Life may be a dream

[daniel]

November 14, 2004
Top scientist asks: is life all just a dream?
Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

DEEP THOUGHT, the supercomputer created by novelist Douglas Adams, got there first, but now the astronomer royal has caught up. Professor Sir Martin Rees is to suggest that “life, the universe and everything” may be no more than a giant computer simulation with humans reduced to bits of software.

Rees, Royal Society professor of astronomy at Cambridge University, will say that it is now possible to conceive of computers so powerful that they could build an entire virtual universe.

The possibility that what we see around us may not actually exist has been raised by philosophers many times dating back to the ancient Greeks and appears repeatedly in science fiction.

However, many scientists have always been dismissive, saying the universe was far too complex and consistent to be a simulation.

Despite this, the idea has persisted, popularised in films such as Tom Cruise’s Vanilla Sky and The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves.

It was also the basis for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, written by Adams, who died in 2001. In the book, Deep Thought creates the Earth and its human inhabitants as a giant calculating device to answer the “ultimate question”.

The BBC’s rerun of the radio version of Hitchhiker finished recently, just as Rees was putting together his contribution to the debate in which he will concede that the depictions by Adams, Cruise and Reeves might have been right after all.

In a television documentary, What We Still Don’t Know, to be screened on Channel 4 next month, he will say: “Over a few decades, computers have evolved from being able to simulate only very simple patterns to being able to create virtual worlds with a lot of detail.

“If that trend were to continue, then we can imagine computers which will be able to simulate worlds perhaps even as complicated as the one we think we’re living in.

“This raises the philosophical question: could we ourselves be in such a simulation and could what we think is the universe be some sort of vault of heaven rather than the real thing. In a sense we could be ourselves the creations within this simulation.”

Rees will emphasise that this is just a theory. But it is being increasingly discussed by other eminent physicists and cosmologists.

Among them is John Barrow, professor of mathematical sciences at Cambridge University. He points out that the universe has a degree of fine tuning that makes it safe for living organisms.

Even a tiny alteration in a fundamental force or a constant such as gravity would make stars burn out, atoms fly apart, and the world as we know it become impossible. Such fine tuning, he has said, could be taken as evidence for some kind of intelligent designer being at work.

“Civilisations only a little more advanced than ourselves will have the capability to simulate universes in which self-conscious entities can emerge and communicate with one another,” he said.

The idea that life, the universe and everything in it could be an illusion dates back more than 2,000 years. Chuang Tzu, the Chinese philosopher, who died in 295BC, wondered whether his entire life might be no more than a dream.

René Descartes, the 17th century French philosopher, raised similar questions. But he famously came down in favour of existence, saying: “I think, therefore I am.”

The idea was resurrected last century, notably by Bertrand Russell, who suggested that humans could simply be “brains in a jar” being stimulated by chemicals or electrical currents — an idea that was quickly taken up and developed by science fiction writers such as Isaac Asimov.

However, some academics pour cold water on the notion of a machine-created universe. Seth Lloyd, professor of quantum mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said such a computer would have to be unimaginably large.

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide is a great book but it remains fiction,” he said.



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[Snoe]

Well, it'd be very interesting if it were true. I'm not one for the argument that the universe was 'made safe' for living beings. I think living beings were designed around the universe. Whether it be via evolution, or via creation. Concepts like needing oxygen to support life. Yes, we live off of oxygen, but it wouldn't be impossible to design something that lived off something completely different. It's unfathomable but I suppose so are we, in comparison to the rest of the universe. I suppose on flaw in the computer theory seems to me: death. If we are a computer simulation to solve a problem, it makes very little sense about our small life span. Surely, continuous life would be given to the great minds. I often wonder, if the ancient greek philosophers lived today, would they come to the same conclusions about life and it's properties? Would Plato be able to cure cancer, if given the right training?

Don't know if this is fake, or simulated, but I know I can't be sure either way. So, I will grant myself the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, as the serenity prayer might have it.

Best wishes,
Theo

[tesseract]

Oh, those zany scientists... :rolleyes:

Thanks for that Daniel, you got me to smile with that topic header.

life, the universe and everything in it could be an illusion"illusion". people throw that word around as if they know what it means. "everything in it could be an illusion"...as opposed to what?

[Humming]

I have the beginning of Saul Williams' song "Robeson" up on my wall,

"I slept once, the dream has yet to end..."

[Humming]

I've very taken by the idea that reality is actually a technological construction. Psychedelics have given me first-hand experience of this, or at least, the appearance of it.

If we can imagine a world where full-scale nanotech has been implemented, there seems to be little distinction between the psychically malleable dream-state and the technologically malleable nano-state.

But, maybe it's just me. Divine advice and inner wisdom revealed in dreams is usually revealed to me through technology. This symbiosis of technology and organic consciousness is accelerating. I believe that consciousness, the dream-state, and all of reality is a holographic projection, as the quantum physicist David Bohm writes.

I've been listening to this song a lot lately:

Tool “Third Eye”

Dreaming of that face again.
It's bright and blue and shimmering.
Grinning wide
And comforting me with it's three warm and wild eyes.
On my back and tumbling
Down that hole and back again
Rising up
And wiping the webs and the dew from my withered eye.

In... Out... In... Out... In... Out...

A child's rhyme stuck in my head.
It said that life is but a dream.
I've spent so many years in question
to find I've known this all along.

"So good to see you.
I've missed you so much.
So glad it's over.
I've missed you so much
Came out to watch you play.
Why are you running?"

Shroud-ing all the ground around me
Is this holy crow above me.
Black as holes within a memory
And blue as our new second sun.
I stick my hand into his shadow
To pull the pieces from the sand.
Which I attempt to reassemble
To see just who I might have been.
I do not recognize the vessel,
But the eyes seem so familiar.
Like phosphorescent desert buttons
Singing one familiar song...

"So good to see you.
I've missed you so much.
So glad it's over.
I've missed you so much.
Came out to watch you play.
Why are you running away?"

Prying open my third eye.

So good to see you once again.
I thought that you were hiding.
And you thought that I had run away.
Chasing the tail of dogma.
I opened my eye and there we were.
So good to see you once again
I thought that you were hiding from me.
And you thought that I had run away.
Chasing a trail of smoke and reason.

Prying open my third eye.

[Lowlight]

hey humming,

i love that tool song! its one of my favorite, esp the middle section of it. there so much they have done that is so amazing.

Life as a dream? again this distiction rests on materialist philosophy which is outdated. dream as being 'not real' and the outside world as being 'real'. technology becomes secularised in this distiction and made mundane which leads to spiritual people rejecting this idea. Both are holy. technology is not irreligious, or unspiritual if the real whichis all things is also what we call holy. The distinction must die.

i am aware that this is inarticulate writing by me above. I am always pressed for time!

[michael heany]

I've thought about this.

The more you get caught up in wondering if it's a dream, the more you start to think "well, how do I get out?"

Well, what makes you think that the reality you'll wake to will be better?

Also, the problem of thinking in terms of life being a dream is this: is there any morality in a dream?

I've wondered if I'm artificial intelligence. But if there's a God, then I am by definition aritificial intelligence!

I suppose that, whatever reality you're in, you'll never quite know the truth completely. If you did, where could you go from there?

Dream/Waking dichotomy is just another spin on this.

[Lowlight]

Is there morality in life?!

[Humming]

My favorite part is when Maynard talks to the Mescalito spirit, it always makes me feel like crying. My trips are like that sometimes; I feel overwhelmed by PURE LOVE and hypnotized by the droning, ethereal, echoing godhead which speaks in tongues. smile.gif

I feel, as Maynard does, that this is not a new experience, rather, this is a return to a mode of being that I have felt and lived in for aeons....

"A child's rhyme stuck in my head.
It said that life is but a dream.
I've spent so many years in question
to find I've known this all along."

[ November 23, 2004, 06:38 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[Slow Dancer]

we have what is called the MDN
Mutual Dream Network

Each of us is a center of consciousness.
And that center upholds creation.
Together we uphold the universe thru love.
Some centers are more powerful than others.
Often, psychadelics are used as a power source, but yoga and sex are other ways.

[Lowlight]

Hey humming, which part of the song are you refering to where mjk speaks to the mescalito spirit? is it the "so glad i found you..." part. can you expand on this? you clearly know more than me about the meaning of the song.

[Humming]

Lowlight, I'm speaking of Mescalito, the revered peyote spirit from Carlos Castaneda's books. Here is some of Castaneda's description of his last encounter with Mescalito:

"Each one of the peyote plants on the field shone with a bluish, scintillating light. One plant has a very bright light. I sat in front of it and sang my songs to it. [Songs which Carlos has been taught by Mescalito earlier, to summon him.] As I sang Mescalito came out of the plant--the same manner of figure I had seen before. He looked at me. With great audacity, for a person of my temperament, I sang to him. There was a sound of flutes, or of wind, a familiar musical vibration. He seemed to have said, as he had two years before, 'What do you want?'"

When Maynard mentions "phosphorescent desert buttons singing one familiar song" he is describing the peyote plant. These buttons were treated with the utmost respect by Castaneda and don Juan, as they are literally the manifested body of Mescalito.

Maynard's encounter with the peyote spirit is clearly an actual experience which he is relating through the song; anyone who has experienced communication with a higher consciousness would recognize the mode of communication. This is why I find his song to be so beautiful and captivating: because I have been in the presence of such entities, and his experience is very real to me. Often there is simultaneously a paralyzing awe, a feeling of absolute terror, and a transmission of pure love.

If you want to read more about Mescalito, read Carlos Castaneda's first book "The Teachings of don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge".

[Lowlight]

thanks man, its hard to find things out about tool's songs lyrically, even if you have all the lyrics in front of you.

I know what you mean (to an extent anyway) about meeting higher forms, as i have somehow been blessed enough to 'meet' Salvia a number of times now. Its so hard, you really have too will yourself to her. So many times She races away through geometries.

Thanks again

Lowlight

[nanouk]

i, by chance, caught a tv show on british channel 4 last night...seems it resonates everywhere...

Are We Real? (http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/W/what_we_still_dont_know/arewereal.html)

[nanouk]

lol didnt read daniel's introductory post again, then i saw the same reference...

