Parallel Universe

It seems like its about dreaming. All the lyrics kinda say things that might go on when you are dreaming/having a nightmare.

"Christ I’m a sidewinder I’m a California king" - tossing and turning

"a solar system that fits In your eye" "You could die but you're never dead" "Take a look at the stars in your head" "Psychic changes are born in your heart"

All of those seem like dreaming or having nightmares.

Sounds cool to me.

I think "You could die but you're never dead, spider web" is the most eloquent lyric ever written. It has so much meaning behind it that I cannot even begin to describe it. It has just influenced my life so much.

The only logical explanations i have seen of this song are from oldiemanbob, wrathloki, johndubya and jsheppard. Not only are they in depth and logical, but they all actually know what they are talking about. Kiedis is reffering to many different things here, and if you can follow along with him, you'll see how deeply he philosophises about not only space and alternate realities and strange things concerning the universe, but also psychic phenomena within our minds and evolution. He is an incredibly deep thinker, and knows exactly what he's talking about.

If you pay attention to the very brief times he mentions space, psychic happenings, or having another, seperate being other than himself (perhaps reffering to a spirit animal) in his book, you'll see that he has had at least one out of body experience, and believes in being able to disconnect from your body as a seperate being and being able to spirtually travel to other, unkown parts of the universe, or to other parts of the world, while your body remains in place. Wether he was doing this while on drugs or not is something we could all argue for years about, but im a little dissapointed that everyone automatically points a finger at drug usage for EVERY FREAKING SONG HE WRITES. He writes poetry and then turns them into songs. Or he writes words that fit the tone of the music the rest of the Peppers bring to him. He definetly doesn't just walk around, get fucked up off herion and crack and acid, and then throw random shit together that eventually turn into a mind bending song. (however, there are one or two songs where he WAS really fucked up and put some shit together and made it a song, but not every time and definietly not with this song) Im not saying he didn't get high and write about his experiences in alot of his songs, because he definetly did, but im trying to point out that most people say EVERY song is related to drug usage in SOME ridiculous, abstract way, and that it is just SOOO obvious. so lets just get off that drug wagon hm? Especially if your trying to decipher this beautiful masterpiece of a song.

okay, anyway, i think that this song was definietly written about a personal experience Kiedis had where he had an OBE (out of body experience) and witnessed another universe that quite simply blew him away. That might not make sense to someone who can't grasp the concept of infinte amounts of space fitting into infinitly small spaces ("a solar system that fits in your eye, microcasm", or it probally wont sound sane to someone who hasn't had an OBE before. To clarify, when i first started getting into this song, i didnt understand what the hell he meant by anything in his lyrics, and I just sensed something deeper than what I could actually grasp. But sometime later, (believe it or not; i was a skeptic at first too) i had an OBE, and I experienced a parallel universe as well where i was actually aware of both my body sitting on the chair in earth, and this other self (wether spiritual, psychic, or something else, i dont know) flying through the vast universe. Then, amazingly enough, right after that happened, this song came on, and everything in it was instantly thrown into perspective. because I had literally just felt and seen these things. when he says "Deep inside of a parallel universe It’s getting harder and harder To tell what came first" i think he is referring to the normal, natural world, and a different, psychic kind of world that lies deep within our sub-conscience, and struggling to understand which one gave birth to the other. next, when he says "Under water where thoughts can breathe easily Far away you were made in the a sea Just like me" this sounds very much like an evolution theory, even though its a little hard to piece it together to make clear sense of what he thinks, but thats okay, because hes Anthony Kiedis and this is a very deep song. So ill leave that one to the evolutionists."far away you were made in the sea just like me" is saying that we were created/born/made in another part of the universe and that we are all connected and have the same origins, or the many connecting lines of a "spidersweb" as for the sidewinder, we'll never really know what animal he means, or if its just a crazy metaphor, or something else entirley. Im not sure, and I like it that way. "When you hear the beloved song I am with you" I think for this part of the song that he is saying "when you hear the song we both know, you will know i am with you, even if im not there physically" which means he is reaching out to someone and saying that through this 'beloved song' they are connected. "take a look at the stars in your head, fields of space kid" seems to be an idea of space continuing on infinetly, but also that our minds contine on infinetly and its hard to predict the exact potential of both. Its a comparison between the universe and our psychic sub-conscience, or of our minds. I've also heard a very complex theory about the line "a solar system that fits in your eye" where 'your eye" was being reffered to as the third eye of the mind, as in people who claim to have psychic powers. This seems a little too much though, and i doubt Kiedis would have actually meant that. It was intresting though.

microcasm, by the way, means very very small, at the sub-sub-atomic or even metaphysical-level. its counterpart, macrocasm, means very very large, or universally infinte. Both go hand in hand in the old Greek philosophy about the patterns of the cosmos. Im sure Anthony Kedis read one of the philosophers books, or learned about the philosophy and was intrigued, because alot of this song fits in with that theory almost perfectly.

in conclusion to this extremly long ramble, id like to say that this song is singally the greatest song ive ever heard in my lifetime, and i can never get enough of it. The solos from everyone at the end surge up like a giant wave that picks you up an carries you away, and it blows my mind every single time i hear it. it constantly unlocks new meanings for me, and it deals with deep concepts and a fascinating philosophy. best Chili Peppers song ever.

California king and sidewinder are both kinds of snakes, if that helps.

I know this is obvious, but these are some puzzling lyrics. Perhaps about evolution and seeing the future.

when they wrote this song, they were already off heroin

i never thought of this song as durgs being part of it? i always thought it was about actually going to another parallel universe and seeing what the pretent you are doing and what might be ahead of you in life. it always makes me think of beautiful things like that. maybe i listen to too much of JF stuff and the dimensions are taking over me!!!

I really dont think this song is about heroin...not at all...i actually think that there is alot of science in this song..like about evolution of the world and stuff.

Deep inside of a parallel universe It’s getting harder and harder To tell what came first

Far away you were made in the a sea Just like me

I really dont know enough about that stuff to fully support my statement, but thats what i think this song is kind of about.

they were heroin addicts when they wrote this song, sorry

justkala has it pretty much explained, (as do some others) but he/she just deeply explained all parts. so i signed up for this site just to comment on this song. ive recently been very interested in quantum physics, and m-theory and all that crazy stuff. and being fairly aware of parallel universes, extra dimensions and all that other such stuff, i can absolutely see what kiedes is saying. one thing i would like to add, on the first part, "its getting harder and harder to tell..." in my opinion i believe he is just saying, when a universe splits, or if there is two universes, or multiverses or whatever.. whos to know that our universe came first? maybe we are the result of a universe splitting, or something like that. if that makes any sense.. maybe thats what our "big bang" was, our bubble universe splitting off, somewhat like a cell multiplies? haah.. yeaa

I'm pretty sure this song is about Kundalini en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kundalini