For those of you interested in Precognitive Dreams, I would like to present a new abstract that I've written entitled, "The Theory of Precognitive Dreams" edits and contributions by Dr. Art Funkhouser.
The paper described and categorizes precognitive dream experience into lower-order and higher-order groups, provides compelling research and evidence in favor of precognition, details how to lucid dream and explore this particular experience in first-person and provides theory as to why it occurs.
This should prove to be a valuable asset for those of you who have this experience and insightful for those who do not.
Here is the link for the paper. If you like, please share as it's public domain.
http://www.youaredreaming.org/assets/pdf/Theory_Of_Precognitive_Dreams.pdf
Showing posts with label lucid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lucid. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Thursday, August 26, 2010
August 26th, 2010 - Many lucids.
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[Header]
Date: August 26, 2010
Time: 12:10pm PST
Author: Ian Andrew Wilson
E-mail: ianwilson27@hotmail.com
Blog: you-are-dreaming.blogspot.com
Copyright: Public Domain by author 2010. Free for public use.
[Disclaimer]
This is an ongoing personal investigation into precognitive dream potential. In no way is the information contained in this article claiming to be psychic or precognitive in nature. Not all textual translations of a dream can clearly depict the vast dream imagery and symbolism and what may be condensed down to a line of text could represent a largely descriptive visual dream environment. Low-order spelling and grammatical errors are expected as the material is written quickly and right after waking up from sleep. This text shall remain unchanged from the time it was posted, and should rehash into the MD5 code outside of the MD5 tags. In the future should any of the dream context match a real-life event the author will attempt to capture images or articles and describe how these events interconnect with the context within the dream.
All persons, characters and events contained in this article are as they appeared from within a dream, any similarities to public officials or people is completely coincidence and is not meant to reflect this person or persons in any way.
[Journal Entry]
Dream 1: This dream is heavily layered by dream 2, but I remember faintly a wolf and strong symbolism in the scenery around me. Very hazy energy, strong contrast in colors. I remember thinking that it was Cochitlehua's dream not my own. He wasn't in the dream, but the energetic patterns and symbols including the wolf seemed to remind me of him.
Dream 2: This was another dream with skepticism and arguing over "confirmation bias" in favor over precognitive events in dreams. My side of the argument was: "Just because an argument exists does not make that argument fact. Arguments are not evidence and exist as a convenience only to dismiss genuine events in favor of a long established bias against claims of the what is considered 'paranormal'. Dreams and lucid dreams have long been in debate due to skepticism and we know today through sleep laboratory research that dreaming and lucid dreaming exists. Even though these are subjective experiences, the general rule applies in favor of dreaming not against it. Unlike religion, dreams are and active experience, not a belief-system. One does not belief in dreaming, one dreams and has an experience of dreaming. Precognitive dreaming is an experience, not a belief that comes with dreaming. Like Lucid Dreaming, not everyone experiences it but it is part of dreaming.
The next argument was anecdotal evidence and I argued that all dreaming is anecdotal, there is no way to confirm that anything dreamed of is real. Everyone could be lying that the dream period but this is how using subjective arguments to win a debate becomes fallacious as the argument favors bias opinion over fact in place of actual experience. I tell the skeptic that far more evidence in the historic record favors dreams as having prophetic or future-telling reality then there is evidence that absolutely no dreams have ever come true. The personal anecdotal claims even today are in large numbers of the population and shouldn't be ignored and ruled out using fallacious arguments only. We are not arguing a belief-system rather something that is experienced through the act of dreaming.
The argument that absolutely no evidence of psychic phenomena exist, yet I again cite that there have been several cases of police using psychics to help solve crime, the US military has had success with remote viewing. The argument count the hits and ignore the misses is brought up and I argue that it also is fallacious as it ignores the hits and only accepts the misses. Again we have personal bias in arguments that are used in attempt to dismiss fact for fiction and that is not good critical thinking. That is simply dismissing evidence in favor of belief. There is more evidence of psychic phenomena then there is evidence that psychic phenomena absolutely does not exist.
I say how convenient that we have all these bias arguments to strip away personal experience and the fact people have them, to support a belief-system that is completely bias in favor of opinion over the experience of another. How can anyone say with certainty that what another person experiences is not what they claim? Then we may as well say everything we dream, or think or feel is non-existent and a lie because all arguments skeptics have dismiss with great convenience what another person can subjectively know through experience, yet that is a fundamental learning process that has long been established and even our natural survival is dependent on learning through personal experience. These arguments are greatly flawed and only favors the skeptic's belief and not experience itself.
TTB: 1:40am TA: 4:10am
Dream 2: In this dream, I am in Penticton visiting Todd. He's a bit disappointed in our facebook chat and is not sure what to make of it.
"You've been my friend for a very long time. Don't let our differences of opinion put a wedge in our friendship. I still want to hang out and drink beer.", I tell him.
"I drove down to Penticton so we could hangout. It always seems that if I want to see my friends, I have to drive to accommodate them. I wanted to thank you for coming out my way."
I notice that there is a computer but the screen is way to small, it causes the much needed reality-check to induce lucidity. At this point we are heading out to get a beer. Todd is walking and I float on my back with my hands behind me head as I talk with him, "Walking is for chumps."
He looks at me strangely as I am clearly defying physics and floating on my back. We are heading to an elevator and it causes the dream to shift rapidly.
I loose track of Todd and I am now on a road in front of a antique shop. It is quite a beautiful day, the sky is vivid with clouds, the street bustling with people. I look at the shop which has a very antique look to the outside veneer. I affirm that I am dreaming. I attempt to change the dream but it resist. It feels like I am being entranced by the sense of reality in the dream. I affirm again that I am dreaming. "This is a dream, it's just a dream.", I think.
The entire scene is very rigid, and the entrancement is hard to break free from. I struggle with trying to change it to affirm a point but nothing responds as it should. My struggle doesn't last much longer and I wake up.
TTB: 5:22am TA: 6:40am
I work for a bit and go back for a nap:
Dream 3: This is an interesting dream in the context of dreaming. I fall into the dream semi-lucid and am stuck again trying to figure out how I got into a new reality focus. "It's a dream, of this I am certain.", I think to myself. "Which then begs the question, what is a dream?"
I try to stop engaging the entrancement caused by the ebb and flow of the dream reality. I sit and close my eyes to limit virtual sensory input. "I am here, in a focus state self-realized and aware. This "here" is in my mind, it's a dream but it's real to me." I think.
I think about all experience of reality both subjective and objective, all of it must be rendered by the mind. This "now" moment in a dream is similar to any "now" moment when I am self-realized. In turn, every moment stacks up into a canvas of experience both physical and non-physical. "I am reality, I am the dreamer. This is my canvas. My mind.", I ponder.
The dream shifts focus and I am again with Todd. This time via Facebook and in a discussion. He is expressing his skepticism and I am reading his arguments. I find it odd, that I am even reading a Facebook page and engaging a friend via this interface in a dream. I look at the computer screen, all the Facebook icons are present, the website is rendered perfectly and the text is clear and coherent on the page.
I read what I have written and see the whole argument between Todd and I as materialism verses idealism, Plato verses Descartes. I think, "My reality is thought, it is self-awareness. It is subjective and entangled into non-linear and non-locality. It is this way for everyone, they too must render reality at run-time, experience themselves within dream and waking focus states. The arguments are all favoring only one aspect of reality and not the long standing journey offered by both."
I think about the enigma, how I am in a dream right now in a potentially non-linear and non-localized state. Clearly non-locality is present, even if this local has nothing to do with waking reality. It is a place where I am self-realized and aware of self. That in turn is a moment of realization, therefor reality. This state is real. The argument to say it is not is in error.
There is so much I want to write, but because I realize it's a dream I realize that the importance is irrelevant. Todd has the same potential to drive the same car of experience as anyone who wishes to see both sides of the coin. The journey into self-realization is active not passive. I am here because I want to be here, with full waking mind. It is my intent driving action making real my awareness of dreams. It has always been that way.
I scroll up and see his arguments about precognition and laugh at all the ad hominem structured argument thinking. Arguments and opinions never measure to facts. One cannot substitute an argument in favor of another's experience, that itself is character prejudice and a form of liable. Who but I can say I am here? No one. But I cannot lie to myself and believe I am not here in a dream, because another thinks it to be irrelevant.
I think long and hard about the arguments, the pointlessness of denial, doubt and belief-system orientated thinking. I can tell you grand stories about the ocean, but if you are afraid to swim, you will never experience it like me. Fear, doubt and belief cloud our dreams. They respond to our emotions and intent. Dreams only reveal yourself only what you believe yourself to be, the world to be. It is a thought-based system that you control consciously or unconsciously. It is an egg that must crack, the yolk must spill out and you along with it. The flow, the tempo is what brings greater knowings. I laugh with a warm feeling of love and respect for my friend Todd, our history is so deep and long that he simply has forgotten and has become entranced by belief an notions of a physical universe again. If he could only remember the stage, when it is stripped from us and we remain.
I remember death in many cycles, the collapse of waking reality. The rebirth into the same very realm where I dream right now. Everything interconnected, everything in various focus states within a much larger, grander reality, one that has many Universes not the one. M-theory is a better substitute to take science into a multi-verse of which true reality is.
I push back away from the computer and dissolve the dream into the void. I shut down all the chatter but new dreams come to compel me and entrance my focus into new directions. I am flying now, over mountains and hills, it's a form of free fall and I spiral downward and land in a busy parking lot area.
I am still dreaming I assure myself, the stage now has changed and the actors have come. I look at the people and recognize a few of them from my waking life. I see a family that I know and have not seen for a while. This makes me happy. I feel lots of love and compassion as I observe the area.
I see Anderson Cooper from CNN and I decide to walk over to him. Bill Maher is also present and in a fully lucid state, I simply am compelled to examine the dream characters. I walk over and introduce myself, "Good-day gentlemen. Another fine dream I find myself in."
The both look at me taken a bit back by my comment. "Are you on our panel?", Anderson asks me.
"Yes, I believe I am.", I reply.
"Great, we are on in fifteen minutes.", he directs me to some trailer where there are people doing make-up and I walk in and sit down. I am in a suit and they are working on putting makeup on, fixing hair and I get a quick make over. I know I am dreaming but go with the flow, the entrancement which comes when one focus state favors another is evident, but I am already satisfied with tonights dream.
I am no one some panel on CNN and we are talking about my favorite topic... precognitive dreams and deja vu. It doesn't seem that Anderson Cooper or Bill Maher are present though. In fact, the panel switch happened so fast that I lost my lucid focus state and became entranced again by the dream.
Regardless, I still manage to talk about precognitive dream experiences and causality. The interview ends and I am now walking back to the parking lot. I'm a bit dazed and confused due to the shift in left-brain function, the acute waking knowing is clearly gone but I am definitely struggling to get it back. I come back into focus and realize I am still dreaming.
They want me back a second time, I am talking it producers and stage-hands. I smile and agree. I look at the asphalt and the rock and cracks in the rock remind me of fractal hypnogogic patterns, they start to shift slightly and I see the hypnogogia, the geometry and mesh of the dream.
I walk over and talk with the family friend, she tells me that she heard I was on CNN. I told her that I had an interview and all went well. I tell her they want me back again so perhaps she can see the next broadcast. I tell her I'm just happy that I got to see her and her family, that it has been a long time.
It don't get to chat too much longer, as I am woken up.
TTB: 9:27am TA: 11:00am
Codes:
TTB: Time-To-Bed: The time the author went to bed.
TA: Time-Awake: The time the author woke up.
T2S: Time-To-Sleep: Estimated time it took to fall asleep.
TTS: Total-Time-Slept: Estimated time of sleep.
ETID: Estimated-Time-In-Dream: Estimated sense of time as it passed in the dream.
<-- END MD5 ENCRYPTION -->
MD5 Checksum: 416a0048f19db055312255a1cbaeaa10
Encrypted online at: http://md5-hash-online.waraxe.us/
Download Plain-text Version: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B9w6moQJPZJuMjQwZjg5YjEtMTUwMS00ZTk5LTg3YjAtMzljYzI3NWViNTQ3&sort=name&layout=list&num=50
Friday, August 13, 2010
August 13th 2010 - Semi-lucid dream.
This dream had a long sense of time for such a short nap ~1h of sleep = ~7h of dream time. I have had a couple nights of no sleep because I am back working and will be very busy focusing on projects so if I have a dream, I will record and blog but not much more after that. If you are new to the Blog, you will want to read a few articles to orientate you with my material.
Articles:
Lucid Dreaming Techniques | LDE 55 Interview | Time in Dreams | Shared Dreaming | Precognitive Dreaming
August 13, 2010
Another night of restless sleep but did manage to have one dream that made up for all the lost time.
This was another very long dream, when I woke up I felt like I had been sleeping for hours and hours. I was worried that I had slept in but in fact I was probably only asleep for 35-40 minutes.
The dream started off lucid, as I turned the hypnogogic imagery into a nice sports car using a simple technique of integrating the three main senses, sight, sound and touch to facilitate the transition from being a rough ride of hypnogigia to a pleasant drive in a wicked sports car. As I was falling asleep and thinking about the car, the car slowly started to form. The more I organized the visual, audible and tactile thoughts, I could then touch the steering wheel and turn it. See through the windshield and see a road, trees and a blue sky. I could hear my hand tap the steering wheel. It became fully tactile and active and so I turned the car on, but when I hit the gas, it felt like I stretched my head in a very cartoony way for almost 100 feet, as if a part of my linear-logic was still focused in the small grey matter area of my brain not allowing itself to come along and the stretch pulled us apart and I was now passively dreaming, unaware I was in a dream. Damn!
The plot of this dream involved me staying with a group of people who were like family sharing a large house. One of the obvious symbolic twists in the dream was we went shopping for groceries and bought a midget for dinner. An actual male midget who was kind of slow and uncertain why we were putting him in our shopping cart. I reasoned it was a cultural thing so I should not offend them by speaking up about it.
The family I was with were talking about how great he was going to be for dinner and as I was obviously not fully lucid, the critical thinking needed to trigger a reality-check had yet surfaced. It was however starting the chain of inquisition that would lead to lucid moments in the dream. We drove home and I put the midget in a crib and was still uncertain as to why the heck anyone would want to eat a midget.
I went for a walk with the family and we walked by a park and were just idly chit-chatting. We stopped at a playground and their kids played. I sat on the grass. We finished after a while and walked back to the house. Now it was getting time for dinner and this was building up a lot of anxiety for me about eating their strange dish. They asked me to clean the midget, so I gave him a shower and this is where lucidity started to save me from what could potentially have been a really disturbing dream had I not intervened with logic and reason.
