Originally Posted by lysegicevolution

As i'm sure many of you already know....3rd eye is very obviously about the use of consciensness expanding substances(enthogens, dissacioatives, ect.) But other thatn that the lyrics are a bit obtuse(just like every other tool song ....ever). Here is my interpretation:

The song is about the use of substances to gain a higher form of conscienceness, but i believe the song deals with some of the more negative effects of the expierience.
It starts out on a more nuetral note......

dreaming of that face again
it's bright and blue and shimmering.....ect...(you all know the lyrics)

-before the expierence begins.....
-bright blue and shimmering is referring to some hindu diety...possibly shiva(who is known to appear as blue)
-the reference to the eastern school of thought coincides with the meaning of the song.....enlightenment and higher conscienceness is the goal of almost all eastern based religions, and the 3rd eye is an extremely common image in eastern religion....it is known as the ajna chakra
-he is taking the drug to begin his spiritual journey
-he is apprehensive at first(about the "trip") but is calmed and comforted in the fact he is doing this to attain higher means

on my back and tumbeling...
down that hole and back again.....

-the expierience begins, and he's traveling down the "hole" of his mind(only he knows what is there)

rising up
and wipeing the webs and the dew from my withered eye.....

-it has been awhile since the last "journey", and this "eye" has not been used for awhile
-it is worth noting now that the psychedelic expierience can be a very dangerous thing to play with....the expierience has been known to approximate what it may be like to live with schitzophrenia...delusions, paranioa, seperation from reality, ect, ect. ect.......it has also been known to awaken latent psychotic tendencies in people who have a family history of mental illness........also users of these substances sometimes become fixated on thier expieriences, and intergrate them into thier daily lives, they may become obsessed with these ideas to the point where they are always there with the person, in the back of thier mind............ with that said........

child's ryme stuck in my head.....
said that life is but a dream.......

-may be literal.....lewis carrol(the writer of alice in wonderland, another piece of art that has been adopted by the psychedlic community, although carroll himself was not a drug user) has a poem with that line

i've spent so many years in question...
to find i've known this all along......

-the use of these substances has forever changed this person, the expieriences he has had are always with him.....
-as to what they have done to him, or shown him- that is something that only the person knows

so good to see you....
i've missed you so much...
came out to watch you play,
why are you running away,

-the person is reinformed of what knowledge he was givin before, but he has been showed something about himself that he was not ready to see, so he runs from it


shrouding all the ground around me
is this holy crow above me
black as holes within a memory
as blue as oer new second sun

-the expierience takes him over

i stick my hand into the shadow
pull the pieces from the sand
which i attempt to reassemble
to see just who i might have been
but i do not recognize the vessel
but the eyes seem so familiar
like phospherescent dessert buttons
singing one familiar song..........

-again he explains what he is doing....digging inside himself for some new insight into he he is....or who he might have been
-he dosen't even recognize himself anymore
-eyes are an extremely common visual motif in psychedelic art......for many reasons
-desert buttons are a reference to peyote- an extremely powerful psychedelic used by indian shaman to induce visionary trances- they are little round spores commonly referred to as "buttons" grown of cactus in the desert

prying open my third eye

-he's using the substance to pry open his third eye......duh!


so good to see you once again, i thought that you were hiding,
you thought that i had run away,
chasing the tail of dogma,

-he is beginning to accept the knowledge he has been givin
-as for the dogma and the smoke and mirriors, these are things he used to aid him in the denial of the truth to which he was privey to by the substance

i opened my eye and there we were

-his third eye was opened and this is what he was shown