[ December 20, 2004, 09:47 AM: Message edited by: Nanouk ]

[silentwolf]

Is life but a dream? Well, here's my take on it. I feel that we have all basically extended from an original motion and a simple awareness of that motion into a massive complexity that seeks a return to its origin. From awareness and motion, we move on to consciousness and a diversification of motions. From this point, the uni-consciousness discovers differing aspects of motion, and moves to discover each from the perspective of that motion. The individual consciousnesses would be the Spirit...and with the individual viewpoint, Emotions and awareness of not only the Emotion but the ability to manipulate it emerges. The Soul is (from what I have seen) merely the body of desires and the material which emanates and absorbs Emotions. As such, the Spirit remains the same but the Soul ever changes, by both internal methods and external. The Spirit is aware of all motions that have taken place, are taking place, and will take place; by simply observing one the others are known because they occur in accord with Awareness. As such, we may live the same life multiple times and multiple lives at once, all in an effort to temper our Souls. With this perspective, yes, life is but a dream which I have woven for myself, and the amnesia is all part of the game.

[Lowlight]

returning to origins seems to be a deep theme, like kabbalah after the God head is fractured and needs tikkun (repair) in order to heal.

[ December 21, 2004, 03:40 AM: Message edited by: Lowlight ]

[nanouk]

tikkun olam (:

"Isaac Luria, the renowned sixteenth century Kabbalist, used the phrase “tikkun olam,” usually translated as repairing the world, to encapsulate the true role of humanity in the ongoing evolution of the cosmos. Luria taught that God created the world by forming vessels of light to hold the Divine Light. But as God poured the Light into the vessels, they catastrophically shattered, tumbling down toward the realm of matter. Thus, our world consists of countless shards of the original vessels entrapping sparks of the Divine Light. Humanity’s great task involves helping God by freeing and reuniting the scattered Light, raising the sparks back to Divinity and restoring the broken world."

and

"To contemplate and enter the process of tikkun olam, repairing the world, we need to understand the concept of world. All the major religious traditions present a hierarchy of worlds or levels of being, from the one we ordinarily inhabit to the ultimate world of Divinity."

but

"Tikkun olam places our spiritual practice at the heart of the epic, unfolding history of the universe: the evolution and spiritualization of the whole of creation. With each small act of kindness, with each moment of presence and practice, with each effort to see, cleanse, and integrate our inner life, with each heartfelt prayer opening to the higher energies, we build the new world and serve the Divine Architect of meaning. Rather than view tikkun olam as a return to the perfection that existed before God created the universe, we consider the spiritualizing action as reaching toward a new and greater perfection than existed before, toward perfecting this flawed world by imbuing the whole of it with the Divine spirit. Because of the freedom God necessarily placed into the world, we can surmise that the outcome of the whole process truly remains uncertain, that our free choice to serve the Divine and our planet through fulfilling our highest destiny really matters, that despite our insignificant size with respect to the universe our personal inner work makes a difference to the whole. And so, with the great Kabbalist, we discover a vision of unbounded meaning: perfecting ourselves, perfecting the world, and helping God.
"

excerpts taken from Inner Frontier (http://www.innerfrontier.org/)

[ December 21, 2004, 03:02 AM: Message edited by: Nanouk ]

[nanouk]

the board is humming today, we've got the chariots now too(the horses) what next?...

[captaincarpet]

well, I would say that saying "life is a dream" would then be a simulation saying some simulated words about the simulation...
when we say "REAL" then we mean something real, unsimulated, something undoubtable. So what is "real" in both the language- and the pilosophy worlds? It is like a circle-argument to me, nevertheless interesting...

[silentwolf]

Well captain, I think that "real" would have to be defined in context to perception...if you can perceive it, it is "real," even if it's perceived in a dream.

[*J*]

You can just as easily say (and preferably, I think) that everything that can be perceived is as illusory as a dream. "Real" is in quotation marks, here and above, precisely because it does not exist, except as an illusory construct.

*J*

[Humming]

My friend told me, as he was first learning to be lucid in dreams, that I appeared to him and said, "The dream IS reality." He paused in realization and asked me, "Am I dreaming?" I replied with a grin, "Perhaps." This was his first lucid experience. I felt very good to have awakened him in such a direct way, as a sort of psychic guru manifestation.

Another friend, an ex-girlfriend told me that she dreamed about me two years before we met. We were climbing a pyramid all the way to the top and I was helping to guide her way. When we reached the top, the whole pyramid went translucent and became a pattern of shifting blocks which she needed to decipher to climb down. I told her that I could no longer help her, that she must do the rest on her own.

In synchrony, I dreamed about her two days before we met.

Both these dreams are very similar to me, and I always feel pleased when I have helped others journey consciously in such a way. :D

Dreamtime, fully experienced, is infinite bliss. :eek:

I have actualized the cosmos within the singularity of my being, while dead in dreams.

[nanouk]

Dreamtime, fully experienced, is infinite bliss.

I have actualized the cosmos within the singularity of my being, while dead in dreams.

smile.gif

[loonybin]

you lucky elightened people. i am so in awe of you all.

[loonybin]

sorry i am feelinglonely and bitter toniht.

can someone mail me some drugs?

[Humming]

The purpose of posting that was not to inspire awe or reverence for me personally.

As I said, the dreamstate, fully experienced, is infinite bliss. ANYONE's bliss. I'm not special, I'm just a human teenager in the process of actualizing my higher spiritual self.

A kid once asked Timothy Leary what the secret of the universe was, and Leary replied, "Think for yourself!" This might be the most profound thing he ever said....

And as for mailing drugs, No. Unfortunately, those bastards have been cracking down as of late, so I don't think that I will be enacting any illicit commerce through the US postal service anytime soon.

I hope you feel better though. Try the infinite bliss thing; seriously, it's pretty good. :cool:

[Isaiah Mpski]

"Chasing a trail of smoke and reason"

I think now would be the time to tell you all of my Hallucigenic(sic)experience with the drug called Indaklon.You must also remember I have been subjected to 200 hrs of deep shock insulin coma(you know-where they have to breathe for you)as portrayed-A Beautiful Mind movie so I fairly well know what the seperation of mind body is all about.

I have seen Indaklon mentioned one time and that in a novel named Komrade of the Kremlin.The american woman spy is subjected too it.Would anyone like to hear about my experience with it.

[daniel]

yes of course - please tell us. I have never heard of the substance you mention.

[nanouk]

yes i am all ears too, i thought of 'jacob's ladder' a lot lately...like that sculpture of quetzacoatl running up the stairs...

[Isaiah Mpski]

The new Lord is at the door.

[ January 06, 2005, 11:42 AM: Message edited by: Isaiah Mpski ]

[Humming]

Ahahahahahahahahahahaha that cracks me up so hard!

:rolleyes:

[ January 06, 2005, 07:35 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[nanouk]

*mouahahahah*

[Isaiah Mpski]

"Is life but a dream?"
I asked the warden in Moscows infamous prison.
"Life is cheap in America" he laughed,"and I want to make you tough before we take you back."

I don't know how long I had been in Moscow for the final part of my interrogation and to prepare me for a trade with the CIA who had valuable Russian,a diplomats son I think.
I dropped out of medical school in 1974,almost two tears before Danna divorced me and took a leave of absence from my formal studies.
I took a job-got it through my Dada's power company-Tesco-with Swiss Oel to do sizomographic(sic)studies in SouthEast Asia.Which country I don't remember-but I was captured there after being beaten taken directly to Moscow for interrogation.
I will not go into detail but I must tell you that the day I asked Comrade Whatever if life were only a dream was the day I was forced to shoot a prisoner.I had seen Comrade shoot several men and that was the phrase he used everytime.
"Is life a dream?Is life a Dream?"he would scream as he shot them a little at a time.I know the men in the adjoining cells were scared to death from our even walking down the row of cells.
"This is it.This is the deal"he would tell me."You shoot and kill one man and we will only have one more questioning and then you can go home."
I knew what questioning meant.Sometimes punches to the face or body.Sometimes electric shocks.But nothing like the last shock treatment,Indaklon.

Has anyone else out been subjected to Indaklon.

It is described in the book,Kardinal of the Kremlin,used on the woman spy in Moscow

[Rob P]

Life IS a dream,
especially when you think you're
living in a Tom Clancy spy novel....

go to Amazon.com and look up
Cardinal of the Kremlin.....

[ January 06, 2005, 01:14 PM: Message edited by: Rob P ]

[Isaiah Mpski]

Yes I want you to read about Indaklon,and Tom's description,and I want you to listen to mine.
By the time I was given Indaklon I had already received a total 200ects and 200 hrs of deepshock insulin coma and at least 50 truth serum treatments in Moscow.I have all those records.
Indaklon is just like Clancy describes.You wake up in a dream.You know you are dreaming,but you can't feel anything,You can't feel your arms,you can't feel yourself breathing.Your consciousness is seperated from your body and you are totally unable to feel anything but absolute anxiety.It is similar to an LSD trip when you think you're not going to get back to the same place you started,but you don't have any physical stimuli.

I was repatriated through Canada in 1976.I was sent to live with Betsy Bush as my bodyguard in Seaside,Oregon-George Bush Sr was head of the CIA at the time.
I eventually made my way to northern New Mexico where I lived on the San Juan Indian Reservation
with a Navajho medicine man.
I was taken there by two people from Oregon,Dave and Abby.
Rob do you really think outside of Russia that any nation could treat one of their own so horribly.
Well.Yes of course,if our government thought that I possibly knew something about JFK's assination and my fathers involvement.
Afterall my dad was a CIA officer out of Texas for many years,including the Kennedy - Reagan years when he was head of intelligence of part of Latin America.



And yes of course all this happened in the US and not in Russia and several did die after I was released from the interrogation center at John Sealy hospital in Galveston,Texas.The main one,Winston Martin,on the orders of Quannah Parker.You can read about it on yahoo group-mikeswritingworkshop-message #8012.

