More on Dreams.
Overslept. Note to self: Valerian *works*. 12 hours of sleeping-in goodness when I had hoped to be showered and working on the comic right now. Bleah. Have a lot to finish by the end of the month.
Going to make a concerted effort, for as long as it holds my interest, to write some sort of informational work on the dream world. Had some interesting (mainly nonsensical) semi- and fully lucid dreams last night courtesy of Sleepy Time Extra Strength tea. Figured out a few more parallels that weren't readily apparent before.
Hallucinations, dreams, and OOBEs. I'm convinced they're all the same animal with different skins. Unfortunately hallucinations aren't given much weight in the Real World(tm), and OOBEs are given too much. What makes an OOBE an OOBE anyway, and not just a dream about floating around your room? There's the feeling of leaving the body, of course, but that doesn't always happen, and occasionally it happens in lucid dreaming as well. Or non lucid dreaming. Now, they're going to say I'm the ultimate skeptic for disbelieving in OOBEs even after I've had a few, but I think having them is what has made me believe they're something completely different than the soul leaving the body. I mean, come on. The soul isn't PART of the body, so how can it leave? The soul doesn't really even have a physical implication on the material plane, so you can't really think of it as "going" anywhere. The fact that you have a physical sensation of leaving your body and coming back doesn't really mean you actually are. But it doesn't mean it's chopped liver either. Which brings me to my next epiphany:
Set and setting. Any drug users will recognize this as the magic formula that will affect their foray into the inner universe of their mind. If you have a bad mindset or an unfriendly environment, you're apt to have bad dreams, so to speak.
Dreams seem to have a similar: Credibility and symbolism. Seems to me the success of all dreams has to do heavily with those two factors. You could think of credibility as the mindset, and symbolism as the environmental setting, as you tend to dream in terms of constructs (people, places, objects, and concepts in the dream) that you are familiar with in the waking world, and a dream's power and meaning are dependent on the strength of your belief in them. (Like most magick, of course).
There are many different "belief" levels in a dream whether it's lucid or not, dependent on the dreamer's past experience and will. The lowest level would probably be the person that doesn't even remember their dreams (sorry, guy, science has proven that EVERYONE dreams pretty much EVERY night, so if you think you're the exception, you're wrong. You just don't remember your dreams). Then there are people who dream in scant detail or strictly black and white, 2-dimensional, with little sensory input except for sight and sound (the strongest). Then there are dreams that lack physical detail but are strong emotionally (ever had a dream where you were bawling hysterically but didn't know why?). The more "lucid" end of the scale would be the long, detailed, 3-d dreams where nearly all senses are represented--smell, taste, and touch. One may experience the ability to perform complex left-brain functions while dreaming, like reading, writing, or remembering in detail things that happened while the dreamer was awake. The sense of "thinking" things independent of the dream, as though the dreamer really was nothing more than an observer in the dream world, rather than its focal point. While most people use lucidity as a scale ("I know I am dreaming") for the intensity of a dream, they tend to ignore the importance of non-lucid dreams, which can subconsciously be controlled even if the dreamer is not aware that they are dreaming. And of course sometimes lucid dreams can't be controlled.
A lot of this control has to do with belief. One of the things I found out right away with lucid dreaming is that a lot of it is related to fooling your own mind. Granting yourself superpowers right off in a dream isn't always easy, and some superpowers are easier than others. In fact, some people have more problems with this or that superpower than others, and a lot of time the *method* that's used has more or less success. For example, there is a consensus that flying in dreams is a LOT easier for most by using the "Superman" approach (flying with arms and legs stretched out and motionless like Superman) than simply flapping your arms like a bird. Has to do with your level of credibility. Flying like a bird is a lot harder, presumably, because we humans know we are not built like birds. Physical transformation into other animals is another toughie. What happens to a lot of people, myself included, is that they feel their body *looks* like an animal, but the person still retains the human sensation of moving about in a human body. I used to have a lot of dreams about turning into a four-legged animal, but the feeling of walking around on four legs was identical to walking around on my hands and knees, which of course isn't what a horse would feel. It's almost as though the human mind looks for the most plausible experience to reference and goes with it. To change the sensation to something more "authentic" requires creativity and training, both awake and dreaming. I finally did learn the trick of growing angel's wings out of my back and flying with them, but it took practice imagining what it would feel like and believing it to be possible. The same went for walking through walls and levitating objects in dreams. I still haven't figured invisibility or teleportation out entirely, but I'm getting there ;-)
Likewise your control over your own level of belief in a lucid dream seems to carry over into non-lucid dreams. I don't really have nightmares anymore, because subconsciously I know that there isn't anything to be afraid of. In "chase" -type dreams I often escaped from an enemy by exiting the dream--by forcing an awakening (false or true) and waiting about ten seconds, then allowing myself to fall asleep again. The result would inevitably be a different dream without someone chasing me. I don't do that often anymore, because in my paradigm that equates to running away from my problems. Now I face the enemy and demand explanations or concessions, and I usually get them (or else the enemy disappears). After all of my work playing around with superpowers in lucid dreams, I often have them in non-lucid dreams. (Smart dreamers will use this as a trigger for lucidity). And as a result I behave similarly in non-lucid dreams, which means that oftentimes I can control a dream without even realizing I'm doing it, because I'm so used to it.
