Thread: Questions and ruminations about astral projection, etc.

Twice last week when chatting with people I pushed the conversation towards the topic of dreaming. In response to their questions I tried to give a quick summary of what I'm interested in, what I'm about. In both cases I found my position to be rather incoherent and aimless. Paraphrasing me: "I have weird experiences, including accurate premonitions." Them: "I've had a couple of those. And?" Indeed, and what? My experiences aren't even remarkable unless a person has bought deeply into the modern scientific group-think, or into a spiritual progress group-think that defines itself in terms of violation of the scientific group-think. Sometimes when I read on this site, it seems to me that a person could parody it fairly well if we were all competing to be Hairy Palm Champion. Using the Wikipedia definition of lucid dreams, I've had ~10,000. So f-ing what? It just says I'm not entirely asleep while I'm asleep. Why this this more desirable or advanced or even more enjoyable in the long run than being more totally asleep while asleep, and awake while awake? Lucid experiences can be fun, but heightened lucidity during waking life is fun also, and its not clear to me that there's always an advantage to pursuing lucidity while asleep. And either way, sometimes it seems to me like I'm like a short person jumping up and down trying to be taller. I could grow just as fast if I didn't do that. My point here isn't to crap on what other people are doing (though I don't know how to ask these kinds of questions without that happening by implication, sorry). I'm after more clarity on what I'm really trying to do, while posting in case the subject interests anyone else also.

Something that continues to stand out to me is that I do not have even a rudimentary understanding of the relationships between dream, astral, and the waking world. I've had a few experiences lately where I've astrally projected ghosts, in a way that was clearly akin to an OBE-type experience, except that I was keeping the seat of my first-person perspective in my sleeping body while projecting the astral forms. It seems to me that this is in some sense fairly similar to the creation of dream characters, even though the DCs are embedded in a cartoon-like environment, and with the AP experience all of that is stripped away except for an almost-outwardly-awake representation of my room. What's the bridge between that and the creation of objectively paranormal events during waking life? Clearly there's a close relationship between the astral projection of thought-ghosts and the manifestation of destiny, but the later is almost totally unconscious and involuntary for me, like is is for most people. And this brings up another, closely related question, what is the relationship between one's angel of destiny (and/or higher self) and one's conscious intelligence? It seems strange for so much to go on in the background, as if a human being is one half of an extreme and foundational schizophrenia.

Here's another related question....Like everyone else (I presume) I have a fairly significant, though not unlimited, ability to alter the behavior of my subconscious agent-of-destiny. I can have different kinds of dreams, I can astrally project different kinds of things, and I can have different kinds of life experiences. How much control do I have over this, and how much am I limited by a kind of internal logic, and how much am I limited by what everyone else is doing? I have a couple of things I'd like to change about myself, but it seems counterproductive to get too out of step with the environment I'm in. To what extent do those astral ghosts belong to me, and to what extent do they belong to other people? Clearly there is an inter-relationship. The dream characters are mine, but there is always a foreign element also, particularly when there are premonitions involved. And the physical world is clearly shared. Is trying to understand this helping, or am I like the short person jumping up and down? Can I accomplish the internal changes I want without intellectually understanding these things better?

I guess this post turned into a kind of wish list. This is one thing I have found out - aspiration brings results. Whether the results of this manner of inquiry are temporary and vain or deep and lasting I don't know.

Here's one more thought in this context....As I have posted elsewhere, if you reach for such secrets you can count on fate finding a way to fuck you with any flaw in your motive. Its almost beautiful how it works. And its both painful, purifying, and uplifting depending on the other part of your motive. But something I've become more aware of just recently is that even a 'pure motive' is in some sense not enough. When you reach for the pot of gold you draw the attention of a big-ass dragon, and in its gaze you're small and naked. Its not like he's a thick-necked, small brained bouncer at an exclusive nightclub, and you wave your aspiration in front of him like its a pass from Jay-Z and he has to let you in. Maybe he gives a fuck about Jay-Z, maybe he doesn't, but you can't presume upon anything. He's just and merciful, not arbitrary and capricious, I think, but how you explain and justify yourself in your mind doesn't amount to much, he can see through it. He's a titan and you're one of those yappy little dogs. Of course, as a yappy little dog you're entitled to your free will, and I insist upon mine. I'm not going to kiss any titan's ass (yap yap yap). But maybe its still worthwhile to keep some perspective - he can squash you like a bug.

A dog isn't smart enough to want to communicate with a lumbering human in any open-minded way; it has it's mind made up about us in every moment... there is no room to consider possibilities, the dog simply reacts in the moment. What puts us at least one step above the yapping dog is the fact that we're capable of keeping our minds open to the many possibilities, including the one that the Dragon may be (and probably is) smarter than us. Some of us also desire to communicate/exist on their level and would strive to take steps to get there, even if it took aeons, had we enough time.

