Identifying with the dream

Hello Dreamviews,

I was reading up on the Chariot Tarot card. The author's religious views were not compatible with mine but he got me thinking. He described the card in 2 parts. First, a celebration of one's victory. Second, a warning against the danger of identifying as the Hero archetype after which he quoted Jung. Both Jung and the author warned against identifying with our unconscious, or aspects of our unconscious (such as the Hero archetype). Doing so, they say, leads to an inflated ego. I infer identifying with the Child or the Shadow leads to their own issues?

It was the first time I've been warned against identifying with my unconscious. I thought it was an interesting concept, since as lucid dreamers, part of our ritual is to dissipate the idea of a duality between oneself and the dream. "I am the dream, the dream is me" seems like an appropriate mantra to unlock the ability to be an active participant in the dream.

What I understood from Jung, though I wouldn't be surprised I was wrong, is to identify only with our consciousness and nurture a sense of duality with our unconscious as well as a sense of "connectedness"... (but not identity). This seems... more grounded in reality?

During a dream, if someone perceives the dream stimuli as coming from outside of oneself, they're likely to call the dream an astral projection.
Perceiving the dream stimuli as coming from within describes a dream and potentially a lucid one.
Is then, identifying with the dream, believing "I" am the dream, not an exaggerated claim? Or is it a lucid thought?

I was wondering about this dilemma. Is it just philosophy or is there advantages/disadvantages to accepting the dream comes from one's body, yet is not "me" vs identifying with the dream?

Sometimes in a lucid dream, the dream does not do what I want it and I get frustrated with it, which leads to me thinking something like, "The dream is me! Why won't it do what I want! Stupid dream!" Note that I want to understand what is happening but the negative judgment is getting in the way of doing that. At this point, it would be better to accept the dream as it comes from my body and drop the judgement to allow me to be more mindful of what is happening.

I think believing "I" am the dream by is fine as long it doesn't lead to us judging ourselves in a negative way.

I may misunderstand Jung, but I'm pretty sure he didn't see the unconscious as something that is not, ultimately, you. Perhaps, during his discussion of dream interpretation, Jung warned against identifying too rigidly with aspects of the unconscious that emerged from dream imagery (because they are simply parts and not the whole, and also might mean something else altogether). This makes sense, because dream interpretation is a decidedly dual process. But in terms of lucid dreaming, where you are present in the dream as it is happening, I have a feeling Jung would have invited you to embrace your unconscious, your entire You. But I could be wrong: we need Darkmatters, I think, for a proper clarification here!

I tend to think that a non-dual perspective is one that erases archetypes and personas, leaving only an unavoidably honest point of view. You are not identifying with specific archetypes as much as you are coming to terms with their presence and necessity (or unhealthy influence, as it were). Indeed, to do such identifying would be, to me, to be changing one dual perspective for another.

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During a dream, if someone perceives the dream stimuli as coming from outside of oneself, they're likely to call the dream an astral projection.
Perceiving the dream stimuli as coming from within describes a dream and potentially a lucid one.
Is then, identifying with the dream, believing "I" am the dream, not an exaggerated claim? Or is it a lucid thought?

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I would go with lucid thought, I think.

I like the point about a non-dual perspective in a dream leading to an assumption of astral projection; there's probably a lot of that going on. But there is very little difference between that choice and thinking of dreams as coming from within, as if "within" were a different place or source other than you. If you are fully lucid in the dream, understanding that the dream is you is by no means an exaggerated claim; it is merely an observation of the obvious. In fact, in my mind, failure to identify with your unconscious, or seeing it as an "other" of some sort, only diminishes your experience and potentials for exploration.

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Originally Posted by dolphin

Sometimes in a lucid dream, the dream does not do what I want it and I get frustrated with it, which leads to me thinking something like, "The dream is me! Why won't it do what I want! Stupid dream!" Note that I want to understand what is happening but the negative judgment is getting in the way of doing that. At this point, it would be better to accept the dream as it comes from my body and drop the judgement to allow me to be more mindful of what is happening.

I think believing "I" am the dream by is fine as long it doesn't lead to us judging ourselves in a negative way.

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Your experience makes me think of someone who's recently lost use of their, let's say, legs. Getting frustrated, saying "those legs are me! Why won't they do what I want! Stupid legs!" I guess dreams are similar to our bodies. They are parts of us with whom we may have a receptive or active role but not always 100%... I think there must be something to say about having a healthy relationship with these, an paradoxical understanding that it is both us and something else at the same time? Like "it needs time" / "I need time" (for my leg to learn how to move, for the dream to form...)

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Originally Posted by Sageous

we need Darkmatters, I think, for a proper clarification here!

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Yes, Darkmatters might have already addressed this! :P

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Originally Posted by Sageous

But in terms of lucid dreaming, where you are present in the dream as it is happening, I have a feeling Jung would have invited you to embrace your unconscious, your entire You.

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Yes, that's always intuitively sounded healthy. The book I was reading (which was not by Jung) warned that people who seek to be "profound" and explore deep within themselves risk to identify with those victories too much and become self-obsessed... But I think identifying with your dream, embracing that like you say, does not have to be paired with the burgeoning of a Narcissus Complex. As long as it's balanced by a fascination for what's outside too, I guess.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

I like the point about a non-dual perspective in a dream leading to an assumption of astral projection; there's probably a lot of that going on. But there is very little difference between that choice and thinking of dreams as coming from within, as if "within" were a different place or source other than you. If you are fully lucid in the dream, understanding that the dream is you is by no means an exaggerated claim; it is merely an observation of the obvious. In fact, in my mind, failure to identify with your unconscious, or seeing it as an "other" of some sort, only diminishes your experience and potentials for exploration.

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True, if you believe -inside of you- is as detached from you as -outside of you,- it'll be quite a similar experience...
So now, I wonder, what if in the midst of a dream, you hold the perspective that not only you are so connected to the dream, it is you, but also that you are similarly connected to what is outside of you? As in, every entity in the world is connected, is one. As in, you are yourself a reflection of a bigger whole. Are we again susceptible to perceive our experience as an astral projection maybe?