Can anyone else see the benefit of this to a waking person?
All right, time's up for explaining my dreams. Later.
Going to make a concerted effort, for as long as it holds my interest, to write some sort of informational work on the dream world. Had some interesting (mainly nonsensical) semi- and fully lucid dreams last night courtesy of Sleepy Time Extra Strength tea. Figured out a few more parallels that weren't readily apparent before.
Hallucinations, dreams, and OOBEs. I'm convinced they're all the same animal with different skins. Unfortunately hallucinations aren't given much weight in the Real World(tm), and OOBEs are given too much. What makes an OOBE an OOBE anyway, and not just a dream about floating around your room? There's the feeling of leaving the body, of course, but that doesn't always happen, and occasionally it happens in lucid dreaming as well. Or non lucid dreaming. Now, they're going to say I'm the ultimate skeptic for disbelieving in OOBEs even after I've had a few, but I think having them is what has made me believe they're something completely different than the soul leaving the body. I mean, come on. The soul isn't PART of the body, so how can it leave? The soul doesn't really even have a physical implication on the material plane, so you can't really think of it as "going" anywhere. The fact that you have a physical sensation of leaving your body and coming back doesn't really mean you actually are. But it doesn't mean it's chopped liver either. Which brings me to my next epiphany:
Set and setting. Any drug users will recognize this as the magic formula that will affect their foray into the inner universe of their mind. If you have a bad mindset or an unfriendly environment, you're apt to have bad dreams, so to speak.
Dreams seem to have a similar: Credibility and symbolism. Seems to me the success of all dreams has to do heavily with those two factors. You could think of credibility as the mindset, and symbolism as the environmental setting, as you tend to dream in terms of constructs (people, places, objects, and concepts in the dream) that you are familiar with in the waking world, and a dream's power and meaning are dependent on the strength of your belief in them. (Like most magick, of course).
There are many different "belief" levels in a dream whether it's lucid or not, dependent on the dreamer's past experience and will. The lowest level would probably be the person that doesn't even remember their dreams (sorry, guy, science has proven that EVERYONE dreams pretty much EVERY night, so if you think you're the exception, you're wrong. You just don't remember your dreams). Then there are people who dream in scant detail or strictly black and white, 2-dimensional, with little sensory input except for sight and sound (the strongest). Then there are dreams that lack physical detail but are strong emotionally (ever had a dream where you were bawling hysterically but didn't know why?). The more "lucid" end of the scale would be the long, detailed, 3-d dreams where nearly all senses are represented--smell, taste, and touch. One may experience the ability to perform complex left-brain functions while dreaming, like reading, writing, or remembering in detail things that happened while the dreamer was awake. The sense of "thinking" things independent of the dream, as though the dreamer really was nothing more than an observer in the dream world, rather than its focal point. While most people use lucidity as a scale ("I know I am dreaming") for the intensity of a dream, they tend to ignore the importance of non-lucid dreams, which can subconsciously be controlled even if the dreamer is not aware that they are dreaming. And of course sometimes lucid dreams can't be controlled.
A lot of this control has to do with belief. One of the things I found out right away with lucid dreaming is that a lot of it is related to fooling your own mind. Granting yourself superpowers right off in a dream isn't always easy, and some superpowers are easier than others. In fact, some people have more problems with this or that superpower than others, and a lot of time the *method* that's used has more or less success. For example, there is a consensus that flying in dreams is a LOT easier for most by using the "Superman" approach (flying with arms and legs stretched out and motionless like Superman) than simply flapping your arms like a bird. Has to do with your level of credibility. Flying like a bird is a lot harder, presumably, because we humans know we are not built like birds. Physical transformation into other animals is another toughie. What happens to a lot of people, myself included, is that they feel their body *looks* like an animal, but the person still retains the human sensation of moving about in a human body. I used to have a lot of dreams about turning into a four-legged animal, but the feeling of walking around on four legs was identical to walking around on my hands and knees, which of course isn't what a horse would feel. It's almost as though the human mind looks for the most plausible experience to reference and goes with it. To change the sensation to something more "authentic" requires creativity and training, both awake and dreaming. I finally did learn the trick of growing angel's wings out of my back and flying with them, but it took practice imagining what it would feel like and believing it to be possible. The same went for walking through walls and levitating objects in dreams. I still haven't figured invisibility or teleportation out entirely, but I'm getting there ;-)
Likewise your control over your own level of belief in a lucid dream seems to carry over into non-lucid dreams. I don't really have nightmares anymore, because subconsciously I know that there isn't anything to be afraid of. In "chase" -type dreams I often escaped from an enemy by exiting the dream--by forcing an awakening (false or true) and waiting about ten seconds, then allowing myself to fall asleep again. The result would inevitably be a different dream without someone chasing me. I don't do that often anymore, because in my paradigm that equates to running away from my problems. Now I face the enemy and demand explanations or concessions, and I usually get them (or else the enemy disappears). After all of my work playing around with superpowers in lucid dreams, I often have them in non-lucid dreams. (Smart dreamers will use this as a trigger for lucidity). And as a result I behave similarly in non-lucid dreams, which means that oftentimes I can control a dream without even realizing I'm doing it, because I'm so used to it.
Can anyone else see the benefit of this to a waking person?
All right, time's up for explaining my dreams. Later.