Could it be that dreams are the analysis of our physical experiences by our spirit selves? Could it be that dreams are not just a reflection and replaying of our daily-life impressions, but are an exact and simultaneous version of the physical experience in the "language" of a parallel but other-dimensional reality, and that neither precedes nor follows the other (given that time is illusion)? Could it be that our wakened-reality is but a physical representation and interpretation of the events of this other-dimension, played out in the minds of our spirit-selves as THEY sleep... that WE are the dream? All this occured to me this morning as I tried to analyse the dream I woke from. In order to explain further, I should first sketch the dream: Dream: I found myself on a street that I understood to be in the town of Leigh, close to where I grew up in the north of England. I was gazing through the windows of a cafe that was built on the site of some demolished houses. I'd come looking for the houses on a nostalgic trip in my home-town. One house held particular importance - it seemed that a docu-film was made there by, and about, Bruce Lee. I'd wanted to see the room he'd filmed in and get a sense of his presence. So it was a disappointment to see that the house was no more. I got into conversation with a young waitress from the cafe, telling her my memories of the houses that stood here, and where the room might have stood where Lee filmed, and how he was a hero of my childhood years - way before her time. We then got talking to a group of old men who also remembered the houses, and a theatre that was also demolished. And there was a black&white photograph hanging on the cafe wall that showed the street in its former state. Another "vague" element of the dream had something to do with authority and bureaucracy, and that "by-passing" the authorities created more efficiency in whatever was taking place in the dream (getting info and access to the location of Lee's film, I think...). So - nothing particularly dramatic, or even unusual - nothing that was mixed up or swimming with contradictory elements the way dreams often tend to be - everything was as real, as linear as logical as waking life. But on waking I felt there was something deeper and I had an urge to do some analysing. First analysis: From a purely sobre perspective - that dreams are reflections of the days events, arranged and ordered by the sub-conscious mind for filing purposes - I could easily see multiple correlations with my previous evening activities - a) I often visit my childhood locations in dreams, so no surprises there. b) Leigh has "really" undergone massive restructuring over the last 20 years that it's hardly recognizable to me anymore. c) I once did a photo-project on the town, and the old and derelict "theatre/cinema" was a unique feature and foreboder of the changes to come. d) Bruce Lee was a childhood hero - and Lee rhymes with Leigh. e) I'd just watched a Johnny Depp film with a highly attractive "young" leading lady - the undeniable effect of pretty girls on the male psyche could have created the waitress of course. f) I'd also watched some videos of presentations by Yanis Varoufakis (ex Greek finance minister) - subject matter being economy and government and bureaucracy and change... So all these elements can be retrieved from the dream with a rather superficial ease. I could have just as easily dismissed it there and not looked any deeper - but I was curious, so... Second analysis: The unconscious thoughts, feelings and memories stirred in me while listening to Varoufakis are responsible for this deeper layer of the dream - combined, I'm certain, with the conscious thoughts and ideas that keep me occupied in waking life - ideas of a changing, transforming world. The end of old political structures; welcoming the new and fresh and transparent; handing the future over to the youth; letting go of the nostalgia of the past; creating new "theatres of life", out of the dark, musty halls and into the light and airy cafés; and a disintegration, a "demolition" of the choking chords of bureaucracy and authority. Just like any good movie, the storyline is a metaphor for a deeper tale. How utterly astounding it is to witness how the sleeping mind creates this level of artistic expression (and I've never been to film-school, so who is making these movies in my head?). Another important point is the metaphor of Bruce Lee. Apart from him being a physical hero, I also deeply admired his spiritual/zen vision. His presence seems to stand for bringing the physical and spiritual together. Looking beyond the "visual" and into the "feeling" of the dream, my overriding "sense" was one of peace and acceptance. Yes, there was also a sense of nostalgic sadness for things lost, but the promise of a "happy ending" seemed intuitively prophetic. And there I could stop - but something else was tickling my imagination - a feather of an idea... I wouldn't be writing this blog if I wasn't convinced of the multidimensional quality of reality. And dreams, for me, are no less "another dimension" than the idea of parallel universes. I've done a little exploring in lucid-dreaming, but always from the perspective of the physical-reality paradigm... how real is a dream according to the laws and priciples of the "wakened world"? Last night I'd been listening to talks by the "high prince of psychedelia" Terence McKenna. His perspective is rooted in his experiences on various hallucinatory substances (mostly natural plant-based compounds), and his take on reality is as far "out there" as anyone has ever