Hello all. Whether you believe in the distinction between unreal and real being false; I find that dreams are an interesting source of not just information but of reflection towards the 'real' world. So if anyone finds that they had an interesting dream or experience, that they find worth sharing, then feel free to just plop it over here. Of course, discussion is always interesting!
P.S Let's try to keep things SFW and mature.
I'll start. Last night I had 3 dreams, all of which I can scarcely remember though there was a detail in one that was particularly interesting. In the dream, I was learning the application of magic from a elderly man, who was quite eccentric. He explained this system of nodes around the skull and how certain letters could make spells. An example were the letters H - B - A, but the letters were drawn in a rather hexagramic fashion around eachother.
While those details are somewhat obscure and I can't remember much of them. I remember the man bringing up that if one wanted to get started they should find a stone that can fit in their hands, with one side filled with holes and crevices; as if to allow one to imagine the depth of reality. Just seemed weird and strange, but it makes sense.
It reminds me of the application of drawing a tesseract(4 dimensional cube) that I once read an excerpt about (from a book about multidimensional magic), where the tesseract is drawn to simply break one's conception of reality to allow them to go past their solid perspective.
The other two dreams were somewhat interesting; though I can't draw much meaning behind them.
Still I think it's very interesting. When in dream like states, things often seem very real and only seem unreal till waking up. I've realized the same distinction applies with what we consider to be the real world, as if we are aware of the 'real' world in our dreams, it appears to be unreal.
Hmm that’s somewhat sad. I meant to describe the 2 other dreams after an edit but it seemed the edit didn’t go through. In a way both these dreams were very significant but at the same time I can’t draw much meaning from them.
Both these dreams are a reflection, repeat of each other with the main change being the person I am following. In one dream it was my father, and in the other it was my mother. Though it may be important to state that these ’parents’ I was following didn’t seem like my actual parents; instead they were far purer and I felt more attached.
Well to the actual substance, it was me following my father down a dungeon that kept going deeper, as if there was infinite floors. I remember being so tired and thirsty as I followed him, yet I kept following him. Eventually the dungeon went no further and there was only a wall; then my father disappeared and I knew that he had achieved liberation. Yet in the dream I also deeply wished for liberation, and I felt sorrow as well that I was now alone. My father, taking pity on me, manifested a book where he once stood: The Book of Genesis. Upon giving a single glance at the book, I too disappeared.
The dream then repeated itself and shifted to a new dream, this time with my mother. My exhaustion was still there but it felt as if it had restarted simply by the fact that I could no longer remember the lingering. The lingering is actually an important realization I had to myself the day before and am still thinking on it today. Effectively we feel more suffering because we bring the past into the present. Suffering then piles on itself, when in reality it only happens for that moment; hence when one lets go of the past, suffering diminishes greatly. Well back to the dream... I kept following my mother like before, and like with the last dream she too disappeared; leaving a book behind after noticing my sorrow: The Book of Hajj. After glancing at it, I woke up and then fell back to sleep in the dream about magic.
I’m somewhat saddened by these dreams. As I feel that in the moment I had seen each book in the dreams I had been liberated. Yet as my perspective returns to what I consider to be the real world, all I can remember is the titles of the books. When looking up each book though, there seems to be little match and familiarity to what I felt I had seen.
perhaps this is a lesson that liberation is always there, and that it is my clinging to the past that keeps me in the state of suffering. But I’m not sure. I feel that I’m approaching that wall rather quickly, as it has been rather easy as soon as I picked up the scriptures and resolved myself to abandon the impure tendencies. Yet I wonder what will happen when I reach that wall, and where my father or mother are. For pure tendencies are not all that is required for liberation, it is the looking past of both the real and unreal; yet no matter my quick learning of the pure, and my tiring journey towards the apex of it all, where is that book? That glance that will free me from the mundane unto true liberation.
Perhaps it is a good thing, that my initial edits didn’t go through. In rewriting and thinking upon this dream and I have encountered the source of my current worries and dedication, where I wonder what distance is there from that which is?
