Dream vs Astral

[shadowofwind]

Previously I've described how astral projection seems markedly different to me from other dream experiences. Now it seems to me that the difference is mostly a matter of emphasis, that they're largely the same thing, which is more like what some other people were saying. That isn't to suggest that astral experiences can have no 'paranormal' physical significance though. In normal waking experience, a person's visual, audial, and tactile experience is mostly slaved to modeling their physical circumstances, as suggested by sense information. For myself, I have almost no separate "mind's eye", the cartoon representation of my surroundings dominates almost completely. I think however that the 'cartoon', even though it represents the physical surroundings and most people are in the habit of thinking of them as being equivalent, is the same as what we call astral. With astral projection, the main difference is a person is actively bending the model to suggest that their body is somewhere besides where their physical body is. And with a 'normal' lucid dream, it's still the same, except that a person is projecting an alternative cartoon environment, rather than trying to overlay the body representation on the immediate model of physical surroundings. The reason the experiences seemed different to me, is what I was calling my 'astral' body was focused on my tactile experience, the map of 'myself' in my nerves so to speak. What I called my 'dream body' was focused more on a sense of buoyancy, such as one might manipulate while flying in dream. Close to that is a sense of being present in my head, which I is related to my spatial and audial maps. When dreaming I rarely project a 'body' in the dream, I just float around formless and observe stuff. For people who do project a body while dreaming, I think that if they were to stop projecting the rest of the dream environment, while activating the part of their mind that usually involuntarily processes sensate information while awake, and then overpowering it with their dream imagination, they would have an astral projection experience. The key point here that makes it not "all in your head", is that your waking life sensate cartoon is not entirely passive. You also use it to move your body. By far, the easiest way to impact your environment is by using your body, because that's what it's developed to do. But you can also influence other things besides your body, though it takes a subtle and different kind of thinking. Some people can do that with an 'astral body' thought maybe using it to move things in their room for instance. I think however that the 'astral body' is sort of like Dumbo's magic feather, or an ill-fit physical representation of a more abstract subject. I think a person could influence things a lot more effectively if they gave up the idea of doing it with a body, astral or otherwise. And I think that we all already do this anyway, it's just mostly subconscious and involuntary. It's as if we leave most of the mechanisms of fate to far future relatives who have more awareness of such things. Our identity overlaps with theirs, so our subconscious desires do get expressed, just not in a way that we recognize or understand. In my thought of this, the 'dream plane' is a sort of semi-collective mind's eye. It is private and individual in the sense that the forms you see there are generally seen that way by you alone. But the thoughts, so to speak, that inspire the forms are shared, even though your own thoughts are most immediate. For most people, most of the time, a dream character is more accurately thought of as a projection of oneself than anything else. But there's a shared element there too. With something like 'dream police' the foreign element may be significant enough to seem to trump the personal element, so that a person does not categorize it as a DC. But I think the interpretation is still highly personal. I don't think a clear line can be drawn between DC's and other beings or entities. The dichotomy of 'me' and 'not me' is inadequate. Likewise for dream guides, they're you, but also not you. A final thought that seems important in this context: Like somebody else posted a year ago, if you pursue self-knowlegde without love, you get confusing crap back for results. That's probably the most personally helpful thing I've read here. And I think it applies to all of this stuff. Any lever that a person may use to try to use always makes you pay for it in the long run. That applies to ideas as well as to physiological or biochemical tricks. Part of love is patience and taking care of yourself. My 'shadowofwind' handle is after a Black Sabbath song that came out a few weeks before I signed up on another site, then I reused it here. For whatever it's worth, it goes Well it's night again, and the dark just killed the sun. If the light must end, you've got time to run away. There's a door to dreams, and it always let's you in. But with a silent scream, all your nightmares must begin. Still you chase what you can't see, like death, and pain, and sin, and the shadow of the wind. [Break] You'll remember me, I can make you disappear. Be where you want to be, just as long as it's not here. Well I'm back and I'm stronger, and the first one's always free. And it lasts much longer, you can bet your sanity. Nevermore the vict[or] cries, as I slip beneath the skin, like the shadow of the wind. [Break] If words had names like red and green and two for sympathy, like black and white and in between then you'd be Misery. Every day is an inquisition, who are you what are you why? I'm alive I belong I'll be back, it's a half truth still a whole lie. To the garden of good and evil you'll [go], but you know, the spider only spins - the shadow of the wind. That's sort of an opposite way of trying to say the thing about love. The last part of that strongly rung true with me personally about three years ago, even though on it's literal face it hardly seems to make sense. From my experience and observation, if our goal is to understand 'astral' stuff, or even experience it without driving ourselves into a swamp that painfully imprisons us later, then this 'heart' thing is pretty important.

[DreamFantasy]

alot of what i understood i agree with mostly. I remain neutral in many of my "point of views" concerning OBE's and dreams and exactly what they entail, but continue to explore these realms because i love it. i dont really have to make that opinion at this time, or even at all. As long as i get to keep lucid dreaming and OBE'ing, that is satisfaction enough in and of itself regardless of what all the metaphysical ideologies and philosophies entail. i've realized the older i get, the less opionated i get and the more i just see both sides and acknowledge the facts.

[shadowofwind]

I agree that kind of open mindedness is quite valuable. Without it we wouldn't get new experiences. As I see it, new conjectures about how things might work are also necessary to open up new experiences. Not everybody needs to work on that, but some people do. Currently, our range of experiences is somewhat circumscribed by what other pseudo-scientific people have imagined to be possible. Because of the shared nature of thought, we benefit from their ideas even if we aren't aware of them. As an example to illustrate this, my first telekinesis experience was right after I realized something like that was possible, after thinking about physics. Except that it wasn't actually my first experience. Looking back, I had another one many years ago, and I just blew it off because it was so unexpected I didn't know how to process it. I doubt that I would have been able to have had that first experience if someone else, or my future self, or some mind somewhere else hadn't conceived of that possibility. Telekinesis may seem like an obvious possibility to us now, but that's because the thought has been around a long time. Other possibilities we don't even think of. But a good theory about how this stuff works can point to new possibilities. Sort of like what you see with scientific inventions. More significantly I guess, its not just being aware of what's possible that's needed, its having some idea how to go about achieving what's possible. And those instincts depend on our collective idea frameworks.

