BS: Dreams

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: *daylia*
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 11:50 AM

Aw, not to worry about doing "outrageous" things with "inappropriate people" in your dreams, wd. That's one of the things dreams are for - a personal "release valve" for subconscious, suppressed drives and wishes and desires. Those energies (which are perfectly human, natural and normal, even if deemed "immoral" or "inappropiate" by polite society), if acted upon in physical reality, would cause a LOT of trouble. So dreams are an opportunity to "vent" them, that's all!

Have you ever noticed that the very best sex of all is to be had in dreams? "Dream bodies" are SO sensitive, so "perfect", so flexible, capable of doing the most amazing "gymnastics" (got no bones, after all), don't stink or sweat or have any weight to speak of!

Hmmmm, sex and music ... the "finer things" of life, and so much finer in dreams it seems ...

But the last time I thought I was having a wet dream, I woke up to find my cat was having her kittens all over my bed. That was a "wet" experience, alright!

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: GUEST,Hammy
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 11:38 AM

Buffy - don't make things hard for yourself and keep the wheels of industry turning.

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: GUEST,wd
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 11:21 AM

Hmmm, sexdreams are very worrying sometimes. You can end up doing the most outrageous things with the most INAPPROPRIATE people!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: GUEST,Buffy the hamster slayer
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 11:09 AM

I have wet dreams. But that is because I sleep in a river.

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: *daylia*
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 10:38 AM

Amos, I find myself in lucid-dream states quite a bit, especially since I started studying and recording my dreams several years ago. Others may scoff at these ideas, but these are the conclusions I've drawn to date about what dreams really are and how to glean the most benefit from them ...

1) Dreams are real experiences! While the physical body sleeps, our mental, emotional and soulful "bodies" (which do not require sleep) are free to "venture out" and have experiences on the more subtle levels of awareness (ie mental, emotional, soulful, spiritual). WHen these experiences are remembered, they are called "dreams". And because the subtle planes of awareness do not have the time/space limitations of physical reality, MUCH useful information can be accessed there.

2) People can train themselves to remember their dreams by setting that intention mentally before falling asleep, and leaving a notebook and pen beside the bed to record any dreams immediately upon awakening. This is a useful practice, because dreams don't lie, and often reveal hidden truths to the dreamer, especially regarding their true thoughts/feelings/desires about whatever is going on in their lives at the time.

3) Dreams can also reveal the truth about other people's feelings and intentions and plans, about future events, about past lives (if you're into that sort of thing) etc. If the dreamer asks for specific guidance about any concern they may have before falling asleep, and makes an effort to recall and record any information received, the answers will come through in dreams. This has happened to me many, many times!

And I have often regretted NOT trusting and following through on the insights received in dreams. For example, I remember asking for a "sign" once about a person I'd just met who had romantic interests in me. I liked him too, and I was very disappointed at the dream I had in response to my question.

In the dream, I was enthusiastically sharing some ideas with this person in the mall, when I noticed he was looking very angry. Suddenly there were two of him -- it was like he'd split into twins! One strode off in an angry silence, and I was hurt and confused ... couldn't figure out what I'd said that he took such offence to! WHile I was standing there wondering, the other "twin" came up behind me and slipped a knife between my ribs. I woke up with this really awful and VERY PHYSICAL pain in my back -- no kidding! IT took quite a while for the pain to subside so I could fall back to sleep.

Now if that's not a crystal-clear message about this person's true nature and intentions, what is? But would I listen? Oh no, not me ... it wasn't the answer I wanted, so I ignored it ( oh it's just a stupid dream, it's not real!) and went right ahead and dated him anyway.

Well, a few months later when I had to end that relationship, feeling very "used and abused" (won't get into details here but believe me that WAS what happened) I regretted very much not acting on what I'd been shown in that dream. It would have saved me a lot of time and grief, that's for sure!

So, I've learned to trust my dreams over the years, although interpretation sure can present quite the challenge at times!

4) In lucid dreaming, it's very important to remember that you are creating the experience with your own thoughts and feelings. If you are fearful, you will create the fearsome, and make yourself a real nightmare. If you expect something terrible is going to happen, guaranteed it will! But if you can train yourself to stay in a loving, "empowered" frame of mind while you dream, you will create awesome -- and highly valuable -- experiences for yourself.

I could go on and on, because dreaming is one of my FAVORITE areas of study, but I think that's enough for now.

"Dreamer, you're nothing but a dreamer; well can you put your hands in your head - oh NO!..."