Is any realization of connectedness or oneness with the dream an indicator of lucidity or is it a parameter by which you experience the dream: voyage in the collective unconscious, lucid dream, astral projection, meeting with the subconscious...

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

True, if you believe -inside of you- is as detached from you as -outside of you,- it'll be quite a similar experience...
So now, I wonder, what if in the midst of a dream, you hold the perspective that not only you are so connected to the dream, it is you, but also that you are similarly connected to what is outside of you? As in, every entity in the world is connected, is one. As in, you are yourself a reflection of a bigger whole.

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There it is.

That's a bit of a strange perspective from that author, I feel. I suppose I can see what they mean about a danger of literally identifying as one of the archetypes... But that makes me think of someone who loses their mind and starts taking certain stuff too literally. :wtf: I wouldn't assume this to be the norm, that people would go about it in such a way.

Most of what I've read that ties to Jung would have lead me to believe that integrating the subconscious archetypes into the conscious mind is something that, if anything, should be more beneficial than harmful. I have a book on symbology that makes strong reference to the whole Jungian archetype theory and makes for a very interesting read overall. Initially when I acquired that book, I didn't believe it would say anything that would make me think directly about the "self" or even of the dream world, but I ended up feeling that the two subjects ("self" and symbology) are far more interlinked than I'd previously realised on a conscious level.

I feel there's always a bit of a danger of interpreting things too literally either way but I wouldn't personally hold a belief that it is better or worse to feel that the "I" is also the "dream". From the way I am, I know I can get too stuck in questions like that, so generally I end up trying to take a more pragmatic view; more specifically, I don't necessarily feel that dreams are "me" or that I myself am the "dream" -- I view dreaming as a complex simulated reality, sort of compiled from everything that happens in a person's life.

Ultimately I figure it doesn't matter how we see dreams in a semantic sense - be that as astral projection or as from some part deep within or whatever - so long as things aren't interpreted too literally.

And I wanted to quote a few different things from around the thread to reply to more specifically but unfortunately I don't understand how the multiquote function works on DV, so I think I scattered myself a little here... :whyme:

Small Edit: I'd just like to add some very brief context on the view I presented on my post, that I have unfortunately had first-hand experience of someone in my life literally losing their mind for a period of time. It's a somewhat frightening experience at first, but it has made me realise over the years that there's a fine line between what reality is and isn't, not to mention that it happens at a level that we might not be able to consciously control or fight off.

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

And I wanted to quote a few different things from around the thread to reply to more specifically but unfortunately I don't understand how the multiquote function works on DV, so I think I scattered myself a little here... :whyme:

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Hahaha, it does get cumbersome! If it's too much I guess you can just copy paste text between these prompts: (Quote) and (/Quote) with square brackets [... That's a start anyway :P

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

That's a bit of a strange perspective from that author, I feel. I suppose I can see what they mean about a danger of literally identifying as one of the archetypes... But that makes me think of someone who loses their mind and starts taking certain stuff too literally. :wtf: I wouldn't assume this to be the norm, that people would go about it in such a way.

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Well, I think the author is talking about subtle things... about how a person can become a bit arrogant? Imagine being proud of how at night you are a "god," proud of your lucidity, your self-control, the art of your mind... all invisible successes. I can see how someone would maybe feel under appreciated if their victories cannot be celebrated as other people's are. It's a humbling practice... But I guess Dreamviews is there for that... I remember when this place felt "underground." Is it because LDing became more mainstream that the place feels so empty?

Well, I would quote the passages but they are in French... Maybe DarkMatter will tell us Jung's view on this.

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

Hahaha, it does get cumbersome! If it's too much I guess you can just copy paste text between these prompts: (Quote) and (/Quote) with square brackets [... That's a start anyway :P

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Sometimes I just do this where I quote the whole post and then break up the quote into different blocks. :) But not sure how to effectively quote different people for the same reply.

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

Well, I think the author is talking about subtle things... about how a person can become a bit arrogant? Imagine being proud of how at night you are a "god," proud of your lucidity, your self-control, the art of your mind... all invisible successes. I can see how someone would maybe feel under appreciated if their victories cannot be celebrated as other people's are. It's a humbling practice... But I guess Dreamviews is there for that... I remember when this place felt "underground." Is it because LDing became more mainstream that the place feels so empty?

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To be honest, I wouldn't really know exactly, but I have started seeing LDing comments randomly on some social media type stuff recently... Makes me wonder about a few things. But that's off-topic I guess.

In any case, I think what you said does make sense. When I was younger I think I might have felt that way a bit, because during my teen years I remembered very very few dreams and my siblings remembered a ton of them. This created an unhealthy jealousy in me for quite some time, but I got over it eventually. All I really wanted was to experience the same sort of things they described. But from that era I did have dreams that now are so deep in my mind that they feel more like memories than dreams, something that at times leaves me a bit uncomfortable because it can take me some time to realise. They were particularly vivid and physically accurate dreams, part of why they are almost memory-like, I suppose.

But you're right, even just taking an interest in dreaming in general is in my opinion is a humbling practice as you say. Sharing things in a community like this becomes rewarding in itself. Everyone likes to be appreciated after all. :)

Hmmm... I'm thinking about this subject again but from a different perspectives. What do you all think of dreaming in the context of avoiding the illusion of the self (as in eastern spirituality or secular spirituality). What does it mean to see past the illusion of self and experience the intrinsic selflessness of consciousness? If it coincides with understanding that our thoughts do not belong to a "self," then is it not appropriate to have a similar understanding that dreams are not the consciousness that is aware of them?

There is something missing here in my opinion which prevents me from understanding this cornerstone of spirituality and how it then affects a spiritual practice of lucid dreaming (especially where one should avoid from identifying with the dream?)

I would like to comment on your post but I must kindly ask you to rephrase the first part of it. I think I may be misreading what you said and I'm being a bit slow just at the moment, so it would help me a bit. :)

Haha, ok let me try again.

This time around, I've been reading Sam Harris' book Waking up (about secular spirituality). He posits that the main goal of spiritual practice is to experience the intrinsic selflessness of consciousness (more often and for longer periods, through meditation). He says that seeing past the illusion of self is the element of spirituality that remains relevant to secular practitioners.