While I put in the effort towards liberation I wonder what voices, parents, and others are cheering me on. They watch me with boundless love, and guide me through even the smallest of trivialities. Whether that be leading me to encounter strife, or even to think more deeply on a matter, due to the failure of an edit...
I don't have any dreams to share off the top of my head. But dreams have been utterly pivotal to my expoloration of consciousness and my sense of self, all of my life.
My earliest memory in this life is of a nightmare so horrifying, that in my terror to escape it, it induced my first out of body experience and became my first clear and distinct memory of this life.
Dreams to me are as real as anything in 'shared reality' in their ability to influence me and... through their ability to unveil my inner nature in how they manifest and how my awareness responds to them. In coming to know my own process more fully, dreams have been an invaluable help in my life.
I've also on and off through the years, when the compulsion arises, spent considerable time cultivating energy practices while lucid dreaming. If you haven't heard of it... Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche has an outstanding book in my opinion on the Tibetan approach to Dream Yoga and Dream cultivation. The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
Dreams are one manner of getting under the veil that covers the aspects of mind that are not conscious and allowing my waking mind to communicate with the anchor within, with my link to source.
Myths are public dreams. Dreams are private Myths. ~Joseph Campbell
@silent_thunder I’ve heard that very book recommended by @dwai. When my study of Vasistha’s Yoga can slow down I’ll give it a check out 🙂
While those details are somewhat obscure and I can't remember much of them. I remember the man bringing up that if one wanted to get started they should find a stone that can fit in their hands, with one side filled with holes and crevices; as if to allow one to imagine the depth of reality. Just seemed weird and strange, but it makes sense.
I love the fact that the stone had to fit your hands. What that says to me is for you to find your own way, not anyone else's path. The holes and crevasses may be a nod toward 'going in' to yourself for the further wisdom that you seek. The fact that half of it had no holes may be the remainder of the self that is yet unexplored.
I use cannabis periodically. When I do, I don't dream at all for the entire period that I smoke. But I'm not using it right now, and I'm hopeful that the dreams will kick back in. They usually do.
I have to write them down immediately or they just....dissipate.
@manitou me too. Think it has to do with real and unreal distinction; hard for us to fathom the unreal as real within the waking reality and hard to fathom the real as unreal in dreams. So everything just kind of slips away...
Today was a rather odd morning... Second time I've had a dream like this. should mention that I have a habit now... where a lot of my meditation happens during the process where I fall asleep, while I'm asleep, and then once I wake up. Well enough of that though, here's to it:
So today I woke up at around 5 am. Lately I've been pretty dispassionate and lazy, so while in the past I would have gotten up and started reading the Vasistha's Yoga or gotten fresh air I tried to head back to bed. meditated a bit while I was at it and then I woke up at around 6:30. Meditated a bit to fall and fell asleep again though the humming in my head was getting loud, it's not necessary tinnitus though as it comes and goes + its rather relaxing; though lately it's been consistently there. I experienced a few pops, and feelings of nice warmth; I expected it to be some channels opening but I soon fell back asleep, to wake up at around 7:30. Now the weird part has already started. I'm really unsure whether the dream started after 5 am, 6:30 am, or 7:30 am. I suspect it to be 7:30 am but It's really hard to say, all I know is that it started at some point without me noticing.
This process of me having energy sensations and then falling asleep kept happening, with the humming getting louder and louder. Though at this point I was focused on "in bed" meditation and was no longer checking the time. However, It seemed like I was making really quick progress... lots of loud pops especially around my face that felt very satisfying. I remember one in my throat, that after it happened, it felt like I could finally breath. So I ended up spending a bit basically meditating, wasn't falling asleep much anymore though it still happened. This was still just really exciting as I seemed to be opening up a lot of channels.
