No one ever went broke catering to the innate shamanic consciousness of children. For example: Where the Wild Things Are... and a very large percentage of children's books. That one just happens to be my favorite. It has everything: a journey into non-ordinary reality, communication with strange creatures, therianthropy (aka. shapeshifting), use of a boat over strange water. All common features of a shamanic journey.
Sometimes when I'm watching cartoons with my daughter I'm just brought up short by the commercials. Usually it's because of the pandering, manipulative, sugar-pimping marketing. But the GlowCrazy™ Doodle Dome™ I want for myself. If only they made it a little bigger.
Some of this alludes so directly to the mysteries of prehistoric cave art, I have a hard time believing it's not deliberate. Starting at 0:14 on the counter is a sequence on drawing aliens from outer space... kind of like the famous images that appear on cave walls in Kimberley, Australia.
Kimberley, Australia
Around 0:20 on the counter is a child drawing on the shadow of his own hand. I can't help but be reminded of Graham Hancock's description in Supernatural of how the hand paintings evoked the feeling of someone touching the permeable membrane between this world and another reality. Those hand images abound in cave art. And, as in the commercial, they appear to have been done by painting around actual hands.
Cueva de la Manos (Cave of the Hands), Santa Cruz, Argentina
This ad literally encourages children to go into a sensory deprivation chamber and draw spaceships, aliens, serpents, stars, and their own hands. I love it.
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