Integrating psychology and ritual narratives
"Dreams are the unconscious telling the story of your ego, or hierarchy of egos."
The brain makes an ego by means of the unconscious narrative that is endlessly streaming. An ego is created by the unconscious through story telling, and myth and narrative. A dream is a glimpse into this process.
The brain DOES NOT use logic when it is creating the constellation of personas that make up out ego. You might be able to understand the brains biological function with logic, but that doesn't mean consciousness is logical or rational, far from it.
The ego is always placing itself between experience and perception and filtering it into pieces the unconscious feels comfortable with. Anything the unconscious doesn't like is repressed, ignored or misinterpreted. During meditation you are reaching a state of samadhi or the experience of no-mind, no-self, absorption into the godhead etc. etc. where the brains capacity to create the ego is temporarily interrupted. This allows repressed material from the unconscious to rise to the surface unhindered by the ego. Hopefully, then you can embrace reality more intimately (we hope).
Sometimes during meditation you will notice yourself suddenly dropping into a dream state with the dream all ready in progress. You literally drop in right in the middle of a narrative completely scripted with background, characters and coherent realistic dialog. Dreaming is not just random coding of the previous days events. How preposterous! Dreams are the unconscious telling the story of your ego, or hierarchy of egos.
When you first fall asleep at the beginning of the evening your brain and its processes, begin to incorporate the days events and fits them into your narrative stream, smoothing out any inconsistencies and rough spots. Your unconscious is doing this ALL THE TIME, not just during REM sleep.
Ritual narrative has the potential of re-writing your script or changing it a little bit. That is the real power of ritual; to invoke whatever you want. You can become who you want to become with powerful rituals. Religion uses ritual to try to invoke a "spirit" of reverence or holiness or piety or whatever the basis of the religion wants you to experience. All you have to do is walk into your childhood temple and those stories, and myths start to revive emotions and feelings in your mind.
Ritual does not need to be part of a religion. You can make up your own myth and construct it anyway you want. Just remember when you perform your ritual, leave your logic outside.
I am no longer a devout Christian but when I go to mass with my family [or Pagan sex rite, umm not with my family :)] I leave my logic outside the church doors and settle in to the mystery of God as Man and Man as God. I simply become Christ.
Thou Art God! so get busy with it already!
The brain makes an ego by means of the unconscious narrative that is endlessly streaming. An ego is created by the unconscious through story telling, and myth and narrative. A dream is a glimpse into this process.
The brain DOES NOT use logic when it is creating the constellation of personas that make up out ego. You might be able to understand the brains biological function with logic, but that doesn't mean consciousness is logical or rational, far from it.
The ego is always placing itself between experience and perception and filtering it into pieces the unconscious feels comfortable with. Anything the unconscious doesn't like is repressed, ignored or misinterpreted. During meditation you are reaching a state of samadhi or the experience of no-mind, no-self, absorption into the godhead etc. etc. where the brains capacity to create the ego is temporarily interrupted. This allows repressed material from the unconscious to rise to the surface unhindered by the ego. Hopefully, then you can embrace reality more intimately (we hope).
Sometimes during meditation you will notice yourself suddenly dropping into a dream state with the dream all ready in progress. You literally drop in right in the middle of a narrative completely scripted with background, characters and coherent realistic dialog. Dreaming is not just random coding of the previous days events. How preposterous! Dreams are the unconscious telling the story of your ego, or hierarchy of egos.
When you first fall asleep at the beginning of the evening your brain and its processes, begin to incorporate the days events and fits them into your narrative stream, smoothing out any inconsistencies and rough spots. Your unconscious is doing this ALL THE TIME, not just during REM sleep.
Ritual narrative has the potential of re-writing your script or changing it a little bit. That is the real power of ritual; to invoke whatever you want. You can become who you want to become with powerful rituals. Religion uses ritual to try to invoke a "spirit" of reverence or holiness or piety or whatever the basis of the religion wants you to experience. All you have to do is walk into your childhood temple and those stories, and myths start to revive emotions and feelings in your mind.
Ritual does not need to be part of a religion. You can make up your own myth and construct it anyway you want. Just remember when you perform your ritual, leave your logic outside.
I am no longer a devout Christian but when I go to mass with my family [or Pagan sex rite, umm not with my family :)] I leave my logic outside the church doors and settle in to the mystery of God as Man and Man as God. I simply become Christ.
Thou Art God! so get busy with it already!