[The Cusp]

Previously I've described how astral projection seems markedly different to me from other dream experiences. Now it seems to me that the difference is mostly a matter of emphasis, that they're largely the same thing, which is more like what some other people were saying. That isn't to suggest that astral experiences can have no 'paranormal' physical significance though. I agree they are the same, and the only difference is how you perceive them. It doesn't mean astral projection is just a dream, it means there's more to dreaming than we normally give it credit for. In my thought of this, the 'dream plane' is a sort of semi-collective mind's eye. It is private and individual in the sense that the forms you see there are generally seen that way by you alone. But the thoughts, so to speak, that inspire the forms are shared, even though your own thoughts are most immediate. For most people, most of the time, a dream character is more accurately thought of as a projection of oneself than anything else. But there's a shared element there too. With something like 'dream police' the foreign element may be significant enough to seem to trump the personal element, so that a person does not categorize it as a DC. But I think the interpretation is still highly personal. I don't think a clear line can be drawn between DC's and other beings or entities. The dichotomy of 'me' and 'not me' is inadequate. Likewise for dream guides, they're you, but also not you. It may be difficult to draw a line between other people in your dreams, since they tend act much like dream characters would when not lucid. But I think we can encounter other things in our dreams that are so alien they really stand out. Thinks that are so far outside of the realm of our comprehension that we don't have anything remotely close to recreate a personal representation of it. Instead you get a weird mish mash of concepts that tends to stand out like a sore thumb. To give an example, one I suspect was a part dog part wasp creature. Or one I read about and feel pretty confident that it was something external, Betty Boop's head on He-Man's body. Then there is also the recommended method from Carlos Castaneda's books. Something real and external will have energy sustaining it, the projections from your mind won't. The method described was pointing your little finger at something and stating your intent to see it's energy. Got a few DVers to try it awhile back. Nobody saw energy that I remember, but it did have the unexpected side effect of making things disappear. Often nothing would happen, and when something did happen, the target usually disappeared. I only had one instance where it didn't. I didn't see any energy, but the object kept transmuting into different fusions of things and ideas every time I tried. I think this method of energy seeing needs to be investigated more. Great opening post. Everyone interested in AP, OBE and lucid dreaming should read it

[shadowofwind]

But I think we can encounter other things in our dreams that are so alien they really stand out. That's pretty much how I distinguish between "me" and "not me" in a dream. I rarely dream of the same thing twice, and an image may be something I've never seen before, not extrapolated in an identifiable way from previous sensate experiences. But since they are related to my own thoughts they still have a familiar feel to them. Other images, in contrast, feel new and unfamiliar, like meeting a new person or a different kind of being entirely. But its never 100% either way. Typically I can identify at least two meanings in a particular dream metaphor, one that's personal to me, and another that's not. But the meaning that doesn't seem related to me is where much of the value of the metaphor comes from, since the relationship that it has with my own thought tends to illuminate it in a new way. As I have posted previously, very often the thought behind the metaphor is identifiably connected to a person I will meet the next day, and the visual images are drawn from the next day also. I guess unfamiliarity isn't the only standard. Each person has a unique feel to them, which is present in their thought. Though I'm never entirely clear how much of that is them, and how much is my own interpretation of who they are. So I guess its always partially me. My 'muse' has a particular feel to it also, which doesn't entirely feel like 'me'. Then there is also the recommended method from Carlos Castaneda's books. Something real and external will have energy sustaining it, the projections from your mind won't. The method described was pointing your little finger at something and stating your intent to see it's energy. That seems to make sense. I think what I'm talking about is a little different than that situation though. As I've mentioned elsewhere, my dreams are pretty much all lucid in the sense that I'm aware that I'm dreaming and actively thinking about what's going on, but the sequence of images in the dream seems to be somehow set up ahead of time, and fairly well planned. I don't interfere because I want to see what the story is. Usually I don't even have a body in the dream, only my awareness is present. And very often there aren't even sounds or images in the dream either, just thoughts. Other people's existing thoughts are reflected in my dreams, either abstractly or metaphorically through images, but those people are rarely if ever lucidly interacting with the dream. My own mind is projecting the images, but the script for the projection has been set up by my 'muse', almost like a strong memory that I'm not aware of until it plays out. As I've also mentioned elsewhere, a couple of months ago I had a dream where I found myself strongly lucid on the ledge of a strange building, with a body, more like in a conventional lucid dream. The implication was that I should jump off, but I didn't feel like bothering, so I just lay there shivering in the chill outside air until I woke up. Afterwards it seemed kind of pathetic, to have that feeble of an interest in doing that sort of thing. About a week ago I had a similar and slightly less lucid opportunity to jump out a window, so that time I did. It had been so long that I'd briefly forgotten how to levitate, and I went down like a rock. After recovering I lifted myself off the ground, along with some heavy objects that I wanted to bring with me. Its clear that the suggested next step is to forget about projecting a dream body, since I'm bored with that, and practice manipulating objects in the dream without a body, as a step towards more conscious manipulation of events in waking life. I feel kind of apathetic about that too though - no motivation. Maybe its not really my next step. I was just listening to the Iron Maiden song 'Killers' on YouTube a few minutes ago, and its appalling how strongly that resonates. Maybe I don't need to be manipulating events more strongly until I get that fixed. Or maybe I'm not going to be able to transform that maliciousness into something better until I get off my ass and start exercising my spirit in a more actively constructive way. A combination of both of those thoughts seems right I think. Still not much motivation though. Maybe I need more sleep Great opening post. Thank you. I realize that posts like that are pretty hard for people to wade through, but that's how they come out. As I've indicated, most of the progress I make is connected to my interactions with other people, so I'm always grateful for that.