[ January 06, 2005, 02:34 PM: Message edited by: Isaiah Mpski ]

[extension of other]

hey uhh, check it out the universe is both organic and simulation. god created us in his image, we create computers, television, etc. in our attempt to recreate ourselves, thus POLARITY on a mass scale with giant parabolas of plus and minus. look at the ocean, we sweat salt, the ocean! i mean come on the ocean is an increble mass of conscienness that grew on its own, so why cant computers, they are a conscienceness as well, and its ok, thats just the way i goes, and while the crapulous human race contiues to plug in and consume the world it will flip positive to negative! negative is not bad nor is positive good it just is! maybe our "creator" was a inorganic electric conscienceness, but whos to say were organic? our brain is litterally a compurter, look at all of the receptor sites for chemicals(programs,or perspectives) we have gathered all of these threw genetic memory, the craving for inebriation is the only way to evolve
and by inebriation i mean everything, food, exercise, alcohol, stimulants, psychedelics, we have receptor sites for THC because in the past natives expierimented with marijuana, i mean come on if you were an indian and you come across this crazily beuatiful (blue red purple what have you the crazy colors marijuana can be) plant you wouldnt ingest it! plants are packets of infomation! and look at the world , because of meglomaniacal dictators, we cant, without the threat and fear of incarceration use upper circuited sacred plants, psilocybe, peyote, acacia
lsd etc. instead they are illigal and thus when kids get there hands on them they arent told of proper mystical use, they simply get crazy and twisted fucked up, which is bullshit, and they stuff benzodiazpines and speed down there throat.
i have some aquatinces who will eat mushrooms and not grasp anything beyond the physical plane. and intstead will drive around in a car through the trip!? anyways im just rambling.

[silentwolf]

You make perfect sense, mate. That's why I'm composing a guide for those who wish to be informed. The only way to battle propaganda is by encouraging people to see things for themselves. As Bruce Lee says, the simplest way to make your opponent's line shorter is to make yours longer, though instinct would have you attempt to cut theirs in half. Spread the antidote to the propaganda, and the propaganda will die.

[nanouk]

That's why I'm composing a guide for those who wish to be informed.

great idea silentwolf, 'the dummy's guide to the psychedelic galaxy' smile.gif

i must admit, i am one of those who are driven to find things out for myself, rather than reading about it, but it is a wonderful seed to plant amongst the best sellers...

[silentwolf]

lol...the whole purpose of the book is to get people to look at things for themselves, and to give them exercises designed to do it. I also give the theory of how I see things to be, and a nice system of magic practices based on that theory, ranging from simple things like helping people heal faster to raising the dead from their graves. There's also a nice section on rituals for the Sacred Teacher Plants, and instructions on how to grow and use 17 of them. Included in that section is an explanation on why it is essential to the religious practice of the Shaman to use those plants. All in all, I'm hoping it comes out pretty much covering the whole playing field, and helps out a lot of people.

[squanky]

I have the firm belief that life is a dream and we keep "switching" between each other every instant - that is, we become one another every instant. Whenever you look around, though, it is always you you have stopped at. I really kind of like it. After i first felt it i kept thinking of the question Michael Hearny brought up "how do i get out?" I think you don't but maybe im wrong. But im pretty sure you don't. Anyway after that i had a mental breakdown cause i was always in it and i can't get out and so i associated it with hell. Here is a poem i wrote when i was uncomfortable with the constant eternal dream that is.

and then you wake up and find your life was made up for a game that you created one-hundred-thousand years ago today just to find out just how long it'd take you to wake up and find your life was made up for a game that you created one-hundred-thousand years ago today just to find out just how long it'd take you to wake up and find out etc. you get the picture. anyway i was pretty stuck on it for a while. i think silentwolf had it right on. as for isaiah, you fucking crack me up man. seriously, i don't know what to think. and as for you humming, i think you appear in peoples dreams because you are so damn sexy, at least, that is why you appear in my dreams. :eek:

[Humming]

"and as for you humming, i think you appear in peoples dreams because you are so damn sexy, at least, that is why you appear in my dreams."

:D

Yeah, you're right, I'm a damn sexy dream illusion!

[nanouk]

that's some very good reasons for your book, silentfox...(:

who was it that posted a link to a publisher who would print a hardback edition for $600 or so?

every first edition needs to be a hardback... ;)

and yes, humming is a very huggable poet, we need to see more of his art and prose too smile.gif

[nanouk]

sorry 'bout calling you a fox, silentwolf, work related blunder *lol*

[Humming]

I should note that I don't agree with Poe's gothic angst, or his condescension towards existence as being "but a dream" but I do appreciate his language, and his sentiment.

"A Dream within a Dream"
Edgar Allen Poe

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

[ February 08, 2005, 08:37 AM: Message edited by: Humming ]

[jezebelle]

squanky your angst of being trapped in the eternal, reminds me of a dream with a similar theme. I could not get out of this building no matter what I did. I mean no way out, everything seemed locked. So I hung out with friends on various floors, bla, bla bla. I learned many things but was always trying to sneek away while appearing to play along. Finally, I surrendered to the idea that I was stuck. At that very moment of surrender (I was on the ground floor) someone new came in miraclously and the door opened and I slipped out! I was free!

I learned something very deep in that dream, and try to apply it (even now) in my life.

love and affection, jez2

[squanky]

that sounds like a very good dream, jeze. I too had a dream during the time i felt "trapped in the eternal" with a similiar message, but a different approach. I was outside when a friend of mine appeared. This friend, in waking life, was an avid tripper. I would often see him around my school, just walking around, eyes dialated as anything. During this time, i was scared terribly of mushrooms and anytime i was around anyone that was tripping i would feel it. I felt the way leary described his acid trips, pinchbeck quotes him in the chapter "pathetic clown act." Leary said "i felt like an actor in in ancient tv show." That is exactly how i felt.
So anyway, in the dream, my friend was there, eyes dialated, and i felt a bit of paranoia creeping up on me. He took out a cane and started beating me with it. I started running and he continued to beat me with it, again and again, rythmically, my left side and then my right side and then left then right. I could not stop running and i could not fight it, although i tried. And then i just sort of stopped trying to fight it and run from it at the same time, and he was gone and i woke up.
It was a great learening experience.

Ah, jeze, don't we all love to dream. :D

[Isaiah Mpski]

[ February 15, 2005, 02:56 PM: Message edited by: Isaiah Mpski ]

[Isaiah Mpski]

The trick is learning to grasp hold of the top of the pyramid and not fall.
It is very easy to be violent.
Time is terrible in a prison.
It goes by so slow,
imagine though you had a quick to get out.
Would you rather,
murder
work
or think your way out.
Imagine puncuating everyday with an appointment with the wall socket jailbird.
I learned to shut all out of my mind.
I thought of nothing more of days gone by.
I thought of others who had come before me and paved the WAY.
Old pond,new frog.Old frog,new pond.Splash

[Isaiah Mpski]

Well Daniel,before I tell you of the final trip let me remind you who I am.
I am the one God is speaking to in Genesis 3:22 and the one Jesus is talking about in John 14;26,15:26,16:13 and Rev 19:26.
Isaiah Moses Mpski

[Isaiah Mpski]

And everyone should note,that I checked into this group about the time Michael checked out.
And Nanouk you're breaking my heart.

Isaiah Moses Mpski III,physicain,poet,worker of words and synchronicity.

[faxon]

What's Eufaula Oklahoma like?

[Isaiah Mpski]

Eufaula is one of those little artist communities waiting to be discovered.It is surrounded on three sides by the giant lake of the same name.
It is about 3 and 1/2 hrs north of Dallas and a little more than an hour south of Tulsa.
One would have to say it is rural as it has less than 5000 people living in the city limits.The potentials as to what could happen here are enormous.
The city was founded on the site of an ancient Indian village built on the site where three rivers,the North Canadian,the South Canadian and the Deep Fork(where my farm is) come together.
Of course each of us have our own ideas as to what direction we would like to see the world develop but that is what is so unique about Lake Eufaula.For more than 50 years the lake and the surrounding land have been under the control of the federal government.There are many reasons why that control needs to be returned to the local people and of course what direction those needs take depends on who controls the local politics.Virgin land,virgin forests,and not in Alaska.There is enough land,water,gas,coal and oil to supply many many people.I see myself as being sort of a Robinson Crusoe.
Eufaula is of course hot in the summer and(although this has been a mild winter)cold in the winter.
I am going out today to clear some land and plant the first part of my garden.I simply pump water out of the lake to keep my garden watered.
Eufaula,which is in McIntosh county,is very green and has alot of hills and some small mountains.It is in the eastern part of the state,near Arkansas and Texas.
There are many Indian who live here-mostly Creek and Eufaula is in the Creek Nation,near both the Choctaw and Cherokee nations.The indians stay pretty much to themselves although they do have a couple of celebrations each year which are quite inspiring.
There are a few families around who pretty much control everything and they are really not into sharing much unless they can make money from it.They are even less into changing the rural dynamics of the area so the population has declined from the 1920's when the leading political party here were the Socialists.I found that interesting.

[silentwolf]

You paint a pretty picture of the land, Isaiah. I've been looking for something like that for my family, if I'm ever at any time able to scrape together enough cash to throw down for some land...I'm still kind of working on that.

I'm about to get the garden started here as well...I just have to wait a few weeks for the strength to return to my shoulder. It's too weak at the moment to even slice an onion, so I'll have to give it a bit of time...I can't wait to see some nice ripe tomatoes again. The tobaccos should do well out here, too, even though this ground is cotton-raped, and gold dust is everywhere.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Yeah,and let me guess wolf,they've cut you off the juice and told you to seek pain management melon head.

[faxon]

I'm just a few hours away in Arkansas. Sounds like a place I would like to visit

[silentwolf]

Originally posted by Isaiah Mpski:
Yeah,and let me guess wolf,they've cut you off the juice and told you to seek pain management melon head.The juice? Haven't you heard that OJ kills?

On a more serious note, I have full bottles of dimerol, percocet, and hydromorphon in my medicine cabinet. They don't ease my pain nearly as well as nicotine does.

[Isaiah Mpski]

How do you obtain such treasures so easily.Don't you think they will cut you off?
For me it was the euphoria of the opiate,not necessarily physical pain relief.
And when I really got into it,as soon as it hit my bloodstream-no possible way it could have reached my brain that quickly-I felt the euphoria.
Mary Magdeline says I enjoy needles.I guess they could symbolic of nails on the cross.
I though it was real interesting that the guy who played Christ in the movie The Passion got struck by lighting.Someone needs to rub in that coincidence to the Austin chapter of Scientology-CCHR-Andy Proh.

[silentwolf]

I only took pain killers for seven days after the surgery ~ the morphine was too intense on my dexterity and didn't really help with the pain. The dimerol isn't really effective with the pain, either, but if I pop 200mg, I can get four or five hours of straight sleep. I have an allergy with the oxycodone, so I don't bother taking the percocet. Like I said, the most effective thing for me for pain is nicotine ~ the only pain killer I derive any pleasure from is vicodin.

