I had a pretty strange dream the other day. I was planning a trip to see my family and the night before I went over that way in a dream. But before I got to my mothers house, somehow, my brother got into the car and rerouted my journey down the street. We didnt go to moms house, but instead went down the street to a liquor store. This liquor store is a place Id been to before and wrote about it in my last journal where it appeared as a club. Id been there many times in my dreams but for some reason this time it was a liquor store once again (its a liquor store when Im awake, but its usually a club when I dream). So we went into the old somewhat run down dirty shop and greeted the man behind the counter. The fat old latino smiled and said "Ah, hello my friend, this way" It seemed that hed been expecting me. He lead us into the back storeroom. "Over here my friend" he said. It was a dirty, poorly kept room with lots of boxes and junk. There were strange unidentifiable bits of rubbish in piles here. "In there my friend" He gestured towards a bit of the wall that was ripped open. You couldnt really tell if there was some sort of accident, or if they were renovating. But it looked like somebody took a hammer to part of the wall and floor and knocked it in and pulled out all the wood and brick. There was debris scattered about near the hole. There was also some caution tape here and there. Beyond all the broken drywall and insulation was a little tunnel at the level of the floor. It was just large enough for a person to crawl into. It seemed part rock, part something organic. It seemed a little phallic. I took one look at the tunnel and somehow knew immediately what it was. It was a portal, like in the movie Being John Malkovich. I dont know how I knew this, but in the dream it was clear to me immediately. "In you go my friend" said the shopkeeper. My brother stood by shuffling his feet waiting for me to do something. I smiled and without hesitation, got down on my hands and knees, and crawled into the tunnel. Just past the wall , the surface was smooth and a little soft. It began a slow downward slope. I crawled forward and it turned into a sort of water slide. I got down on my chest and let gravity do the work for me. I slid my way down "Weeeeeeeeeee!" I had no idea what was on the other end , but I felt no fear. When I got to the end of the chute, I found myself at an art opening. I was in a gallery, and it was having a reception party for a new show. There were many lovely paintings and sculptures on display. There were strange and thought provoking items for people to ponder and enjoy. I wasnt really very interested in the people or the art. What did interest me was the fact that I had somehow gained the powers of spiderman. When I took a close look at my hands and fingers, I found that like spiderman, I had thousands of tiny little subcutaneous hooks in my skin. I jumped up on the wall to test my new found powers. I climbed up on the wall and then onto the ceiling with ease. It was really fun. I had never considered how much fun this could be. After climbing around on the ceiling for a while people started to take more notice of me. I guess they had never seen anybody do that before. They seemed to be enjoying the spectacle. Eventually I realized that I too was on display. I was part of the art show as a work for people to enjoy. I didnt really give this much thought as I was having so much fun crawling around on the ceiling. Eventually I found myself standing upside down with my feet on the ceiling. I was talking with the visitors to the show and just conversing as if it were nothing strange. It all felt strangely normal to see the world upside down. The people in the gallery enjoyed the show, but seemed a little unimpressed with my super spiderman powers. This didnt really occur to me at the time as I was having a lot of fun, but in retrospect, if this happened in the waking world, it would be a really big deal.
I cant really fathom where this dream came from except that I do have a fear of spiders. Perhaps gaining the power of spiders was my way of trying to overcome the fear. I had also watched a little bit of the movie Being John Malkovich a month ago when it was on cable. That being said, it was still pretty odd...but lots of fun.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
Life is Just a Dream
We generally consider our waking life to be a serious and real thing whereas we think of dreams to be completely illusory. Our attitude defines a vast chasm between these 2 different realities we all inhabit. We generally find that our waking life is consistent from day to day, unlike our dreams. Our dreams are usually quite varied and different night to night. One night we're being chased by demons, the next night we're surfing with Jesus. We can agree on our collective understanding of our waking life, we all reach consensus. We can agree on past and present events that we all experience. We also find consistency from day to day. One day we're stuck in traffic going to a crappy job, and the next day we're stuck in traffic going to a crappy job. So we consider it to be more real and valid than our dream life.
However I expect that there are others out there like me who've experienced breaks and violations of the laws of dreaming. Dreams aren't always inconsistent. And they're not just a personal experience. Let me share with you some examples. Just last week I was having a dream where I was hanging out with an old friend. I decided to take him to a local bar/club near where I grew up. It was right down the street from where my mother lives. I'd been there before and was telling him what a fine place it was. When we got there we found that it was just as I had told him and I was lucky enough to meet the manager. I'd always wanted to meet the manager and tell him what a fine place he ran. When I woke up, I remembered that there is no such place in the city. But in the dream I had remembered the place clearly and remembered having had some good times there. The memories however were from other dreams. I can remember about 3 or 4 times I'd been to that place in different dreams.