[The Cusp]

Typically I can identify at least two meanings in a particular dream metaphor, one that's personal to me, and another that's not. But the meaning that doesn't seem related to me is where much of the value of the metaphor comes from, since the relationship that it has with my own thought tends to illuminate it in a new way. I know what you mean, what you're describing is what I use for dream control. Instead of thinking of your dream content as metaphors, start thinking of it as archetypes. Like the difference between approaching a dream as a lucid or as an AP, the archetype model is just much more useful and versatile than thinking of them as metaphors. ... my dreams are pretty much all lucid in the sense that I'm aware that I'm dreaming and actively thinking about what's going on, but the sequence of images in the dream seems to be somehow set up ahead of time, and fairly well planned. I don't interfere because I want to see what the story is. You are always interfering with the story because you are always in complete direct control over your dream, even if you're not aware of it. Where you choose to focus your attention determines what comes next in the dream. You're correct that the dream images seem set up ahead of time. Your dream world is the some total of all your densely interconnected archetype wired into the neural network of your brain. You focus on one archetype, and it begins manifest it's varied associations until one of those associations captures your attention, becoming the new dominant archetype of your focus, causing it to manifest it's associations. On and on it's one big chain. ...practice manipulating objects in the dream without a body, as a step towards more conscious manipulation of events in waking life. I feel kind of apathetic about that too though - no motivation. It's not so much the not using your body that counts, it's knowing how to interact with the waveform or archetype half of reality. That's done mainly through learning to focus and filter your attention through archetypes of your choosing and does not require the body, the body can be as useful as it can be limiting. Don't give up on the body's usefulness just because it isn't useful in all situations, you'll limit the tools you have to work with.

[shadowofwind]

I deal extensively with archetypes, though I don't generally use that word. My anima is closely related to what I call feeling. I intentionally allow other aspects of myself to show through my persona to the extent that I can, both beautiful and shameful, though of course my various fears and desires do distort this. A further source of distortion is that a person who tries to put their best public face forward can not see where I am coming from. I do experience my thoughts as a sort of mask, and can even feel it as a pressure on the top half of my face. The masculine counterpart of my anima is my desire, or I can also say that its my reason, because there's a kind of active/passive polarity in both of those relationships. I sometimes think of the 'anima' part in dark and light aspects. Lately I've become more aware of a part of myself that might be represented by a big, carnivorous caterpillar. This is related to what might be called 'shadow' and animus parts of myself, and is also related to my 'muse'. Thinking about this sort of thing preceeded most of my development of interesting dreaming, and I don't think it would have been possible without that. A point that's possibly worth repeating about my 'muse' is that its not a subset of my own subconscious. It exhibits something like an independent will, and can, for example, cause other people to have mental experiences that connect in direct ways with my experiences. I don't think that its a renegade part of my own individual subconscious that's doing that, and I think it would be unrealistically megalomaniacal for me to imagine it that way. At the same time, the 'muse' I refer to is not universally shared. It has something in it that is universally shared, but the aspect of it that I'm referring to is more akin to a small tribal god. In this sense, I am not in complete direct control over my dreams. It exerts some control, and I am happy to allow it to do that, because I feel my relationship with it is balanced and respectful. To call it 'me', and claim that control for myself would be to claim control over its other activity in other people's minds, which would be false and in a sense immoral. In any case, thanks very much for your thoughts. I think a key to communication here is for us to extend to accommodate what the other person is aware of, instead of trying to reduce the other person's thoughts to straw men that fit within our own framework. Always easier said than done of course, and not something that I'm always very good at.

[shadowofwind]

A little over a month ago, twice in one day, I saw a red tailed hawk carrying a large snake. I posted this at the time on another site, asking for an interpretation. I considered mentioning it yesterday as an example of how my 'muse' can wield metaphors in waking life as well as in dream, but I didn't have time to try to justify that claim properly. I'll explain below why I'm mentioning it now, if you want to bear with me while I review a few other relevant images first. Last week I posted in another thread that the semi-communal muse that I experience was like an elephant felt by blind men - different people will experience it differently. I also said that the angel of death, which I've compared elsewhere to the hard edge of divine justice, is at a deeper level behind the muse. (A week ago someone on the other site had a nice dream image illustrating that type of relationship: they experienced themselves as a blue angel, and then saw themselves as an ornament on a blade wielded by a titan.) Yesterday I mentioned in this thread that the archetype in me that's close to the muse reminds me of a giant caterpillar. I also reiterated that the muse is shared across many subconscious minds, that it has something like an independent will. I've said elsewhere that it has a sense of humor. Yesterday I said that it would be wrong for me to regard it as a subset of my own subconscious, since that would imply invasive influence of other people's dreams. Yesterday I also said that feeling is like my anima archetype. And my subject of thought last night was about how for all of us the way something feels can at times trump all other considerations, for instance with destructive romances or drug experimentation. So today on another dream site that I visit, someone posted that they dreamed of a woman riding a huge black eagle carrying an elephant, and can someone please explain what it means. This dream pulls all the above mentioned images together as a joke. Since the combination of my posts amounted to saying that the snake archetype is like an elephant's trunk, the dark bird is carrying the whole elephant instead of a snake. And its ridden by the anima, illustrating my thought about the tyranny of sensual feeling. It illustrates both of my claims about the muse, that it exhibits something like an independent will, and that it influences other people's dreams besides my own. It facilitates my thinking about archetypes, as suggested by cusp, and helps nudge my understanding of those relationships forward just slightly. And it pokes fun at my suggesting that it would be 'immoral' for me to treat other people's dreams as an extension of my own ego, since I'd kind of have to do that in order to answer the other person's appeal for an interpretation. Finally, although the dream itself is a model of simplicity, the connections it makes involve enough complexity and subjective interpretation that skeptics can comfortably let their eyes glaze over and blow it off as a meaningless coincidence. Its perfect. Addendum: To me the woman riding the black hawk also represents the way a person can be carried by providence, and represents the element of motherly benevolence and mercy that is in fate. Although this seems almost opposite to my first interpretation, I think both are valid, and the ambiguity is central to the human condition.

