Quoth Marcus <MarcusJT42@aol.com>:

not that this is really a song interpretation, rather it is an interesting fact about the song (most fans probably know by now what i'm saying but anyway...) at the very end of the song subliminal there is in fact a subliminal message. the last little bit of weird words and music is actually the chorus of the song being played backwards. anyone with windows and a cd rom can hear it. just record the section of the song to your hard drive and then you can play it backwards. it's really very exciting.

[Editor's note: you can do it just as easily (well, easier) with a a Macintosh. :-) ]

Quoth Marc Schaub <supersex@tmbg.org>:

In my mind I picture a man dying in a car accident and sees his "life flash before his eyes" so to speak. "As I went through the pillow" emphasizes the man's death by portraying him as a ghost.

The "Subliminal" seems to me an "important but hard to see" event or person in the man's life and "Stare into the Subliminal for as long as you can" appears to be an allusion to the exitstential philosophy that the afterlife is just a time to reflect on the time on Earth. I realized this while reading Albert Camus' existential novel "The Stranger."

Quoth Steve Vallone <svallone@jhu.edu>:

From my Literature and Composition class, I remember a poem (but not the name or the author) which emphasized the three occassions in the author's life in which he was able to slip into his subconscious mind- during sleep, during life-threatening danger, and 'in wine', or when he was drunk. It's interesting to note how John has touched upon two of these themes in Subliminal, a song which, I feel is very closely related to the poem, although the two works, most likely, were spawned completely independent of each other.

Quoth <Jordan1c@aol.com>:

Well, i sort of have 2 interpertations. First, the guy gets hit by a car,obviously,and crashes through the windshield. He notices something,i think this could be the killer,like someone who crashed into him on purpose,r some evidence on why he was killed,it was important, but hard to see. "while laying their in my bed/as i went through the pillow", i feel this is a hospital scene. he just got hit by a car,and hes in the hospital. now,remember it old you about how someone wanted to kill him? well, that person sees he is not dead yet,so he takes a pillow and suffacates him!! once again,he notices the killer,but the pillow blocks his view. he needed to "stare into the subliminal for as long as he could" to identify the killer.

ON TO MY SECOND INTERPERTATION!

This time,he is having a dream! thats right,and as we all know,dreams ar very significant and are often forgotten and stored into our subconcious, so its a subliminal dream! well, he has a dream he is hit by a car, and goes through the windshield, then he all of a sudden WAKES UP,and is really in his bed,and instead of going through a windshield,he simply went through his pillow in his sleep.