So my question was, why is this relevant (not experiencing the self)? and if it's so important to spirituality, what does it say about a spiritual approach to dreaming? It felt related to my topic here about dreams and the self. Is the dream the self and so on.

It took me some time to figure out what he means. I'm not sure I can summarize it because it took me reading the whole book and practicing through meditation to get where I think I get what he means specifically but lets try:

The illusion of self is that our self is some thing located behind our eyes thinking our thoughts. In truth, every single content of awareness is fleeting and our thoughts arise and go unsolicited. Our "self" is what remains unchanged, it's consciousness (and that's not even what we intuitively sometimes think it is). We are not our thoughts. Any sound we hear or anything we see is as much conceived by our brain as our thoughts so really, everything contained in our consciousness at every moment is contained in us. In this sense, to see past the illusion is to experience what is unchanging, or to experience the sounds and the sights almost as equivalent as our thoughts in terms of where our consciousness lies? And to "look" where we'd expect to find our self and find nothing.

Does this make sense? It pertains to the contemplative experience of meditation.

Concerning dreams, I think this has very interesting implications. Because we are deluded to think we have a self sitting inside our brain, thinking our thoughts, in dreams, we also experience this illusion. We identify much more with that "self behind the eyes", with the "thinker" whether we have a body or not. If we see a body, we think "I am here, whereas my body is there".

If you were to see past that illusion during the dream, you realize, you are just the consciousness and the consciousness is not located behind the eyes. It contains all of the visuals, the thoughts, the sensations, the sounds... but it is not any of those things, because they are fleeting. It provides a nondual experience of the dream, a clarity... a lucidity if you will.

To comment on your initial post – I’ve read a good deal of Jung, though by no means all of him. I’m a lot less familiar with Jung’s commentators, but I do know that my own interpretations often diverge from theirs, mostly because they often don’t (in my view) take into account Jung’s deliberate choice to speak as a psychologist and not comment on questions he felt were outside of psychology’s purview rather than to formulate a theory of life, the universe and everything.

Anyway, I don’t know if there’s anywhere Jung spells out exactly what he means by ‘identification’ – he has a tendency to be unclear about that kind of thing – but the way I see it, which I’m fairly sure is at least consistent with Jung’s own take, is that the difference between Jungian inflation and recognizing that entities and landscapes in dreams are not distinct from you, the dreamer, is whether you’re relating to them in an exploitative, possessive way or an open and curious one. ‘Ego’ is kind of a problematic word because it seems to imply that there actually is some kind of entity there rather than the persistent illusion of one – but if you picture ego as a circle with ‘you’ in the center, inflation would be making the circle bigger, while recognizing that the dream is not distinct from you would be making the boundaries of the circle a bit blurrier.

And as far as identifying with archetypes – the problem isn’t thinking “this is what I am” so much as “this is what I am, but all the rest of this stuff isn’t me” – in the case of a heroic archetype, presumably because all the other stuff looks a lot less awesome in comparison. And what you wind up with is a distorted relationship with everything because you have to keep building up the me/not me dichotomy in order to keep on believing that.

But this is me coming at this from a Buddhist perspective, which has a number of points in common with Jung’s views but is not identical with them.

Oh yes, very interesting LeaningKarst!

(An extra clarification: the author from my first post is an esoteric catholic so the author was warning specifically about the ego inflation of spiritual seekers).

So, okay, I see. The problem stated here is not necessarily from "identifying" (for lack of a better word) with any archetype or any object of awareness but trying to create a "I am/I am not" dichotomy. In a spiritual context, it could refer to believing oneself is enlightened (I have seen past the illusion so I am awaken, I am no longer someone that is asleep or blind like all "these people") compared to a more lucid take (I saw past the illusion in that moment of meditation and now I am experiencing the illusion again).

I think your comment came in an appropriate moment LeaningKast, because I just read up about the illusion of self and that's what my previous/last post was about. So I just now understand what you mean when you talk about the illusion of an ego.

So, I see, because of the illusion of an ego, in waking life, we believe we are some kind of entity seeing the world directly. Then, dreaming, there is no world to see directly, yet we still have the illusion of a world, we struggle to explain it to ourselves. Either we imagine we are directly seeing another world (a sentiment akin to astral projection or out-of-body) or we imagine our ego has suddenly expanded to include much more... (We are now not just the thinker but also the landscape and the lighting). Whereas nothing really changed. All our sensations are illusions, our sense of ego is an illusion. And these illusions simply continue during sleep. We continue to imagine we are an entity somewhere directly interacting with a world... But we are a consciousness aware of illusions indirectly informing us about our psychology and our world.

I feel like this conclusion brings nothing new, but it feels new just because I understand what is meant by illusion of the self. I wonder what new implications this has.

Thank you for the further thoughts and explanations, maybe it's just how I'm feeling today too; but that did help with clarity.

Based on my experience, I try to delve into this type of thing carefully. I feel that how we view the world (and any part of it) can change at any time. In part, I know that how I feel about subjects tends to change over time, sometimes for no particular reason. More than a few times in my life, I used to fervently believe in one thing or another, only to later find out (usually through someone else or past things I've written) that I don't even remember it or anything about it, anymore. Somewhat poignantly, I can only speak of my own experience, so of course others may see that subject in an entirely different way, either because of or regardless of their own life experience.

And in a way I think this relates to the concept of self as being approached in this topic. Although these were my thoughts once, they may not be in the future, and whatever reality I experienced even a few days ago can feel different today. In that sense, a lot of reality and the experience of the self seems almost arbitrary. I cannot think your thoughts and you cannot think mine. We can receive each others thoughts, process them and acknowledge or decline them, but we still cannot think the exact thought process or be each other. I don't think this comes down to semantics but is simply "de facto" as far as our reality operates.

Which brings me to a different thought; something that has always sort of "bothered" me on some level, and I think does relate directly to the idea of "selflessness of consciousness" as you put forward, is that I am me, and I can't not be me, even though I know exactly how to not be me, should I really want to. But (for me) that would require a heavy emotional investment to go through with it; and perhaps that's just a physiological response from the body.