gone. Comparing his "trips" to dreams is not difficult, and when you take into account the substance DMT as a natural compound within the human brain and its role in dreaming, then "trip and dream" become easily synonymous. We are so used to describing dreams as part of us, as a by-product of our physical reality experience. They come in the night and fade with the light. They are just electrical patterns, an afterglow, of our brain's daily impressions woven into orderly stories by a sleepy consciousness. Whatever they are, they ARE in your head. But as McKenna points out in reference to DMT (and by extention can also apply to dreams): "This has to be taken seriously. In other words, the “it's only a hallucination” thing—that horseshit is just passé. I mean, reality is only a hallucination for crying out loud, haven't you heard? So that takes care of that—it's only a hallucination. What we’ve got here, folks, is an intelligent entelechy of some sort that is frantic to communicate with human beings for some reason." So, taking dreams "seriously", and from a "multidimensional perspective", what happens when you take our understanding of "dreams being part of us", turn it on its head, and imagine "us being a part of dreams" instead. Imagine the "dream world" as a reality inhabited by spirit beings (our spirit being one of them), living their lives according to their own "fluid" universal laws, and when they sleep, they dream "our reality" of order and linear time and space and physical limitations. Or maybe our existence runs parallel, different representations of the same events and the same experiences, both versions happening simultaneously but only perceived to be causal and successive. So by dreaming we get a peek into each other's domain and where we forget most of our dreams and only recall the 'highlights", so they only recall the highlights of our, predominantly monotonous, daily lives. Worth wrapping your mind around. “I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?” ― John Lennon
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I had a conversation with a couple of friends last night about how unaware most of us are of the source of the thoughts we think. We think things, and we assume they are our own thoughts, but often they are the representations of opinions and beliefs stored in our conditioned mind. You can witness this by the way people seem to talk without thinking, and by how they react to ideas that don't resonate with their own. They will feel threatened by this and argue their own opinion, or they will dismiss it and withdraw from any discussion. Rarely will they pause to examine their own thinking or seek out the root beliefs behind their opinions.
This morning on Facebook there was a link to a video called "How The Elite Control The Masses", posted by a group called "The Free Thought Project". It was a compact video that illustrated the strategies used against us in order for a small group to control the world. I shared the video because I see it as part of the process of conscious awakening. I then moved onto the group's page - thought it might be interesting and useful - "free thinking" is an important aspect of our sovereignty as individuals. But I didn't "Like" or subscribe to the page. Why not? Their story and mission is sound and commendable - but the content on the page is for the most part a case of "propaganda against the propaganda". If you aspire to "free thinking", you have to be REALLY careful not to substitute one set of dogmas for another. We are attracted naturally to ideas that support and reinforce our own, just like we are attracted to people with the same interests and views. We have the freewill to do this of course, but we have to be aware of this "freewill" aspect. Are we "freely choosing" to think the same way as the "group" - or are we blindly following the consensus? The difference between information and propaganda is in the presentation. "The Free Thought Project" could be a good platform for "free thinkers"... but all I see there on the page is a "Let's jump on the bandwagon of anti-system activism" posting bonanza, with most of the comments nothing more than opinionated bickering... lots of people telling other people that they've got the facts wrong and they're not thinking right. And the main posts are nothing different than what is already being shared on the FB home pages. A project such as this should be a platform of dialogue, with a practical goal of mutual understanding. But Facebook may not be the best platform for this. Maybe we have to talk to one another face-to-face, in small groups and communities - and then share our findings online. But most importantly - each individual has to scrutinize his/her own thoughts and the sources of those thoughts. Think about your thinking... otherwise you'll never really know. Here's a link to the video and page - see what YOU think! The Free Thought Project I'm going to write freely here on this post - let my intuition do the talking - it might waffle a bit but stay with it. Sometimes I see things clearly and distinct; other times though my mind and thoughts and understandings are all interconnected and I can't distinguish the core points I want to communicate - and in a way this just reflects how the world is, how reality is... everything is interconnected, everything has to do with everything else and you can't talk of one thing without it touching on another and another and so on. I look at the world today and I see how every aspect of it seems to be caught in a vortex, spinning out of control and heading, faster and faster towards some