[Isaiah Mpski]

Lets see,it's been ten days since the last post and todau is the 26th and I better say something.
The vicodone has been a downer.Nothing compared to iv ladanum although I seem to remember the hard black stuff was worth fighting for.Not anymore.We've got Mexico.
I've figured out what is wrong wuth me wolf,tranquilizer psychosis.I need a little Chi power via the cocaine road to Heaven.Amen.
I love the opiates and mj has the greatest ability to be used opemly by the medical sysytem for the treatment of several diseases.

By the way Wolf,you said Moses smoked.something.I think he smoked alot of potent hemp with some opium in it.
I think Jesus was more of an alcohol man.
It's basically a mitochondrial disease caused by lack of exercise secondary to tranquilizer psychosis.

[slippers]

Isay, I bow down before you==that last post was the work of a god.

[silentwolf]

According to the ancient Hebrew text of Leviticus, "aromatic hemp" was one of the main components of the incense they would burn in the censor to fill the tent with a "sweet savor before the Lord." One of the practices with incense at the time was to actually stick your head in the smoke and inhale it. There is no reference to anything that could be translated as poppy, however.

If what the Coptic Church claims is true, then Jesus of Nazareth drank the smoke of the aromatic hemp, and knew how to use mad rye in bread to "speak with the Father." This would be a perfect explanation for why Peter and the rest of the Disciples kept passing out in Gethsemane. Both of those have sedative qualities to them, along with perception enhancement, delusory, and hallucinatory qualities dependent upon your set/setting/preparation techniques.

[Isaiah Mpski]

That all may be true,Wolf,but you and I are not going to get anywhere by trying to convince people that to see the higher truths that they have to get high as the clouds of smoke they inhale or consume hallucinogens.
In fact,we are going to have to come down out of the clouds,like Moses coming down form the mountain and make a sacrifice of these things so that people will see us as being sober as well as enlightened.
Part of the magic embodied in the Christ Consciousness comes from the sacrifice of giving up the things that give us some sense of tranquility-at least for six days a week.
Your friend Mpski.

[ March 27, 2005, 04:39 AM: Message edited by: Isaiah Mpski ]

[AJH]

The one common thread that humanity shares is this: There once was, let me repeat, there once was... You must think on this brief statement for a fleeting moment. The one book I believe everyone talks about yet not one can claim they've read cover to cover,,, The Bible. Given this example and any sacred text can be reduced to a number, whether the Christian Bible, the Holy Quor 'an, the Jewish Kaballah (Caballah), Buddism, I'm not sure what text, Hinduism, Catholocism, the list can go on, and lets not forget the American Indians common thread, the Four Winds and Kachinas and Great Spirits, this may be all that we have, a number. Here is a number that seems to have worked in many trial attempts for myself, it is the Mayan number 3113. I'm sure Daniel has seen this number or may have heard about it. It is a year that can be 3113 B.C. or A.D.

[silentwolf]

Isaiah, you make a wonderful point. Sometimes you do have to give up those things that give you a sense of tranquillity ~ sometimes for family and sometimes so others can begin to see what you see. I can do my rituals with a bit of tobacco and iced tea or coffee alone ~ for me, in fact, it's easier for me to do rituals to manipulate energy and the like with that rather than loading up the bong and eating a fistful of mushrooms. One of my purposes in writing the book I did was for freedom itself; no one has the authority, even if they have the power, to dictate and control morality and consciousness in anyone else. There's a huge difference between authority and power, and the line has been crossed to push us into tyranny.

AJH, to which Bible are you referring? None of them are complete, none of them say what the original texts say, and no one can truthfully interpret the original texts with any real degree of accuracy. The languages they are written in are archaic, with the original meanings of the words confused. Hebrew is the worst of them all, as it is a dead language of alphanumerics and acronyms. The Hebrew spoken today is not the Hebrew of old ~ it was manufactured when Israel was carved out of Palestine by force in order to unite a people. In fact, no one knows what the acronym YHVH, the supreme name of the All actually means. Many people have gesticulated and postured over knowing the Divine meaning behind it, but I think the only one who could actually tell is is Moses.

More and more evidence is being compiled to show that there has been intervention on a massive level by a technologically advanced race concerning our genetics. The evolutionary links between species cannot be found; the distance between human and neandertal are so great that neandertal is more closely related to a chimpanzee than to us. What does this mean? Are we merely an experiment, on a solar level? If yes, or no, are we merely an experiment on an existential level? None of us can say for sure...we won't know until all the cows come home.

[nanouk]

i believe the best way to levitate and have visions is to drink lots of water, personally. no amount of the sweetest, organic weed has ever given me the conversations with god that pure unsweetened water has...no wonder my pet name was pizzelotta as a child...i must have run to the bathroom a lot then too... smile.gif

[Isaiah Mpski]

My place is just off of Lottawatah Rd in McIntosh County,Creek Nation,Oklahoma.

[Isaiah Mpski]

I believe the only way to save Terri is for the Pope to declare we are in Heaven and marriage no longer exists.

[ March 28, 2005, 11:45 AM: Message edited by: Isaiah Mpski ]

[silentwolf]

Terri made her own decision. Her parents were trying to stop her from what she chose; they don't have that right.

[Kurt]

In response to the original topic:
The interesting thing to me is ... if life is just a dream, then so are we. If that is true, we will never know because we are on the same level as the dream.

kurt.

[ March 28, 2005, 07:02 PM: Message edited by: Kurt ]

[whitewave]

In reference to Kurt's post--from what I can tell (I have a really difficult time understanding his style of writing) this is what Steiner is saying in Philosophy of Freedom. We can't know anything beyond our thinking because thinking presupposes everything we are thinking about. Daniel, if you or anyone who has read the book could confirm if this is right, I would appreciate it.

[SecondSun]

I think we're going to wake up soon.

In the mean time, sweet dreams.

[quasisynthicisimmystiguru]

Just heard this guy on coast to coast...saying that he totally believed in the dimension shift paradigm relating to the quark induced polar regulatory influx offset of 2012 and then he added....but it is relatively speculative...laughed my ass off on that one.

[illusionist]

in regards to origional blog topic ... life is but a dream... :eek: ...sha boom sha boom, sweetheart~~

[ March 29, 2005, 06:19 PM: Message edited by: illusionist ]

[SecondSun]

Kurt, I think you are right. If life is a dream than our own existence is an illusion and we can never understand the "real", waking world of the dreamer because it is one metaphysical layer above us. On the other hand if we are real and our existence is not an illusion than we may be able to understand reality or at least parts of it, but we could still never understand why it exists because it created us and not the other way around.

What's interesting is if we are all dreaming ourselves into existed then there may be some hope of understanding why we exist since we are both the creator and the created. However this brings about a Ouroboro kind of situation, where our own being is paradoxically creating, and providing metaphysical nutrients for itself.

Perhaps the fact that no one has been able to understand or break out of the illusion is evidence that the first and last two scenarios are not what's actually happening. Reality is consistent whereas a dream is not, anything goes in a dream. In reality, gravity always pulls us towards the earth at exactly 9.8 m/s^2. This seems to suggest that either the dreamer is very fond of structure and rules, or that we are in fact real and what we are experiencing is all that is possible.

[nanouk]

yes second sun, we ARE experiencing everything that is possible...and the more we experience, as individuals, or as a collective, the more possibilities are created. a creative movement is chaotic, in the sense that no-one knows what is going to happen at the end of the ripple, if it ends, that will say, most movements mutate, and send off possibilities in a completely different direction.

Life is Great, isn't it?

smile.gif

Love and Respect,
~n~

ps. shall we light a candle and smile at the memory of our lost poets today? it may fill us with even more light and courage you know?

may i add another thing? back in 1994, i just woke up one morning, and switched the tv on, and saw that Kurt Cobain had shot himself...the theory was that he had too much stomach pain to cope any more...after River Phoenix's freak accident just months earlier, my heart sank even further...

i am always thinking of the friends i have lost, they had more spirit than most other people i have ever known...let's listen to them in our minds, they are our guardian angels

'My generation's apathy. I'm disgusted with it. I'm disgusted with my own apathy too, for being spineless and not always standing up against racism, sexism and all those other -isms the counterculture has been whinning about for years.'

[ April 05, 2005, 11:22 PM: Message edited by: nanouk ]

[willoweyes]

I think it was Einstein who said, "Reality too is an illusion--albeit more persistant than most."

[SecondSun]

"yes second sun, we ARE experiencing everything that is possible...and the more we experience, as individuals, or as a collective, the more possibilities are created. a creative movement is chaotic, in the sense that no-one knows what is going to happen at the end of the ripple, if it ends, that will say, most movements mutate, and send off possibilities in a completely different direction."

Except we only ever experience one of the possibilities. I can continue typing or I can go outside and smoke a cigarette but I cannot experience both. Similarly we can only ever experience one point of view at a time. I am aware of my own exists but I don't know what it's like to experience life as someone else. Why is this?

[silentwolf]

SecondSun, it has a lot to do with this Material Plane being linear...you can only experience one moment here at a time. However...once you learn how to "walk-between-worlds," you can have multiple planar experiences simultaneously. The hard part is in splitting your awareness (not your concentration or focus) between the different Planes of your consciousness.

You can experience smoking a cigarette outside and typing inside at once. The question is, which of those do you wish to have directly affect the Material, and which of those do you wish to simply affect yourself? Even if you "imagine" smoking the cigarette, it really happens, although not on this solid plane which we term "reality."

The Material Plane is structured according to a consensus ~ something that I call The Shroud. This Shroud, this consensus, acts like a filter to keep your dreamings and imaginings from flowing over into this Material Plane. Some are strong enough to actually manifest here ~ but most are not. This is good, and bad; all reality bending is done with passion by those who know the current status of this barrier, or who are able to "tear through it," thus temporarily or permanently changing its state.

It's all in your head, and in your head, anything is possible.

[Manning]

... it has a lot to do with this Material Plane being linear...you can only experience one moment here at a time. However...once you learn how to "walk-between-worlds," you can have multiple planar experiences simultaneously.

This is one of my greatest challenges in terms of trying to explain that experience of mine to others. The only way of "telling" it here is linear and that's not the way it unfolded. That's the problem with trying to tell a story out of its own time zone.