I look at this poor guy, he has all the signs of dwarfism with slightly malformed hands and a tiny body. "Why are you guys keeping me here? Are you kidnappers?", he asks me.
I look at him and think, "There is no friggen way I am going to eat a person. There is no friggen way these people are going to eat this person!". I feel a huge wave of compassion and love surface in turn I decided to put an end to this madness. "It's worse then kidnapping, these people want to eat you, but I am not going to let them.", I tell him.
I get him dressed and pick him up and carry him over to the people, "This guy is an orphan, he needs a family. Will you adopt him?" I ask.
They look at me and are then moved by the fact he's an orphan and start talking about adoption. He is all happy that he is going to have a family and the dream has a happy ending. Especially for me, I didn't get to eat midget. Yuck.
We went to a computer later on after we made a midget-free dinner and everyone ate. I am now friends with this guy and he really likes me. On the computer screen I am finding out that "Jim Carrey" is very interested in my dream research. The article I am reading describes him as being fascinated and intrigued by lucid dreaming.
On the blog there are user comments and some where posting pictures of geometrical platonic solids and other geometric 2D patterns. There was a really nice drawing of a video-game warrior in armor, very detailed and professionally drawn. The comments were all very interesting and were talking all sorts of theory related to how dreams use geometric matrices to create a digital mind-generated reality.
Then I start realizing I must also be dreaming, uncertain the dream shifts along with my new introduction of logic and I am now with Jim Carrey and we are talking about dreams. I am becoming more lucid and he looks aged, not as young as he is in his movies. He shakes my hand and is very genuine about how amazed he is by dreams and what I have written.
"This is really amazing that you can dream like that. It's like having your own movie set, film-crew and production team, the whole time you are writing the script, directing the action and living as the star.", he is very impressed.
Now I am lucid and looking at him, I look around at the dream and decide to just go with the flow, "It is nature's Hollywood. One of the most amazing virtual reality simulators known to man." I tell him.
He starts asking me about lucid precognitive dreaming and I tell him, "It's a very similar state to any other dream you might have, except the lucid quality and the precognitive quality may not be apparent during the dream, however is relevant when the dream actualizes."
"So you can be awake in a dream, know you are dreaming and then the dream can come true?", he asks.
"Yes, it is exactly like that. However there is really no way to know if it can come true until it does come true which is why the paradox of precognition is so anomalous and random.", I explain.
He tells me that he has had dreams come true, and that is why my work fascinates him. I tell him many people claim to have had dreams come true and it really introduces a wedge in how we view causality.
I don't get much more time to chat about dreams, while in a lucid dream with a dream character in the form of Jim Carrey, and I wake up.
This is when I panic that I slept in... only an hour had passed.
Time-To-Bed: 6:12am
Time-Awake: 7:30am
Time-To-Sleep: ~20m
Total Time Slept: ~58m
Total Estimated time: 1 waking day ~7hrs.
Friday, July 30, 2010
An Interesting Spontaneous Lucid Dream.
July 29, 2010
Normal Sleep Spontaneous Lucid Dream.I had a lot of information in my normal dreams prior to interrupting my sleep to practice lucid dreaming. I wanted to get it down asap. This is but a fraction of what I can remember; there was another entire sequence that I know I wanted to recall; the data was definitely intriguing but what I can recall is still very interesting but don't read into it too much.
Just to note the baby woke up at the time I was going back to bed so she kind of killed my routine for the day. Busy working on projects however this is an interesting dialog within a dream.
The Lucid Dream
Where I pick up memory I am talking to some lady about truth seeking and she is really having her way with me intellectually.
Lady, “You can't assume buzzing around here [non-physical reality] you are going to get it? [what everything is all about]. There is so much more going on then what you see.”
“I understand; there is a lot of data to sift through here. I can't take it all in at once, it has to be processed over time.”, I tell her.
Lady, “What makes you think you've figured it out? There are so many more realizations you need to go through. You're just a small fraction of the bigger picture. There are layers after layers of interconnected experiences and states you need to realize.”
I get a bit dismayed at her constant assumptions that I have no memory or data of my own. “What do you think I've been doing all this time. It's all about deconstructing this experience to clear myself of ego and belief. I know I have existed before this lifetime. I know that I am entangled in this life so I must express myself as Ian, but that is just a filter. It's not who I really am, just who I am expressing myself as.”
Lady, “And you think that's it?”
“No of course not, there is a lot more... too much more that's the problem. The information is astronomical. All I can do is filter in what I know and act on that knowledge; which is limited and difficult at best.”
Lady, “I see, you think you are an expert then.”
I laugh, “Look, I exist. That there is the problem. I exist so I have to figure out this mess I am in and make sense of it. I've existed before this life. I remember that. I know I have had past-lives; I've seen many of them. I know that I have also been other organic lives; insects even. The spectrum of experience I have indulged in is huge. That won't change. My awareness and access to this data isn't always in my consciousness, I know it's here now and I can explore it when I need to understand it more.”
I just upload all of this symbolic representations of things I have experienced; patterns I have been.
“Now it's all about the current experiences; where I am at and how I get further past my limitations and given the nature of this experience; it seems a very large task. It's not self-serving by any means; it's the causality of existing which is the problem. I am dragging all of that down there with me.[my plight of being a non-physical being and having reality and existence entrapped in a human experience] “
She seems to listen but she does really have a high and mighty attitude. “Really, you think any of that is real?”
“It doesn't matter, are you real? Am I real? The data is real. At least until I dismiss it as such and even then; it's real enough to me. The data is something [dreams as organized thoughts forming reality] I've seen dreams come true; I've changed dreams that have come true. I know the data can be changed and I can change it. Not saying I have to change it or want to change it; just part of deconstructing the experience so I can understand it better.”, I tell her.
She looks more concerned then anything, “And you think by changing anything that is going to make a difference?”
“That is exactly my point, I don't know everything. I am not saying I know everything. There is too much data to just know. What I do know is right now I exist and I must endeavor what that means and how to grow from the experience of being.”
I upload another set of data showing the precognitive experiences and alterations to some of it to her.
“Well it seems like you have a lot of it figured out. [Causality through organized thoughts]”, she explains.
“No, not really... there is so much more here then these small examples.”, I tell her.
She replies, “Well, you should speak with Darrel then, he can assist you further. I can't help you further here.”
I meet Darrel who is actually a person I know in real-life but here he's more acute to the inner-workings of things and full of confusing advice.
“What is the most frustrating thing bothering you right now?” he asks.
“Objectivity with others Darrel, you know how frustrating it is to go through this and not share this with others?”, I explain.
“Why do you have to share it? [The dream experience]”, he asks.
“Because it can be shared. We can grow into more objectivity. I can handle the subjectivity and I don't mind, but it's nice to connect with people. Nice to share the same experience [data] with them. It's frustrating to wake up and find very few that connect.”, I explain.
“Have you tried telling them to meet at a place and go there and meet them?”, he asks.
“No, most people are not interested dreaming, furthermore they lack the recall and skill usually to even remember if we do meet. Look, when I was younger all I did was get here, seek out my friends and tried to connect. Sometimes it worked, but for the hundreds and hundreds of other attempts it didn't. I finally just gave up. Can't keep kicking that old dog expecting results it wastes time. There has to be a better way.”, I explain.
“Why don't all of you take some classes on being conscious, I know the Monroe Institute has a Gateway series, have you looked at that?”, he asks.
“It's not that simple. I'd love it if everyone I knew developed skill in being conscious during sleep and remembered any mutual exchange. People are just not that interested. Trust me, I've proven it to friends and they still don't bat an eye. It's frustrating believe me. They don't want this as bad as I do so they don't pursue it. Or even worse, they have this connection and later in life they forget. I've been at this a long time. If it was easy it would be easy; it's very complex and difficult. Frankly, people there [waking reality] just don't get it. I wish they did, it would make for more interesting journeys let me tell you.”, I explain. “It's not objective proof I need that we can share here with each other. I already know that rather it's who to share it with. I want my closest friends and family to share this with me; and it's their choice not mine so I can't force them into this.”
“Have you worked on your diet, here let me show you.”, he directs my attention to a tv. “Build up your constitution and eat healthy food.”
The TV show is showing lots of fresh vegetables like broccoli and greens. The TV host is showing ways to make it taste a little better with fresh low-fat dips you can make etc.
“Yeah, I could get more healthy. That is good advice. I eat like crap but as you can see diet doesn't prevent being here. The body is merely a filter for the experiences there. We are already here so all the food, drugs, alcohol and cigarettes we smoke down there doesn't mean jack shit. It's attention, focus and intent. A crippled monkey can be here because “here” doesn't need a body.”, I tell him.
He looks at me with some dissatisfaction at my reply, “Being healthy makes it easier.”
“Does it? Seems pretty physical and less real to what is actually going on. You tell me all of the people with bodies who are here and don't realize it are because they ate garbage food and didn't think to check if that helps them realize this state or not? I really doubt it.”, I tell him.
I continue, “I think it's all belief-systems, they don't believe they are here. They don't care that they are here... they don't value anything that comes from here, even if they themselves come from here. It's their beliefs and how they direct their awareness which prevents them from accessing the data here. Not the body as much. Can't say we rule out the body but when it comes to being here, we'll... here they are.”
I upload a perception of everyone being “here” in the dreamstate and unaware back in physical.
“Well what is it that you want?”, he asks.
“Lots of things, I still haven't met another part of me that I realize yet; but that is just my perception everyone and everything could be a part of me and vice-versa so that's a technical issue that I have to sort out. The other problem is meeting my oversoul which I think I have done but it's not clear or fresh in my mind. I would like to get to know myself better and help others get here while they are still physical. Built more bridges; expand more experiences and create more purposeful data. Don't rush to wake up, take time to get more useful data.”, I tell him.
He shows me a video about the Demigurge, and the black-iron prison of the mind. The video suggests we are somewhat trapped in fantasy land [waking reality] and are unable to escape to the dream reality where my focus is at the moment.
“I've thought about that many times over, are we being controlled and used. I don't think so; it's just the experience down there is as intense as it gets for us. Really scrambles up the mind; have to go at it [the data] with a human filter. All that belief, so much belief... not enough practical knowledge. Scary.”
“Crap, I am waking up!”, I blurt as my physical eyes open.
Time to Sleep: 12:00am
Time Awake: 5:00am
Estimated Time: unknown; lots of lost information on waking.
In reflection; this was an interesting exchange of ideas to different dream characters. It seemed like I was really just trying to sort out direction and intent as to what I wanted. Having all the memory to sort through, a maze of potential lifetimes stored as data was intense. The scale and scope of my arguments with these beings drew in lots of personal insights that indicate a greater reality then just the physical experience I am entangled in with at the moment.
Certainly some food for thought.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Example of Cultivating Consciousness Through Lucid Dreaming like Inception
I recorded down a lucid dream that provides some real-life example of extending time showing how we can cultivate conscious experience through dreaming as I published on my blog with the article entitled, "Dreaming a 'Century of Time' During one Night of Sleep.". <<< I recommend reading the linked blog post first to understand some theory and science behind time and dreaming.
The movie Inception plays on this concept but in real-life practices, we can extend the perception of time during dreams. I hope to provide some real-life examples of this on the blog.
I gained about 2h 20m over the clock time. Recorded as much detail as I could.
Lucid Dream – July 26, 2010
Time To Bed: 5:30am
Time When Awoken: 7:20am
Time required to fall asleep: ~30 minutes.
The Techniques
This is the WBTB method using MILD to prepare myself to have a lucid dream. My intent is to cultivate extra time; possibly share a dream and be fully awake and aware during the process.
You can read some lucid dreaming techniques on my blog entitled, "Lucid Dreaming Techniques"
I set aside the following concepts: Ego, Fear, Expectations, Sexual Desires and lesser desires, belief in time, belief in physical body, belief in physical law leaving all of these concepts with physical systems so that while in the dream state only the raw experience can go as unfiltered as possible.
The process of falling asleep.
As I start to fall asleep, visual imaginations seem to happen nearly instantly. I start to see in a 2D window view people walking, I am not even physically asleep yet and unable to engage them in a full-Spectrum 3D dream environment.
Hypnogogia then emerges. I look at the fractal pattern. It is a repeat fractal of triangles that have a clear black triangle and blue triangle creating the pattern. They form clouds and rotations. I am becoming more relaxed.
The hypnogogia morphs into dream imagery, I visually click into a field where I dump a pot of soup into some flowers and some ladies are angry at me for doing so. I am still falling asleep but my sense of vision is completely involved in this imagery.
I click back to the hypnogogia and semi-awaken state. Audible sounds emerge, I hear my wife calling for me. This and the visual patterns confirm that key indicators of lucid dream success are nearly imminent.
My body drops off, I go into complete darkness for a second emerging in a car.
The Lucid Dream
The dream starts and I am sitting in my black 2006 Saturn Ion holding the steering wheel. I am a bit confused and bewildered. I wonder if I am drunk or stoned because I am not thinking clearly. I decide that I better pull myself together before I drive.
Looking out of the window, I see a lady who has a semi-automatic rifle and she aims it at a house and shoots. I am in shock at this. Then I realize that I am in proximity to what could be a psychotic woman with a gun who is going to go on a killing rampage.
I notice some people start running towards her and she is now walking down the street. She turns and shoots at them, they scatter and I start my car. She is walking towards my general direction but not looking at me yet.
Now I am fully awake and alert but not aware this is a dream quite yet. Fearful for other people instead of driving away, I decide I must make any effort to stop this woman before she kills anyone else, even if it means I die trying. I take a deep breath and with my resolve I step on the gas and point my car right at her.
She notices me and takes aim but I am moving and ducking left to right as I drive and this throws off her aim. She seems to be holding her ground and I have the car pinned. Now the Saturn doesn't have the best pickup speed and this is very well portrayed in the dream.
That said, she just opens fire and I slam the car into her sending her flying over the windshield and roof. I speed around a corner and take off.
My inner though asks me, “You just hit a woman! You might of killed her.”
Then start laughing, realizing I am dreaming. “Yes, she got what she deserved, she was on a rampage.”
My inner thought then asks, “You know you are dreaming now, would you have done that in real life?”
“It is tough to say what happens in circumstances such as these, I have a lot to live for with a family but I know that I am capable of taking action in an effort to save others.”, I reply.