We can realise that we are just "selves" as entities that exist and experience reality (be it dream-reality or not) but typically, that can't change the confines in which we reside during waking reality. I think in regards to "seeing past the illusion of self", this can be defined very broadly, depending on where what direction you want to take the issue in. Do I already have that understanding, simply because I do understand my thoughts to be here, but not here? That I exist, but that I don't? Because of everything I just said up to this point? Or is that simply my perception of having understood the concept as I think it should be understood, therefore having left it to my interpretation? There are so many rhetorical ways of putting this matter into words that I'm not sure what the benefit of doing so is, other than perhaps to provoke critical-thinking in others. But maybe that's the only point to any discussion in general. :)

My last thought on this is regarding the quote in my signature. "Rewards of godhood", in the context of dreaming could be seen as exactly the issue mentioned here in this thread about self-grandeur and over-identification with any specific aspect of the self. But the reason I have this quote as my signature is because of the ending. The whole trope about Transcendence in Alpha Centauri can be seen as a metaphor to some kind of dream-state.

But "Courage: to question". To me this is what is most important in all of this, because this can feel like it's the essence of existing; to question things, not because they have to be questioned, but because they can be questioned, it creates a reason to exist. The rewards of knowledge itself or the rewards of unlimited power in a given reality... These are rewards that gratify the self, and serve no particular purpose other than to make one "feel good", which is its own merit in an entirely different way.

I do not think I have any other useful or provoking thoughts to put forward myself just at this moment and I already typed out way more than I thought I would, but I do have two questions for you Occipitalred; What direction do you think the ideas you have discussed here will point you toward? I wonder, is this more of a continuous journey or can you imagine a specific ending outcome to this journey? Despite feeling my questions are unfair to ask, I feel compelled to do so. I think, I already know that I wouldn't be able to answer them myself, or if I did, I may well have a different opinion tomorrow. Who knows, all my thoughts here may not align with me in a few days, or months, years? Only time will tell.

And finally, I think whether your conclusion brings nothing new or not doesn't matter; your own understanding of the matter is what's important! Growth is always important, I believe.

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And LearningKarst, thank you for that bit about identifying with archetypes, found it to be very insightful!

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Which brings me to a different thought [...] is that I am me, and I can't not be me, even though I know exactly how to not be me, should I really want to. But (for me) that would require a heavy emotional investment to go through with it; and perhaps that's just a physiological response from the body.

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If by "me", you mean "me, the person (in a material and social sense)," I agree, "being unlike yourself" would just be a result of being yourself (a rebellious trait in this case) and anyway, the illusion of self will remain: you will feel your behavior is in line with your identity rebellion.

If by "me", you mean "me, the consciousness," then, I don't see any way at all you can cease to be "me" since it’s the one constant of awareness.

In other words, the person can change as many times as it wishes but the consciousness is always the same and the illusion of self creates a seamless continuity from moment to moment even in dreams where we are not the same person at all.

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

My last thought on this is regarding the quote in my signature. "Rewards of godhood" [...] But "Courage: to question" [...] is what is most important in all of this, because this can feel like it's the essence of existing; to question things.

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It's funny because I thought I was distracted by your signature for the first time as I started reading this post and was surprised to read you explain it to me 2 minutes later as if you had seen me look at it, haha. (Given the nature of our talk, I am not insinuating a cosmic interference, but it was a fun coincidence).

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

I do have two questions for you Occipitalred; What direction do you think the ideas you have discussed here will point you toward? I wonder, is this more of a continuous journey or can you imagine a specific ending outcome to this journey?

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I became interested by the spiritual life way early. I remember being especially interested at the age of 7. Noticing my consciousness, wondering why it was separate from other people. It could entertain me for long stretches of time.

At the time, I had the convincing experience of seeing an object teleport (it could not have been a hallucination but though it doesn’t feel that way, it would have to be a falsely reconstructed memory).

Trying to explain it to myself, I kind of put the two together (This experience of magic, and my experience of consciousness) and inferred that it meant there was a path to transcendence. Any kind of persistent magical or psychic ability would have fit my idea of transcendence, or even better, simply the ability to travel to a more magical or more psychic world would have been satisfying.

So, is there a specific ending to my journey? Let’s say I started on the Spiritual Highway with the intention of going to Magic Ville. It turns out as I walked on that road, all the information and all reasoning has just been telling me that Magic Ville is just a delusion: it is not the goal, it is not a goal. It’s a false possibility based on a delusion. Instead I seem to be spiralling towards a village in the center of the spiral (so yes, there seems to be an end goal). This village is just called Spiritual Well-being Bourg.

I’m kind of just surprised to find out that self-transcendence just means to be able to see past the illusion of self and the illusion of free will. I kind of see these illusions the same way as the illusion of color. It’s nice to know for the times that the illusion could be misleading but even if color is not what it seems, it’s still a real property my brain is reconstructing. In the same way, willpower might not work in the way I intuitively understand (impulses and compulsions sort of arise and go spontaneously and I barely understand how to guarantee I will do anything), but it is the way my brain is constructing real processes.

And that’s it.
I have glanced past the illusion of self. Yet, the self is still my reality. So now, that’s something I can do to give me some clarity. It’s not as extravagant as traveling to a more advanced dimension but it’s where the road ends and it’s a healthy place.

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

If by "me", you mean "me, the consciousness," then, I don't see any way at all you can cease to be "me" since it’s the one constant of awareness.

In other words, the person can change as many times as it wishes but the consciousness is always the same and the illusion of self creates a seamless continuity from moment to moment even in dreams where we are not the same person at all.

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I see what you mean about the self now. Thank you for making the distinction. :D

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

It's funny because I thought I was distracted by your signature for the first time as I started reading this post and was surprised to read you explain it to me 2 minutes later as if you had seen me look at it, haha. (Given the nature of our talk, I am not insinuating a cosmic interference, but it was a fun coincidence).

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Yes, an interesting coincidence to be certain and there are a lot of quotes I find interesting enough to use as a signature, but this one is obscure enough and ambiguous enough that it allows both myself and others to extrapolate what it might mean. As I mentioned previously, critical thought, and provoking it, are important to me.

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

I became interested by the spiritual life way early. I remember being especially interested at the age of 7. Noticing my consciousness, wondering why it was separate from other people. It could entertain me for long stretches of time.