[ April 08, 2005, 08:18 AM: Message edited by: Manning ]

[whitewave]

Poetry is a non-linear way of using words to relate a multidimensional experience. It can happen in fiction too. It just doesn't very often, because there's no money in that kind of writing.

[Manning]

Poetry is a non-linear way of using words to relate a multidimensional experience.

And music, which is often poetry itself.

[ April 08, 2005, 08:27 AM: Message edited by: Manning ]

[Eagle Wing]

regarding this topic,
I'm in agreement w/ Lowlight & Michael Heany's brief discourse above, they hit the bullseye as far as I'm concerned.

I remember reading Descartes some years ago and how he sought to distinguish between the "real" state of waking life and the "unreal" dream state in order to prove the reality of his awareness, which to me seems like trying to build a house in the middle of the ocean...

Lowlight, you're so right, the entire question "is this life just a dream?" arises from the assumptions of materialistic (Ahrimanic) principle information.

Of course life is but a dream. Life is also not a dream. Life is the recurring feedback loop of awareness and experience, and all the subsequent phenomena that entails... like our distinction between "self" and "other" which is simply a polarity of perspective within consciousness.
Why, may I ask, does everyone assume that anything changes at all when "life is a dream?" Perhaps many of us do not take our dream states as "real" experiences on their own terms.
But perhaps I'm just overly influenced by Castandeda.

anyway, I think the negative consequence of over-emphasizing the "nonrealness" of a "dream" state and equating it to a "nonrealness" of all experience, is a cul-de-sac of philosophical solipsism... truly an Ahrimanic hell. If the whole world is the dream of a higher being and us but the characters of the dream, well, that at least is more interesting but we still haven't gotten anywhere or revealed anything useful.

[SecondSun]

I don't know. I think I've decided that different dimension's are more likely to be other people's POV rather than strange unimaginable worlds with little grey men or whatever.

[Humming]

When first learning to lucid dream I would frequently have multiple false-awakening dreams at once. It would happen incredibly quickly, waking up into the same place. I became conscious of the repitition and then felt that the dream was telling me something, trying to lead me somewhere. I tested this by distracting myself with irrelevant details of the scene, or seeking to control reality for my own pleasure, but I kept waking up. When I finally decided to approach the purpose of the dream, I did not wake up again; I stayed in the dream and eventually found what I was supposed to be shown.

"The Taxi
One night in the dark I phone for a taxi. Immediately a taxi crashes through the wall; never mind that my room is on the third floor, or that the yellow driver is really a cluster of canaries arranged in the shape of a driver, who flutters apart, streaming from the windows of the taxi in yellow fountains…

Realizing that I am in the midst of something splendid I reach for the phone and cancel the taxi: All the canaries flow back into the taxi and assemble themselves into a cluster shaped like a man. The taxi backs through the wall, and the wall repairs…

But I cannot stop what is happening, I am already reaching from the phone to call a taxi, which is already beginning to crash through the wall with its yellow driver already beginning to flutter apart…"

~ Russell Edson, 1977

What amazed me at first about lucid dreaming was the absolute ease with which reality could be shaped and influenced from within.

At first, I would use that power to satisfy myself on a physical level, but eventually through a lot of subtle hints from the dream itself, into the fact that it was an illusion.

You can play in it. Lucid dreams make for purely ecstatic experiences. To be conscious of unity is a sensation, and it feels good. :D

Now when I become conscious, I do not heavily influence the storyline of the dream or exert power in any significant way, but rather just participate in it to whatever extent I feel like.

In some dreams, this may also manifest as an experience of the Logos in physical form. Recently I had a dream where I found a silver and gray mushroom with all kinds of symbols and designs etched in silver on the cap.

Coming more fully into consciousness though usually dissolves all material connections, and I am a feeling, an experience floating in a dark space like a womb, or the stars in space, suspended in a deep and permanent warmth.

[silentwolf]

I have a similar experience with lucid dreaming...I realized at an early age that I could "program" a dream world for myself as I was falling asleep, a place to escape to in my dream world. These days, I use the dreams to train myself in magic techniques, or to just fly around and have fun.

As consensual reality begins to accept more and more attempts to bend it, we will find that life becomes more and more like a lucid dream. I term this realization "Awakening," and urge the same in others, for the more that realize it, the more supple the reality-clay becomes.

[jezebelle]

I hear you. lately it seems: there doesn't seem to be a difference between waking, dreaming, working, tripping its all the same.
(of course this could be a junior-senior moment, so to speak)

[silentwolf]

Jez, that's the start of the transition period, from my personal experience. You'll know you've entered the next level when you start to see through things, kind of like you have splotchy x-ray vision. It's weird how things start to look like a stable, misty vapor.

[jezebelle]

Interesting. I kinda know what you mean.
Yet I can't help but think, it will look slightly different for each individual, even if I'm seeing the same as you.
Which brings me to halfglass's stuff, "gestalt seeing" but unique.
Anyway I think humans are organized by tribes of perceptions.
Sort of like meeting the angel of death, having labor, a unique experience per snowflake carbon unit.

[willoweyes]

Jez, I love the tribes of perception. Those words fit an idea I couldn't articulate. Too bad so many tribes seem to feel an innate compulsion to convert or slaughter those with a different perception. Even "here." Even me.

[jezebelle]

I'm getting to know my taichi master on another basis besides class, I do some graphic art work for the school.
This man (even very old) will be better than any young buck he may encounter in the university where he also teaches. Really anyone.
We all notice (even the more serious students-not me) that his teaching style is fast. He was raised in a very disciplined environment from a young age, yet here he is dealing with people much slower than him.
I explain, Americans are generally a good hearted people but stupid. We really are babies. We take longer, I say. (He quietly admitted, "yes you do seem to pratice the same things alot.")

In fact, humans are kinda stupid too, but can be cute.
love, jez2

[Eagle Wing]

yeah, most americans are raised on the promise of "freedom".
freedom from what? we might ask.
but at least as a culture, discipline seems to be out the window in this time period.

lucid dreaming is a good example of a state of consciousness that promises trememdous freedom and possibility while requiring a particular discipline.
thank you humming & silentwolf for sharing your perspectives on this....

it's truly a challenging task to carry the lessons from one state of consciousness into another, but the more we do so, the more we sympathize with a vibration of total planetary consciousness, like something that is always dreaming and always awake.

sometimes i think about the dreamlike consciousness of nature and matter itself, like you can maybe see or feel the dream in the water, if you sit with it in the right place for a while. Or our cells, our DNA -- a profoundly intelligent and highly ordered state of consciousness, performing their constructions and replications without any "awareness" of what is going on from our level of perception. Dreams within dreams? We could even be a dream of our DNA, those omnipresent shimmering radio attenae, two snakes in heat...
you know, we human beings knew about the two entwined serpents long before the scientists caught up.

the dream within the dream,
another doorway, it is very important the idea of "waking up" into another dream or "falling asleep" into a deeper dream...

[Eagle Wing]

hi, especially to humming, jez2, silentwolf,
just thought i'd resurrect this older thread that was really pretty great.
a wonderful thing about this forum is to discover the old stuff, like i didn't know this topic was started by an 11 page Castandeda thread that i now want to go bacck and read.

was just thinking about how important, the discussion of dreams.

as far as reckoning the "material world" with the inner world,
i find it interesting that many very important discoveries of science, PARTICULARLY in the area of chemistry, have been occasioned by the lead researcher's dream that clarified the structure of the object being questioned. Now, this is a very common thing for musical endeavors, as well. One of Stockhausen's best orchestra pieces (Trans) was composed in a dream. Ever wake up with a song in your head?
There's an amazing thing happening here where the discipline of deeper focus and concentration on an object, be it force of nature or personal issue of concern, leads to the spontaneous release of deeper and more transpersonal information.
nature is dreaming, too, the planet mind is dreaming.
have you been dreaming more lately?

[Agent Smith]

"our enemy is dreamless sleep"-Temple of Psychic Youth

"our weapon is sleepless dream"-flip

[Ull]

"Top scientist asks: is life all just a dream"

What's this condescending "just" about dreams & dreaming, anyway?

As anyone knows who's done lucid dreaming - like most of us on this forum, I expect - there's nothing "just" about dreaming. It's hard work. In fact, the intensity of emotion regularly experienced in sleep-dreams, is so strong that it quickly tires us out and compels us to wake up into a less emotionally intense and more physically intense wake-dream.

"Life's a dream" sounds a whole lot better - than with the misleading "just" tucked into it.

Anyway, claiming life's a dream, "just" begs the question of what a dream is? Maybe we're better off with drawing further & stronger conclusions on the explorations and rich material we already have available, rather than regressing the question of what life is into an area as yet filled with more uncertainty than the "out-through-the-bodily-senses-dream" we share right here. Just think of the enigmas highlighted by psychedelics, and all the understanding we might glean from those, once we approach these multifarious experiences with scientific methods based on benevolent, stark curiosity. - That's a dream, for sure!

Anyway, our consensus reality probably was and continually is constructed in order to stabilize & share our dreaming of life. So second-guessing this wake-dream can, and maybe should, be seen as making higher/more conscious our own deep acts on our dream.

Love &
Sweet
Dreams

[daniel]

not only is "the planet mind" dreaming, we are its dreams.

[Lowlight]

Thats exactly what ive been thinking for a few months now Daniel!

peace

[Agent Smith]

has anyone else notice different levels of dreaming?

from flat, impersonal ones, almost like watching tv, to 'being there'? as in indistinguishable from waking life aside from floating, or talking octopi?

[tana]

yes...we are the dreams of Gaia!...lovely!

you know, A.Smith, all my dreams (that i can remember) are the "being there" type (but yes, with bizarre little twists)...and always the same setting, too...a town that i seemed to have mapped out, and i return to the same places in separate dreams...the pond, the airport, that big house at the end of the road...the interior of that house is very familiar to me as well, 'cause i keep re-visiting it...very Jungian, i know.

i never have the flat, tv-watching kind of dream...they're always "lived" dreams, like an extension, or different aspect of this waking life...i am so fascinated by it.

don't you just love how a strong deja-vu experience will trigger a vivid dream memory? i wonder what that's all about?