I look at my hands holding the steering wheel, the detail of the car is perfect. I fully realize I am dreaming by now and decide to drive the car back to see what the end result is. When I get there and park partly on the sidewalk. There is nothing there. No people, nor the woman I shot at.
I don't expect there to be, I decide to go with the flow. My daughter who is 12 is there. She is special needs. Has a long list of complications from brain-damage at birth, down-syndrome, autism and pervasive learning disorder. I wonder if we are somehow mutually sharing the dream. I decide to treat it as if that is the case.
I walk to her and take her hand. It feels like her hand, the same textures and size. I am very aware of my tactile senses. I look at her and she smiles.
“Looks like we get to hang out in a dream?”, I tell her.
“Let's just go for a walk to the beach and have some fun, how does that sound?”, I ask her.
She nods.
I wonder just how she may interpret dream data. I imagine that she is quite capable of dreaming in the same vivid spectrum of detail that I am experiencing with her. I am very curious and happy to have this opportunity to be in a lucid dream and simply walk with her to the beach.
As we walk I tell her that I don't want her to limit herself here. That she is still a very special person that has the same freedom to grow and be limitless. She just looks at me smiling and walking in her complicated walk that she usually does.
As we walk, I decide to tell people that this is a dream in the event of any mutual exchange is possible. It seems every time I am lucid I cannot dismiss this opportunity having had mutual dreams in the past.
People don't really seem to respond to well. I stop a couple and tell them they are dreaming and they just tell me to piss off and walk away. There is this african lady and I hear her say, “This is my dreamworld, not yours.”
“If this is your dream, then I really want to talk to you.”, I reply.
She ignores me and continues walking, “If you are dreaming, let's talk about this dream. I want to know more about what you think about it.”
“Just go away, leave me a lone. You are not real!”, she tells me.
“I am real enough to talk with, let's just chat about your dream.”, I ask... but it's too late she vanishes leaving the dog she was walking bewildered as it looked around for her.
My interaction with her caught the attention of a person who seems to be an amputee. He is probably in his 50's, a bit weathered looking and he angrily yells at me, “Get out of here, no one wants some crazy person bothering them!”
I walk over to him, “This is just a dream, there is no harm in talking with each other.”
He seems to respond to the dialog and replies, “This is not a dream, you crazy son-of-a-bitch! Get out of her before you piss me off!”
He pushes me with his one good arm and I let him.
“There is no need to get violent, you won't be able to hurt me even if you tried.”, I explain.
“You wanna make a bet? You don't think I could kick your ass?”, he yells.
I calmly stand there looking at him knowing I am dreaming and I laugh, “No, you couldn't hurt me even if you tried. Go a head, hit me if you want.”
He pushes me and grabs my arm and I don't resist. “You won't be thinking this is a dream if I bite your damn finger off!”, he yells.
I laugh, “Go ahead, bite my finger off. This is a dream, I will prove it to you.”
He is a bit shocked that I am not resisting, not afraid and allowing him to just do what ever he wants. Angry at my claim that this is a dream, he sets out to start to bite my finger. He bites into it and it really does hurt. I can feel his teeth press the flesh of my finger against the bone. This is a rare sensation of bone; I seldom have that much tactile clarity but regardless of the pain signal, the detailed realism of the event. I stand resolved that I am dreaming and know it's no big deal, I let it continue.
“It's ok, you can keep biting the finger clear off if you want. I don't mind. It's starting to bleed and I think you really need to bite harder.”, I tell him as he is kind of crunched forward holding my arm gnawing on my finger looking up at me from his side profile.
I just enjoy the experience, I look at the blood now running out where the teeth join my finger. In frustration, he lets go and I show him my hand. There is a bite size loose piece of flesh in the middle of my index finger. Instantly I heal the finger and all the blood disappears.
“There, it's good as new, this is a dream this should be your first piece of evidence.”, I tell him.
It seems like his mouth is sore and he has loosened some teeth and one of them starts to fall out.
“You teeth are not falling out, this is another very common dream experience where we construct a fear that our teeth are falling out when in reality you are fine. Don't give that too much attention, this is a dream. I assure you.”, I tell him.
He looks at me amazed and bewildered. “It can't be a dream! It's real!”, he tells me.
“Dreams are real, when you are able to observe them. They are a kind of dream reality.”, I point at the sidewalk and cause the concrete to start to reveal a hypnogogia mesh underlying the concrete.
He looks at that and it really gets his attention. “Oh my god, this is a dream!” he yells.
“Enjoy the dream, and tell all your friends.” I tell him as I then take my daughter's hand and decide that now is a good time just to enjoy our walk on the beach. I was satisfied in trying to connect with others.
We walk down the beach and the sand feels nice. It's a beautiful day. I could see the Ocean. We were walking on a sidewalk that had bricks laid down with a concrete rim. There were people sitting on the beach, some had lawn chairs, others towels.
I just walk in silence with my daughter and just enjoyed our time. I wondered about dream objectivity and if she in any way is actually with me. Having had mutual dreams I do not doubt that possibility but then wonder how on Earth could she ever tell me. She can't speak in real life. This produces an impossible realization that in no way could I ever know; she couldn't understand or confirm a mutual dream. I muse on these thoughts as we walk.
After a while of walking, she disappeared. .
During the walk, she disappears. I decide to go look for her. I walk back the way I came, past the finger biter who is still there looking at his hand and clearly in deep thought. I walk to the place where I first met my daughter and enter an apartment building.
I walk around the hallways for a while and it's like a maze, I feel a bit lost so decide to use the elevator. At first there is only one floor on the elevator; which makes no sense. I press the button and the elevator just opens at the same floor. The reason for this is I am loosing awareness that I am dreaming.
When the button's change again to a new set and I hit a secret basement key labeled “F”; I do a reality check and realize I am dreaming again. I stop and just observe the dream. I examine the stark reality of it.
The elevator door feels like real steel. I see my reflection in the grainy steel. I look up and see a black widow web with insects stuck in; there is no spider. This causes me to remember many dreams I have had where very aggressive and exaggerated spiders have attacked me. I laugh about them and know not to project such thoughts into that web.
I simply observe the details and how clear they are rendering. If I didn't have a keen sense of dreaming there is no question the overwhelming realism that presents itself would certainly make me think otherwise.
Here I am, in this lucid dream experience and so far it's been a lot of wandering around and although interesting and fun it seemed to lack anything purposeful. I decide that I want more from the dream then just details and environments; that is never going to change.
I have been in e-mail communication with a few researchers. There are two that I have spoken with that I thought if in any way I could induce a mutual dream amongst us; that would prove to be one of the more interesting topics in our e-mail exchange.
I focus my intent and then focus on them. Perhaps dragging two into a dream is a bit much but I feel the effort of trying is far more important then not. The first obvious problem was I was stuck in an elevator; or at least thought I was in an elevator.
They were not present so I would have to try to summon them here. I started with that tangent and focused on their names, even saying out-loud that I want to summon them to my dream. I focus and call out, even stick my hands out but all this does is cause the texture of the elevator to swirl into hypnogogic meshes.
I completely remove the elevator and all sensory details away by focusing; soon I am in a void where there is no details. Just emptiness and swirls of energy.
I get mental impressions of them in the void. There is white light flickering in a vertical mirage, it seems to move and fold on itself. Everything is in flux and I lose focus.
I emerge out of the void at my home area. There is no sign of the people I want to share dreams with; I cannot expect that my effort is the technique that could be used although I realize this is a very difficult task. I should be happy that I was even able to try at all.
There are people I know around me are there so I resume engaging people in efforts to tell them it's a dream. The problem is and I realize it, is how would I be able to verify that it is a mutual dream without sounding like a complete weirdo in real life.
I decide that the reward would be if I could help them gain some insight that they are in a dream world should my telling them; and the objectivity exist... then that is worth an effort.
Anyone I know or recognize I tell them they are dreaming. One runs away from me and runs into the house. I follow him up a flight of stairs. He was carrying some boxes into the house; then he returns but this time he is invisible but the boxes are not. I watch as these boxes float as if carried by someone down stairs. The detail was really fascinating to watch. It was very surreal and also helped me stay centered in awareness that this was a dream.
The inside of the house is not what it looks like in reality. I know my friend lives here so I call out at my friend. “I'll be with you in a minute, I am just upstairs”, she yells.
“That's ok, I just want to let you know that this is a dream!”.
She doesn't answer back and I decide to explore this strange surreal house. I walk by a crib and I look inside and see my oldest daughter from the previous dream sleeping in there with a blanket I recognize.
I look at her and she changes to my youngest daughter, the 18 month old.
The focus causes the dream to shift yet again, and now I find myself in a hotel room. There is this attractive blonde woman in the dream. She has long flowing locks of blond hair, really nice make-up. She has a nice sized set of boobs on her and over all is quite a sexy woman.
I am not centered and she is talking to me as if she is my girlfriend. She hits on my and wants to have sex, I tell her I am not interested. “Why don't you want to make love to me! Am I ugly or something?”
I look at her up and down, she is very attractive but I realize I am dreaming. “No you are very beautiful, I don't know anyone who wouldn't want to have sex with you. I am just not interested.”, I explain.
She gets angry and throws a couch pillow at me. She storms into another room and I sit on the couch and just relax and go with the flow. I re-affirm that I am dreaming and look back to see her changing. I can see her panties now, she is bent over and I shake my head. It was quite nice to see but I reflect on how happy I am with my wife in real-life and how great our sex life is.
She doesn't believe me when I tell her that even in my dreams I do not cheat on her. This is yet another example of just how tempting that can be. The girl dresses up in a cow-girl outfit with this really tight and short pair of shorts. She has a belt with two revolvers on it. A bra with a vest that is open with some tassels. Everything is white, she has a scarf and a cowboy hat and boots. Finally a whip.
It was like a scene in a movie with the perfect woman standing there, holding a whip dressed in sexy role-play fantasy wear. I swear that when I looked her up and down, wind even tossed her hair. It's the kind of dream you wish you could at least snap some pictures. But that said, my intent on not having sex in a dream clearly was being tested.
She walked over to me and I told her the bad news, “You look amazing, really amazing. I love the outfit and the whip just tops it off. You see, I'm married”, I show her my ring, “And I don't really know you. This is a dream and I don't want to use my dreams to fulfill sexual fantasies when there is more important items on my mind right now.”
She doesn't like the bad news one bit, and this doesn't stop her. “You don't like the outfit! Just tell me you don't like it and I will change! What do you want me to dress up as. I'll do anything you want. Anything!” she pleas.
“I admit I do love everything, its sexy and you are gorgeous. I love the detail it's like living breathing artwork, and I do love art.” I tell her. “I'm just not feeling it.”
She changes again, this time into a mechanics outfit. I really don't know what kind of sexual fantasy I would want with a mechanic but that said, her big boobs and nice body certainly made this the best looking mechanic I have ever seen. I kind of digged on it.
As much as she wanted to have sex, I really was genuinely not interested. It's not that I couldn't... clearly the opportunity was in front of me. All I had to do was engage the fantasy and fulfill what ever desire. Except there was simply no desire. I clearly remember my intent and know that this might just prevent growth opportunities.
She was really upset and I gave her a hug and told her she was very beautiful. That if circumstances were different I would love to have sex with her. I told her that this is a dream, and I would rather just maintain my awareness and see what growth opportunities might come from it.
She wiped away tears and smeared mascara from her eye and smiled. The phone rang and I told her I had to get that. I grabbed the phone and it was my family doctor. He told me the results of his test had come in. I wasn't aware of any tests so the dream gave me a “flashback” moment to fill in the blanks.
In the dream that lead to the phone call; I was at the doctor's office for a normal checkup. I decided to ask him if he ever had deja vu. Then I asked him if he ever had deja reve. He didn't know what deja reve was. I explained it to him and we talked about precognitive dreams and some of the experiences I had. He took some notes and found it really fascinating. Happy to have shared that with my family doctor I left the appointment.
On the phone however, the doctor had a more serious tone. He looked into what I described and said that I could be suffering from a serious delusional disorder called paramnesia and his colleagues urgently wants us to meet. I know I am dreaming and know that paramnesia in dreams is plausible as we often cannot make connections with language and symbols.
“Well, it's funny that you have called with this prognosis because it just so happens that I am dreaming right now.”, I muse on the phone.
“What do you mean you are dreaming right now?”, he asks.
“Well, you are concerned that I might be delusional or suffering paramnesia however the fact is this is really just a dream. You're diagnosis is really just a fantasy and has no reality to it at all.”
The phone goes quite and he talks in a very somber tone, “If you really think this is a dream, and we didn't have our appointment, you really need to come to my office right now.”
“Easy peasy Doc, I'll be there in a second.”, I tell him
I phase to his office instantly, I am sitting in a chair and he is there with his colleague. He doesn't seem to make note that I just instantly materialized into this dream focus.
“We want to have you come and stay at our mental health facility”, says his colleague. “You are suffering from a serious mental illness and you need help.”
I kind of laugh because this whole mind-play that the dream is pulling off is kind of entertaining. “What kind of illness do you think I have?”, I ask
“You have a dissociative disorder with reality, you are claiming that reality is a dream when in fact this is a psychotic detachment from the real world.”, he explains.
“So you are trying to tell me that this 'dream' is actually the 'real world'. Then what does that make the 'Real world' when I wake up? Is that a dream also?”, I ask.
“It is still the real world, there is no dream world that you wake up too”, he tells me. “The dream world is part of your illness, and that is why we urgently want you to come to our clinic so we can help you return to normal reality.”
I start to laugh, the whole irony of the conversation is killing me. “I'm sorry doctors, I appreciate your intent to help me realize that this dream is not a dream, but is in fact reality. Which I will say I cannot entirely dismiss. It seems certain that we are indeed here having this conversation and the details match what one does expect from a 'reality'. That said, this is still a dream in all context of the word.”
“Why do you think this is a dream?”, he asks.
“Why do you think it's not a dream?”, I ask.
“I know it's not a dream because I know what reality is.”, he tells me.
“You are going to have to do a reality check then. This isn't the reality that you think it is. It is a dream.”, I tell him. “Look, in my real-life I don't go around telling everyone that it's a dream. I reserve that for this reality. In the real-world I work hard and enjoy researching dreams. I love it when we share dreams, when we have dreams that come true and a whole myriad of experiences come with dreaming.”, I explain.
I tell them both about precognitive dreams and how there is entanglement and interconnectedness with everything. That information and data are all parts of how consciousness processes and renders data. I hold up my hand and make it glow, rays of energy beam from the fingers.