At the time, I had the convincing experience of seeing an object teleport (it could not have been a hallucination but though it doesn’t feel that way, it would have to be a falsely reconstructed memory).

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Honestly, I didn't have any particular attraction to spiritual life when I was younger, and I'd say my concept of consciousness at those ages (up until the age of around 10) was narrow. My concept up until such an age, mostly revolved around the idea of being the only person with a consciousness, as if the world around me existed just as a construction for my mind. I guess this is not entirely false when we overlap it with the idea of illusions in the way you describe them, but anyway...

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

So, is there a specific ending to my journey? Let’s say I started on the Spiritual Highway with the intention of going to Magic Ville. It turns out as I walked on that road, all the information and all reasoning has just been telling me that Magic Ville is just a delusion: it is not the goal, it is not a goal. It’s a false possibility based on a delusion. Instead I seem to be spiralling towards a village in the center of the spiral (so yes, there seems to be an end goal). This village is just called Spiritual Well-being Bourg.(...)

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Your journey's story makes sense to me even though it's different from my experience. I think we are generally attracted to the idea of Magic Ville as you call it, maybe because it's just such a different concept of the reality we live in or because it's entertaining in some way and creates meaning. However, I generally felt cheated of precisely an idea of (a) Magic Ville because one of my aunts and my siblings sort of had this elaborate joke they collaborated together in, about a mystical land with a magical castle, which existed behind a cabinet's back; they'd tell me elaborate stories about the place. Of course I believed this for many years, frequently trying to dislocate something in the cabinet in search of this magic place. When I learned it to be untrue I felt utterly disappointed and maybe even angry. But to believe that lie was a bliss. I think that's one of the things of having a consciousness, we can't willingly return to the bliss of ignorance once we have tasted the proverbial fruit.

And I suppose for me, I always saw the way into such a place through things like mirrors; it's more of a philosophical point than one about actual physical reality, but I always wondered "why do I live in this world, and not in that one?". The world contained within mirrors, to me just looks so different. The exact same room and person standing there are just reflections, illusions I suppose, but everything about them feels different to me. It's a sense I can't really put into words. This same sense applies to a lot of things for me, like why are physics the way they are, why do I exist on this planet or this time, etc. This relates to what you were saying about colour for example. I imagine most people have some kind of thought processes similar to these too.

Spiritual Well-being Bourg as you put it does indeed seem like a fine place to end up in. But I'll stop here now, I think I'm scattering myself a bit. :tongue:

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Honestly, I didn't have any particular attraction to spiritual life when I was younger, and I'd say my concept of consciousness at those ages (up until the age of around 10) was narrow. My concept up until such an age, mostly revolved around the idea of being the only person with a consciousness, as if the world around me existed just as a construction for my mind. I guess this is not entirely false when we overlap it with the idea of illusions in the way you describe them, but anyway...

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Yes, there's something about consciousness... that makes it hard to imagine there is two and more of it. But there is (or is there?).

I understand what you mean when you say it's not entirely false that you are the only consciousness but I disagree with the wording. You are the only consciousness you are directly aware of and all the people you experience are reconstructions by your brain. Yet, it is clear that these "illusions" are constructed based on real people with consciousness of their own. So, it's only true in the direct sense, but it really is false after scrutiny (which you also concluded. I'm just being picky here, haha). I know what you mean, I've had this feeling too. (edit: an I am about to go on and explain how I think your statement is not entirely false haha).

Do you know of the split brain experiment? I have come across it many times in my academic journey because I am educated in neuroscience so I'm not sure how known it is outside this field. I'm just briefly gonna say that it demonstrates consciousness can be split into two by splitting the two hemispheres (and this can be done without loss of consciousness). So, some people have had two consciousnesses per body. Other experiment of this nature even leaves us to wonder if there are not already more than one consciousness per body right now (overlapping).

This demonstration that dividing a conscious system can result in two continuous consciousness and theoretically can be rejoined without conflict... the idea that consciousness is divisible and even perhaps overlapping is very interesting. It for sure challenges the worldview that we have one indivisible soul. Now, I like one particular conclusion that is intuitive to me. I clearly don't know much of the factors and facts relating to this and I am probably making many fallacies to get there but here it is. Consciousness appears to be a boundless phenomenon (it cannot be counted) because connecting two conscious systems leads to one conscious system (1+1=1). It seems a phenomenon like gravity. Anything with mass has gravity, but it's not relevant at minimal mass. In this sense, I imagine everything has consciousness but it's not relevant until a certain system is formed (such as a sentient organism). When we see past the illusion of the self, I think we are meant to conclude "I am not this person, this person changes and everything that happens to it is spontaneous and results from causes that I don't understand or control" + "The feeling that I am this person is an illusion; I am the constant: I am the consciousness." If "I" am the consciousness, is it analogous to a planet saying "I am the gravitational pull of this planet" or "I am gravity." If I am only the consciousness of this person, OK then. But if I am consciousness, then "I" or "consciousness" is aware of all other sentient organisms (perhaps one day, even sentient artificial intelligence?) simultaneously. This seems possible to me since if I were to successfully connect my brain to your brain, we would experience the merging uniformly, though there might be more than one consciousness, the distinction would not be "me vs you" but a distinction between different neural network islands. What this means to me is that insofar as "I" am consciousness, "I" or "consciousness" is experiencing every sentient being at once, but separately due to the separateness of sentient systems. At every moment, we are only aware of what the system is aware of, so we forever have this illusion that we are such or such person. The personhoods surely change and will all surely die but the consciousness is an eternal property of the universe and will continue to dream forever, feeling fully that it is whichever organisms that it is aware of, and this is all seamless. Even when all sentient organisms perish, I imagine Consciousness won't experience any time between this end of sentience and a subsequent re-emergence of sentient organisms, whether it be separated by billions of millenniums (just like the phenomenon of gravity for that matter).

So this is something I am able to believe right now and play with the implications in my mind, but I know it is not a necessary conclusion from the facts and may even be senseless on its own anyway. But it's a fun idea.