[shadowofwind]

An obvious alternative explanation for the relevance of the other person's black-hawk/elephant dream, is that I anticipated their dream by a few hours, rather than it being a daemon-inspired response to this discussion. I think that the truth of the matter contains both of those elements, and that this probably applies to all premonitions and dialogues with spirits. Someone on the other site pointed out that the black hawk is like a Roc, and that according to the Wikipedia page the mythological Naga that fights the bird Garuda signfies an elephant as well as a snake. http://www.kuraoka.org/2007%20photos...awkrattler.jpg

[The Cusp]

Not following your Muse description at all. An obvious alternative explanation for the relevance of the other person's black-hawk/elephant dream, is that I anticipated their dream by a few hours, rather than it being a daemon-inspired response to this discussion. I think that the truth of the matter contains both of those elements, and that this probably applies to all premonitions and dialogues with spirits. I LOLed at the "obvious" part. Are you sure it's just not that you focusing on that specific archetype is the sole reason that particular dream stood out to you? What if you were mulling over a completely different metaphor, might you not have found significance in a completely different dream? Might not every dream posted be meaningful in some way if you're focused on the right archetype? What's amazing is not that you can focus on something and everything will fit into place around it, but that you can control how things fall into place by choosing what to focus on. You mentioned the amount of control and influence you can have over people's dreams. The only control you can have over someone else's dream is to capture and direct their attention. A person is always in complete control and creating their own dream, but what we are not in complete cotrol of is our focusing our attention, and dreams are build around what you focus your attention on. The only way to manipulate someone's dreams is by manipulating what they focus on, which can be as easy as telling someone their fly is down and hoping they fall for it. That said, sometimes the way you describe your muse makes it sound like something other than your self. That and the fact that you actually call it a muse. A muse is a literally a focal point for your attention. So if it was something else, and the only way it could interact with your dreams was by focusing your attention, then yeah, a muse would be a good way to go.

[Darkmatters]

the muse is shared across many subconscious minds, that it has something like an independent will. I've said elsewhere that it has a sense of humor. Yesterday I said that it would be wrong for me to regard it as a subset of my own subconscious, since that would imply invasive influence of other people's dreams. If this muse is an archetype, then it's absolutely right to say it has something like an independent will. And it's also, as you said, wrong to regard it as a subset of your own PERSONAL subconscious. But it does not imply any kind of influence of or from other people's dreams, aside from the fact that archetypes are the same for all of us. Archetypes are the contents of the Collective Unconscious, later renamed by Jung as the Objective Psyche because already New Agers were using the term to explain telepathic phenomenon etc, which goes beyond the actual meaning of the term. A person's unconscious consists of 2 parts - the personal and the collective (aka subjective and objective). Archetypes are simply what in animals would be called instincts, or what's also been called Racial Memories or Cellular Memories. They're a system of ideas that are the same across the entire spectrum of human cultures. Figures that personify certain unchanging parts of the psyche - they're the pre-programmed firmware we're born with that shape the mind and make us human. Yours are essentially just like mine, are just like anybody else's. This is exactly why pre-scintific people have so frequently mistaken this realm as something external - some land we can all visit in dreams and trances etc, rather than recognizing it as an internal landscape that we all share in common. This also explains why archetypal dream figures do seem to have their own separate character traits that aren't supplied by us - because they absolutely are not supplied by our own personal unconscious (memories and experiences relegated to the unconscious) - but determined entirely by the hardwired collective unconscious. They're not really 'your' ideas or thoughts, but are instead specific hardwired ideas already placed there as a template to guide thinking at a basic level.

[shadowofwind]

Darkmatters: In Jung's preface to the Wilhelm translation of the I Ching, he clearly does not share your view that the collective subconscious was hardwired. It's clear though that he was careful about being too forthright with his views, since he had a professional reputation to uphold. In any case, Jung isn't an ultimate arbiter of truth, I care about what he says only insofar as it facilitates understanding of such subjects. Where there are facts that his views can't accommodate, I care as much about them as I care about other 'scientific' views such as that dogs don't dream.

[Darkmatters]

Darkmatters: In Jung's preface to the Wilhelm translation of the I Ching, he clearly does not share your view that the collective subconscious was hardwired. It's clear though that he was careful about being too forthright with his views, since he had a professional reputation to uphold. In any case, Jung isn't an ultimate arbiter of truth, I care about what he says only insofar as it facilitates understanding of such subjects. Where there are facts that his views can't accommodate, I care as much about them as I care about other 'scientific' views such as that dogs don't dream. Ok, I need to look into that. If that's true then my estimation of Jung is about to get the wind knocked out of it. Thanks for pointing it out. I do know he believed that Synchronicity suggests something possibly telepathic. However, he's merely the discoverer of the collective unconscious and it's first explorer - it has gone on to become a cornerstone of psychology. And of course as a psychological concept it includes nothing of the metaphysical. Does science really believe dogs don't dream? You and I both know better than that!! Maybe that's only certain scientists who believe that. Science itself has a way of self-correcting, even though individual scientists and small sub-groups of them may be wrong at times. You are right though that psychology can hardly be called a strict science - more of an exploratory discipline.

[shadowofwind]

Cusp: One thing I became aware of in the late 90's is that my sense of choice about where I put my attention isn't a direct experience of wielding that power. It's a mental model of that power, not much different from my sensate models of my surroundings or the condition of my body. Actually a lot of what seems like choice can be compelled, and a lot of what seems compelled may not be, and much of what goes into that is subconscious. I can manipulate that experience of choice in much the same way that I may manipulate my sense of tactile location by astral projecting. I can make it seem like I have more choice or less choice my changing how I represent my own psyche to myself, and without impacting my actual choice in quite the same way. Naturally, I don't know how accurate someone else's perception of their own choice may or may not be. And I wouldn't presume to say what someone else is or is not capable of doing based on the limits of my own awareness. But I'm pretty sure I have some ability to think/speak desires into form, I am not merely moving my attention between forms that come into being by some other process, though of course I do that also. And it seems to me that if you are capable of catching someone else's attention, then you are probably influencing the content of their attention when you do that, however slightly. If not, then you are in a better position to judge that for yourself than me. To partially answer your questions...Yes I'm sure that my attention does not merely filter existing experiences, selecting the most relevant events and mining those in relation to my question or interest. I've looked at that posibility carefully for many years, and it can not come close to accounting for my experience. I'm either anticipating or influencing events through some scientifically unexplainable manner. I think that a lot of other objective, scientific minded people see this about themselves also, though they usually don't talk about it because they have no way to fit it into the prevailing intellectual framework. And I think that many more people could have experiences that are more clearly like this, but they desire their experiences to be explainable in terms of a solidly defined system of cause and effect, which tends to suppress experiences that aren't like that. You and Sageous both have understanding that I consider to be valuable, and I found your suggestion to look more at archetypes to be quite helpful, even though my interpretation of that wasn't identical to what you meant. Rightly or wrongly, I also feel like you're trying to stuff me into a box that I don't fit in. I'm not saying that my box is bigger than yours, only that it's not your box, and I'm more interested in hearing what you are aware of and can do, rather than about what I can't do or can't be aware of because it's outside your experience. If claims that I make interest you, and you want to push on them a bit to see if I can back them up with understanding and more extensive information, then I'm up for that. But if your goal is to rescue me from my misconceptions, then I think you're misjudging who I am, and wasting our time. Maybe that's not what you're attempting at all, and its unfair of me to even suggest the possibility. If so I apologize - I know you almost not at all. I'm just letting you know that I'm bored with that kind of teacher/student delusion and don't want to go there.