At some point after a pop under my left eye and then one under my right eye, my vision cleared up and became abnormally sharp. At this point I heard a voice in my head tell me, "We'll continue in 20 hours". It seemed like a guardian spirit of some sort, I had been trying to manifest one irl but hadn't noticed any signs so it was exciting to hear this. This also explained for me why I was making such quick progress with opening channels and so on, as I was obviously having some outside help. So I finally get out of bed, and I start walking around. Go through the process of my mom starting the morning with an insult... talk to my older brother, then deal with my younger brothers. All seems to be going normally and soon I start eating breakfast but then my head starts to feel heavy and I wake up. I find myself back in the bed, feeling that I was actually asleep... I think huh I guess I'm ACTUALLY awake now. So I start going through the process again of my morning, talking to others a bit but its different this time; not too much just a bit. The same heavy-head feeling hits, and I wake back up in the bed. Now I don't know how many times this exactly happened, but what I can say is that I can't even remember how many cycles I could have possibly went through. But effectively everytime I kept feeling that I had finally woke up and started to go on with my day.
During one of the loops, instead of getting out of bed, I meditated more and started contemplating "infinity". Don't know how long I spent like that, though after some time, I somehow realized that something wasn't right. And in doing so the loop activated again. But this time I was aware of it, and I immediately started looking for clues/panicking. Though I ended up almost forgetting as my youngest brother started being a real bother with the process + I got caught up in playing around with my sharp vision. However I quickly realized again, but I seemed powerless. I didn't know what to do, and the loops kept getting shorter and shorter leaving me with less time. I tried memorizing objects, etc, anything to get back to my real reality; which at this point I thought to be immediately after that voice said "we'll continue in 20 hours". I had completely forgotten this world per say and was now try to return to a world/identity that was just a dream. Finally at some point the idea crossed my mind to try asking some people on daobums, or even calling a spiritually advanced friend. At this point I tried to call a friend of mine, and as I was pulling up their contact on my phone, it struck me that I didn't actually have their number; yet on my phone screen it said I did. I thought for a second where that memory came from and then woke up. It was 8:30 am, none of the meditations seemed to happen as my vision was still the same though it clearly felt like they still happened to me. It took me a bit to acclimate myself, as irl felt strange and alien. After collecting them for a bit, I realized I had completely forgotten about this world, and gotten lost in another dream.
First I fell into that dream... then became attached to it through making the experiences of pleasure (progress, excitement) and sorrow (annoyance, despair, etc) mine. And because everything seemed "real" I thought it to be real. The progress, the people, experiences. Looking back at it now, It still seems real, I can't see how it was just a dream... Because of this, part of me feels scared and frightful that I could have fallen into a coma, yet I'm also starting to see what that dream was saying.
Effectively, This world is nothing more than a dream; its reality built upon the chains of sorrow and pleasure, and caged in with memories/mental conditioning. Like each loop resetting us back, so is Samsara; whereupon our time has diminished, the next cycle begins and conditioning from past loops (cycles, lives) carries on. Is this utter non existence? All this seems like a dream, all beings being of my creation, yet I take on the notion of this egotistic I and forget my original nature. I get lost in the dream that I created...
I'm still processing what this dream means to me... but it was a very interesting dream to share. I imagine I'll have more in the future just like it. I kind of even want to explore dreams like this more for I know that once I understand it; I'll be one step closer to wherever I need to be. Though I'm also a bit scared; in both cases I could see the ignorance coiling around me leading to the possibilities for a coma in this world.
I suspect one of the following: some being/entity is helping me wake up from these dreams and maybe trying to invoke them for me as a learning experience as without that "looping experience" I would have fully believed that reality to be mine, I'm waking up through my own realizations like missing memories though that seems somewhat unlikely... as the memories didn't really seem to do much other than point the way out, or these are just normal dreams making the play of the minds. Though in both cases, these dreams have felt extraordinarily long but end up really only taking a few hours at most, to even 30 minutes at least.
What's left after this dream is that I can't really see existence as real anymore. This world seems like a dream, though the intensity of that feeling changes throughout the day. Generally just don't know what to do from here though, it seems time will reveal that.