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

And I suppose for me, I always saw the way into such a place through things like mirrors; it's more of a philosophical point than one about actual physical reality, but I always wondered "why do I live in this world, and not in that one?". The world contained within mirrors, to me just looks so different. The exact same room and person standing there are just reflections, illusions I suppose, but everything about them feels different to me. It's a sense I can't really put into words. This same sense applies to a lot of things for me, like why are physics the way they are, why do I exist on this planet or this time, etc. This relates to what you were saying about colour for example. I imagine most people have some kind of thought processes similar to these too.

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For sure, mirrors are probably the first obvious experience with illusions. The illusion seems so real, when we first see it, it doesn't look like a reflection at all but another world we could walk into. There is this trick where if a wall is all mirror, you can hide the bottom of the mirror up to eye level and the room will seem twice as big. We know it's just a reflection but it's not obvious. I also spent long periods of time looking into mirrors like you, fascinated by this illusion. As a kid, multiple walls of our bathroom were full mirrors so I could see many illusory worlds.

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Spiritual Well-being Bourg as you put it does indeed seem like a fine place to end up in.

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Indeed, I'm sure there's many interesting things there even if the core of it all seems so simple. I still wonder what exactly the implications are.

Yes, wording is not my strong suit, I like your wording better too. I'm good at provoking ideas but not at seeing them through on my own, if that makes sense. Being picky is fine in these subjects, otherwise how would we ever distil something a bit more refined from our raw ideas?

As for your fun idea. :D I can't say I can understand it in your terms exactly but the premise seems logical, if a bit fantastical. Ironically, in this old game my signature is from, the planet the game takes place in is itself is referred to simply as "Planet" in most in-game references, although technically it's name would be Chiron; and Planet is an emerging conscious network of its own, which seems to relate to your idea; further to that is the fact that one of the ways of achieving victory is to make your faction transcend and merge with the consciousness of Planet. If you are not familiar with the game and its premise you may read about it here, as this should be a good enough source for understanding the lore without having to play the game.

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

As for your fun idea. :D I can't say I can understand it in your terms exactly but the premise seems logical, if a bit fantastical. Ironically, in this old game my signature is from, the planet the game takes place in is itself is referred to simply as "Planet" in most in-game references, although technically it's name would be Chiron; and Planet is an emerging conscious network of its own, which seems to relate to your idea; further to that is the fact that one of the ways of achieving victory is to make your faction transcend and merge with the consciousness of Planet. If you are not familiar with the game and its premise you may read about it here, as this should be a good enough source for understanding the lore without having to play the game.

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I can quickly understand the concept of this planet consciousness from having read a lot of George R.R. Martin's sci-fi novellas (He's the author of A Game of Thrones). In a Game of Thrones, there are such network consciousness such as in the weirwood tree network. But the best example is in A Song for Lya in which the inhabitants of a planet all seek to integrate the consciousness of an organism with a network consciousness. Now, if that big organism that lives beneath the ground was the planet, then it's a lot like your game. And this is reminiscent of Avatar too.

For me, the Split Brain experiments (and I encourage you to look it up, there's plenty of simplified info on it on the internet) help us understand how this would pan out in reality. Yet, the picture is not complete. But what seems to be true is that consciousness is (1) bound to a neural network, (2) is divisible and combinable - as long as the neural network is successfully divided or combined -, and (3) can overlap - there can be more than one conscious experience for a single neural network insofar as some parts of the network are not communicating everything with another part.

So a Planet Consciousness would be aware of whatever it's neural network allowed it to be aware of. If it's neural network permit it to think, then it could be aware of that but merging with it would lead to possibly very little, actually. We're talking sci-fi here so possibly now the planet could experience your memories as its own but there wouldn't be a dichotomy between the planet and yourself. It would just be effectively merged as one. But then, there's the overlap. Maybe there are still 2 or more distinct conscious experience. so maybe now one consciousness of an isolated neural island in your brain, restricted by the hold of the planet is still aware of your body but is unable to access the information in the planet network and feels pretty objectified by the whole ordeal.

I think this is all a bit difficult to think about but it challenges our idea of who we are as the person or as the consciousness. If I am the person, then, am I also responsible for the other consciousness in my brain that I am not conscious of as the consciousness? And as the consciousness, am I responsible for the other consciousness that are not associated to my person and that I am therefore separated from? I think the answers are affirmative to differing extents. But what's sure is that we are ignorant of very much :P

I have had many thoughts about this thread over the last week but unfortunately many of these ended up disappearing entirely since I didn't write them down at the time.

But I did have a much more recent thought as I was thinking about what you said in another thread;

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It's so hard to explain because it's so hard to understand intuitively... How can you imagine a person as a "thought form"? That's so hard to think of. I still can't do it satisfyingly! It's so easy to get immersed in a show, and live vicariously through fictional characters and form some unilateral relationship with them! And parasocial relationships with celebrities! We're just wired this way. I still don't know how to see past that illusion when meeting DCs. (Please help me with this. I'll be very grateful when I can).

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I think you are trying to condense a very complex idea into the smallest possible part. You want to find the atom, so in the original sense of the word, the smallest indivisible part of these concepts. Therefore, in the original sense the atom is the essence, is it not?

There is definitely a potential intuitive understanding of a person as a "thought form" but intuition rarely gets put into words, does it? When it does, it takes a long time. Perhaps we can't try to explain an intuitive concept without first knowing that others have the same intuition already.

So, to start off on that, I would like to ask you what you do understand by: "a person as a thought form".

Without any further information from you, my most condensed understanding of it would be as follows; an information system {A} that processes itself and reacts to other information systems {X}, and that first system {A} is itself part of a larger information system {B}. In the dreaming context, I can consider a dream character to be exactly that {A}. In the waking context, I {X}, inclusive of my own {A,B} can consider other people's non-conscious processes to be exactly that {A} (as part of the person themself {B}). But my concept within those two contexts is making a massive assumption; the consciousness is the ruling information system {B}, but is this true, false, or only a part of the truth?

Is this anywhere near your own understanding or am I miles off?

I'm happy you responded to that particular question!

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

I think you are trying to condense a very complex idea into the smallest possible part. You want to find the atom, so in the original sense of the word, the smallest indivisible part of these concepts. Therefore, in the original sense the atom is the essence, is it not?

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Hmmm, no, I don't think so. A global answer is appealing to me.