Theres another very similar place which exists only in my dreams. There is this large Hilton Hotel on the corner of Sunset Blvd and La Cienega in Los Angeles (my hometown). It has a beautiful fountain in the front and a lavish lobby with lots of cool art. I'd visited this hotel in a few different dreams in varying capacities. In the "real" world theres just an old office building there. But when I'm dreaming, I always remember this hotel quite clearly and love to go there.
We also dismiss dreams because they seem to be a private matter that is unshared. Well Ive had a few shared dreams with other people. I know I'm not the only one to go through this. I know a few other people, usually couples who've shared dreams. The nature of the dream does not really matter. The point is that we were able to verify the shared aspects of where we had been in dreamspace. Vanilla sunset skies, giant mountains floating in the clouds, crystal cathedrals on the tops of the mountains, and giant waterfalls crashing down into the fog. It was all specific enough to convince me that it was not a coincidence.
Of course there is enough strangeness to write many many books on dreaming. When I was young, I had a really cool lucid dream. I realized in the dream that it was a dream and decided to fly over the neighborhood. I saw into peoples back yards and saw that a number of my neighbors had swimming pools. There were more than I would have guessed. So the next day when I was awake, I went around peeping into peoples back yards. Sure enough, the folks that had pools in the dream had pools in the waking life.
I cant say that I know enough to draw any particular conclusion from this except to say that our most basic understanding of dreams is completely wrong. Any scientist who tells you that its all in your head or just chemical reactions has no idea what they're talking about. If you've ever studied astral projection, shamanism, or Carlos Castaneda, you're lucky enough to have heard some alternative explanations for dreaming. I don't want to spend all day paraphrasing all that since that information is already out there online. If I had to make a guess as to what is going on, Id say that we live in a thought responsive cosmos. While awake, we live in a collectively created and shared reality. While asleep, we cross the boundaries between individually created realities, and collectively created realities.
The Samurai used to have a saying that when you have a nightmare, you can easily console yourself by telling yourself " it was just a bad dream", and that the same consideration, can just as easily be extended to your waking life.
However I expect that there are others out there like me who've experienced breaks and violations of the laws of dreaming. Dreams aren't always inconsistent. And they're not just a personal experience. Let me share with you some examples. Just last week I was having a dream where I was hanging out with an old friend. I decided to take him to a local bar/club near where I grew up. It was right down the street from where my mother lives. I'd been there before and was telling him what a fine place it was. When we got there we found that it was just as I had told him and I was lucky enough to meet the manager. I'd always wanted to meet the manager and tell him what a fine place he ran. When I woke up, I remembered that there is no such place in the city. But in the dream I had remembered the place clearly and remembered having had some good times there. The memories however were from other dreams. I can remember about 3 or 4 times I'd been to that place in different dreams.
Theres another very similar place which exists only in my dreams. There is this large Hilton Hotel on the corner of Sunset Blvd and La Cienega in Los Angeles (my hometown). It has a beautiful fountain in the front and a lavish lobby with lots of cool art. I'd visited this hotel in a few different dreams in varying capacities. In the "real" world theres just an old office building there. But when I'm dreaming, I always remember this hotel quite clearly and love to go there.
We also dismiss dreams because they seem to be a private matter that is unshared. Well Ive had a few shared dreams with other people. I know I'm not the only one to go through this. I know a few other people, usually couples who've shared dreams. The nature of the dream does not really matter. The point is that we were able to verify the shared aspects of where we had been in dreamspace. Vanilla sunset skies, giant mountains floating in the clouds, crystal cathedrals on the tops of the mountains, and giant waterfalls crashing down into the fog. It was all specific enough to convince me that it was not a coincidence.
Of course there is enough strangeness to write many many books on dreaming. When I was young, I had a really cool lucid dream. I realized in the dream that it was a dream and decided to fly over the neighborhood. I saw into peoples back yards and saw that a number of my neighbors had swimming pools. There were more than I would have guessed. So the next day when I was awake, I went around peeping into peoples back yards. Sure enough, the folks that had pools in the dream had pools in the waking life.
I cant say that I know enough to draw any particular conclusion from this except to say that our most basic understanding of dreams is completely wrong. Any scientist who tells you that its all in your head or just chemical reactions has no idea what they're talking about. If you've ever studied astral projection, shamanism, or Carlos Castaneda, you're lucky enough to have heard some alternative explanations for dreaming. I don't want to spend all day paraphrasing all that since that information is already out there online. If I had to make a guess as to what is going on, Id say that we live in a thought responsive cosmos. While awake, we live in a collectively created and shared reality. While asleep, we cross the boundaries between individually created realities, and collectively created realities.
The Samurai used to have a saying that when you have a nightmare, you can easily console yourself by telling yourself " it was just a bad dream", and that the same consideration, can just as easily be extended to your waking life.
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