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'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. |
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