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

There is definitely a potential intuitive understanding of a person as a "thought form" but intuition rarely gets put into words, does it? When it does, it takes a long time. Perhaps we can't try to explain an intuitive concept without first knowing that others have the same intuition already.

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Hmmm, I really did mean "intuitive." I am all for philosophical reasoning, but I want to integrate this new understanding into my intuition/feelings/instincts. But you are right, before we can do that, we need to understand which "understanding" we are integrating.

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

Without any further information from you, my most condensed understanding of it would be as follows; an information system {A} that processes itself and reacts to other information systems {X}, and that first system {A} is itself part of a larger information system {B}. In the dreaming context, I can consider a dream character to be exactly that {A}. In the waking context, I {X}, inclusive of my own {A,B} can consider other people's non-conscious processes to be exactly that {A} (as part of the person themself {B}). But my concept within those two contexts is making a massive assumption; the consciousness is the ruling information system {B}, but is this true, false, or only a part of the truth?

Is this anywhere near your own understanding or am I miles off?

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So {A} = subconscious, {X} = conscious, {B} = whole person ?

Talking to a DC is a dialogue between X and A whereas talking to a stranger is a dialogue between my B and their B?

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Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness

I would like to ask you what you do understand by: "a person as a thought form".

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Ok, let me restate my question.

(1) People are a thing with particular characteristics.
(2) It feels a certain way to recognize and interact with a person.
(3) Sometimes there is a thing and there is the feeling but the thing is not a person

(What is (3)? (3) is watching a TV show or a cartoon, playing a video game, meeting a DC in dream).

The question: in that case (3), what new feeling can I have, that is not (2)?

Cartoons are maybe the most helpful experience to guide us emotionally. When you see a cartoon, you know they represent a person so you feel (2) but you are barely convinced by it. In dreams, we have the most difficulty not being convinced by it. Probably the feeling is different from (2) now... but wouldn't get closer to (2) if we could interact with a cartoon. How do I, in a dream, not feel (2).

Or should the feeling (2) remain paired with the knowledge of (3). In this case, you always need to reason to protect you from being immersed in the illusion.

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I want to jump on another train of thought on the way to the same place.

Using a set of statements more similar to yours, I could say that all the contents of my awareness are constructed by my mind (exist in my subjective experience) (come and go). Some, we know, exist objectively (objects) (because they are persistent) and some even have their own subjective existence (other people). Dream characters don't have an objective existence (they are not objects in the world) and don't have their own subjective experience. The dream as a whole is also not an object, nor does it have its own subjective experience.

... How can I feel different talking to a non-object, non-subject illusion of a person than talking to an object, subject illusion of a person. The practice of empathy and compassion would work the same in both cases. The only difference is intellectual, not emotional. (but I want to feel an emotional difference... or should I want that at all?).

[EDIT] Similarly, I interact with the world, and sometimes I want to talk to the world (object, non-subject); it feels like talking a god figure, because I don't know how to feel that I am communicating with a non-object or non subject. Similarly, when we talk to the dreamworld, we again feel that we are talking to a godlike figure and many report hearing a booming dissociated voice coming from the sky.

Is there a new way to feel? Or should we continue to indulge these illusions? While talking to our god-illusion of the physical world does not result in a response, talking to our god-illusion of the dream world does. Except, it comes from the same source as all our waking thoughts. But we don't feel that way. Is holding that knowledge the only thing to do when facing this illusion?

I see now I had not understood your term in the same way at all, but I think we are still coming up with interesting stuff. Though, maybe my idea isn't all that interesting now that you've explained further. I will still go into it, but feel free to skip this bit. :)

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Just to clarify, your understanding of a {A,B,X} was almost as I had first thought of them, but I had internally defined them more as:

{A}: An Automatic/Passive information processing system,
{B}: A Conscious/Active information processing system,
{X}: A system capable of processing information, which is external to other information processing systems. I am one, and you are your own, simply put...

To keep things concise, I tried to define myself as {X} for the example so that we could consider the {A,B} of a system other than myself and to not add further confusion. You could go on and add {Y} or {Z} as other external systems or simply just give them unique names.

But anyway, so a complete system has {A,B} and is capable of observing other systems. Whether it perceives the {A,B} of other systems is dependent on its own framework for processing information. A plant, which does possess some kind of information processing, as any living being, likely cannot perceive our {A,B} at all, presumably. But we can perceive their (apparent) lack of {B}, because our framework allows for it. To try and be as clear as I can right now, on a Human level, one {X} will communicate with another {X} or whatever of the same kind, and each one has the capabilities {A,B} and can distinguish them in one another, too.

My concept here is vague enough that it potentially allows us to define anything that can "sense" data as an {X}. The question becomes whether or not that {X} possesses only {A} or only {B} or both. In this sense we can almost define the internet as an {X} with localised smaller clusters with their own and numerous {X}... This is a small example of how we can expand the concept in a simple way, anyway.

Now, firstly, why did I think this was what you may have meant?
Because I understood that your question perhaps wanted to distil the essence of "being" into a technical term. So my text-reading and communication skills failed me, not uncommon for me. :D

Secondly, what is the point of my concept?
The point was that we have discussed consciousnesses here in this topic pretty much approaching this, though I think I hadn't realised it yet myself until I saw the other bit I quoted before.

Information processing is relevant to both rational and irrational processes in Humans, so the concept applies to both reason and emotion, quite easily, I think.

If we think about it in the terms of collective consciousnesses, which one belongs to which? Do they belong to any at all? This is what I meant by a massive assumption about the ruling system. I assume that my sub-conscious "belongs" to my conscious, but maybe there is no such distinction, or such a distinction does not matter because they are already actually part of something else together, or form something else, by being together. There's a lot more thought to be put into this. But for me it's quite late so I think I'll stop here now that I've tried to go into it a bit further, moving on to your actual question once again, but I will do so in a second reply to keep things a bit organised.

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Ok, let me restate my question.

(1) People are a thing with particular characteristics.
(2) It feels a certain way to recognize and interact with a person.
(3) Sometimes there is a thing and there is the feeling but the thing is not a person

(What is (3)? (3) is watching a TV show or a cartoon, playing a video game, meeting a DC in dream).