They look at it in awe and are stunned. I cause more hypnogogic mesh to appear in the desk and cause it to animate. They look at it and my doctor recoils backwards from the shock.
“This is a dream, it is easy to prove. I enjoyed our conversation but I know I am waking up soon.”, and that was my queue.
I woke up.
Time Estimations:
Driving car until I stop: 20 minutes.
Walking with daughter on beach: 1 hour.
At apartment building and elevator: 30 minutes.
At home area: 30 minutes.
With girl: 1 hour.
With doctor: 30 minutes.
Total estimated time: 3h 50m total sleep time 1h 30m total conscious realization cultivated beyond clock time: 2h 20m
The movie Inception plays on this concept but in real-life practices, we can extend the perception of time during dreams. I hope to provide some real-life examples of this on the blog.
I gained about 2h 20m over the clock time. Recorded as much detail as I could.
Lucid Dream – July 26, 2010
Time To Bed: 5:30am
Time When Awoken: 7:20am
Time required to fall asleep: ~30 minutes.
The Techniques
This is the WBTB method using MILD to prepare myself to have a lucid dream. My intent is to cultivate extra time; possibly share a dream and be fully awake and aware during the process.
You can read some lucid dreaming techniques on my blog entitled, "Lucid Dreaming Techniques"
I set aside the following concepts: Ego, Fear, Expectations, Sexual Desires and lesser desires, belief in time, belief in physical body, belief in physical law leaving all of these concepts with physical systems so that while in the dream state only the raw experience can go as unfiltered as possible.
The process of falling asleep.
As I start to fall asleep, visual imaginations seem to happen nearly instantly. I start to see in a 2D window view people walking, I am not even physically asleep yet and unable to engage them in a full-Spectrum 3D dream environment.
Hypnogogia then emerges. I look at the fractal pattern. It is a repeat fractal of triangles that have a clear black triangle and blue triangle creating the pattern. They form clouds and rotations. I am becoming more relaxed.
The hypnogogia morphs into dream imagery, I visually click into a field where I dump a pot of soup into some flowers and some ladies are angry at me for doing so. I am still falling asleep but my sense of vision is completely involved in this imagery.
I click back to the hypnogogia and semi-awaken state. Audible sounds emerge, I hear my wife calling for me. This and the visual patterns confirm that key indicators of lucid dream success are nearly imminent.
My body drops off, I go into complete darkness for a second emerging in a car.
The Lucid Dream
The dream starts and I am sitting in my black 2006 Saturn Ion holding the steering wheel. I am a bit confused and bewildered. I wonder if I am drunk or stoned because I am not thinking clearly. I decide that I better pull myself together before I drive.
Looking out of the window, I see a lady who has a semi-automatic rifle and she aims it at a house and shoots. I am in shock at this. Then I realize that I am in proximity to what could be a psychotic woman with a gun who is going to go on a killing rampage.
I notice some people start running towards her and she is now walking down the street. She turns and shoots at them, they scatter and I start my car. She is walking towards my general direction but not looking at me yet.
Now I am fully awake and alert but not aware this is a dream quite yet. Fearful for other people instead of driving away, I decide I must make any effort to stop this woman before she kills anyone else, even if it means I die trying. I take a deep breath and with my resolve I step on the gas and point my car right at her.
She notices me and takes aim but I am moving and ducking left to right as I drive and this throws off her aim. She seems to be holding her ground and I have the car pinned. Now the Saturn doesn't have the best pickup speed and this is very well portrayed in the dream.
That said, she just opens fire and I slam the car into her sending her flying over the windshield and roof. I speed around a corner and take off.
My inner though asks me, “You just hit a woman! You might of killed her.”
Then start laughing, realizing I am dreaming. “Yes, she got what she deserved, she was on a rampage.”
My inner thought then asks, “You know you are dreaming now, would you have done that in real life?”
“It is tough to say what happens in circumstances such as these, I have a lot to live for with a family but I know that I am capable of taking action in an effort to save others.”, I reply.
I look at my hands holding the steering wheel, the detail of the car is perfect. I fully realize I am dreaming by now and decide to drive the car back to see what the end result is. When I get there and park partly on the sidewalk. There is nothing there. No people, nor the woman I shot at.
I don't expect there to be, I decide to go with the flow. My daughter who is 12 is there. She is special needs. Has a long list of complications from brain-damage at birth, down-syndrome, autism and pervasive learning disorder. I wonder if we are somehow mutually sharing the dream. I decide to treat it as if that is the case.
I walk to her and take her hand. It feels like her hand, the same textures and size. I am very aware of my tactile senses. I look at her and she smiles.
“Looks like we get to hang out in a dream?”, I tell her.
“Let's just go for a walk to the beach and have some fun, how does that sound?”, I ask her.
She nods.
I wonder just how she may interpret dream data. I imagine that she is quite capable of dreaming in the same vivid spectrum of detail that I am experiencing with her. I am very curious and happy to have this opportunity to be in a lucid dream and simply walk with her to the beach.
As we walk I tell her that I don't want her to limit herself here. That she is still a very special person that has the same freedom to grow and be limitless. She just looks at me smiling and walking in her complicated walk that she usually does.
As we walk, I decide to tell people that this is a dream in the event of any mutual exchange is possible. It seems every time I am lucid I cannot dismiss this opportunity having had mutual dreams in the past.
People don't really seem to respond to well. I stop a couple and tell them they are dreaming and they just tell me to piss off and walk away. There is this african lady and I hear her say, “This is my dreamworld, not yours.”
“If this is your dream, then I really want to talk to you.”, I reply.
She ignores me and continues walking, “If you are dreaming, let's talk about this dream. I want to know more about what you think about it.”
“Just go away, leave me a lone. You are not real!”, she tells me.
“I am real enough to talk with, let's just chat about your dream.”, I ask... but it's too late she vanishes leaving the dog she was walking bewildered as it looked around for her.
My interaction with her caught the attention of a person who seems to be an amputee. He is probably in his 50's, a bit weathered looking and he angrily yells at me, “Get out of here, no one wants some crazy person bothering them!”
I walk over to him, “This is just a dream, there is no harm in talking with each other.”
He seems to respond to the dialog and replies, “This is not a dream, you crazy son-of-a-bitch! Get out of her before you piss me off!”
He pushes me with his one good arm and I let him.
“There is no need to get violent, you won't be able to hurt me even if you tried.”, I explain.
“You wanna make a bet? You don't think I could kick your ass?”, he yells.
I calmly stand there looking at him knowing I am dreaming and I laugh, “No, you couldn't hurt me even if you tried. Go a head, hit me if you want.”
He pushes me and grabs my arm and I don't resist. “You won't be thinking this is a dream if I bite your damn finger off!”, he yells.
I laugh, “Go ahead, bite my finger off. This is a dream, I will prove it to you.”
He is a bit shocked that I am not resisting, not afraid and allowing him to just do what ever he wants. Angry at my claim that this is a dream, he sets out to start to bite my finger. He bites into it and it really does hurt. I can feel his teeth press the flesh of my finger against the bone. This is a rare sensation of bone; I seldom have that much tactile clarity but regardless of the pain signal, the detailed realism of the event. I stand resolved that I am dreaming and know it's no big deal, I let it continue.
“It's ok, you can keep biting the finger clear off if you want. I don't mind. It's starting to bleed and I think you really need to bite harder.”, I tell him as he is kind of crunched forward holding my arm gnawing on my finger looking up at me from his side profile.
I just enjoy the experience, I look at the blood now running out where the teeth join my finger. In frustration, he lets go and I show him my hand. There is a bite size loose piece of flesh in the middle of my index finger. Instantly I heal the finger and all the blood disappears.
“There, it's good as new, this is a dream this should be your first piece of evidence.”, I tell him.
It seems like his mouth is sore and he has loosened some teeth and one of them starts to fall out.
“You teeth are not falling out, this is another very common dream experience where we construct a fear that our teeth are falling out when in reality you are fine. Don't give that too much attention, this is a dream. I assure you.”, I tell him.
He looks at me amazed and bewildered. “It can't be a dream! It's real!”, he tells me.
“Dreams are real, when you are able to observe them. They are a kind of dream reality.”, I point at the sidewalk and cause the concrete to start to reveal a hypnogogia mesh underlying the concrete.
He looks at that and it really gets his attention. “Oh my god, this is a dream!” he yells.
“Enjoy the dream, and tell all your friends.” I tell him as I then take my daughter's hand and decide that now is a good time just to enjoy our walk on the beach. I was satisfied in trying to connect with others.
We walk down the beach and the sand feels nice. It's a beautiful day. I could see the Ocean. We were walking on a sidewalk that had bricks laid down with a concrete rim. There were people sitting on the beach, some had lawn chairs, others towels.
I just walk in silence with my daughter and just enjoyed our time. I wondered about dream objectivity and if she in any way is actually with me. Having had mutual dreams I do not doubt that possibility but then wonder how on Earth could she ever tell me. She can't speak in real life. This produces an impossible realization that in no way could I ever know; she couldn't understand or confirm a mutual dream. I muse on these thoughts as we walk.
After a while of walking, she disappeared. .
During the walk, she disappears. I decide to go look for her. I walk back the way I came, past the finger biter who is still there looking at his hand and clearly in deep thought. I walk to the place where I first met my daughter and enter an apartment building.
I walk around the hallways for a while and it's like a maze, I feel a bit lost so decide to use the elevator. At first there is only one floor on the elevator; which makes no sense. I press the button and the elevator just opens at the same floor. The reason for this is I am loosing awareness that I am dreaming.
When the button's change again to a new set and I hit a secret basement key labeled “F”; I do a reality check and realize I am dreaming again. I stop and just observe the dream. I examine the stark reality of it.
The elevator door feels like real steel. I see my reflection in the grainy steel. I look up and see a black widow web with insects stuck in; there is no spider. This causes me to remember many dreams I have had where very aggressive and exaggerated spiders have attacked me. I laugh about them and know not to project such thoughts into that web.
I simply observe the details and how clear they are rendering. If I didn't have a keen sense of dreaming there is no question the overwhelming realism that presents itself would certainly make me think otherwise.
Here I am, in this lucid dream experience and so far it's been a lot of wandering around and although interesting and fun it seemed to lack anything purposeful. I decide that I want more from the dream then just details and environments; that is never going to change.
I have been in e-mail communication with a few researchers. There are two that I have spoken with that I thought if in any way I could induce a mutual dream amongst us; that would prove to be one of the more interesting topics in our e-mail exchange.
I focus my intent and then focus on them. Perhaps dragging two into a dream is a bit much but I feel the effort of trying is far more important then not. The first obvious problem was I was stuck in an elevator; or at least thought I was in an elevator.
They were not present so I would have to try to summon them here. I started with that tangent and focused on their names, even saying out-loud that I want to summon them to my dream. I focus and call out, even stick my hands out but all this does is cause the texture of the elevator to swirl into hypnogogic meshes.
I completely remove the elevator and all sensory details away by focusing; soon I am in a void where there is no details. Just emptiness and swirls of energy.
I get mental impressions of them in the void. There is white light flickering in a vertical mirage, it seems to move and fold on itself. Everything is in flux and I lose focus.
I emerge out of the void at my home area. There is no sign of the people I want to share dreams with; I cannot expect that my effort is the technique that could be used although I realize this is a very difficult task. I should be happy that I was even able to try at all.
There are people I know around me are there so I resume engaging people in efforts to tell them it's a dream. The problem is and I realize it, is how would I be able to verify that it is a mutual dream without sounding like a complete weirdo in real life.
I decide that the reward would be if I could help them gain some insight that they are in a dream world should my telling them; and the objectivity exist... then that is worth an effort.
Anyone I know or recognize I tell them they are dreaming. One runs away from me and runs into the house. I follow him up a flight of stairs. He was carrying some boxes into the house; then he returns but this time he is invisible but the boxes are not. I watch as these boxes float as if carried by someone down stairs. The detail was really fascinating to watch. It was very surreal and also helped me stay centered in awareness that this was a dream.
The inside of the house is not what it looks like in reality. I know my friend lives here so I call out at my friend. “I'll be with you in a minute, I am just upstairs”, she yells.
“That's ok, I just want to let you know that this is a dream!”.
She doesn't answer back and I decide to explore this strange surreal house. I walk by a crib and I look inside and see my oldest daughter from the previous dream sleeping in there with a blanket I recognize.
I look at her and she changes to my youngest daughter, the 18 month old.
The focus causes the dream to shift yet again, and now I find myself in a hotel room. There is this attractive blonde woman in the dream. She has long flowing locks of blond hair, really nice make-up. She has a nice sized set of boobs on her and over all is quite a sexy woman.
I am not centered and she is talking to me as if she is my girlfriend. She hits on my and wants to have sex, I tell her I am not interested. “Why don't you want to make love to me! Am I ugly or something?”
I look at her up and down, she is very attractive but I realize I am dreaming. “No you are very beautiful, I don't know anyone who wouldn't want to have sex with you. I am just not interested.”, I explain.
She gets angry and throws a couch pillow at me. She storms into another room and I sit on the couch and just relax and go with the flow. I re-affirm that I am dreaming and look back to see her changing. I can see her panties now, she is bent over and I shake my head. It was quite nice to see but I reflect on how happy I am with my wife in real-life and how great our sex life is.
She doesn't believe me when I tell her that even in my dreams I do not cheat on her. This is yet another example of just how tempting that can be. The girl dresses up in a cow-girl outfit with this really tight and short pair of shorts. She has a belt with two revolvers on it. A bra with a vest that is open with some tassels. Everything is white, she has a scarf and a cowboy hat and boots. Finally a whip.
It was like a scene in a movie with the perfect woman standing there, holding a whip dressed in sexy role-play fantasy wear. I swear that when I looked her up and down, wind even tossed her hair. It's the kind of dream you wish you could at least snap some pictures. But that said, my intent on not having sex in a dream clearly was being tested.
She walked over to me and I told her the bad news, “You look amazing, really amazing. I love the outfit and the whip just tops it off. You see, I'm married”, I show her my ring, “And I don't really know you. This is a dream and I don't want to use my dreams to fulfill sexual fantasies when there is more important items on my mind right now.”
She doesn't like the bad news one bit, and this doesn't stop her. “You don't like the outfit! Just tell me you don't like it and I will change! What do you want me to dress up as. I'll do anything you want. Anything!” she pleas.