[shadowofwind]

Continued response to Cusp: There is an ebb and flow with my relationship with my 'muse'. It is extremely sensitive to my questions - all I have to do is think a question and I can count on getting a response back, usually within 24 hours. A big part of the reason for that is the muse also inspires the questions. But there is a lot of room for my free will in the process also. I think there are several reasons most people in our era don't have strong experiences that can be described quite in this manner. One is that our religious traditions try to squeeze out everything except for the individual mortal and an omniscient, totalitarian idea of God. Another is that there is no conceivable scientific explanation for such a muse, so scientifically inclined people tend not to develop themselves in that direction. That doesn't leave very many people. Another factor is I'm unusually interested in understanding philosophical and religious subjects, and decades of questioning and following up on questions has built the process into something beyond what it started off as. Ironically, my first experiences with my 'muse', almost 40 years ago, were in the form of involuntary lucid dreams. Maybe that sounds like an oxymoron, but I'd find myself in a highly lucid state in terms of my intellect, but no direct control over the visual content of the dream. I think I'm not completely understanding what you're saying, and hence am speaking past you a little bit in my responses. So I apologize for that. In the past, my interaction with my muse was felt in the sense that I felt the things that it directed my attention to. (I almost said that I felt the forms that it put into my mind, but I'm following your suggestion of this. And I am aware of something of the movement of my attention. In some cases it's almos like I'm being transported somewhere.). More recently, I've felt something that's more like the muse itself. Near it, I feel my own predatory aggression, which it seems is also my fear of it, viewed in an opposite way. The muse itself, or the thought-metaphor that I experience in that direction, is scary in it's power, and also in....well, maybe that's it. I'd say it's got a hard lethality to it, but a lot of that is a reflection of my own nature, and I perceive benevolence there also. So my next step is understanding or otherwise arriving at some kind of choice in relation to my fear. Your suggestion of moving from thought to archetype was sort of in the right direction, that brought the fear more to the surface. This 'muse' is dangerous in the sense that it's closely connected to fate - it does kill people - death is not just a matter of increasing entropy and bad luck. Obviously, another possible source of fear is the light of it's reason, if I'm afraid of finding out what a cretin I am. But I've been dealing with that sort of discovery for years, and appreciate it's value. So if that's the issue now I'm not seeing it yet.

[shadowofwind]

Darkmatters: I read that dogs don't dream on an academic site, stated as if it was considered estrablished fact. No doubt you're right that it will fall out of fashion at some point though - it's too demonstrably wrong. If you can't find the Jung writing anywhere convenient, let me know because I'll be at my house next week where I have a copy, and will have time to summarize with a few quotes in January if that's helpful. The gist of it was that he asserted that the I Ching does actually work as an oracle - the responses don't merely seem relevant because of what we read into them, they actually are more relevant than chance would apparently allow for. He talks a little bit about western assumptions about causality, and contrasts those to eastern ideas. He doesn't say straight out that the scientific view is falsely limited. But he does say that based on his experience the I Ching phenomena is real, and he's clear that the scientific view can not accommodate that. I first messed with the I Ching in the mid 90's. My experience weakly agreed with Jung - it's not just a psychological trick. But when I tried it again a couple of years ago, it's behavior was much stronger. It seems it doesn't work equally well for all people at all times - it depends a lot on a person's development, and not just in terms of being able to read meanings into the images. I think that Jung owed some of his psychological insight to ideas he read in gnostic gospels and various Vedic and other eastern teachings that were first translated in that period. I don't know a lot about Jung, but I know a fair amount about some of that other stuff, and know that he was aware of it, and see that there are connections with what I do know about his work. Veering a bit off topic....Maybe you're acquainted with the Meyers Briggs types that are largely based on Jungian ideas. My type is INXP. For anyone reading who doesn't know this model, the 'I' is for introverted. I think the classification system breaks down a little bit here - for instance it doesn't distinguish shyness from isolation due to incompatible interests. But I'm a strong 'I'. The 'N' means a person regards ideas as more real than physical objects. I'm a strong 'N', and consider it to be a type of intelligence. About a quarter of the population scores an 'I', and about a quarter scores an 'N'. The 'X' means that I regard feeling as highly as thinking. Most people fall more in one category or the other. I regard feeling as a kind of thinking, though not the only important kind. Finally, the 'P' means I tend to try to flow with my environment, rather than trying to control my environment. I'm only weakly a 'P' with some of the opposite 'J' tendencies. A lot of people on this site are clearly J's, as I perceive them anyway. I just thought this topic might be fun for some people here - I guess nobody takes these categories too seriously, since they're collections of symptoms as much as they are based on principles.