(Supertramp, from Crime of the Century)

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: GUEST,Why
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 09:53 AM

OK I'm also facinated by dreams, but come on then, the one you have all been avoiding - wet dreams - we know the HOW, but not WHY, any theories ?

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: Rapparee
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 09:44 AM

The mind is so, so complex.

I've literally dreamt up solutions to problems I've been working on -- letting the mind free-wheel in sleep -- as have many others.

When I was young, perspective in dreams was all screwed up. Near objects would loom tiny, while distant ones were huge. I experienced the same thing years and years later. Why? My glasses were changed to near 20/20 and my brain was adjusting, just as it had all those years before.

I'm haunted by the I'm-naked-and-have-missed-the-entire-semester-of-classes-and-now-it's-exam-time dreams. Had one last night. But I don't think that there's any psychic meaning there -- just the bad dreams from college recurring.

Amos, you know that Chaos Theory says that everything that happens changes everything else.

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: Jeanie
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 09:38 AM

Amos - in answer to your first question, I think that when we have the kind of dream experiences that I call More-Than-Dreams, we don't wake up to the same reality. Reality, that is to say, our awake time, can never be the same again. That was certainly the case with my meeting with my twin, and with some other heightened dream experiences or dream meetings I have had.

In answer to the second question....I don't know...My initial instinct is to say not to *try*, to stop trying. The effort of trying to achieve a result (in so many areas of experience !) gets in the way of what is actually already there.

[Ommmm.....Jeanie's Zen Moment over for the time being... ;) ]

What an interesting subject this is. Lovely song, too, Jerry. Thanks everyone.

With Love,
- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: Amos
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 09:13 AM

The really compelling questions in my view are:

(1) why do we always wake up in the same reality no matter what we dream? Or do we? and

(2) what are the most effective techniques to achieve (and to use in) lucid-dream states?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: GUEST,KB
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 08:52 AM

I like that Jerry - really lovely. It does have that special quality that you get when something just emerges from within.

I sometimes hear wonderful music just when I'm drifting in or out of sleep - gorgeous orchestral stuff with horns & everything. Most annoying when I find out its not real....

Kris

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 08:32 AM

One thing I've had confirmed by other songwriters is that dreams sometimes have "soundtracks." I've had several songs come to me in great part in a dream, to the point where I wake up and write the lyrics down on a pad near the bed. One specific example:

I had played at a nursing home that day, and I was very touched by a woman who was sitting directly in front of me, no more than three feet away. She apparently had had a stroke because she was strapped into her wheelchair because she couldn't sit up on her own. Her face was completely paralyzed with no sign of life in there, except her eyes. The only movement she was able to make was to tap one finger in rhythm to the music. I was deeply moved by that, and had a dream about her that night. A beautiful line which I can't claim to have written came to me in the dream as part of a song:

"And somewhere inside her, there's still that young girl, with a tortise-shell comb in her hair." I don't believe I would ever have "written" that line while I was awake. Most of the two verses were in my head when I work up and I wrote them down. Then, I drifted back to sleep and got the rest:

Tortoise Shell Comb

She remembers the sweet smell of freshly baked apples
That came from the wood-burning stove
And the songs that her Mother would sing to herself
And the laughter when Father came home
And somewhere inside her, there's still that young girl
With a tortoise shell comb in her hair
And somehow the memories come back with a song
As surely as if she was there


She moves to the music, although she can't dance
With a far away look in her eye
And she's back once again on that warm summer night
As if none of the years have gone by
He bows so politely, and asks her to dance
And she smiles as she offers her hand
Then they balance and turn in three quarter time
And you swear she can still hear the band


And all of that came out of one finger tapping.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: freda underhill
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 07:44 AM

i have had dreams which were significant in some way at different times. At the times of most grief or stress in my life, I have not been able to remember any dreams.

Occasionally I have dreams which seem to relate to events in my life or in a friends life. for example..

in the 80s i had a good friend (Aldo) a Chilean drama therapist. Very flamoyant, handsome, charismatic, and gay. I worked as his assistant for a while, helping him run workshops for people with & without disabilities. I helped with the face & body painting, with costumes and materials, and in other ways. Aldo was an exceptional person - the first in the 70s in australia to advocate for mentally and physically disabled people who were kept controlled by unnecessary use of valium & other medications, by suggesting that they were being unnecessarily medicated. He advocated that they should be allowed to have sexual relations like anyone else. Its hard to believe this was happening still in those days, but he broke down a lot of barriers. he put on an opera performed by people with Downs Syndrome at the sydney opera house.