“I admit I do love everything, its sexy and you are gorgeous. I love the detail it's like living breathing artwork, and I do love art.” I tell her. “I'm just not feeling it.”
She changes again, this time into a mechanics outfit. I really don't know what kind of sexual fantasy I would want with a mechanic but that said, her big boobs and nice body certainly made this the best looking mechanic I have ever seen. I kind of digged on it.
As much as she wanted to have sex, I really was genuinely not interested. It's not that I couldn't... clearly the opportunity was in front of me. All I had to do was engage the fantasy and fulfill what ever desire. Except there was simply no desire. I clearly remember my intent and know that this might just prevent growth opportunities.
She was really upset and I gave her a hug and told her she was very beautiful. That if circumstances were different I would love to have sex with her. I told her that this is a dream, and I would rather just maintain my awareness and see what growth opportunities might come from it.
She wiped away tears and smeared mascara from her eye and smiled. The phone rang and I told her I had to get that. I grabbed the phone and it was my family doctor. He told me the results of his test had come in. I wasn't aware of any tests so the dream gave me a “flashback” moment to fill in the blanks.
In the dream that lead to the phone call; I was at the doctor's office for a normal checkup. I decided to ask him if he ever had deja vu. Then I asked him if he ever had deja reve. He didn't know what deja reve was. I explained it to him and we talked about precognitive dreams and some of the experiences I had. He took some notes and found it really fascinating. Happy to have shared that with my family doctor I left the appointment.
On the phone however, the doctor had a more serious tone. He looked into what I described and said that I could be suffering from a serious delusional disorder called paramnesia and his colleagues urgently wants us to meet. I know I am dreaming and know that paramnesia in dreams is plausible as we often cannot make connections with language and symbols.
“Well, it's funny that you have called with this prognosis because it just so happens that I am dreaming right now.”, I muse on the phone.
“What do you mean you are dreaming right now?”, he asks.
“Well, you are concerned that I might be delusional or suffering paramnesia however the fact is this is really just a dream. You're diagnosis is really just a fantasy and has no reality to it at all.”
The phone goes quite and he talks in a very somber tone, “If you really think this is a dream, and we didn't have our appointment, you really need to come to my office right now.”
“Easy peasy Doc, I'll be there in a second.”, I tell him
I phase to his office instantly, I am sitting in a chair and he is there with his colleague. He doesn't seem to make note that I just instantly materialized into this dream focus.
“We want to have you come and stay at our mental health facility”, says his colleague. “You are suffering from a serious mental illness and you need help.”
I kind of laugh because this whole mind-play that the dream is pulling off is kind of entertaining. “What kind of illness do you think I have?”, I ask
“You have a dissociative disorder with reality, you are claiming that reality is a dream when in fact this is a psychotic detachment from the real world.”, he explains.
“So you are trying to tell me that this 'dream' is actually the 'real world'. Then what does that make the 'Real world' when I wake up? Is that a dream also?”, I ask.
“It is still the real world, there is no dream world that you wake up too”, he tells me. “The dream world is part of your illness, and that is why we urgently want you to come to our clinic so we can help you return to normal reality.”
I start to laugh, the whole irony of the conversation is killing me. “I'm sorry doctors, I appreciate your intent to help me realize that this dream is not a dream, but is in fact reality. Which I will say I cannot entirely dismiss. It seems certain that we are indeed here having this conversation and the details match what one does expect from a 'reality'. That said, this is still a dream in all context of the word.”
“Why do you think this is a dream?”, he asks.
“Why do you think it's not a dream?”, I ask.
“I know it's not a dream because I know what reality is.”, he tells me.
“You are going to have to do a reality check then. This isn't the reality that you think it is. It is a dream.”, I tell him. “Look, in my real-life I don't go around telling everyone that it's a dream. I reserve that for this reality. In the real-world I work hard and enjoy researching dreams. I love it when we share dreams, when we have dreams that come true and a whole myriad of experiences come with dreaming.”, I explain.
I tell them both about precognitive dreams and how there is entanglement and interconnectedness with everything. That information and data are all parts of how consciousness processes and renders data. I hold up my hand and make it glow, rays of energy beam from the fingers.
They look at it in awe and are stunned. I cause more hypnogogic mesh to appear in the desk and cause it to animate. They look at it and my doctor recoils backwards from the shock.
“This is a dream, it is easy to prove. I enjoyed our conversation but I know I am waking up soon.”, and that was my queue.
I woke up.
Time Estimations:
Driving car until I stop: 20 minutes.
Walking with daughter on beach: 1 hour.
At apartment building and elevator: 30 minutes.
At home area: 30 minutes.
With girl: 1 hour.
With doctor: 30 minutes.
Total estimated time: 3h 50m total sleep time 1h 30m total conscious realization cultivated beyond clock time: 2h 20m
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Shared Dreaming - Real Life Inception
Shared Dreaming - Real Life Inception
By Ian Wilson (2010) Public Domain No Copyright.
Definition
Shared Dreaming or Mutual Dreaming mentioned by Stephen LaBerge[1] and Lynda Lane Magallon[2] is a type of dream where two or more people share the same dream content from the their own perspective. Upon waking the participants are able to recall the same details, settings and even conversations they had with each other during the mutual dream.
Research
Stephen LaBerge writes in his book "Lucid Dreaming"[1] that "Accounts of "mutual dreaming," (dreams apparently shared by two or more people) raise the possibility that the dream world may be in some cases just as objectively real as the physical world. This is because the primary criterion of "objectivity" is that an experience is shared by more than one person, which is supposedly true of mutual dreams. In that case, what would happen to the traditional dichotomy between dreams and reality?"
Tom Campbell[3] who worked at The Monroe Institute[4] in Virginia writes in his trilogy entitled "My Big Toe"[3] that during their exploration phase at the Monroe Labs during sleep; himself and other participants practising the skill of being consciously awake when the body is asleep were able to verify a mutual meeting that would be recorded in a control room.
The Monroe Institute is a research centre founded by Robert A. Monroe[5] for the purpose of researching a phenomena that occurs during sleep called the Out-Of-Body experience[6] or OOBE and OBE. Robert A. Monroe has been one of the leading pioneers in consciousness research spanning over 40 years in the area of waking lucid awareness while the body slept.
Other research organizations have catalogued their own evidence of shared dreaming. The International Association for the Study of Dreams[7] has had yearly dream telepathy[8] contests which have yielded positive mutual dreaming accounts along with other phenomenological dream experiences. Many of the researchers have themselves had mutual dreams with each other. The IASD compiled a list of researchers to discuss the movie Inception where many of the researchers commented on the reality of mutual dreaming.[9] Link
Lynda Lane Magallon published a book entitled "Mutual Dreaming"[2] where she covers history of this phenomena and personal accounts with people involved with dream research. The president for the IASD, Robert Waggoner recently published "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self"[10] where he touches on mutual dreaming.
Personal Experience
As the author of this article, I have also enjoyed the rare opportunity to have shared dreams with people in my 23 years of dream exploration. It is for this reason that I feel compelled to share some of my insights into the phenomena based on personal experience and what I have read in regards to theory.
In 1988 I would have my first confirmed shared dream with a friend during a time when I had no idea that such a phenomena was possible. This first hand experience with shared dreaming seemed incredible. This friend and I would have several shared dreams in the time that followed.
The journey to have these wilfully was met with a high level of uncertainty and challenges. I will share what I observed and learned from these explorations. For a more detail account, read the interview with Robert Waggoner as I discuss many of the expeirences with dreaming in greater detail for the Lucid Dream Exchange Magazine 55th June Edition.[11] link
Personal Theories
The first question you must have as a reader is how is this possible? Clearly the above list of researchers and investigators have made some very startling claims. It would be easy to dismiss this as fantasy and move on; however I encourage you to have open minded scepticism when moving forward into understanding the mechanics involved in sleep related phenomenology.
If mutual dreaming was common or easy; many more people would be reporting this with each other, however you may be a person who has told a friend or family member about a dream; to have it confirmed by them that they too remember the same dream if not something very similar.
Is the dreamstate objective? That is the first question you have to really ask when trying to discern if shared dreaming is possible at all. The evidence from personal experience is compelling indicating some type of objectivity within dreams. Carl Jung[12] famously spoke about a collective unconscious that we were all accessing during sleep.
A collective unconsciousness suggests that in the sleeping state; we are all part of one collective unconscious system. Buddhist believe in Indra's Net or Web[13] which describes that all phenomena is interconnected. Tom Campbell expands on this concept in his trilogy, "My-Big-Toe"[3] where he describes a Reality Wide Web or RWW that we all access as consciousness and download experience in the form of data.
It is through this interconnectedness that we have the mechanics that surround the reality of Shared Dreaming. Another theory of interconnectedness stems from Quantum Mechanics through entanglement.
Quantum entanglement[14] is when two or more objects are linked and affect each other in a non-localized way when separated. Considering the Big Bang theory and the existence of a singularity;[15] it is theoretically plausible that everything coming from the singularity has varying degrees of entanglement affecting the entire system.
Consciousness functions at quantum states and itself may be subjective to the same quantum mechanics that affect photons. As a result of being part of this interconnected system, our consciousness may be linked through entanglement with all other systems at these finitely small levels.
Just recently scientists were able to teleport information through quantum entanglement range of 10 miles[16]. This in itself is a remarkable feat of practical use of quantum states. The human brain already naturally use these quantum states as is evident in Pemrose-Hameroff Orch Or model[17]. If science can teleport quantum information 10 miles; who is to say that the human brain is not already able to achieve this type of communication.
Shared dreaming is already demonstrating that some type of information sharing is possible and the more we understand this interconnectedness; the more we will be able to unravel how the mechanics of information exchange work between these quantum systems.
Quantum Mechanics proves that information can be teleported between entangled photons. The human brain uses photons in the alpha-beta tublin as part of the information processing (Penrose-Hameroff)[17]. The human brain is natures quantum super computer.
It seems based on shared dreaming evidence that some type of information exchange is possible during sleep. From a singularity to a massive expanding Universe one would at least expect that anything is possible. Interconnectedness is quantum fact; not just Buddhist belief. As to what scale or magnitude this represents is a matter for science to resolve. Shared dreaming is just the tip of the iceburg for how information has organized itself within the Universe.
If we can't accept Indra's Web, or Tom's Reality Wide Web; we can at least accept science fact that there is interconnectedness within quantum states; and to what degree of entanglement exists since the expansion of the singularity should intrigue the minds of people like Stephen Hawkins[18].
If we came from one; are we not all part of one? With the collapse of the Universe we inevitable become one again; or at least the quantum soup that we formed. Where consciousness begins and ends within quantum states may be completely entangled with what photons are. Photons after all; are the functioning energy driving the quantum computer called the human mind. We may not measure consciousness, but we know photons play a role in facilitating the existence of consciousness within the human brain.
Now that we have this theoretical muse done with let's get back on topic with the reality of shared dreaming.
Limitations in Mutual Dreaming
Let's first examine what obstacles affect the majority of the population in regards to dream related phenomena. The first obvious flaw in the Human Condition is we are not active dreamers en mass. The truth is we are passive dreamers with little or no development in this area of skill. The population of the planet for the most part is dream illiterate.
Dreaming is not a belief; it is an experience that has the potential for participation. It predominantly is the realm of the unconscious self; and our waking self tends to drift off into altered unconscious states affected by the random mindless direction of irrational right brain symbolism.
When we sleep; we enter into five stages of sleep[19] ranging from 4 stages of NREM (Non-REM) and 1 stage of REM. Most of our dream recall occurs during the REM stage of sleep. Even though we are in unconscious states during NREM, evidence in sleep laboratories have confirmed that we are at least still dreaming. However, oblivious to what ever that information may be.
One would logically assume that two participants who are to share a dream; if such a possibility exists would then at least have to synchronize the REM stage of sleep with the intent to share a dream. If one participant is in NREM with no chance of dream recall and the other participant is in REM, then the chances of a mutual exchange would be greatly diminished by the causality of these two states.
When we sleep, there are changes in the physiology of the Human brain. The temporal frontal lobes, responsible for memory shuts down. This forces a condition called sleep induced amnesia. Although we may have unconscious dream experience during this shut-down; we will have no memory access to what ever information exists. Unless of course we are somehow able to override the function of a deactivated memory bank
On the other side of the RWW; there is a very good chance that I have seen what this results in with other people when attempting to share dreams with them. One of the interesting anomalies is a certain state that I have found my targets in during a lucid dream. This observation has also been said the same of me with another friend who has tried to connect with me via a mutual dream.
The state clearly demonstrates that the participant is in a catatonic zombie like state. The lively, alert and consciously aware aspect is inactive. When trying to ask questions or gain any eye contact, I have found the participant vegetative, if they respond they can respond fearfully and scream or roll their head and eyes slowly. How they act seems totally irrational and emotionally driven.
I admit it has always creeped me out when encountering a friend or family member in this particular state of mind during sleep. Having others confirm I have also been found in this state in their dreams furthers my desire to want to always maintain full consciousness during sleep.
Linked to the physiology of cognitive function in the brain; if there is a link... it makes sense that the logical left-brain intellect is deactivated and finding a person in this near zombie like state is not an illogical observation; it makes sense. As to what scope or scale people are and how often we wander the dream state and RWW in a catatonic state of unconscious awareness; is most likely measured by the number of people living on the planet.
When I have walked in a dream down town I find groups and gatherings of people all in this state. It seemed to suggest to me at least that everyone is potentially wandering aimlessly in this mutual state. They are devoid of the left-brain cognitive function to fully realize and participate in this state as we would in our waking life.
As a teenager my friend and I coined this state, "Sleeper's Grog" a drunken state we find each other in from time to time.
In attempts to force a mutual dream, I have successfully snapped my friend out of this state that once successful resulted in a shared dream. He gave me eye contact and said my name; we had full connectivity as he activated just enough cognitive function to start participating and remembering the dream.
In some shared dreams; I have watched my friend slip back into this state. During that segment of the shared dream recall; we find out that the person dreamed something completely different then what I had observed until their attention was restored focusing on me.
I feel this information is important that is why I share it. It would be nice to have further confirmation from other mutual dream researchers as to finding people in a non-responsive state during attempts to share dreams with them.
When a person seems to react negatively to the dream stimuli; they do retract and slip into this state creating a type of personification of the dream that overlaps the mutual potential with a totally subjective experience. The observation of this in action is immensely fascinating to me.
It seems to me that the following challenges prevent everyday mutual dreaming:
How to improve Shared Dreaming Potential
What can we do to improve dream sharing?