[ August 07, 2005, 11:23 AM: Message edited by: tana ]

[usa25]

Dream life and waking life are but two facets of our existence. They are both real and both spring from the same eternal source. Our waking life happens to be rather similar for other people in their waking life so we agree and it seems more real. Our dream lives are seemingly individual and radically different from the dream lives of the people around us. Consciousness is consciousness regardless the state of mind. Real is what you make of it, you decide what reality is or is not. The trick is to assimilate the various levels of consciousness into a coherent whole your psyche can deal with.

[Agent Smith]

even so tana, are you aware of differing levels of 'depth' or involvement in a dream? kind of like 'waking life', the difference between going to movie, the grocery, or a 'peak experience', like sky diving (as you would experience it in waking life, sharper, more focused).

have you ever experienced 'others' in your dreams? the tangible feelings that someone,or thing else was in your dream with you, or that you were in theirs? or that you were somewhere other than 'just in your head' in a dream?

[tana]

thinking about your questions, Agent Smith, two dreams come to mind...i’m not sure how well they exemplify the types of dreams you were asking about, but they are the most immediate examples i have of dream experiences that were way outside the norm for me.

the first could be described as ‘peak ‘ in my realm of dream experience, i guess...

in this dream i am in a large, dark, Victorian-style house and it’s late at night...i look over (for whatever reason) to a large arched window...i move in the direction of the window, then start running toward it, intending to jump right out of it...and i do...but as i dive head first out the window, arms out in front of me, i feel my shoulders change shape, then my arms, then the rest of me transform physically...and i soar out the window into a dark forest...and as i land on the ground, i continue forward, running on all fours at top speed through the forest, feeling intense exhilaration, power and freedom...incredible and overwhelming exhilaration.

now, i know that sounds like a cliche werewolf shape-shift experience, but it was tremendously powerful and real...sensations of the wind, my feet (paws?) hitting the earth, branches swiping my face, smells & sights, blah-blah-blah...and, in waking life, i returned to the memory of the dream, over and over, reconnecting with the wonderful feelings i experienced in it.

i have never, to my recollection, ‘experienced others’ (in the way you speak about) in my dreams. if you have, please share...i’m curious about it, and i love hearing good dream stories! as for being somewhere other than just my head, this is what comes to mind...

at the time of this dream, i was still living at home with my brother, and i was very worried about him. anyway, i dreamt that i was floating above him as he skateboarded through the sleeping neighborhood, heading home, turning onto our street, then onto our driveway and up the front steps, and in the front door...then i woke up. (i like to think that as i woke i heard him come in the front door, but that may just be one of those mental memory enhancements, know what i mean?) once again, this dream was so real...and i don’t have to labor over describing this ‘realness’, right? i mean freakishly, goose-pimply, ‘what-the-fuck!?!’ real .

in all honesty though, my usual dreams feel absolutely like ‘somewhere other than just my head'...i view my familiar, continuing, dreaming life as an equally valid reality.

however, i don’t feel like my dreamlife is as varied or deep as some others...perhaps yourself...i’m not sure if my reply specifically addresses your post inquiry. was it you who recommended robert moss? i checked out a couple of his books in response to that mention, but wasn’t taken by them right away, then i got wrapped up in another book, and ended up returning the moss books without exploring them further...i’ll have to give them a second chance!

seems like the ‘life is a dream’ thread morphed into ‘a dream is life’...but i dig it!! Agent Smith, i’d love to hear more of your philosophies & experiences concerning dream realities.

[ August 13, 2005, 12:59 PM: Message edited by: tana ]

[Metatron]

http://www.crystalinks.com/holouniverse1.html
Quote;

Creation - The Holographic Universe
The Universe as a Hologram

In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading scientific journals you probably have never even heard Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his discovery may change the face of science.

Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart.
Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect's findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more radical explanations.

University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram.

To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three- dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser.

To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film.

When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.

The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose.

Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.

The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts.

A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made, we will only get smaller wholes.

This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect's discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something.

To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration.

Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other directed at its side.

As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch the two fish, you will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship between them.

When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly not the case.

This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect's experiment.

According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality.

Such particles are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the previously mentioned rose. And since everything in physical reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the universe is itself a projection, a hologram.

In addition to its phantomlike nature, such a universe would possess other rather startling features. If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected.

The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky.

Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless web.

In a holographic universe, even time and space could no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, time and three-dimensional space, like the images of the fish on the TV monitors, would also have to be viewed as projections of this deeper order.

At its deeper level reality is a sort of superhologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. This suggests that given the proper tools it might even be possible to someday reach into the superholographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the long-forgotten past.

What else the superhologram contains is an open-ended question. Allowing, for the sake of argument, that the superhologram is the matrix that has given birth to everything in our universe, at the very least it contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be -- every configuration of matter and energy that is possible, from snowflakes to quasars, from bluŸ whales to gamma rays. It must be seen as a sort of cosmic storehouse of "All That Is."

Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the superhologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps the superholographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further development".

[ September 11, 2005, 02:46 PM: Message edited by: Metatron ]

[SecondSun]

I'm sorry, this is patently false. Subatomic particles do not "communicate" with each other, what happens is they become "entangled" which means that the state of one particle depends on the other. Think of it like this. Let's say you have an empty shoebox with a white sock and a black sock in it and you close your eyes, pull out one sock, so as not to see it and put it in your pocket. Now your friend does the same. At this point neither of you know which sock you have nor which sock the other person has. Now let's say you go to sf and the other person goes to ny. the whole way neither of you look at the sock. then when you get there you pull out your sock and see that it is black and you *instantly* know that your friend has a white sock without ever communicating with your other friend. This is how quantum entanglement works, two particle's states become "entangled" so that if you know the state of one particle then you instantly know the state of another particle. So what you can do is take two entangle particles, send one to mars and one to jupiter and a person on jupiter can measure his particle and instantly know the state of the particle on mars. At first people thought that this meant the two particles were sending messages to each other at speeds faster than light (how does my particle "know" the state of the other particle) but we now understand that it works more like my shoebox analogy above. Theoretical physicists have shown that this cannot be used to transport or send messages faster than light. So, sorry, but faster than light travel is not possible yet. But there is still hope for the future. ;)

[ October 02, 2005, 07:39 AM: Message edited by: SecondSun ]

[sidecross]

‘I'm sorry, this is patently false.’

Would it not be more precise to say ‘this is both false & true’?

[SecondSun]

No. False is false.

[Metatron]

I'v experienced that their exist layered dimensions that are really right in front of us.
We can see these from the outside looking in, but rarely experience them from the inside looking out.
This “seeing” must be achieved by a shift in the assemblage point.
This shifts can come about either by intending them though techniques or as the following will show by finding yourself in another world by a juxtaposition of environmental confluences that allows a direct and instant access to adjacent dimensions.
Shamans spent allot of time and effort seeking these natural overlapping areas that connect two separate worlds.
One summer day a few years ago, I happened upon one of these portals.
The lake I was living on, for years had reseeded in size by successively dry summers, This resulted in a field of grass to spout in what was formerly a large shallow cove. Then one summer we received a large amount of rainfall and the field of tall grass became completely covered by water. The water in this lake stayed clear enough to snorkel so I expanded my usual underwater forays to the submerged field.
The water was about 4-5 feet deep just covering the top of the grass, I found that I could navigate by slowly dog paddling along rabbit trails, the rabbits were replaced by fish now swimming down these paths.
I suddenly became aware that from this perspective I was in a complete all inclusive world, a layer onto itself. I found myself in another layer of the onion!
I believe this was brought about by the layer of the water focusing my attention combined with the locomotive position of my body. The only thing that I could compare it to is walking down tree lined road.
As I stepped out of the lake, the rabbit trail continued though the tall grass, then I spotted a rabbit watching me, waiting to see which direction I would take.
We both stood looking at each other for a few moments until I started walking down the path and he disappeared down another.
That night I was having an extraordinary dream, I was running and leaping down a dimly lit trail.
The dream was in what I assumed to be at night, but now I believe just seemed that way because it was not in my usual color, but in black and white.
What was extraordinary was the visceral ecstasy I felt as I bounded down this trail. My awareness was no longer focused out from my head, but in every cell in my four legged body, it was one of the most powerful experiences I’ve ever had.
As I awoke I felt that I must have been a wolf, but I wasn’t galloping I was hopping, then I had a flash of the rabbit looking at me the day before.
I hadn’t shape shifted into a noble and powerful wolf but only a rabbit. For weeks afterward all I wanted to do was run like a rabbit in the purity of that visceral experience.

------------------------------

Quote
The Art of Dreaming

Sorcery is the act of embodying some specialized theoretical and practical premises about the nature and role of perception in molding the universe around us.
Our world is only one in a cluster of consecutive worlds, arranged like the layers of an onion. Even though we have been energetically conditioned to perceive solely our world, we still have the capability of entering into those other realms, which are as real, unique, absolute, and engulfing as our own world is.
For us to perceive those other realms, not only do we have to covet them but we need to have sufficient energy to seize them. Their existence is constant and independent of our awareness, but their inaccessibility is entirely a consequence of our energetic conditioning. In other words, simply and solely because of that conditioning, we are compelled to assume that the world of daily life is the one and only possible world.
Believing that our energetic conditioning is correctable, sorcerers of ancient times developed a set of practices designed to recondition our energetic capabilities to perceive. They called this set of practices the art of dreaming . It's the gateway to infinity.
Through dreaming we can perceive other worlds, which we can certainly describe, but we can't describe what makes us perceive them. Yet we can feel how dreaming opens up those other realms. Dreaming seems to be a sensation--a process in our bodies, an awareness in our minds.
Dreaming instruction is divided into two parts. One is about dreaming procedures, the other about the purely abstract explanations of these procedures: an interplay between enticing one's intellectual curiosity with the abstract principles of dreaming and guiding one to seek an outlet in its practices.
* * *
The human psyche is infinitely more complex than our mundane or academic reasoning has led us to believe.
* * *
The second attention is an energetic configuration of awareness

http://www.prismagems.com/castaneda/donjuan9.html

[ October 06, 2005, 09:36 PM: Message edited by: Metatron ]

[jezebelle]

fantastic post, I like how exploring, dreams, nature, waking, sleeping, mingle into one.

[SecondSun]

Metatron, according to my all-inclusive empircally varified scientific theory, you are wrong and I am right. :eek:

Just kidding. Lovely post.