I knew Aldo was HIV+, but I thought he had years to go. I hadn't seen him for a few months. One night I dreamt I went to his house in Ashfield to visit him. In reality the rooms were all painted white, and he had beautiful South American woven wall hangings, and some delicate paintings he had done on the walls, + furniture, books etc. In the dream, i went to visit him and there was no one home. the house was empty, all the walls had been painted a peach-pink colour, and there was nothing in the house except for a purple scarf on the wall.

When i woke up, i went to work and rang him to see if he was okay. I rang several times but there was no answer. At midday a friend answered his phone and told me that Aldo was in St Vincents Hospital, very ill. I went in to see him that afternoon after work. I walked into his room in the hospital. It was painted a peach-pink colour, and there was a purple scarf tied to the rails of his hospital bed.

That dream alerted me to the fact that Aldo had been hospitalised, and i was able to spend time with him in the last few weeks of his life.

when i have a problem, i ask myself for help before i go to sleep, and when i wake up in the morning the answer will have been in my dream or in my thoughts at the moment of waking up.

freda

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 06:11 AM

I dreamt one night that I was eating a big marsh-mallow, when I woke the next morning my pillow had gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: GUEST,hag
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 05:47 AM

Anyone else get hypnogogic/hypnopompic hallucinations? They're really scarey til you understand what they are, then they are really amazing! Associated with sleep paralysis they are the basis of a lot of claims of night-visits by witches and aliens. You really believe there is someone in your room, and you can really feel them touching you, holding you down, sitting on your chest etc. All the more terrifying because you are awake and concious at the time - its like your subconcious rises up & dreams, your concious mind is still wide awake, but you can't move or call out because whatever it is that inhibits movement when dreaming (so that we don't generally act out our dreams physically) has kicked in.

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: Jeanie
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 05:43 AM

I find that if I don't remember my dreams when I wake up, the images may come back to me out-of-the-blue during the day, or even when I am just lying down to go to sleep the *next* night, and I think "Oh yes, *that's* what I was dreaming about...It can even be a dream I had had some time before and something during a day's events revives that image.

Quite often, I can recognize the elements of a dream as being something that I have seen/heard/read during that day and are part of some kind of brain/experience processing system. I reckon a lot of dreams are like that. Now and again, though, I think we can all be blessed with what I call "Dreams that are More-Than-Dreams", where you are taken to some other dimension or place of awareness. You somehow know, even while you are 'dreaming' it, that this is more than a dream.

The most wonderful and powerful "dream" I had like that happened to me many years ago, but the picture of it and the feeling of it has stayed with me. I was born with a stillborn twin sister (this is the reality, not the dream). At the time when I had this "dream" I was an adult, life was trundling along and although every so often something would make me think of her, she had not been in my conscious awareness. That day, I had been reading a passage in a book about forgiveness, which involved making and signing a kind of declaration of forgiveness to all the people in your life you felt you needed to forgive. In the forefront of my mind, at the time, was my (now ex-) mother-in-law ! My twin did not figure on this list at all - but somehow, subconciously, I suppose she must have, too deeply for me ever to want to admit to myself.

The dream was so beautiful. Some people came to "collect" me and they were very excited. They took me to a wide open space and somewhere in the distance I could see a speck of a figure coming nearer. I walked, and then ran, nearer and nearer to this person, and they did likewise. I remember thinking in the dream "This is just like in the films, cue the background orchestra !" Between me and this person there was such a recognition, such a joy, such an incredible amount of laughter, I could never describe it. All I can say is that it is something I have never, ever felt on this earth. From both of us, there was this kind of unspoken "Is it you ? No ! Really ?" and then the wonderful peals of laughter and recognition. The strange thing is, I could never say what this person looked like, even whether they were male or female, it was just the recognition and the joy of our being with each other, and that we had not been with each other for a long, long time. That was more than enough.

No doubt someone could come along with a logical or psychoanalytical interpretation of all this. I don't care ! The experience I had left an imprint on me that no words or "logic" could ever erase, and I am so grateful for it.

There is a fabulous sequel to this story. A few years after this dream experience, I went to an open audition for a production of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" (storyline in a nutshell: twins parted in shipwreck, both think the other dead, re-united at the end). I had gone for a totally different part, a character in the sub-plot, and would *never* have put myself forward for the part of the female twin - afraid my own emotions would get in the way. Well..... I was offered that part, too great a change to miss, playing Viola, I took it ! It turned out to be the most fantastic completion to that dream experience and the connection with my twin. I like to feel that someone (or some several) up there (or wherever they are) were and are looking after me.

I feel I have gone on enough...Thanks for starting this topic. I have lots more I would like to say about the world of dreams...No doubt I'll be coming back, and very interested to hear of other people's experiences.