If you want to share dreams with your friends, you need to find friends that share this same passion and desire as you. Having a lucid dreaming skill set and a fellow lucid dreamer is the optimal condition to increase the probability of sharing a dream. Here is a link to a tutorial I wrote on Lucid Dreaming which covers some proven techniques. link
Writing down your dreams in a journal and talking with those you feel you might have had a connection with is the only way to start to gain real world feedback and confirmation of a shared dream.
There is no question this is going to be a lot harder then having a lucid dream, or precognitive dream; however the rewards of success are rich indeed. Having first hand experience and knowledge of this reality of shared dreaming far out weighs having only an idea or belief that it could possibly exist.
Shared dreaming should not be a belief; it should be an experience that you invoke and create by actively participating in your dream rather then passively letting this opportunity slip by.
You direct the experience with your belief and intent. The outcome of success lies completely at your disposal.
Hopefully this has helped encourage your explorative and pioneer spirit. The more that people can become aware of this reality; the greater the chances are that more shared dreaming will occur.
I personally feel that this is an evolutionary potential that requires participation. Everything dream related is one of active participation and exploration. We are still pioneering this great frontier of inner-space. When you graduate from belief with first hand knowledge and experience? What will you do to help others with this gift?
Know that organizations and research centres already exist like the IASD and the Monroe Institute. Research and learn from these scientists, physicists and explorers of conscious space. You can get involved on their forums and attend classes.
Form a dream group with your friends and family. Share material such as this article and educate people that more and more knowledge and verification of this potential exists. Most of all; find out through first hand personal experience the potential you have as a dreamer. Don't let a gift this great go to waste.
Author
Ian Wilson
Blog | Facebook Group | Twitter
References
By Ian Wilson (2010) Public Domain No Copyright.
Definition
Shared Dreaming or Mutual Dreaming mentioned by Stephen LaBerge[1] and Lynda Lane Magallon[2] is a type of dream where two or more people share the same dream content from the their own perspective. Upon waking the participants are able to recall the same details, settings and even conversations they had with each other during the mutual dream.
Research
Stephen LaBerge writes in his book "Lucid Dreaming"[1] that "Accounts of "mutual dreaming," (dreams apparently shared by two or more people) raise the possibility that the dream world may be in some cases just as objectively real as the physical world. This is because the primary criterion of "objectivity" is that an experience is shared by more than one person, which is supposedly true of mutual dreams. In that case, what would happen to the traditional dichotomy between dreams and reality?"
Tom Campbell[3] who worked at The Monroe Institute[4] in Virginia writes in his trilogy entitled "My Big Toe"[3] that during their exploration phase at the Monroe Labs during sleep; himself and other participants practising the skill of being consciously awake when the body is asleep were able to verify a mutual meeting that would be recorded in a control room.
The Monroe Institute is a research centre founded by Robert A. Monroe[5] for the purpose of researching a phenomena that occurs during sleep called the Out-Of-Body experience[6] or OOBE and OBE. Robert A. Monroe has been one of the leading pioneers in consciousness research spanning over 40 years in the area of waking lucid awareness while the body slept.
Other research organizations have catalogued their own evidence of shared dreaming. The International Association for the Study of Dreams[7] has had yearly dream telepathy[8] contests which have yielded positive mutual dreaming accounts along with other phenomenological dream experiences. Many of the researchers have themselves had mutual dreams with each other. The IASD compiled a list of researchers to discuss the movie Inception where many of the researchers commented on the reality of mutual dreaming.[9] Link
Lynda Lane Magallon published a book entitled "Mutual Dreaming"[2] where she covers history of this phenomena and personal accounts with people involved with dream research. The president for the IASD, Robert Waggoner recently published "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self"[10] where he touches on mutual dreaming.
Personal Experience
As the author of this article, I have also enjoyed the rare opportunity to have shared dreams with people in my 23 years of dream exploration. It is for this reason that I feel compelled to share some of my insights into the phenomena based on personal experience and what I have read in regards to theory.
In 1988 I would have my first confirmed shared dream with a friend during a time when I had no idea that such a phenomena was possible. This first hand experience with shared dreaming seemed incredible. This friend and I would have several shared dreams in the time that followed.
The journey to have these wilfully was met with a high level of uncertainty and challenges. I will share what I observed and learned from these explorations. For a more detail account, read the interview with Robert Waggoner as I discuss many of the expeirences with dreaming in greater detail for the Lucid Dream Exchange Magazine 55th June Edition.[11] link
Personal Theories
The first question you must have as a reader is how is this possible? Clearly the above list of researchers and investigators have made some very startling claims. It would be easy to dismiss this as fantasy and move on; however I encourage you to have open minded scepticism when moving forward into understanding the mechanics involved in sleep related phenomenology.
If mutual dreaming was common or easy; many more people would be reporting this with each other, however you may be a person who has told a friend or family member about a dream; to have it confirmed by them that they too remember the same dream if not something very similar.
Is the dreamstate objective? That is the first question you have to really ask when trying to discern if shared dreaming is possible at all. The evidence from personal experience is compelling indicating some type of objectivity within dreams. Carl Jung[12] famously spoke about a collective unconscious that we were all accessing during sleep.
A collective unconsciousness suggests that in the sleeping state; we are all part of one collective unconscious system. Buddhist believe in Indra's Net or Web[13] which describes that all phenomena is interconnected. Tom Campbell expands on this concept in his trilogy, "My-Big-Toe"[3] where he describes a Reality Wide Web or RWW that we all access as consciousness and download experience in the form of data.
It is through this interconnectedness that we have the mechanics that surround the reality of Shared Dreaming. Another theory of interconnectedness stems from Quantum Mechanics through entanglement.
Quantum entanglement[14] is when two or more objects are linked and affect each other in a non-localized way when separated. Considering the Big Bang theory and the existence of a singularity;[15] it is theoretically plausible that everything coming from the singularity has varying degrees of entanglement affecting the entire system.
Consciousness functions at quantum states and itself may be subjective to the same quantum mechanics that affect photons. As a result of being part of this interconnected system, our consciousness may be linked through entanglement with all other systems at these finitely small levels.
Just recently scientists were able to teleport information through quantum entanglement range of 10 miles[16]. This in itself is a remarkable feat of practical use of quantum states. The human brain already naturally use these quantum states as is evident in Pemrose-Hameroff Orch Or model[17]. If science can teleport quantum information 10 miles; who is to say that the human brain is not already able to achieve this type of communication.
Shared dreaming is already demonstrating that some type of information sharing is possible and the more we understand this interconnectedness; the more we will be able to unravel how the mechanics of information exchange work between these quantum systems.
Quantum Mechanics proves that information can be teleported between entangled photons. The human brain uses photons in the alpha-beta tublin as part of the information processing (Penrose-Hameroff)[17]. The human brain is natures quantum super computer.
It seems based on shared dreaming evidence that some type of information exchange is possible during sleep. From a singularity to a massive expanding Universe one would at least expect that anything is possible. Interconnectedness is quantum fact; not just Buddhist belief. As to what scale or magnitude this represents is a matter for science to resolve. Shared dreaming is just the tip of the iceburg for how information has organized itself within the Universe.
If we can't accept Indra's Web, or Tom's Reality Wide Web; we can at least accept science fact that there is interconnectedness within quantum states; and to what degree of entanglement exists since the expansion of the singularity should intrigue the minds of people like Stephen Hawkins[18].
If we came from one; are we not all part of one? With the collapse of the Universe we inevitable become one again; or at least the quantum soup that we formed. Where consciousness begins and ends within quantum states may be completely entangled with what photons are. Photons after all; are the functioning energy driving the quantum computer called the human mind. We may not measure consciousness, but we know photons play a role in facilitating the existence of consciousness within the human brain.
Now that we have this theoretical muse done with let's get back on topic with the reality of shared dreaming.
Limitations in Mutual Dreaming
Let's first examine what obstacles affect the majority of the population in regards to dream related phenomena. The first obvious flaw in the Human Condition is we are not active dreamers en mass. The truth is we are passive dreamers with little or no development in this area of skill. The population of the planet for the most part is dream illiterate.
Dreaming is not a belief; it is an experience that has the potential for participation. It predominantly is the realm of the unconscious self; and our waking self tends to drift off into altered unconscious states affected by the random mindless direction of irrational right brain symbolism.
When we sleep; we enter into five stages of sleep[19] ranging from 4 stages of NREM (Non-REM) and 1 stage of REM. Most of our dream recall occurs during the REM stage of sleep. Even though we are in unconscious states during NREM, evidence in sleep laboratories have confirmed that we are at least still dreaming. However, oblivious to what ever that information may be.
One would logically assume that two participants who are to share a dream; if such a possibility exists would then at least have to synchronize the REM stage of sleep with the intent to share a dream. If one participant is in NREM with no chance of dream recall and the other participant is in REM, then the chances of a mutual exchange would be greatly diminished by the causality of these two states.
When we sleep, there are changes in the physiology of the Human brain. The temporal frontal lobes, responsible for memory shuts down. This forces a condition called sleep induced amnesia. Although we may have unconscious dream experience during this shut-down; we will have no memory access to what ever information exists. Unless of course we are somehow able to override the function of a deactivated memory bank
On the other side of the RWW; there is a very good chance that I have seen what this results in with other people when attempting to share dreams with them. One of the interesting anomalies is a certain state that I have found my targets in during a lucid dream. This observation has also been said the same of me with another friend who has tried to connect with me via a mutual dream.
The state clearly demonstrates that the participant is in a catatonic zombie like state. The lively, alert and consciously aware aspect is inactive. When trying to ask questions or gain any eye contact, I have found the participant vegetative, if they respond they can respond fearfully and scream or roll their head and eyes slowly. How they act seems totally irrational and emotionally driven.
I admit it has always creeped me out when encountering a friend or family member in this particular state of mind during sleep. Having others confirm I have also been found in this state in their dreams furthers my desire to want to always maintain full consciousness during sleep.
Linked to the physiology of cognitive function in the brain; if there is a link... it makes sense that the logical left-brain intellect is deactivated and finding a person in this near zombie like state is not an illogical observation; it makes sense. As to what scope or scale people are and how often we wander the dream state and RWW in a catatonic state of unconscious awareness; is most likely measured by the number of people living on the planet.
When I have walked in a dream down town I find groups and gatherings of people all in this state. It seemed to suggest to me at least that everyone is potentially wandering aimlessly in this mutual state. They are devoid of the left-brain cognitive function to fully realize and participate in this state as we would in our waking life.
As a teenager my friend and I coined this state, "Sleeper's Grog" a drunken state we find each other in from time to time.
In attempts to force a mutual dream, I have successfully snapped my friend out of this state that once successful resulted in a shared dream. He gave me eye contact and said my name; we had full connectivity as he activated just enough cognitive function to start participating and remembering the dream.
In some shared dreams; I have watched my friend slip back into this state. During that segment of the shared dream recall; we find out that the person dreamed something completely different then what I had observed until their attention was restored focusing on me.
I feel this information is important that is why I share it. It would be nice to have further confirmation from other mutual dream researchers as to finding people in a non-responsive state during attempts to share dreams with them.
When a person seems to react negatively to the dream stimuli; they do retract and slip into this state creating a type of personification of the dream that overlaps the mutual potential with a totally subjective experience. The observation of this in action is immensely fascinating to me.
It seems to me that the following challenges prevent everyday mutual dreaming:
- Both participants need to be synchronized in REM sleep; any NREM and REM mix between the participants will negate the cognitive qualities required for memory, awareness and perception.
- Participants need to have at least enough memory, awareness and perception to focus and maintain a coherent experience in the dream.
- Participants need to have developed enough skill with dreaming to invoke these cognitive qualities to increase the probability of shared dreaming.
- Most people are not active dreamers; they are passive. Shared dreams are possible but may prove more difficult between active and passive dreamers.
- People can personalize the dream to fulfill fantasies, desires and fears; this subjective projection will override any mutual exchange.
- Upon waking people often forget their dreams; this could be a form of waking induced amnesia. There is clearly amnesiac states that occur with sleeping.
Clearly conscious awareness and left-brain cognitive function is a requirement of quality dream awareness, perception and recall. It is in these three attributes that we find a good skill set that mutual dreamers can work towards to improve the potential to share a dream. - Dreams are thought-reactive so negative beliefs and disbelief can override mutual exchange in favour of personification of the dream state.
How to improve Shared Dreaming Potential
What can we do to improve dream sharing?
If you want to share dreams with your friends, you need to find friends that share this same passion and desire as you. Having a lucid dreaming skill set and a fellow lucid dreamer is the optimal condition to increase the probability of sharing a dream. Here is a link to a tutorial I wrote on Lucid Dreaming which covers some proven techniques. link
Writing down your dreams in a journal and talking with those you feel you might have had a connection with is the only way to start to gain real world feedback and confirmation of a shared dream.
There is no question this is going to be a lot harder then having a lucid dream, or precognitive dream; however the rewards of success are rich indeed. Having first hand experience and knowledge of this reality of shared dreaming far out weighs having only an idea or belief that it could possibly exist.
Shared dreaming should not be a belief; it should be an experience that you invoke and create by actively participating in your dream rather then passively letting this opportunity slip by.
You direct the experience with your belief and intent. The outcome of success lies completely at your disposal.
Hopefully this has helped encourage your explorative and pioneer spirit. The more that people can become aware of this reality; the greater the chances are that more shared dreaming will occur.
I personally feel that this is an evolutionary potential that requires participation. Everything dream related is one of active participation and exploration. We are still pioneering this great frontier of inner-space. When you graduate from belief with first hand knowledge and experience? What will you do to help others with this gift?
Know that organizations and research centres already exist like the IASD and the Monroe Institute. Research and learn from these scientists, physicists and explorers of conscious space. You can get involved on their forums and attend classes.
Form a dream group with your friends and family. Share material such as this article and educate people that more and more knowledge and verification of this potential exists. Most of all; find out through first hand personal experience the potential you have as a dreamer. Don't let a gift this great go to waste.
Author
Ian Wilson
Blog | Facebook Group | Twitter
References
- Stephen LaBerge (1985) "Lucid Dreaming: The power of being aware and awake in your dreams"
- Linda Lane Magallón (1997) "Mutual Dreaming"
- Tom Campbell (2005) "My Big Toe"
- The Monroe Institute (1970s) (wiki) | Homepage
- Robert A. Monroe (1915-1995) (wiki)
- Out-Of-Body experience (1943) (wiki)
- The International Association for the Study of Dreams IASD Homepage
- IASD (2010) "Dream Telepath Contest"
- IASD (2010) "Inception Review"
- Robert Waggoner (2010) "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self"
- Robert Waggoner (2010) "Lucid Dream Exchange Magazine 55th June Edition."