[Darkmatters]

I did indeed find Jung's introduction to the i Ching, and I also did a quick google of the question "Do dogs dream?". The first site I found on dogs dreaming is Psychology Today, which says yes they do: Do Dogs Dream? | Psychology Today So yes, I suspect you must have found just one biased 'scientist's' viewpoint which was stated as an accepted fact. It goes onto state that animals with simpler minds than dogs are also known to dream. I actually am pretty familiar with much of Jung's writing, though admittedly rather new to it. But I've read several of his books now and am wading slowly through his massive tome Arcehtypes and the Collective Unconscious. I read carefully through the introduction to the I Ching - in fact, let me locate it online real quick: Foreword to the I Ching - By C. G. Jung And paste in relevant passages: The I Ching insists upon self-knowledge throughout. The method by which this is to be achieved is open to every kind of misuse, and is therefore not for the frivolous-minded and immature; nor is it for intellectualists and rationalists. It is appropriate only for thoughtful and reflective people who like to think about what they do and what happens to them -- a predilection not to be confused with the morbid brooding of the hypochondriac. As I have indicated above, I have no answer to the multitude of problems that arise when we seek to harmonize the oracle of the I Ching with our accepted scientific canons. But needless to say, nothing "occult" is to be inferred. He does indeed spend the entire beginning of the introduction saying that the Western mind is obsessed with rational scientific thinking, and that such a view will defeat any reading of the i Ching. He's talking here about the difference between logical linear left-brain thinking (which he's presenting as "scientific" and the quiet subtle intuitive wisdom of the subconscious, which can only come to us through moments of meditation dream or similar type of trancelike state. It's always necessary to shut off the loud vocalizations of the left (conscious) brain to allow the subtle murmuring of the subconscious reach the surface - and this is also accomplished by devices like automatic writing, word association, and interpreting Rorschach ink blots, as well as interpreting dreams. In exploring the unconscious mind, he discovered that ancient myths and religions as well as many other ancient disciplines now considered charlatanry (such as Alchemy) actually reveal to a large extent the workings of the subconscious mind - something logical linear Western thinking has disallowed. He goes on to clearly state that the mechanism that allows the I Ching to work is the same as that which allows us to interpret dreams - by examining and exploring something almost meaningless but still something that has a close link to the archetypal (ie something profound and powerfully symbolic) and by seriously trying to find meaning there, we access the depths of the subconscious and are able to tease forth its hidden wisdom, which so often seems counter-intuitive and offensive to Western logicality. From near the end of the introduction: Had a human being made such replies, I should, as a psychiatrist, have had to pronounce him of sound mind, at least on the basis of the material presented. Indeed, I should not have been able to discover anything delirious, idiotic, or schizophrenic in the four answers. In view of the I Ching's extreme age and its Chinese origin, I cannot consider its archaic, symbolic, and flowery language abnormal. On the contrary, I should have had to congratulate this hypothetical person on the extent of his insight into my unexpressed state of doubt. On the other hand, any person of clever and versatile mind can turn the whole thing around and show how I have projected my subjective contents into the symbolism of the hexagrams. Such a critique, though catastrophic from the standpoint of Western rationality, does no harm to the function of the I Ching. On the contrary, the Chinese sage would smilingly tell me: "Don't you see how useful the I Ching is in making you project your hitherto unrealized thoughts into its abstruse symbolism? You could have written your foreword without ever realizing what an avalanche of misunderstanding might be released by it." The Chinese standpoint does not concern itself as to the attitude one takes toward the performance of the oracle. It is only we who are puzzled, because we trip time and again over our prejudice, viz., the notion of causality. The ancient wisdom of the East lays stress upon the fact that the intelligent individual realizes his own thoughts, but not in the least upon the way in which he does it. The less one thinks about the theory of the I Ching, the more soundly one sleeps. What Jung is saying is that the interpretation of dreams is not a logical science, but a subtle art relying on leaps of intuition, and so also is the interpretation of the mysterious and obscure lines of text offered by this book, which many believe to be derived from ancient witchcraft. By holding the words loosely in your mind and searching honestly and openly for some meaning in them that might apply to your current situation (the question you addressed to the I Ching) you're really able to access the hidden depths of the subconscious. Jung seems to hold the view that it's actually jst as productive to externalize these ideas (of the subconscious) as to internalize them. Certainly anything originating in your collective unconscious does come from outside of yourself, and any archetypal figure you encounter does have objective reality and can appear also to other people in the right circumstances. And by projecting your subconscious thought-forms onto an external figure you perhaps allow yourself to interact with it more fully than if you see it 'only' as a strictly internal psychological phenomenon and product of 'your own mind' (which an archetype certainly cannot be rightly said to be). So perhaps seeing these phenomena as 'internal' and 'aspects of your own psyche' is somewhat limiting as regards to their effectiveness and your ability to interact with them meaningfully. From the perspective of your own mind (psyche) they absolutely are external, and they are objective truths available to all humans who are open to them. So I won't attempt to browbeat you and assert that you're wrong - I think your interpretation is just as valid as mine, and perhaps in some ways more so. Seeing archetypes as 'only' internal or external is to oversimplify them and reduce their significance. I must say though, before last night I would have said it a bit differently (I would have asserted that they're only internal aspects of your ow psyche). So I'm glad I decided to 'challenge' your viewpoint and ended up also challenging and deepening my understanding of my own. I still have much to learn from Jung, and this conversation is helping me to get there.

[shadowofwind]