One thing that angers me is I've become painfully aware of my exponential capability of mind expansion, but at the same time my inevitable physical end. (*squish*) I would take steps to learn a great deal more while here if I felt there would be any more long-term benefit to it. Lucid experiences and beyond while not in the physical state have naturally caused me to question the malleability of my mind... but I seem to retain certain core aspects of, *me* no matter what state I find my self in. I'm VERY interested in determining what is in my, "core."

Either way, on both a physical level and mental level, I agree with your analogy in many ways. I simply want to add that, I've been a gamer and a fan of fantasy/medieval lore for years and while 99.99% of humans don't stand a chance against dragons, there are many heroes/legends of lore that have both outwit and outright slayed the dragon in one on one duels. If there is something out there beyond us, (interdimensionally speaking) it has a, "supernatural" life force to it, which would, in turn, give me hopes that achieving more for my self after death might have some merit to it. This is all speculation, of course, but so was the idea behind the dragon analogy in the first place. ^^

I've always loved stories of lore that involved killing the, "gods" in order to change destiny. The idea that NOTHING is impossible was something I absolutely reveled in when I read fantasy as a child.

The only person I would give 100% trust to in order to guide me would be a future version of my self.

I have more I want to say, but I must be off for now. Great post, friend.

Ketsuyume:

I think we lose much of our knowledge when we die, or it goes beyond our reach, sort of. But I'm pretty sure there are changes that we make while alive that have lasting effects. I don't know what that means in terms of reincarnation, since I don't know in what sense I may reincarnate. But I feel something like multiple worlds, and the changes we go through ripple through those worlds. Its not lost. I'm also pretty sure that we have to make use of our opportunities while we're alive - it doesn't magically happen for us after we're dead. A key obviously is making changes at the heart that amount to something, rather than the vain short-man-jumping-to-be-taller changes where your gains get snatched away again later. I think that acquiring knowledge in and of itself is not enough, something else is necessary also.

Obviously, my perception of the metaphorical 'dragon' is qualified by who I am, and I'm blind to characteristics it may have which are foreign to what I currently have developed. In whatever sense its possible to slay it, I think that amounts to passing a test, or changing oneself. The dragon is not 'me' exactly, but trying to defeat it or elude it would be futile in a way analogous to trying to defeat or elude myself. It is not my future self exactly, its more than that, but it has that in it, and has that agreement. I think its possible to seem to 'get past' it without satisfying its requirements, but its a chimerical victory, a special misfortune for those who are persistently tricky enough to try that. The lucky ones are slain at the gate, their souls mostly intact. The others eventually find that their paradise becomes a maze of horrors, and one they can not retreat from again. The misfortunes that befall people - alcoholism, motorcycle accidents, LSD accidents that leave a person fried, bad love affairs, dead end religions - all look to me like blessings in disguise which stop us from going deeper into something that would cause us more pain later. There is wrong in those things too, but they are also blessings, and I think the wrong is perpetrated at a lower level than what I'm talking about. The angel of death is also the angel of mercy in other circumstances.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

Something that continues to stand out to me is that I do not have even a rudimentary understanding of the relationships between dream, astral, and the waking world...

...Clearly there's a close relationship between the astral projection of thought-ghosts and the manifestation of destiny, but the later is almost totally unconscious and involuntary for me, like is is for most people.

I think you're already figuring out astral and dreaming are the same thing, so that leaves a duality. Everything exists as a solid and a wave. Dreams are the wave counterpart to physical reality. Physics describes probability waveforms that collapse when you focus your attention on them, dreams have archetypes that likewise collapse when you focus your attention on them.

Think of it that way, and dream control starts to work even while you're awake.

Originally Posted by shadowofwind

...Can I accomplish the internal changes I want without intellectually understanding these things better?

Would you let a bunch of 5th reprogram your computer? Way better to know what you're doing. Not all changes are beneficial.

Check out my thread on dream control. I think you'll appreciate it.
http://www.dreamviews.com/f14/nature...control-57283/

Originally Posted by The Cusp

Dreams are the wave counterpart to physical reality.

Clearly there's some truth in that. I've been messing around with that idea for many years, but haven't been able to get the details to work.

Originally Posted by The Cusp

Physics describes probability waveforms that collapse when you focus your attention on them, dreams have archetypes that likewise collapse when you focus your attention on them.

The waveforms 'collapse' partially when they interact with other waveforms. This isn't explained at all well in popular science publications or undergraduate texts. Although the use of the words 'observed' and 'observer' seems to imply that the mind of an experimenter is involved somehow, what is really being discussed is a physical system which is partitioned into those two parts for the sake of mathematical description. Although the waveforms necessarily collapse wherever there is interaction (without that there would be no chemistry), the collapse is defined only for the system involved, as illustrated by the cat in box example.

It seems to me that whether or not archtypes collapse under attention depends on what a person is doing to them with that attention. Maybe we're not using words quite the same way though.

Originally Posted by The Cusp

Think of it that way, and dream control starts to work even while you're awake.

To the extent possible, I prefer to deal with all of this stuff while awake. While asleep, I'm resting.