My first thought listening to this song was astral plain travel....Any takers?

Yes. Go on.

Seemed to me like a guy waking up from an out of body experience. That's all. I don't have a gigantic vocabulary so it's tough for me to force my thoughts out into words...But on the surface yes...ET's....but underneath.?...... Aliens pointing out a "chosen one" .....I don't see it happening. This dude was talking to the dead.

Yeah, it could certainly apply to any "transcendent" experience. I could relate more to a "mystical" experience, but UFO abductee phenomena seems to be the same sort of thing as when people have intense gnosis experience and such.

I had a friend in Jr High who always talked about Astral plains. Said he learned how to do it, but wouldn't try. To dangerous. Said many who try, die trapped, others come out catatonic. Much like it seems "lost keys" is a guy comming out of it at a hospital.
Not sure what a gnosis experience is, probably astral projection, out-of-body, etc. But do people come back from abduction in coma like state?

In re-reading this I can't believe I was in junior high when I started thinking about the other side of things....that was 20 years ago, and a ton of what i learned and theorized about then, still holds water today......I was 4 when I started questioning the difference between dream and reality. Not sure which was which.
Tool seems to be on the same path of exploration that I am on.

Ramble
ramble
ramble

It's only as dangerous as you allow it to become.

Exploration is good.

I mean isn't it always "read through the lines" with them?

They talk about aliens, yes, they talk about spooning with ET.
Acid or other hallucinagens seem to be implyed with the slice of orange part, but
"This shit never happens to me" says to me that it's the first success after many failed attempts at projecting. Because when you're tripping ....this kinda shit happens all the time.
Tied down to "MY" bed means to me that he's at home.
Not sure why he's doing his "PEANUTS" dance either.
But I'm pretty sure that if he was given a message about "the details of our ending" it wouldn't be from Aliens.....Maybe acid, but not aliens.
My guess is .........

i would say a resounding 'no' to this theory. you don't shit the bed after an OBE. 'chosen one'? nah, it doesn't fit. parabol IMHO is about an OBE, as the lyrics describe it very well 'some familiar and overhwelmingly warm, this one this form i hold now' and the music as well - ex. danny fading in and out with the symbols at different octaves to mimic the subtle vibrations you feel just prior to projecting. it all fits perfectally. i don't think this song fits the right MO.

whats my theory? i can't even begin to form one yet.. its too new. i need to let it sink in before i can start to see what they hell they are going for. but the music in this song is fucking badass.

I am the chosen one.

God said so.

I shit the bed.

OBE is different than projection. OBE you're still grounded in this "dimension" When you project to depths and demensions other than your own. Lots of bad shit can happen. Shitting the bed is the least of your worries.When you project you throw yourself into the beam, and travel to different plains of existance. Trying to communicate with powers beyond your imagination, you try to remember it all, but comprehend very little.

I wasn't very concise when i said it was like "a guy waking up from an out of body experience" earlier. I didn't mean average every day "OBE". I meant Allistor Crowley style, Dark, deep, and intense OBE.

"with somniferous almond eyes"

I've seen these guys.
My first experience with one of these beings occurred during a mushrooom trip in Eugene, Oregon. I could 'see' it clearly, though it was not on the 'physical plain'. It seemed to radiate a dark translucense, if that means anything. I did not feel compelled to engage it's energy, though it seemed to be inviting me toward it. . .

2 months later. Handful of cubensis. Over the course of the next hour, my freinds observe my energy body expand. They said I was radiating god-energy (hippies always exagerate when it comes to this new age shit). A little later, I disappeared. I woke up a few hours later under the same bridge that I had slept under a year earlier when I first arrived in town. Crying. Memories of deep darkness. A dimension beyond symbol. Pure, Primal Fear and Angst. No images, no light. Just hatred and a sense of eternal suffering. There were others their with 'him'. Begging me to help them.

Now I'm shaking and tired and I feel that my soul has been raped constantly for a millenium. Filthy. Home to shower and bed.

Now I feel like a new person. Not a hint of the experience left.

A knock on the door, and I'm wondering who the fuck it could be at this hour. I look at the clock and realize that only 3 hours have elapsed since the experience began. Seems like I should still be feeling the effects, I think as I open the door: "where did you go? You looked like you were having the best trip ever, but then you disappeared!"

Month later. Eugene, Or to Annapolis Md. Greyhound bus. 3 days in, and I'm only in Denver. The bus is'nt gonna be in till morning, and I havent slept since leaving Eugene. I lie down in the corner and find myself in a trance almost immediately. I'm just between that stage of consciousness where the images flow spontaneously frrom the subconscious for me to view and the one where I can create my own landscape. Suddenly I catch a glimpse of someting lurking off tho the right and above me. This is distinctly different from the images I have been viewing and manipulating. It is an energy body. That dark transluecense, those somniferous almond eyes. And this time I know why I feel repulsed by it. It was waitng for me to open up. So it could suck me in again.

^ yeah, no shit.

It's hard to say, but I think with 'somniferous almond eyes' that Tool is referring to the beings we've all seen before on TV, the 'Greys'.

Encountered them a few times myself when I was young... I used to have dreams, dreams that felt faaar too real, I would be at my house outside, and then everything would start glowing, they landed in their ship, came out, paralysed me, I couldn't move or say a word, even to scream which is what I most wanted to do... then everything would go black for a couple of hours... and I'd wake up, paralysed... wasn't very pleasant stuff to go through when you're six :)

Also saw what appeared to be one when I used to do trance travelling... but I just ran the fuck away and beat myself out of the trance. So yeah, basically I would say the song is about humanity trying to come to terms with and explore their Divine nature, the 'one' as opposed to the 'two'... seeking to explore the higher planes where higher thoughtforms and the like reside... but most often we end up unable to cope with the experience.

Dude, it looks like YOU are the subject of this song.

YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE, BOTH OF YOU. THAT SAW THE SOMNIFERUS ALMOND EYES. And wearing Birkenstocks!

But what have you learned and created with these sacred substances? Nothing?
Forgot your pen?

Maybe you weren't chosen at all, perhaps you were just on the drugs.