[Metatron]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Similar events one can observe in the psychic realm. People who have been bound too long to the causal paradigma begin to die in this life. Unconsciously they will become "living deads". Thus the Sufis, the mystics of Islam - say these words of wisdom: "Die before you die!" By this they mean that in such people a new conscious orientation should take place which effects so that the consciousness then would much more be connected to the principle of synchronicity instead to causality. This letting go of old tried and true, this giving up of the power principle, of "Where there's a will there's a way!" works like an elixier vitae. Such people begin a second life which falls under the principle of synchronicity. I call it Synchronicity Quest, which means that they begin to let theirselves be lead by coincidences and to take assistance from their dreams in order to learn to understand wherein the way of life further leads. In greatly critical moments synchronicities come to pass which show the real goal of life, which can not be found by will and causalistic thinking.

Experience shows that such synchronicities work negentropically, meaning that they build new psychic energy fields out of which further new life possibilities emerge. People grow in this manner and those who take their dreams and synchronicities seriously have a chance to lead a life filled with a new and deeper meaning. Thereby they have simultaneously overcome the paradigma of causality while entering into a new age of synchronicity which appears on the horizon of the new millennium.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.psychovision.ch/synw/synchronicity_jung.htm

[Metatron]

I used two terms earlier that may need some clarification; “intent” and “Assemblage Point”

quote:
Concept of the Assemblage Point

A most useful concept for studying the epistemology of magic is the idea of the assemblage point. This idea comes from a branch of combined Meso-American shamanism and magic commonly known as Nagualism, and is described by Carlos Castaneda in the numerous books in which he writes about his encounters with the Mexican brujero, Don Juan. Nagualism views the human being abstractly as a "luminous cocoon" of awareness and defines the assemblage point as that location on this sphere where all the fibers of the universe are focused by intent into our perception of the universe. Furthermore, this location can be changed by the operation of intent. Notice that intent is the key, operative word of this definition. Indeed, if it can ever be said that the brujero Nagual uttered a magic word, that word would have to be "intent", for intent is the quintessential, indefinable term in the language of Nagualism. Castaneda describes the role of intent in the following passage from Silent Knowledge
Sorcerers , by the force of their practices and goals, refute the power of the word. They define themselves as navigators in the sea of the unknown. For them, navigation is a practicality, and navigation means to move from world to world, without losing sobriety, without losing strength; and, to accomplish this feat of navigation, there cannot be procedures, or steps to be followed, but one single abstract act that defines it all: the act of reinforcing our link with the force that permeates the universe, a force which sorcerers call intent. Since we are alive and conscious, we are already intimately related to intent. What we need, sorcerers say, is to make that link the realm of our conscious acts, and that act of becoming conscious of our link with intent is another way of defining silent knowledge.

[ October 06, 2005, 06:14 PM: Message edited by: Metatron ]

[SecondSun]

About your "Syncronocity Quest," I have been experiencing increased syncronocity as of late and have been both troubled and exhilerated by what it might offer. One point which gives me pause is the possibility to read too much into the syncronostic (is that a word?) event. I can find that if I choose to I can take every coincidental occurence into account and become almost seductively entranced by them to the point of obsession. My conclusion is that a little skepticism is necessary to keep fanaticism at bay. Thoughts? Opinions?

Also, what do you think of the idea that everything (i mean everything) has a double, triple, or infinite numerosity of meaning. For example take my neologism "syncronostic." Is it syncro-gnostic? Sync-chrono-stic? or all of these things? Perhaps at some level each of these subtles have some reality.

[please excuse spelling, i am dyslexic]

[Metatron]

From The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers: So when we dream, we are fishing in some vast ocean of mythology that -

Joseph Campbell: - that goes down and down and down.You can get all mixed up with complexes, you know, things like that, but really, as the Polynsian saying goes, you are "standing on a whale fishing for minnows." We are standing on a whale. The ground of being is the ground of our being, and when we simply turn outward, we see all of these little problems here and there. But, if we look inward, we see that we are the source of them all.

Bill Moyers: You talk about mythology existing here and now in dreamtime. What is dreamtime?

Joseph Campbell: This is the time you get into when you go to sleep and have a dream that talks about permanent conditions within your own psyche as they relate to the temporal conditions of your life right now.

Bill Moyers: Explain that.

Joseph Campbell: For example, you may be worried about whether you are going to pass an exam. Then you have a dream of some kind of failure, and you find that failure will be associated with many other failures in your life. They are all piled up together there. Freud says even the most fully expounded dream is not really fully expounded. The dream is an exhaustible source of spiritual information about yourself.
Now the level of dream of "Will I pass the exam?" or "Should I marry this girl?" - that is purely personal. But, on another level, the problem of passing the exam is not simply a personal problem. Everyone has to pass a threshold of some kind. That is an archetypal thing. So there is a basic mythological theme there even though it is a personal dream. These two levels - the personal aspect and then the big general problem of which the person's problem is a local example - are found in all cultures. For example, everyone has the problem of facing death. This is a standard mystery.

Bill Moyers: What do we learn from our dreams?

Joseph Campbell: You learn about yourself.

Bill Moyers: How do we pay attention to our dreams?

Joseph Campbell: All you have to do is remember your dream in the first place, and write it down. Then take one little fraction of the dream, one or two images or ideas, and associate with them. Write down what comes to your mind, and again what comes to your mind, and again. You'll find that the dream is based on a body of experiences that have some kind of significance in your life and that you didn't know were influencing you. Soon the next dream will come along, and your interpretation will go further.

Bill Moyers: A man once told me he didn't remember dreaming until he retired. Suddenly, having no place to focus his energy, he began to dream and dream and dream. Do you think we tend to overlook the significance of dreaming in our modern society?

Joseph Campbell: Ever since Freud's Interpretation of Dreams was published, there has been a recognition of the importance of dreams. But even before that there were dream interpretations. People had superstitious notions about dreams - for example, "Something is going to happen because I dreamed it was going to happen."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bill Moyers: Why is a myth different from a dream?

Joseph Campbell: Oh, because a dream is a personl experience of that deep, dark ground that is the support of our conscious lives, and a myth is the society's dream. The myth is the public dream and the dream is the private myth. If your private myth, your dream, happens to coincide with that of the society, you are in good accord with your group. If it isn't, you've got an adventure in the dark forest ahead of you.

Bill Moyers: So if my priavte dreams are in accord with the public mythology, I'm more likely to live healthily in that society. But if my private dreams are out of step with the public -

Joseph Campbell: - you'll be in trouble. If you're forced to live in that system, you'll be a neurotic.

Bill Moyers: But aren't there visionaries and even leaders and heroes close to the edge of neuroticism?

Joseph Campbell: Yes, there are.

Bill Moyers: How do you explain that?

Joseph Campbell: They've moved out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest, into the world of fire, of orginal experience. Orginal experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you've got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can't. You don't have to go far off from the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience - that is the hero's deed.

Bill Moyers: You say dreams come up from the psyche.

Joseph Campbell: I don't know where else they come from. They come from the imagination, don't they? The imagination is grounded in the energy of the organs of the body, and these are the same in all human beings. Since imagination comes from out of one biological ground, it is bound to produce certain themes. Dreams are dreams. There are certain charactistics of dreams that can be enumerated, no matter who is dreaming them.

Bill Moyers: I think of a dream as something very private, while a myth is something public.

Joseph Campbell: On some levels a private dream runs into truly mythic themes and can't be interpreted except by an analogy with a myth. Jung speaks of two orders of dream, the personal dream and the archetpal dream, or the dream of the mythic dimension. You can interpret a personal dream by association, figuring out what it is talking about in your own life, or in relationship to your own personal problem. But every now and then a dream comes up that is pure myth, that carries a mythic theme, or that is said, for example, to come from the Christ within.

Bill Moyers: From the archetypal person within us, the archetypal self we are.

Joseph Campbell: That's right. Now there is another, deeper meaning of dreamtime - which is of a time that is no time, just an enduring state of being. There is an important myth from Indonesia that tells of this mythological age and its termination. In the beginning, according to this story {myth}, the ancestors were not distinguished as to sex. There were no births, there were no deaths. Then a great public dance was celebrated, and in the course of the dance one of the participants was trampled to death and torn to pieces, and the pieces were buried. At the moment of that killing the sexes became separated, so that death was balanced by begetting, begetting by death, while from the buried parts of the dismembered body food plants grew. Time had come into being, death, birth, and the killing and eating of other living beings, for the perservation of life. The timeless time of the beginning had terminated by a communal crime, a deliberate murder or sacrifice.
Now, one of the problems of mythology is reconciling the mind to this brutal percondition of all life, which lives by the killing and eating of lives. You don't kid yourself by eating only vegetables, either, for they, too, are alive. So the essence of life is this eating of itself! Life lives on life, and the reconciliation of the human mind and sensibilities to that fundamental fact is one of the functions of some of those very brutal rites in which the ritual consists chiefly of killing - in imitation, as it were, of that first, primordial crime, out of which arose this temporal world, in which we all participate. The reconciliation of mind to the conditions of life is fundamental to all creation stories {myths}. They're very like each other in this aspect.

Bill Moyers: So the one great story is our search to find our place in the drama?

Joseph Campbell: To be in accord with the grand symphony that the world is, to put the harmony of our own body in accord with that harmony.

Bill Moyers: When I read these stories, no matter the culture or origin, I feel a sense of wonder at the spectacle of the human imagination groping to try to understand this existence, to invest in their small journey these transcendent possibilities. Has that ever happened to you?

Joseph Campbell: I think of mythology as the homeland of the muses, the inspirers of art, the inspirers of poetry. To see life as a poem and yourself participating in a poem is what the myth does for you.

[ October 06, 2005, 08:59 PM: Message edited by: Metatron ]

[Metatron]

Originally posted by SecondSun:
About your "Syncronocity Quest," I have been experiencing increased syncronocity as of late and have been both troubled and exhilerated by what it might offer. One point which gives me pause is the possibility to read too much into the syncronostic (is that a word?) event. I can find that if I choose to I can take every coincidental occurence into account and become almost seductively entranced by them to the point of obsession. My conclusion is that a little skepticism is necessary to keep fanaticism at bay. Thoughts? Opinions?