- Carl Jung (1959) Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious"
- Buddhism (3rd Century) "Indra's Net"
Quantum entanglement[14] - Big Bang theory (wiki)
- Discovery News (2010) "Beam Me Up, Scotty! Scientists Teleport Info 10 Miles"
- Penrose-Hameroff (1998) "Quantum Computation In Brain Microtubules?"
- Stephen Hawkins (wiki"
- Kendra Cherry "Stages of Sleep"
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Anatomy of a Precognitive Dream
The Anatomy of a Precognitive Dream.
By Ian Wilson (2010) Public Domain No Copyrights.
Also see: The Theory of Precognitive Dreams
Definition
A precognitive dream is a type of dream that comes true as a future event. It is also known as Déjà Rêvé (Art Funkhouser, Dr. Vernon Neppe).[1] It can bring about the same sensations associated with Déjà Vu such as the Déja Vu Aura, goose-bumps etc.
Types of Precognitive Dreams
Symbolic Precognitive Dream
Dream symbolism abstracts the precognitive information and generally is not realized up until the actual event. This can be a very difficult type of dream to identify as a type of precognitive dream, however certain symbols in the dream can match or greatly exaggerate the future event when it actualizes. The accuracy and quality of this type of dream should be considered of a low grade type of precognition.
Literal Precognitive Dream
From a first-person view, this type of precognitive dream in literal detail. What you sense, think and feel in the dream can actualize in the future-tense when the dream actualizes. This dream can bring about a Déjà Vu aura however linking the memory of the déjà to a dream is what classifies this type of dream as Déjà Rêvé.
3rd Person Precognitive Dream
From a third-person vantage point, this type of precognitive dream can take on both symbolic and literal similarities however does not suggest that the information being observed will occur from a first-person point of view.
Lucid Precognitive Dream
A lucid dream is a dream where a person is awake and realizes that they are dreaming. This alert and awakened focus state also can emerge within the phenomena of precognitive dreams. This type of precognitive dream can have an even more pronounced déjà vu aura then a non-lucid precognitive dream. Robert Waggoner explains there are two types of lucid precognitive dreams: Active and Ambient.[4]
In an active lucid precognitive dream, the dreamer actively tries to engage the precognitive dream, where in an ambient lucid dream the dreamer passively observes the dream remaining within the usual dream flow.
History
Babylonian "Epic of Gilgamesh" a Sumerian Poem suggests precognitive dreams in tablet 1 where Gilgamesh dreams about the imminent arrival of two companions, or the ominous dream received by Enkidu on tablet 6. The "Epic of Gilgamesh" is one of considered one of the oldest works of literature and predates biblical text at approximately 2150BC and could be one of the earliest suggestions of precognitive dreams.[5]
Aristotle published a paper entitled "On Prophesying by Dreams" [6]written in 350BC which questions with skepticism the validity of claims by those who say they have dreams of the future. He does not completely refute the notion of precognitive dreams, however understands that much of what is dreamed could be coincidence. It's clear that ancient Greeks subscribed to prophecy as evident in Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" where in Cassandra is granted the gift of prophecy by Apollo. The Greek God Morpheus resides in a land of Dreams somewhere in the Underworld where two gates exist, one that sends false dreams through the gate of ivory, and the other that sends prophetic dreams gate of horns.
Theory
Answers to why precognitive dreams occur may lie in quantum mechanics and the effects on consciousness. If future information exists, as suggested by people who claim to experience precognition, certain theories in Physics might apply, for example Hugh Everett many-worlds interpretation [6], which is an evolving theory stemming from Erwin Schrödinger's cat paradox [7].
In a quantum view of a many-world system, every possible past, present and future probability could theoretically exist as probability. We know through quantum superposition that a particle can exist in every possible state until observed. Physicists are just starting to understand quantum information, and if this information is non-linear and existing within an astronomical data-set, it is possible that the Universe has organized into a complex information system and data structure that had per-populated itself with a myriad of probability that may exist in an astronomical scale.
Stuart Hameroff[8] proposes that the human brain is both a Neurocomputer and Quantum computer [9]. The link to the computational nature of the brain and how quantum mechanics may link to consciousness could explain that some type of entanglement and superposition affects human consciousness. Pemrose and Hameroff [10] have discerned that the brain uses coherent photons as part of the brain mechanics and is used to preform information processing. Photons contribute to what we view as consciousness, and consciousness itself may have quantum states that through time and research we can unravel.
The Universe itself can be viewed as information that our brains must access and render into a model that we call subjective reality. A unique first-person vantage point within an objective dataset. Regardless of how objective reality is, it must always be subjectively experienced by a conscious observer.
The nature of quantum mechanics is revealing through superposition that matter and energy could also be viewed as information. If we consider the Universe as an information system, then past/present/future could exist in every possible conceived state as probability and data. Digital Physics, first termed by Edward Fredkin [10] has emerged with serious considerations that Reality itself could be computative in nature, a Universal computer so to speak.
This idea is supported by Tom Campbell "My Big Toe"[11], Brian Witworth "The Physical World as Virtual Reality"[12], Seth Lloyd "Programming the Universe"[13], Stephen Wolfram "Cellular Automata"[14], Max Tegmark "Mathematical universe hypothesis"[15] and the list goes on.
In Brian Witworths work, there is a quote that seems to resonate with the nature of precognitive dreams, "This makes this world a recursive interface, that both sends to and receives from itself. If so, it is like no other information interface that we know."
It is in this quote and within the nature of precognitive dreams that we may see the emergence of the recursive feedback in the form of probable reality in a dream, to the actualized reality when the dream comes true. It could be suggested that the precognitive dream itself is a form of reality per-programming within this recursive interface, and the actualization of the dream is the feedback within the greater system.
How is this possible? What are the mechanics that drive this system and allows for non-linear, non-localized dreams to actualize into reality? At this point, we have theories and ideas evolving from those who understand and see a relationship between consciousness and reality. If we look again at physics, there is another anomaly that suggests the observe affects wave-function collapse: "Wave function, initially in a superposition of different eigenstates, appears to reduce to a single one of the states after interaction with an observer. In simplified terms, it is the condensation of physical possibilities into a single occurrence, as seen by an observer."
The observer effect brings about the measurement problem in Quantum Mechanics and stirs the debate if wave-function collapse occurs at all, however the Double-slit experiment[16] demonstrates wave / particle duality and further entangles the observer into the role of one who collapses wave function.
This is an interesting enigma within science, it suggests a link between the observer and the observed. That deterministic probability is being actualized as the observer renders reality through the act of collapsing wave-function and probability. It seems like a stretch to the imagination but we are talking about precognitive dreams here.
Dreaming for the most part is a passive experience where we project our thoughts, ideas and emotions into a virtual 3D world based on the principles of organized thought. At some point within this creative process of dreaming, certain dreams appear to qualify as "precognitive" in nature. A seeming unknown potential that does not become apparent to the dreamer, until the dream actualizes and the individual is left with the realization that what was once dreamed of, is now actual.
Anatomy of a Precognitive Dream
If we take for face value what a precognitive dream is, it is a type of dream that has future potential. In order for such a dream to come true, it must actualize into an event in physical reality. In the case of a literal precognitive dream, the dream is observed from a subjective vantage point, the physical event that the dream actualizes into must also be perceived from the same subjective vantage point.
This suggests that reality exists in two states: A state by which a person can dream of a future event, and a state where this event actualizes into a physical event. It suggests there is a direct relationship between what is dreamed, and what is later experienced in reality.
In a linear context, the precognitive dream pre-dates the physical event that it represents. In looking at the origin of the physical event. We have an answer to a Causality Dilemma known as, "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" In the case of "What came first, the dream or reality", in the case of precognitive dreaming, the precognitive dream came first.
Precognitive dreaming is in fact a paradox that exists within the subjective vantage point of certain observers who have had enough memory, awareness and perception during a certain dream that qualifies as a precognitive event. What also makes this unique is that people who often have precognitive dreams, have a varying degree of frequency, clarity and quality. It can range from one precognitive dream in their entire life, to many.
Then there are those who do not have any precognitive dreams, they may not have first-person experience with this paradox to even begin accepting that such a phenomena is real and possible. For the most part, these people are skeptical of others who claim they have. It is up to you to decide what dreams you have had, that qualify as precognitive or not. You can only know through the process of actualization if a dream has any precognitive worth.
A reason as to why this is, (Why some do and some don't) may have been answered by Tom Campbell who wrote the trilogy entitled, "My Big Toe"[11], where he describes the Psi Uncertainty Principle. The Psi Uncertainty Principle allows for individual growth in areas that may be construed as paranormal or spiritual, without affecting or having impact on others who are not ready to grow in certain areas. Precognitive dreams certainly fit within the described theory as something that affects individual growth more so then affecting many with any mass effect.
Tom also suggests there is a metaphorical big computer (TBC) that organizes data into reality. This idea takes us back to digital physics and virtual reality theory however, precognitive dreams are providing some insight as to how the program is potentially written in the first place.
In our causality dilemma, where we have a dream preceding physical reality, finding this dream / reality duality becomes very profound, the implications of what this entails may shift our entire physical paradigm into something more idealistic in nature. This becomes very apparent when we start to deconstruct dreaming into a more understandable system.
At the heart of dreaming, there is one observable fact: Dreams are organized thought.
Unlike physical reality where we have atoms, molecules and gravitational forces etc. Dreams are mind-generated thoughts organized into an experience that is similar to how we perceive our physical reality. When you are dreaming and see light, textures and objects, every aspect of the dream environment can be reduced back to thought that has taken on the role of creating many sensory states to render out the dream experience.
There are no atoms, molecules or gravitational forces, everything is thought. Evidence that thought can form audible and visual patterns in our mind stem from self-evident exploration of your own thought process. Sub-vocalization of your voice occurs when you read. It is common to have an internal faint voice sounding out the words within your mind. This is an example of thought taking on the form of sound. Another example is imagining an image in your mind. If you imagine an apple or an orange, you might have a faint visual image in your mind of these objects. If you close your eyes, relax the images can become quite vivid and strong.
Thought has the ability to mimic sensory states and dreaming is a prime example of sub-vocalization and visualization taken to the next level. All the five physical sense can be observed in dreams, and each of them are following the same principles of sub-vocalization. It is organized thought organized into non-verbal thought forms to render your ideas into a virtual reality experience within the dream state.
If dreams are thoughts? How does this apply to a dream that has precognitive potential? It would certainly appear that all the information in a dream is organized thought, more specifically, your thoughts. If this is the case? How is it that something that starts as organize thought, later actualizes into a physical even in your waking reality? This is one of the most challenging questions that the paradox of precognitive dreaming presents.
The nature of the experience suggests that the originating dream is the source of the soon to be actualized reality. Could our thoughts play a role in the organization of information that is later processed and made actual by Tom's metaphorical Big Computer? Are we in fact creating the precognitive dream in the same manner that we create all our dreams? The implications that stem from precognitive dreaming could change everything we thought we knew about our reality.
Reality may in fact originate from the process of dreams. Dreams may in fact be a reality programing language that later renders into an experience when the dream actualizes and is made real. In the precognitive dream paradox, we know that Physical Reality appeared first in a dream, as organized thought. What makes it different when the dream actualizes? What makes it the same? What are the relationships between these to states by which we observe an experience of reality?
I am not suggesting any answers, but it is hard to dismiss the role of thought within the original dreamed experience. The concept that thought creates reality is a very ancient idea. In the precognitive dream paradox, it may in fact have more merit then not. If we take Tom Campbell's work at face value and look at the possibility that the origins of the Universe and Reality stem from consciousness and matter originated out of how consciousness organized itself, then precognitive dreaming within consciousness space starts to provide potential evidence of a Universe that is founded on the ideas that consciousness creates.
As some one who has experienced precognitive dreaming, another step up in this experience comes from lucid dreaming. Very few people have written about what lucid precognitive dreaming actually is. Robert Waggoner, the President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams wrote in his book, "Lucid Dreaming: The Gateway to the Inner Self" [17]that there is two types of lucid precognitive dreams: Ambient and Active.
Ambient lucid precognitive dreams are where you be come awake and aware that you are dreaming. You go with the flow of the dream and when the dream actualizes and comes true, you have the self-evidence you need to affirm that you indeed were awake and conscious in a lucid precognitive dream. Active lucid precognitive dreams are where you engage the dream with action based on being lucid and awake. What action you took as a result of this decision making opportunity also actualizes when the dream comes true.
Precognitive dreaming suggests that there is a relationship between dreams and reality; it offers first-person experience with this relationship to those who have precognitive dreams. It suggests that dreams might be a type of reality programming language; a means by which we all collectively are co-creating an objective reality through subjective paradigms using a system of organized thought.
There is that saying, "Thought creates Reality". This is true for dreams; thought certainly creates dream realities. The real push is to see this working mechanically in real-life examples. It seems to me at least; precognitive dreaming presents this revelation. The implications for this if true; is staggering.
I just wanted to add a footnote: Art Funkhouser contacted me and wanted to say he likes to reserve the term Déjà Rêvé for a dream remembered at the moment of the occurring Déjà experience and if the person remembers the dream clearly prior to the actualization; then it should be simply called a precognitive dream.
It is a bit technical but in his line of research; he deals with a very broad range of "déjà experiences" so the need to be very technical and detailed is apparent.
The other footnote is the use of the term "aura" as it has the unfortunant link to TLE so I want to emphasise for technical purposes that a precognitive dream aura is not at all the TLE or Migrane aura and a scientific classification to distinquish aura types is most likely needed and pending.
He has also provided a link to a form for anyone interesting in submitting their Déjà experiences at: Déjà Vu Survey
He als provided me a link with a lot of information about what Dr. Neppe and Dr. Funkhouser call "déjà experiences" at Welcome to the Déjà Experience Research Website
Author
Ian Wilson
Blog | Facebook Group | Twitter
References
By Ian Wilson (2010) Public Domain No Copyrights.
Also see: The Theory of Precognitive Dreams
Definition
A precognitive dream is a type of dream that comes true as a future event. It is also known as Déjà Rêvé (Art Funkhouser, Dr. Vernon Neppe).[1] It can bring about the same sensations associated with Déjà Vu such as the Déja Vu Aura, goose-bumps etc.