point of collapse - it's like we're in a black hole, past the event horizon, sucked towards the singularity with no idea what is on the other side. World events are one example - no-one can pretend there isn't something enormous happening right now. There seems to be panic everywhere - government controls and morals and actions are being questioned from all sides; leaders are getting more and more crazy and fundamentalist in their views; the corruption of world governments and organizations and global corporations is being spilled out over the table for all to see; the financial world is being shown to be incapable of any solutions to the economic problems of our time - problems caused by that same financial system; nationalism is back in play and border-controls are going back up; public places are patrolled by armed forces and a new and frightening "heavy police" presence; our food is manipulated, our movement is restricted, our communication is monitored, our health is being violated; and our information is no longer to be trusted - mainstream media is propaganda and nothing else. A couple of hours delving into the realm of "conspiracy theories" will split your world-view right open. When people talk of WWIII, it's not too difficult to believe in it. Something... is going on... something major. In spiritual circles there is the understanding that the planet and we as humans are experiencing an ascension process to a higher dimension of "being". What that means to each person is different - and many people at this time, spiritual or not, are posing serious questions about their own existence and where it's all heading. Plagued with doubt on one side, and being so obviously manipulated by the system on the other - it's not surprising that there's so much unrest and fear and insecurity in the world. There may be people out there who are blissfully unaware of any such unrest, and are happy with their existence - good for them. But I know, among the people I've met personally over the years, most are dealing with the same existential issues, and most are not really so happy with their existence, with their jobs, with their finances, with the way their lives are headed, with their personal inner-experience. As an example I only have to think of the hundreds of teachers and parents I've known personally in the 15 years I worked within the education system... there's few of them who seem to have it all together - and they're trying to help children to "get it all together". I don't blame the teachers or parents at all - the education system is a complete mess. Every aspect of civilization is under scrutiny, and while technology is racing undeniably forward, quality of life in its deepest sense is spiralling in the opposite direction. Does anyone really know anymore why they're doing what they do, why they're living the lives they live, why they desire the things they desire, why they buy the things they buy, why they say the things they say and think the things they think? I don't think many people do. If they did we could do away with leaders, armed forces, law enforcers, shrinks, educators, gurus and especially celebrities. You don't have to believe in god to be able to sense that you are part of some greater order, some greater intelligence, and that being so, you have an intuitive knowledge to match that greater intelligence. We don't need someone else to tell us what is right or wrong, what is moral or immoral, how we should live our lives, what we should aspire to, what is important - we shouldn't need laws and rules to keep us on track, or organizations to monitor our actions. We shouldn't have to fear ostracization for being, or striving to be, our authentic individual selves, following our own path, at our own pace, for our own conscious development and experience. But we are the products of our invention of society - we are what the machine, built and run by old paradigms of belief, has spewed out over the assembly-line - copies and clones instead of snowflakes. But the world is changing - an evolution of conscious awareness. Walls are crumbling and a mist is clearing... and we will find ourselves stranded and directionless with no sign-posts back to whence we came. Unless... unless we do the work now - take a step back, take a breath, look inside, ask the right questions and listen for the answers. Intuition and a silent knowing will lead you out of this abyss, each taking full responsibility for one's own advancement, growth, progress and enlightenment. No-one can take us there but ourselves - but we are limitless and connected and intricately part of that greater order and intelligence. We have to remember this and extend our awareness and perspective beyond the limitations we've been conditioned to believe in. We need to embrace the sense of our infinite inner-knowledge and use that to transform ourselves, our lives and, collectively, our world. Old paradigmes of religion, politics and science brought us this far - for good and for worse - but it's time for something new. New paradigmes of understanding of our connective nature, our multidimensional nature, our limitless nature, our divine nature. I woke up this morning (sounds like a blues song) an hour before the light. Whole day free to do some writing. Cup of coffee, on the bed with my pad, making notes on the structure of my Meetup event that I'm holding in 2 weeks. The idea then was to get onto my blog and write a post. Finally opened the blinds and saw what a beautiful, perfect autumn day it was outside. New impulse to go for a walk in the park - I've got all day to get online.