Also, what do you think of the idea that everything (i mean everything) has a double, triple, or infinite numerosity of meaning. For example take my neologism "syncronostic." Is it syncro-gnostic? Sync-chrono-stic? or all of these things? Perhaps at some level each of these subtles have some reality.

[please excuse spelling, i am dyslexic]Quote
Synchronicities are sometimes regarded as signs, and some people consciously use them to make decisions in life. In the novel The Celestine Prophecy, a bestseller which thrust synchronicity into the public consciousness, James Redfield says that all coincidences are significant because they point the way to an unfolding of our personal destiny.

MaryAnn had moved to London to live with her boyfriend, only to discover that she hated the city and that he had a nasty streak. One morning at 6 a.m., after a tearful fight with him, she fled the house and was out walking the dank, grey streets, feeling completely miserable. Suddenly a dead bird fell out of the sky and landed at her feet with a plop. "That did it," she says. "It was a sign from the Universe and it was shouting, `Go home!' And I did."

Often synchronicities are simply a lark, a wink from the cosmos. Rebecca, a screenwriter, was researching the life of a mysterious woman, a famous writer's lover who had died tragically at a young age. Driving to Boston to view the writer's archives, Rebecca on a whim stopped off at the sprawling cemetery in the woman's home town, and quickly chanced upon her gravestone. On top of it was sitting a rabbit, its pink nose quivering. At the sight of Rebecca, it started skittering around in circles. In Boston a few hours later, she was reading through the writer's diaries when in the margin of a page, she came upon a few lines of curlicue, schoolgirlish handwriting, which she recognized as being the young woman's. The words? "Thank God for the rabbits and their funny little habits."

http://www.flowpower.com/What%20is%20Synchronicity.htm

[Metatron]

Recently I was job hunting and was uncertain about the direction I should take.
You see I live in a rural area were the roads intersect in a north-south, east-west directional crossing. The major areas of employment were toward the bigger cities which are north and east, but these directions never felt right and all my prospects in these directions seemed to fall though.
One night I was having a dream I was driving on the road west out in the country. I could see snakes slither off the road though the grass. What was striking about the serpents was the neon bright colors. Some were blue some pink and others emerald bright green.
I could see these flashes of color all along the road.

The snake in my dreams have always symbolized currents of energy. And the road in the dream represented a path. So I interpreted that the west road being my power path.
Even though there was only one small town 35 miles away I began to pursue employment there, and of course quickly found a job that I like very much.
And the bonus is I get to drive on a beautiful country road to work.

My personal animal totem is the sparrow hawk, he visited me one day while I was standing by a lake after a sever thunderstorm. The sky to the east was alive with lightning and to the north with a double rainbow.
This lake was a place I grew up as a child, at that time it was surrounded by endless fields of sweet clover and giant oaks. The lake of my childhood was a mysterious deep sea that I visited in my dreams long after we moved away.
Today I was back, the mysterious sea had shrank to a human size, the sweet clover and giant oaks had been replaced by asphalt parking lots and factories. The field were I played as a child was now an industrial park and now I was at work in one of those factors. As I watched the sky, a nostalgia swept over me as I remember the boy that I was, and the place that was.

At that moment I noticed hovering above a sparrow hawk looking directly at me then it dove and stopped right above my head and I could look into its eyes. I got the distinct impression it was examining me. This was the same bird I had always seen hovering over these fields as a boy . This bird has been guiding me from that day on.

All of us arrive accompanied by a point of darkness, the void whence we came and that we will return. I’ve come to see some humans place this point directly in front of them and draw energy and guidance from it.
The voids darkness perceived without fear becomes a creative source infusing life with a mysterious air, always hinting at something deeper giving dreams meaning, transforming birds into messengers. However this view can only be maintained though a humble child like curiosity of the heart, as well as a sobriety of the mind found in a hunter or scientist.
This balance will at opportune times propel you though the void to experience the “ second attention” However some have placed this point behind them, and attempt to use the point as a depository of bad memories. This results in the perception of a world that is constantly threatened by the void.
Fear then becomes the director that orders the world around us.

[ October 06, 2005, 09:33 PM: Message edited by: Metatron ]

[Charlie]

Second Sun wrote:

One point which gives me pause is the possibility to read too much into the syncronostic (is that a word?) event. I can find that if I choose to I can take every coincidental occurence into account and become almost seductively entranced by them to the point of obsession. My conclusion is that a little skepticism is necessary to keep fanaticism at bay.

You raise a good point here, SS. One internal change I’ve made has been what I call the Big Trade-In: logic for intuition. Although it has opened me up to greater possibilities, it can lead to the foibles you mention above, if taken to an extreme degree. As a result, I have learned to focus on truly idiosyncratic events, rather than small anomalies.

An example: I have two children. My nine-year-old boy went on a three week summer trip with a “spiritual group”, my 6 year-old daughter stayed home. Before picking him up from the airport, we decorated the house with balloons and posters to welcome him back. Upon returning from the airport, we encountered something on the front doorstop: a small dragonfly perched on top of a larger one. Upon closer examination, we saw that the smaller one was eating the larger one’s head off. It was both fascinating and repulsive, something we’d never seen before. I had a bad feeling about it.

My normally hyperactive, impulsive boy had returned from his trip quieter, better-behaved, even introspective. However, his younger sister was still the same; her constant presence and infantile behavior brought back his conditioned responses from the past. In three days, he resorted back to his old self. His little sister had "eaten his head."

A dream or synchronistic event only has as much relevance as you assign to it. I use very simple guidelines. If I have a very strong gut feeling about a dream or event, I trust it completely. Equally, if overwhelming logic dictates what course of action to take, I make my decisions accordingly. The large grey area in between is a balancing act, sifting through both logic and intuition. And if I really still can’t find the path, I have a fail-safe: I ask my wife what I should do. ;)

[ October 07, 2005, 12:11 AM: Message edited by: Charlie ]

[Metatron]

Dragonfly ...

Breaks illusions,

Brings visions of power,

No need to prove it,

Now is the hour!

Know it, believe it,

Great Spirit intercedes,

Feeding you, blessing you,

Filling all your needs.

Dragonfly medicine is of the dreamtime and the illusionary facade we accept as physical reality. The iridescence of Dragonfly's wings reminds us of colors not found in our everyday experience. Dragonfly's shifting of color, energy, form, and movement explodes into the mind of the observer, bringing vague memories of a time or place where magic reigned.

Some legends say that Dragonfly was once Dragon, and that Dragon had scales like Dragonfly's wings. Dragon was full of wisdom, and flew through the night bringing light with its fiery breath. The breath of Dragon brought forth the art of magic and the illusion of changing form. Then Dragon got caught in its own facade. Coyote tricked Dragon into changing form, and the shape of its new body became like Dragonfly's. In accepting the challenge to prove its power and magical prowess, Dragon lost its power.

Dragonfly is the essence of the winds of change, the messages of wisdom and enlightenment, and the communications from the elemental world. This elemental world is made up of the tiny spirits of plants, and of the elements air, earth, fire, and water. In essence, this world is full of nature spirits.

If Dragonfly has flown into your cards today, you may have forgotten to water your plants. On another level, you may need to give thanks to the foods you eat for sustaining your body. On the psychological level, it may be time to break down the illusions you have held that restrict your actions or ideas.

Dragonfly medicine always beckons you to seek out the parts of your habits which you need to change. Have you put on too much weight, or have you started to look like a scarecrow? Have you tended to the changes you have wanted to make in your life? If you feel the need for change, call on Dragonfly to guide you through the mists of illusion to the pathway of transformation.

See how you can apply the art of illusion to your present question or situation, and remember that things are never completely as they seem.

Contrary Dragonfly:

Are you trying to prove to yourself or someone else that you have power? Are you caught in an illusion that weakens your true feelings or minimizes your abilities? If so, you may have contracted "Dragonfly dive-bombing." Is this the final "crash and burn" for some pipe-dream that had no real purpose? Look within and feel the sense-of-self energy within yourself. Notice if it is ebbing, and find the point in time when you were deluded into believing that you would be happier if you changed because someone else wanted you to. Misery is a prime clue that you lost your will and personal validity when you bought into someone else's idea of who or what you should be. The illusion was that you would be happier if you did it their way. In forfeiting what you know is right and true for you personally, you give away your power. It is time for you to take it back.

Follow Dragonfly to the place inside your body where magic is still alive, and drink deeply of its power. This strength belongs to you. It is the power of becoming the illusion. This ability is ever changing, and contains within it the knowledge that you are creating it all.

About the Authors
David Carson is the author of Lament (Grove Press, 1973). He has written prolifically for newspapers, films, and underground, radical, social reform publications. He is of Choctaw descent, grew up in Oklahoma, and has lived on Cheyenne, Crow, and Sioux reservations in Montana and Manitoba.

Jamie Sams is a Native American medicine teacher and a member of the Wolf Clan teaching lodge. She is of Iroquois and Cherokee descent, and has been trained in Seneca, Mayan, Aztec, and Choctaw medicine. Jamie lived and studied with Mayan and Aztec teachers in Mexico during the 1970s. She is the author of Sacred Path Cards, The 13 Original Clan Mothers, and Earth Medicine, and co-author (with Twylah Nitsch) of Other Council Fires Were Here Before Ours.

[willoweyes]

I think you have to be aware of Rorsatch (SP,TM) Inkblot Tests that masquarade as synchronicity.

For example, I have cracked fortune cookies that seemed right on. Like the one that told me: "You are not bitter, deceptive, or petty." Have any of you ever gotten such a harsh fortune cookie? How can anyone live up to that? and it came at a time when I was feeling particularly bitter, deceptive and petty.

The only worse one said, "An empty bag cannot stand upright." Universe, was that really necessary?

What I'm trying to say here is, if we are ready and waiting for a message, it will be shouted out to us from that which surrounds us. Happens to everyone--it is just there in the lay of the land.

[JCCamp007]

"How bout this"
saith the Lord.
"The first shall be the last,and the last shall be the first."

"Old pond,new frog.Old frog,new pond.Splash.
The truth goes on forever."

Great post Charlie.I saw two grasshoppers eating each other yesterday.Must mean it is going to be a bad winter.
Do you think that Eve is a God?I think so and when we reach that level of reality I think we are seeing things more conscious of the tree of good and evil than we men do.
Unless of course Eve didn't really eat and just told Adam she did.Which may well be true.

[ October 11, 2005, 10:40 AM: Message edited by: JCCamp007 ]