cannot escape. Possibly hunting for a way out. This ties in nicely to the matrix style need for an escape from reality. This can be done with or without drugs simply by contemplating metaphysics. The situtiation need not necessarily be a metaphysical, it could be something as mundane as a business meeting or an encounter with an unfavorable type of person.

The song does seem to delve somewhat into the phenomena of deja vu. Something already seen. That vaguely familiar sense of having gone through something before. Literature, music, and movies have been fascinated with this for a long time and those who have read catch 22 will also be familiar with jamais vu which is when and individual experiences a situation that should seem familar but doesn't, and presque vu, the sense that one is on the verge of a large mental breakthrough, almost seeing the absolute truth about something but not quite getting it. All of these again delve into the areas of metaphysics and the commonality of all life experience.

One meaning that frequently escapes me is the question of who is the "you" that is whispering to the singer? This could be the key that opens up the meaning of the song. Could it be a lover? or god? or religon? or drugs? or the fans? Because the words of the song can all be taken as metaphorical then at the end you eventually have to face the prospect that any word only referrs to other words. And what do those words refer to? Other words. And so on and so forth. If I had to pick another overall theme to this song (and most of Tool's library) it would be the theme of discovery. The long hunt to attain knowledge one does not previously have in all forms. Some psychologist would say that this is one of the most prevalent aspect in every other human behavior. As soon as children begin to display emotions of lust and love they commonly seek the words by which to define those emotions ever more accurately.

Here we come to the search for meaning besides that of physical or spiritual. When a person ceases to believe in a higher power or god they are saddled with the equally liberating and terrifying freedom to define the meaning of there life. And the meaning of that life may very well become the search for meaning. The hunter trying to fathom the hunt while in it's midst. Dreaming within the dream.
As Yogi Bera said it's deja vu all over again.

I'm sure there's a thousand things I'm forgetting and a thousand more I haven't thought of. I hope this has been enlightening in some way and I apologize if it sounds a tad muddled.



Yes this is probably the best overall interpretation that i have found. I dont get y ppl r bashing this one... and i laff that ppl think this song has no deep meaning...that thot is ridiculous. it may not have a deep meaning to the naked eye... its found for ppl pryinging open their third eye. As for the "you" in the song... maybe its reality...enlightenment? Arent we in constant search for enlightemnet?... or maybe its reality we r trying to find...I'm not sure but i think it can be interpreted many ways as u said. Great job in my opinion..nice post

[aenima19]

as endless_nameless has said (btw a good response post) i was appealed to the title of ur post "the lying mirror" maybe this mirror of reality lying that it is reality? Id also like to here y u chose this title if u r still around.