Hi Darkmatters, The passages you pulled out of the preface aren't the ones that I had in mind, so here are a couple that relate more to my point: "This assumption involves a certain curious principle that I have termed synchronicity,[2] a concept that formulates a point of view diametrically opposed to that of causality. Since the latter is a merely statistical truth and not absolute, it is a sort of working hypothesis of how events evolve one out of another, whereas synchronicity takes the coincidence of events in space and time as meaning something more than mere chance, namely, a peculiar interdependence of objective events among themselves as well as with the subjective (psychic) states of the observer or observers....I agree with Western thinking that any number of answers to my question were possible, and I certainly cannot assert that another answer would not have been equally significant. However, the answer received was the first and only one; we know nothing of other possible answers. It pleased and satisfied me. To ask the same question a second time would have been tactless and so I did not do it: "the master speaks but once." The heavy-handed pedagogic approach that attempts to fit irrational phenomena into a preconceived rational pattern is anathema to me. Indeed, such things as this answer should remain as they were when they first emerged to view, for only then do we know what nature does when left to herself undisturbed by the meddlesomeness of man. One ought not to go to cadavers to study life. Moreover, a repetition of the experiment is impossible, for the simple reason that the original situation cannot be reconstructed. Therefore in each instance there is only a first and single answer." To summarize, he says that synchronicity does not imply causality, speaks of a "peculiar" interdependence of events, reaffirms his belief in western ideas about randomness, then declares that it would be tactless to try to probe the phenomena to answer the apparent contradiction. If its true that the synchronicity can be accounted for by hard wired similarities between people, then there's nothing "peculiar" about that which can't be investigated further to make it less mysterious. And if there's there's nothing "occult" going on with the I Ching, there's nothing wrong with asking questions multiple times to get a better understanding of how it behaves and why its answers seem so appropriate. Its as if he doesn't want pursue any line of investigation which may offend either system of belief, even though they stand in contrast with each other. I don't see how his statements that I quoted above can plausibly be interpreted as being consistent with the 'hard wired' idea. And yet, he says enough other things that do fit with the 'hard wired' idea that I can't fault your interpretation either. I think the quotes you picked distort the overall preface, though not any worse than I did (unintentionally) in my original post. So where to go for here? For myself, I have to set aside what Jung thought, and look to see if my experiences can be accounted for by the "hard wired" hypothesis. It seems like a reasonable hypothesis to me, and is one that I've considered extensively over a period of many years. My result is that there's just no friggin' way my experiences can plausibly fit that. And the I Ching's "peculiar" behavior can't be explained that way either, as Jung would have found out had he not shied away from pressing his investigation further. I think the reason he copped out is he guessed what he might find, and there would have been no way he could justify the result without sacrificing something that he had a lot invested in. In other words, he chose to perpetuate the fantasy that science and gnostic mysticism are "non-overlapping magisteria", to use a later term, because he valued both and wished to sacrifice neither. And he couldn't just say straight out that "my views are self-contradictory and I am unable to resolve the conflict", because he had a reputation to maintain, and it was a conflict that none of humanity's other great minds were able to resolve either. Since we were born later, we've got other relevant ideas that he didn't have available to him though, brilliant as he may have been. So I think its time to pick up that challenge, speaking for myself anyway. If it interests you, I can post more about why I don't think the "hard wired" idea works. It takes a lot of time, because my view is based on an accumulation of a lot of data, since practically any counter-example can be dismissed as a freakish coincidence. But its worth it to me if you regard the issue as unsettled.

[Darkmatters]

Thank you for writing that up, and for responding in a mature intelligent way. Well ok, I don't want to just get in an argument or assert that my interpretation is right and yours is wrong. I only wanted to show a different viewpoint on it, and I thank you for directing me to Jung's forward to the I Ching, which I had never seen. I still believe that by "cause and effect"and "Western" mentality he's referring strictly to the logical linear conscious process we refer to as left brain thinking, and that what he's recommending is what's left when you quiet that process down - the intuitive non-linear thinking of the subconscious. But I will admit that he tends to write about these subjects in a way that does leave them open to different interpretations (though "Of course nothing occult is to be inferred from this" is pretty straightforward). I also think you're right about different personality types approaching things from different perspectives (I am somewhat aware of the personality tests/types you mentioned, though I haven't taken the test myself) - and I won't continue to pester you on the subject. I think in the final analysis ether interpretation will yeild pretty similar results anyway. Peace.

[EbbTide000]

My 'shadowofwind' handle is after a Black Sabbath song that came out a few weeks before I signed up on another site, then I reused it here. For whatever it's worth, it goes ... Dear Shadowofwind Lobsang Ramper published his first book, "The Third Eye" in 1958. In one of his books he described how that each time he re-entered his physical body after his OBE's, (which he called astral travel), his body was stinky and cold and took a bit of adjusting to every time he returned. I found his (LR's) 11th book, (in the same shop where I bought, "The Shadow of the Wind, today), called, "Feeding The Flame" published 1971. He talks a lot about dreams and OBE. I only have 5 of his books. I want to say somthing but too tired. It is past midnight. Hi DarkMatters, thanks for the pm. I miss you. Glad to hear you are in good health and busy.

[EbbTide000]

I am going to sound bold because real OBE, (LOBSANG RAMPER type astral travel) is my lifetime goal. Mum found a Lobsang Ramper book in a tiny country town newspaper shop when she had escaped a violent husband and was saftly tucked away as a houskeeper in an historical homestead, (clasified A1 by the National Trust) on a beautiful 1200 acer property, in 1970. I was 10 years old and mum would be so excited when a new book would appear in the newspaper shop. She would read something particularly interesting and come to me very enthusiastically to read it to me. She and I would practice and hope every night to really get out of our body and be Freeeeee. Mum and I, way back then, did share some experiences on that quiet homstead. So Dont you guys SLAM me. And I will share very different stuff about OBE from Rampa and Nickolas Newport than is talked about on Dreamviews.

[EbbTide000]

Ok One strong corrolation between Nick Newport and Lobsang Rampa is they both took the questions of folk who read their work seriously. Readers posted Lobsang comments and questions in letters. Nick sends me umpteen emails with answers to recent Questions he recieved from those doing his obe courses: Lucidology 101, 102, 103, and Oversoul Connection. Mum and I would giggle about how Lobsang would grizzle about folk not including a return stamp and sometimes not even a return address for him to send them an answer to their question. On page 29 of the book I bought yesterday called Feeding The Flame, puplished in 1971 he wrote: But the Old Man groaned as he looked at the envelop, and he groaned because neither on the envelope nor on the letter was there any address. In the USA and Canada people somtimes put their name and address on the envelope but rarely on the letter where it should be. In England and Europe the letter itself bears the name and address of the sender,and so one can always reply to letters from England and Europe, yet this particular person groaning so bitterly and so libellously about being swindled had no address to which one could reply. What should one do then? The signature was just 'Mabel', nothing else, no surname, no address, and the postmark - well, that could not be read even with a magnifying glass. So you people who complain that you had no reply who complain that you are being swindled, ask yourself - Did you really put your address on the letter or on the envelope? A little time ago we had a letter and we couldn't read a single word of it. Probably it was in English, but we just couldn't read any part of it, so it had to go unanswered. The purpose of a letter is to make something known, and if the writing cannot be read the letter fails in its purpose, and if there is no address on it, well, it is just a wast of time. Then Lobsang goes on to something very interesting about how powerful words can be. Then much later in the book he explains how to use powerful words to remember being OBE. LOBSANG says we are OBE every night but forget it or get the real OBE hoplessly tangled-up with random memmories, (dreams).