So, shoes and jacket on and out the door. I decided I was going to do an "awareness exercise" - this involves clearing the mind from all personal thoughts and just observing my surroundings, letting the impressions come and go. I developed this a while back to see if I could develop my attention, with the purpose of influencing my dreaming to become lucid (it worked!). I took a notebook with me so I could note down anything that particularly caught my attention - and the purpose I set was to feel, or be aware of, my connection to my surroundings (including people), from the perspective of being multidimensional... seeing everything as a part of myself and vice-versa. Following are some of the observations I noted: 1) Passed a guy by the canal (not even 1 minute from my house yet) walking his dog. I tried to make eye contact but he ignored me and walked past with his eyes averted. I do this too often myself and I wondered what makes us so inaccessible to strangers. One could feel a negative response to being "snubbed", and go on thinking about how unfriendly people can be (myself included). Instead of letting myself be affected by this, or just ignoring it, I decided to send him a little greeting from the heart and wished him a good day. Silently, but with the same good intention as if it had been aloud. After all, I thought, we are still connected at some level. 2) Noticed many more dog-walkers and thought about how precious and beautiful the role of dogs is in this human world. Not only do they provide companionship and unconditional love to their owners, they also facilitate meetings between strangers... dog-walkers nearly always make contact and conversation with other dog-walkers. You could almost imagine dogs were created for this role. 3) Almost by the park, I was preceded by an old lady who was shuffling slowly along the sidewalk, as if she was searching for cigarette-ends in the gutters. There are a lot of these type of characters in Amsterdam and I admit they make me feel uncomfortable. But why? I don't even know what she was doing, I was just making an assumption about her that could easily be totally false. Even so, why would it make me uncomfortable? She was obviously harmless. It reminded me of an old guy on the train a few months ago - talking to himself in a full carriage - everyone felt uncomfortable, everyone pretended he wasn't there, no-one asked him who he was talking to or about. I decided this morning to make a point of asking the next time I come across such a person. 4) So early in the park and already so many people jogging. And I thought: "So many ME'S being very active this morning... therefore no need for "this" me to join them. 5) One "me" passed by walking strangely and fast, instead of jogging, and snorting loudly with every exhale as he walked. I wondered, is this part of his training technique, and if so, how absurd does it have to get in order to get fit? 6) I'd just stopped to write in my notebook and a woman pulled up to ask directions to cafe De Roos (situated in the park). Of course I could tell her exactly because it's one of my favorite cafe's. But I wondered what impulse caused her to stop and ask me, among all the other people around. Is it a question of resonance? 7) A fleeting moment... I could "taste" the autumn. Though not exactly taste. But there is a sense at a certain point in the season that you recognize clearly and you say - autumn has arrived (or spring, summer, winter...). What is this "sense" - a combination of sights and sounds and temperature and scent and colours and light, all mixed up with impressions drawn from memories of other perfect autumn days? Time stops in these moments and you get that full experience of there being no time or space except an eternal now. 8) I stopped by the Theehuis cafe and drank a coffee on the terras - watched the people pass by, watched the dogs scrounging the tables for left-over biscuits or gifts from generous guests. Everyone seemed to be absorbed in conversation or activity. I wondered how many were actually just quietly taking it all in - the trees, the birds, this beauty, this sunlight, this "Autumnal perfectness"... A dog came and sat by me - I'm sure he just wanted my biscuit. When I ate it, he left. Another dog came by and just took the sugar-cube from my saucer without even a glance at me. I sent him a silent greeting from the heart and wished him a good day.
..."If I do this for myself I'll treat myself"..."How good I've been today to do so and so ( or not do so and so ), I deserve a reward or a pat on the back"... What?!!!