The question: in that case (3), what new feeling can I have, that is not (2)?

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I'm not sure. How can we know what a feeling that we haven't had yet, feels like?

Thinking back on when I was much younger and certain experiences felt new, I did not yet know what they would feel like until I felt them. Perhaps you could look forward in the same sense. You don't know how it will feel, but if or when you do, you will know. It sounds silly I suppose, but I think that would be the thought I would apply to myself in that position.

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... How can I feel different talking to a non-object, non-subject illusion of a person than talking to an object, subject illusion of a person. The practice of empathy and compassion would work the same in both cases. The only difference is intellectual, not emotional. (but I want to feel an emotional difference... or should I want that at all?).

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How, I don't know exactly as I said, but the thing I can think of is, and to keep it as short and concise as I can, for instance in my family, someone had recurring episodes of hallucinations caused by mental illness for a time. The hallucinations were effectively real to that person during that time. Whatever the hallucinations said to the person was perceived as real, and genuine, both intellectually and emotionally. There was effectively no illusion to them under that state, even if it factually was an illusion. Once the issue stopped occurring, the illusion was apparent, but it had affected the rest of us in a very real way during all that time.

So an illusion had a real effect, on more than just the person whom it affected. There was an emotional difference happening to all of us. In a sense, isn't this the desired result here? Our intellectual capacity did not prevent us from going through emotional differences at all, but it did help us guide them. Of the people whom this whole thing affected indirectly such as myself, we all used our intellectual capacity in different ways, some less, some more and we all had different personal conclusions to this.

But I am not suggesting you develop a mental illness, obviously! On the contrary, it's a horrible thing to have to live through or to have to live with. But madness does give some brief insight into other ways of looking at things I think. If this hadn't happened to my family, I wouldn't be able to appreciate that there are stranger ways of looking at things than I could have conceived, had it not happened at all.

Assuming I haven't made any more blunders in interpreting what you have said, I think you could apply part of the "we're not 100% in our dreams" as you've mentioned before to your advantage... Lucidity does allow for us to have a wider range of emotional capacity, if that's the right way to put it, while still allowing us to use our intellectual capacity to guide that. We can perceive, emotionally, things in different ways that aren't normal during waking life.

I wanted to go into your edited bit too, but I don't think I'll be able to come up with any worthwhile reasonings right now. To be honest there were so many thoughts that have come and gone that I wanted to address about so many things, and perhaps later I will partially be able to do so. I will be re-reading our posts tomorrow anyway. :)

Quick comments before going to bed,

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I'm not sure. How can we know what a feeling that we haven't had yet, feels like?

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This is not a new experience. We dream and interact with DCs every day. I'm wondering how not to treat DCs like people (but rather like cartoons that arise into our consciousness (from our subconsciousness) and go... that have no objective or subjective existence of their own. They are only contents of our own subjective experience).

I agree that hallucinations are like dream content, but again, perceiving them as objects or subjects is not lucid.

I have been thinking about this thread quite a bit. Unfortunately, like a while back I’ve sort of lost my previous train of thought and seem unable to resume it properly since many of my passing thoughts were simply not written down, a poor habit... a mistake I do not make often with sketch ideas but do plenty with verbal ideas. It’s been a pretty tiring week which probably has something to do with it anyway.

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Either way, on your point on how not to treat DCs like people and more like those mental cartoons (could you clarify/go into detail on that?), I get a bit lost when you say that those have neither objective or subjective existence on their own.

What I understand there by that last bit is, on their own come with no meanings attached, but when we start perceiving them when they reach a certain threshold, we start to characterise them based on their objective traits and then create subjective notions about them. But is my understanding on this correct/as you intended?

I’m starting to think maybe the thought process you are going through here may be outside my depth, in a way. But I don’t wish to stop this discussion. :)

If you consider a particular train of thought of mine to not be pertinent, say so or clarify details for me, and we can get back on track; it’s very easy for me to lose focus and go on a tangent.

Don't worry. this drains me too, and I forget what we wrote way back haha, here some other thoughts, starting by responding to you:

I guess let me define what I mean by objective world and subjective world.

The objective world is the world that contains matter and energy.
The subjective world is our perceptual world.

I have my subjective world, you have yours but we are both in the same objective world. A material chair is in the objective world. If I perceive it, the perceived chair is in my subjective world. If I visualize a chair, the chair is in my subjective world, but not in the objective world. It's also not in your subjective world. And it doesn't have a subjective world of its own. If I visualize a person, it's the same. In dreams, people are the same: they don't have a material version in an objective world. They aren't in anyone else's subjective world, and they don't have a subjective world of their own.

When I talk to you, I am talking to a person with a subjective world. When I talk to a convincing dream character, I feel no different from talking to someone like you.

But ultimately, I think it's fine. It's probably good to have that feeling in dreams.

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I had an interesting dream last night. I practiced nondual experience. Let's define two more words: ME experience and OTHER experience.
ME experience is any experience I identify with: ex. I think MY thoughts, I rise MY hand.
OTHER experience are experience I don't identify with: ex. I'm hearing YOUR voice, your shaking my hand with YOUR hand.
Because our subjective world is completely constructed by our mind, ME experience and OTHER experience are both constructed by my mind. If my mind is me, then, even OTHER experience is ME experience. If my mind is not me, then, ME experience is also not ME experience. I think both are true to some extent.

So for me, nondual experience is removing the feeling of ME vs OTHER experience and making it all feel one way. Step 1: feeling like ME experience is equal to OTHER experience in the sense that they are my mind (perspective: I am not my mind, I am the consciousness perceiving my mind). Step 2: feeling like OTHER experience is equal to ME experience because it is also constructed by my mind so it's also ME experience. When doing this, it feels like the center of consciousness is no longer in your skull behind your eyes.

I did this in the dream and it felt much like when I do it in waking life. I didn't conventionally become lucid from this but my dreams were very intense and I resolved one problem in a particularly lucid way. Not in the way that interprets the dream as not real (all of it is actually me) but in a way that I interpret the dream as being symbolic (maintaining a certain distance from the mind). So, I kind of feel like practicing nondual experience helps find the right balance.