With Love,
- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 04:30 AM

The thing is Suzy, I had that dream when I was about 5 years old so I don't know about trying to work things out, or changing, but maybe I was being enlightened after the color dream! ha!
It's funny how you mentioned the water dreams though, because I had an urge to talk about a dream where I was swimming in a huge pool of water that seemed like it was in someones backyard and there where huge goldfish swimming around me. The color of the pool was intense blue. The fish were intense orange.

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: SueB
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 04:16 AM

I don't know anything about past lives, but I found this in an online dream "dictionary" -
******
Fire

Depending on the context of your dream, to see fire in your dream can symbolizes destruction, passion, desire, illumination, transformation, enlightenment, or anger. It may suggest that something old is passing and something new is entering your life. Your thoughts and views are changing. In particular, if the fire is under control or contained in one area, it is a metaphor of your own internal fire and inner transformation. It also represents your drive and motivation.

To dream of that you are being burned by fire, indicates that your temper is getting out of control. Some issue or situation is burning you up inside.

To dream that a house is on fire, signifies passion and loving companions.

To dream that you put out a fire, signifies that you will overcome your obstacles in your life through much work and effort.
******


SOme of my memorable dreams involved entering a room to find that it was actually underwater, and swimming through it trying to find some sort of path - back to the dream dictionary in a moment to find out what that might mean...

I've tried that before, where you just tell yourself before going to sleep that you'll remember your dreams, but it's never worked in the past. I might have to try self-hypnosis, and then give myself the suggestion that I'll remember my dreams when I wake up - sort of the same thing as just telling yourself something, but with a little more hocus-pocus - Suzanne

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 03:50 AM

Hi Suzanne, (I'm a Susanne too!)
I'm not sure. Because I had that dream at such an early age I thought maybe it was a dream of a past life and I was a witch or persecuted for something, being burned alive.They just scared me when I was a kid, but later I remembered them and tryed to figure out what it meant.
I think if you go to sleep tonight and pay attention you will see that you dream in color. All you have to do is tell yourself to pay attention.
I love those vivid dreams now-a-days. They don't scare me anymore.
I love it when I can have a good dream and wake up for awhile and tell myself to go back to them and it happens. It's a bummer when I can't find them again.

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: SueB
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 03:34 AM

I'd love to talk about dreams, but mine lately have been the kind where you wake up a say "Whew!" but in a split second you've forgot what it was about and all you have left is the sensation of having dreamed something very interesting or weird that might indicate a need for intensive psychotherapy. I had recurring dreams as a teenager, and I would go to sleep hoping to have another replay, as they were so interesting. Wish I could remember my dreams nowadays -
do you know of any method by which to improve the remembering of dreams?

I don't know if I dream in color or not - of the dreams that have impressed me, color wasn't the salient detail. Your dream of being tied to a post and burned alive makes me shiver to think about. Do you have any idea what a dream like that might symbolize? --Suzanne

Subject: RE: BS: Dreams
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 03:20 AM

I just did a search and see there are many threads on dreams.
Dream a little dream of me...
So does anyone want to talk about dreams anyway? How about a discussion on prophetic dreams or dreams that have become a reality or what did you dream last night?
Do you dream in color? I would say most people do. Color is the key after all.
I once had a dream of nothing but color. It scared me. It was nothing but vivid, swirling colors that overwhelmed me and I went and asked my mom if I could sleep with her because it scared me so much. I was about 6 years old.
I once had a dream that I was flying and I had wings and I woke up on the floor. I slept on the top bunk and fell out of bed!
Another dream I had when I was very young, I was tied on a post and burned alive. That one I dreamt several times.
Me again-Rustic

Subject: BS: Dreams
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 10 Feb 04 - 03:01 AM

I was cleaning a drawer out this morning and I found a staurolite (fairy cross) and suddenly I realized I had dreamt of finding a staurolite in the driveway and showing it to someone in my dream that very morning. It immediatly reminded me of the dream. I held it in my hand and said hmmm...I wonder if this means something. Then I put it back in my drawer.
(I hunted staurolites down in New Mexico and we actually have them here on the banks of the Mississippi around Little Falls, MN. The one I picked up today had garnet inclusions that came from NM. They are a silicate of iron, aluminum, mag zinc. unattractive yet mysterious crystals that form into a cross)
In the dream I found it and showed it to a friend (can't remember who) and they said, "what is it?". I said, "It's a staurolite. Look it is a little cross." And in the dream I saw the perfect fairy cross.
Weird is all I have to say. I love dreaming.

Does anyone want to talk about dreams?
Peace, Rustic