Types of Precognitive Dreams
- Symbolic Precognitive Dream.
- Literal Precognitive Dream.
- 3rd Person Precognitive Dream.
- Lucid Precognitive Dream.[2]
Symbolic Precognitive Dream
Dream symbolism abstracts the precognitive information and generally is not realized up until the actual event. This can be a very difficult type of dream to identify as a type of precognitive dream, however certain symbols in the dream can match or greatly exaggerate the future event when it actualizes. The accuracy and quality of this type of dream should be considered of a low grade type of precognition.
Literal Precognitive Dream
From a first-person view, this type of precognitive dream in literal detail. What you sense, think and feel in the dream can actualize in the future-tense when the dream actualizes. This dream can bring about a Déjà Vu aura however linking the memory of the déjà to a dream is what classifies this type of dream as Déjà Rêvé.
3rd Person Precognitive Dream
From a third-person vantage point, this type of precognitive dream can take on both symbolic and literal similarities however does not suggest that the information being observed will occur from a first-person point of view.
Lucid Precognitive Dream
A lucid dream is a dream where a person is awake and realizes that they are dreaming. This alert and awakened focus state also can emerge within the phenomena of precognitive dreams. This type of precognitive dream can have an even more pronounced déjà vu aura then a non-lucid precognitive dream. Robert Waggoner explains there are two types of lucid precognitive dreams: Active and Ambient.[4]
In an active lucid precognitive dream, the dreamer actively tries to engage the precognitive dream, where in an ambient lucid dream the dreamer passively observes the dream remaining within the usual dream flow.
History
Babylonian "Epic of Gilgamesh" a Sumerian Poem suggests precognitive dreams in tablet 1 where Gilgamesh dreams about the imminent arrival of two companions, or the ominous dream received by Enkidu on tablet 6. The "Epic of Gilgamesh" is one of considered one of the oldest works of literature and predates biblical text at approximately 2150BC and could be one of the earliest suggestions of precognitive dreams.[5]
Aristotle published a paper entitled "On Prophesying by Dreams" [6]written in 350BC which questions with skepticism the validity of claims by those who say they have dreams of the future. He does not completely refute the notion of precognitive dreams, however understands that much of what is dreamed could be coincidence. It's clear that ancient Greeks subscribed to prophecy as evident in Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" where in Cassandra is granted the gift of prophecy by Apollo. The Greek God Morpheus resides in a land of Dreams somewhere in the Underworld where two gates exist, one that sends false dreams through the gate of ivory, and the other that sends prophetic dreams gate of horns.
Theory
Answers to why precognitive dreams occur may lie in quantum mechanics and the effects on consciousness. If future information exists, as suggested by people who claim to experience precognition, certain theories in Physics might apply, for example Hugh Everett many-worlds interpretation [6], which is an evolving theory stemming from Erwin Schrödinger's cat paradox [7].
In a quantum view of a many-world system, every possible past, present and future probability could theoretically exist as probability. We know through quantum superposition that a particle can exist in every possible state until observed. Physicists are just starting to understand quantum information, and if this information is non-linear and existing within an astronomical data-set, it is possible that the Universe has organized into a complex information system and data structure that had per-populated itself with a myriad of probability that may exist in an astronomical scale.
Stuart Hameroff[8] proposes that the human brain is both a Neurocomputer and Quantum computer [9]. The link to the computational nature of the brain and how quantum mechanics may link to consciousness could explain that some type of entanglement and superposition affects human consciousness. Pemrose and Hameroff [10] have discerned that the brain uses coherent photons as part of the brain mechanics and is used to preform information processing. Photons contribute to what we view as consciousness, and consciousness itself may have quantum states that through time and research we can unravel.
The Universe itself can be viewed as information that our brains must access and render into a model that we call subjective reality. A unique first-person vantage point within an objective dataset. Regardless of how objective reality is, it must always be subjectively experienced by a conscious observer.
The nature of quantum mechanics is revealing through superposition that matter and energy could also be viewed as information. If we consider the Universe as an information system, then past/present/future could exist in every possible conceived state as probability and data. Digital Physics, first termed by Edward Fredkin [10] has emerged with serious considerations that Reality itself could be computative in nature, a Universal computer so to speak.
This idea is supported by Tom Campbell "My Big Toe"[11], Brian Witworth "The Physical World as Virtual Reality"[12], Seth Lloyd "Programming the Universe"[13], Stephen Wolfram "Cellular Automata"[14], Max Tegmark "Mathematical universe hypothesis"[15] and the list goes on.
In Brian Witworths work, there is a quote that seems to resonate with the nature of precognitive dreams, "This makes this world a recursive interface, that both sends to and receives from itself. If so, it is like no other information interface that we know."
It is in this quote and within the nature of precognitive dreams that we may see the emergence of the recursive feedback in the form of probable reality in a dream, to the actualized reality when the dream comes true. It could be suggested that the precognitive dream itself is a form of reality per-programming within this recursive interface, and the actualization of the dream is the feedback within the greater system.
How is this possible? What are the mechanics that drive this system and allows for non-linear, non-localized dreams to actualize into reality? At this point, we have theories and ideas evolving from those who understand and see a relationship between consciousness and reality. If we look again at physics, there is another anomaly that suggests the observe affects wave-function collapse: "Wave function, initially in a superposition of different eigenstates, appears to reduce to a single one of the states after interaction with an observer. In simplified terms, it is the condensation of physical possibilities into a single occurrence, as seen by an observer."
The observer effect brings about the measurement problem in Quantum Mechanics and stirs the debate if wave-function collapse occurs at all, however the Double-slit experiment[16] demonstrates wave / particle duality and further entangles the observer into the role of one who collapses wave function.
This is an interesting enigma within science, it suggests a link between the observer and the observed. That deterministic probability is being actualized as the observer renders reality through the act of collapsing wave-function and probability. It seems like a stretch to the imagination but we are talking about precognitive dreams here.
Dreaming for the most part is a passive experience where we project our thoughts, ideas and emotions into a virtual 3D world based on the principles of organized thought. At some point within this creative process of dreaming, certain dreams appear to qualify as "precognitive" in nature. A seeming unknown potential that does not become apparent to the dreamer, until the dream actualizes and the individual is left with the realization that what was once dreamed of, is now actual.
Anatomy of a Precognitive Dream
If we take for face value what a precognitive dream is, it is a type of dream that has future potential. In order for such a dream to come true, it must actualize into an event in physical reality. In the case of a literal precognitive dream, the dream is observed from a subjective vantage point, the physical event that the dream actualizes into must also be perceived from the same subjective vantage point.
This suggests that reality exists in two states: A state by which a person can dream of a future event, and a state where this event actualizes into a physical event. It suggests there is a direct relationship between what is dreamed, and what is later experienced in reality.
In a linear context, the precognitive dream pre-dates the physical event that it represents. In looking at the origin of the physical event. We have an answer to a Causality Dilemma known as, "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" In the case of "What came first, the dream or reality", in the case of precognitive dreaming, the precognitive dream came first.
Precognitive dreaming is in fact a paradox that exists within the subjective vantage point of certain observers who have had enough memory, awareness and perception during a certain dream that qualifies as a precognitive event. What also makes this unique is that people who often have precognitive dreams, have a varying degree of frequency, clarity and quality. It can range from one precognitive dream in their entire life, to many.
Then there are those who do not have any precognitive dreams, they may not have first-person experience with this paradox to even begin accepting that such a phenomena is real and possible. For the most part, these people are skeptical of others who claim they have. It is up to you to decide what dreams you have had, that qualify as precognitive or not. You can only know through the process of actualization if a dream has any precognitive worth.
A reason as to why this is, (Why some do and some don't) may have been answered by Tom Campbell who wrote the trilogy entitled, "My Big Toe"[11], where he describes the Psi Uncertainty Principle. The Psi Uncertainty Principle allows for individual growth in areas that may be construed as paranormal or spiritual, without affecting or having impact on others who are not ready to grow in certain areas. Precognitive dreams certainly fit within the described theory as something that affects individual growth more so then affecting many with any mass effect.
Tom also suggests there is a metaphorical big computer (TBC) that organizes data into reality. This idea takes us back to digital physics and virtual reality theory however, precognitive dreams are providing some insight as to how the program is potentially written in the first place.
In our causality dilemma, where we have a dream preceding physical reality, finding this dream / reality duality becomes very profound, the implications of what this entails may shift our entire physical paradigm into something more idealistic in nature. This becomes very apparent when we start to deconstruct dreaming into a more understandable system.
At the heart of dreaming, there is one observable fact: Dreams are organized thought.
Unlike physical reality where we have atoms, molecules and gravitational forces etc. Dreams are mind-generated thoughts organized into an experience that is similar to how we perceive our physical reality. When you are dreaming and see light, textures and objects, every aspect of the dream environment can be reduced back to thought that has taken on the role of creating many sensory states to render out the dream experience.
There are no atoms, molecules or gravitational forces, everything is thought. Evidence that thought can form audible and visual patterns in our mind stem from self-evident exploration of your own thought process. Sub-vocalization of your voice occurs when you read. It is common to have an internal faint voice sounding out the words within your mind. This is an example of thought taking on the form of sound. Another example is imagining an image in your mind. If you imagine an apple or an orange, you might have a faint visual image in your mind of these objects. If you close your eyes, relax the images can become quite vivid and strong.
Thought has the ability to mimic sensory states and dreaming is a prime example of sub-vocalization and visualization taken to the next level. All the five physical sense can be observed in dreams, and each of them are following the same principles of sub-vocalization. It is organized thought organized into non-verbal thought forms to render your ideas into a virtual reality experience within the dream state.
If dreams are thoughts? How does this apply to a dream that has precognitive potential? It would certainly appear that all the information in a dream is organized thought, more specifically, your thoughts. If this is the case? How is it that something that starts as organize thought, later actualizes into a physical even in your waking reality? This is one of the most challenging questions that the paradox of precognitive dreaming presents.
The nature of the experience suggests that the originating dream is the source of the soon to be actualized reality. Could our thoughts play a role in the organization of information that is later processed and made actual by Tom's metaphorical Big Computer? Are we in fact creating the precognitive dream in the same manner that we create all our dreams? The implications that stem from precognitive dreaming could change everything we thought we knew about our reality.
Reality may in fact originate from the process of dreams. Dreams may in fact be a reality programing language that later renders into an experience when the dream actualizes and is made real. In the precognitive dream paradox, we know that Physical Reality appeared first in a dream, as organized thought. What makes it different when the dream actualizes? What makes it the same? What are the relationships between these to states by which we observe an experience of reality?
I am not suggesting any answers, but it is hard to dismiss the role of thought within the original dreamed experience. The concept that thought creates reality is a very ancient idea. In the precognitive dream paradox, it may in fact have more merit then not. If we take Tom Campbell's work at face value and look at the possibility that the origins of the Universe and Reality stem from consciousness and matter originated out of how consciousness organized itself, then precognitive dreaming within consciousness space starts to provide potential evidence of a Universe that is founded on the ideas that consciousness creates.
As some one who has experienced precognitive dreaming, another step up in this experience comes from lucid dreaming. Very few people have written about what lucid precognitive dreaming actually is. Robert Waggoner, the President of the International Association for the Study of Dreams wrote in his book, "Lucid Dreaming: The Gateway to the Inner Self" [17]that there is two types of lucid precognitive dreams: Ambient and Active.
Ambient lucid precognitive dreams are where you be come awake and aware that you are dreaming. You go with the flow of the dream and when the dream actualizes and comes true, you have the self-evidence you need to affirm that you indeed were awake and conscious in a lucid precognitive dream. Active lucid precognitive dreams are where you engage the dream with action based on being lucid and awake. What action you took as a result of this decision making opportunity also actualizes when the dream comes true.
Precognitive dreaming suggests that there is a relationship between dreams and reality; it offers first-person experience with this relationship to those who have precognitive dreams. It suggests that dreams might be a type of reality programming language; a means by which we all collectively are co-creating an objective reality through subjective paradigms using a system of organized thought.
There is that saying, "Thought creates Reality". This is true for dreams; thought certainly creates dream realities. The real push is to see this working mechanically in real-life examples. It seems to me at least; precognitive dreaming presents this revelation. The implications for this if true; is staggering.
I just wanted to add a footnote: Art Funkhouser contacted me and wanted to say he likes to reserve the term Déjà Rêvé for a dream remembered at the moment of the occurring Déjà experience and if the person remembers the dream clearly prior to the actualization; then it should be simply called a precognitive dream.
It is a bit technical but in his line of research; he deals with a very broad range of "déjà experiences" so the need to be very technical and detailed is apparent.
The other footnote is the use of the term "aura" as it has the unfortunant link to TLE so I want to emphasise for technical purposes that a precognitive dream aura is not at all the TLE or Migrane aura and a scientific classification to distinquish aura types is most likely needed and pending.
He has also provided a link to a form for anyone interesting in submitting their Déjà experiences at: Déjà Vu Survey
He als provided me a link with a lot of information about what Dr. Neppe and Dr. Funkhouser call "déjà experiences" at Welcome to the Déjà Experience Research Website
Author
Ian Wilson
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References
- A. T. Funkhouser, Ph.D. (2001) "Perspectives - Vol. 6, No. 1 - Dreams and Deja Vu
- Linda Magallón The Lucid Dream Exchange (1994) "Lucid Precognitive Dreams"
- Robert Waggoner (2003) "Lucid Dreaming for Precognitive Information
- Wikipedia "Epic of Gilgamesh"
- Aristotle (350BC) "On Prophesying by Dreams"
- Hugh Evrett Many-Worlds Interpretation (wiki)
- Erwin Schrödinger's cat parodox (wiki)
- Stuart Hameroff Official Website
- Penrose-Hameroff (2007) The Brain is Both Neurocomputer and Quantum Computer
- Penrose-Hameroff (1998)Quantum Computation In Brain Microtubules?
- Tom Campbell (2005) "My Big Toe"
- Brian Witworth (2007) "The Physical World as Virtual Reality"
- Seth Lloyd "Programming the Universe: A Quantum Computer Scientist Takes On the Cosmos"
- Stephen Wolfram (1982)"Cellular Automata as Simple Self-Organizing Systems"
- Max Tegmark "Mathematical universe hypothesis"
- Double-slit experiment (wiki)
- Robert Waggoner "Lucid Dreaming: The Gateway to the Inner Self"
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