We are free souls and have total universal freewill, yet we hold ourselves in our own prisons and deny ourselves simple pleasures unless we think we've done something to deserve them. Even the methods of self-improvement teachers apply this as a technique, that we can coerce ourselves to become the better selves we think we should be. And we fall for it. Let me tell you - you do not need permission from anyone to do the things you want to do - not from yourself, not from gurus, not from God, not from advertizing agencies, and certainly not from bakers. And you don't need to "deserve" what you want - just give it to yourself. If it has consequences you don't like, deal with them - there's always consequences, and that's the nature of freewill. Do you see, it's just a game we are playing with ourselves, trying to trick ourselves into action - it's just a program and we use the trick to break out of the program. But you know it's a trick, you know it's a game, you're not a donkey so why do you fall for this carrot-dangling when you're holding the stick yourself? I don't get it. If you have to coax yourself into action (or out of it) with stimulus and reward, then maybe you don't really want to take that action. If you really, really, really want to do something, you will do it - you won't need any more stimulus than your desire, and doing it will be its own reward. Deserving doesn't come into it. If you need rewards to coax you, then maybe you should look more deeply into what it is you want and why you want it in the first place. Really - we treat ourselves like infants sometimes, and we don't know we're doing it. But we are multidimensional co-creators of the universe with god-given freewill, and we are adults. Stop waiting for permission to do the things you want to do, reward yourself often and always just for being YOU - and if a baker says you deserve a cream cake - buy 3 of them, just because you want to. I have a lifelong fascination with dreams and dreaming. A lot of kids had/have "imaginary" friends in their young years (something attributed to a lively fantasy and lonely disposition, but in light of new understandings of our multidimensional essence there's more acceptance of these "friends" as real entities), I didn't, but what I did have is an imaginary universe. I loved to sleep, especially in the afternoon, because I loved to dream - and my dreams were often extraordinary adventures with intricate plots and fantastic locations.
I still love to sleep in the afternoon and I always look forward to the dreams awaiting me. And I still have some extraordinary adventures. Some of my most memorable dreams involve some kind of interdimensional travel, time travel and film-like plots that I only understand myself when the dream is coming to an end. I've flown a lot; I've woken often in bouts of laughter or streaming tears; I've heard, composed, sung and played songs that are new to me; I've played instruments I really don't know how to play; I've battled demons and dark, scary creatures; I've wandered around war-torn, bombed out cities; I've been caught in the crossfire of gun battles between rivalling gangs; I've flown to different planets in spaceships; I've had multiple plots running through each other that seem unconnected until the end; I've had the most amazing romantic relationships; and it doesn't stop there. I developed, in my childhood, the ability to wake myself up from a dream I wasn't enjoying - this started when I bit the nose off a creature that was holding and squeezing me so I couldn't breathe. This was my way of dealing with nightmares. I had a dream once where I was in bed in a cold spooky castle and I heard Nosferatu (the scariest of all vampires) coming up the stairs to my room. At first I didn't know what to do, I was truly frightened - then I realized that I needed to make myself more powerful than him, so I transformed myself and grew to about 20 feet in height, my head touching the high ceiling. When Nosferatu entered he was just a little squirt of a monster and he cowered before me..."LOL"!!! I'm also an active lucid dreamer - not as regular as I would like but regular enough. In my lucid dreams, besides flying, I've explored instant manifestation, learned to run faster than the wind, tested the illusion of matter by putting my hand through solid objects, breathed underwater and had conversations with dream characters about the fact that they are not as real as they think they are. In one dream, when I became lucid, I called to the group I was with and said: "Hey, this is a dream... who wants to fly?" I then led them in the technique of levitation, but only 3 of us could get off the ground. Lately I've been exploring and practising techniques of OBE (out of body experience/astral travel). I haven't been succesful from a wakened state, but I've had two experiences within my dream state of moving beyond the dream into astral travel - in one of those dreams I was actually following a class in astral travel, applied the techniques and moved consecutively between Amsterdam, Paris and London, at one point being in a different century where the people were looking at me very strangely (it was sometime in the 18th or 19th century - no cars, just horses and carriages and muddy cobbled roads). This last year I've finally started to keep a dream journal, and taken more interest in the messages behind the imagery. From the multidimensional perspective, the realm of dreams is a real world, not just fantasy, not just the result of sparks in the brain, not just the replay of daily events and buried traumas. This is how I've always experienced them, and more so now as my understanding of consciousness and reality and multidimensionality develops. So... I'm going to open my dream journal now and again and share them on this blog - at least the "family" versions... the x-rated versions I'll keep to myself. |
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