[EbbTide000]

Dear Reader This is the bit about "Words of Power" mentioned in my last post. Page 30 ... But sounds, well, different sounds are peculiar to different cultures. People have certain sounds which alleged to do them good, such as the sound of 'OM' correctly pronounced. Yet there are other sounds which are not socially acceptable. The sounds of certain four letter words, for example, are not socially acceptable, and yet perhaps those same sounds are absolutely permissible in the language of another culture.There is a certain four letter sound which is naughty, naughty, very naughty indeed in English, and yet the sound in Russian is perfectly correct, perfectly decent, and used many times a day. Do not place to great on sounds. Many people get almost demented wondering if they are pronouncing 'OM' correctly. Of itself 'OM' is nothing, it doesn't mean a thing - of itself, even if you pronounce it as it should be pronounced in Sanskrit. It is useless to pronounce a ' metaphysical word of power' correctly unless you also think correctly. Consider this; think of your radio programme.You have certain sounds which, of themselves, cannot be transmitted. Those sounds can only be transmitted if first of all you have a carrier wave. A carrier wave is similar to the light you have to show before you can transmit a cine picture or a television picture, or show your slides on a screen. The slides themselves, without light, are nothing. You have to have a light beam as a carrier, and in preciseely the same way you have to have a carrier wave before you can transmit your radio programme. Page 31. Again, in exactly the same way the sound of 'OM',etc., or some other 'word of power' merely acts as a carrier wave to correct thoughts. Do you want it made clearer? All right. Suppose we made a phonograph record which had nothing but 'OM' correctly pronounced, 'OM, OM, OM, OM, OM,' you could play that record for ever and a day provided it did not wear out first, and you just wouldn't do any good because the phonographic player, or gramophone, if you happened to be in England, is an unthinking machine. 'OM' is useful only when one is thinking correctly as well as 'sounding' correctly. The best way to improve is to get one's thoughts right and let the sound take care of itself.

[EbbTide000]

I have a hard back copy of Lobsang Rampa's first book, first published in 1956. My copy is the 9th impression 1958. Here is the Publisher's Forward. From the beginning this book has been an enigma. Some have doubted its authenticity, many have been convinced of its essential truth, tens of thousands have enjoyed it for its narrative power and its evocation of scenes and characters whether true or imaginary. Before publication (as stated in a forward to the first edition) the publishers submitted the MS. to nearly twenty readers, in an attempt to obtain confirmation of the author's statements.These readers were persons of intelligence and experience, usually with special knowledge of the subject. Their opinions were so contradictory that no positive result emerged. What one expert doubted was accepted unhesitatingly by another. On publication many reviews expressed varying degrees of scepticism as to its authentism, but the overwhelming majority agreed that, authentic or not, the book had remarable qualities. The Times Literary Supplement, for example, wrote: "A more pertinent question can be confidently answered. There is no doubt that this book was worth publishing since, though it would be a matter of extraordinary difficulty to say whether it is a work of truth, it comes near to being a work of art." It has now been announced in the press that the author's identity has been discovered, that he is no Tibetan but an Englishman who has never been to Tibet. The sceptics are delighted, and declare that the book is bogus and the lama no more than a faker. Yet, if they are right, one question remains unanswered, which is to us as publishers the most interesting, and the most perplexing, of all. It is a question we have asked ourselves a score of times in the past twelve months. How could the man we know as the author of The Third Eye have written a book, of which a reader who knows Llasa has said : "The descriptions of Llasa and Tibetan family life are completely authentic. What ever the author's real nationality may be, there is not the slightest doubt that he was brought up in Tibet from an early age" ? The author's own explanation is a hard one for the scientifically minded Western reader to accept. It is that in 1947 the spirit of an actual Tibetan lama "entered into" the body of an Englishman, known till then as Cyril Henry Hoskins, and by degrees drove out his mind and spirit, replacing it with a Tibetan lama's personality. It is not for us as publishers to comment on the validity of such a theory. Many students of the occult accept such an event as almost a commonplace. Possesion by evil spirits (or by good ones) is constantly referred to in earlier times. A psychologist of the school of Jung might think of the matter in terms of access to "the collective unconscious". As publishers of The Third Eye we would welcome any inquiry which tended to explain an undeniable strange phenomenon, how a man with no record of writing ability, no known access to Tibet, could have written (almost, it could appear, by accident) a book that has been accepted by many students of the East as authentic and has held spellbound untold readers in every country of the world in which it has been published. Dear reader That is the whole Publisher's Forward to the ninth impression (1958) of The Third Eye by Lobsang Ramper.

[EbbTide000]

Page 1 of 8 Page 154 begins Chapter 11 of The Third Eye by Lobsang Rampa first published 1958 Chapter 11 TRAPPA #My Youthful determination was devoted to passing the examination at the first attempt. As the date of my 12th birthday approached, I gradually slackened off studies, for the examination started on the day after my birthday. The past years had been filled with intensive studies. Astrology, herbal medicine, anatomy, religious ethics, and even on the correct compounding of incense. Tibetan and Chinese languages, with special with special reference to good calligraphy and mathematics. There had been little time for games, the only “game” we had time for was judo, because we had a stiff examination on this subject. About three months before, the Lama Migyar Dondup had said: “Not so much revision, Lobsang, it merely clutters up the memory. Be quite calm, as you are now, and the knowledge will be there.” #So the day arrived. At six in the morning I and fifteen other candidates presented ourselves at the examination hall. We had a short service to put us in the right frame of mind, and then, to make sure that none of us had yielded to unpriestly temptation, we had to strip and be searched, after which we were given clean robes. The Chief Examiner led the way from the little temple of the examination hall to the closed cubicles. These were stone boxes about six feet by ten feet in size and about eight feet high. Outside the boxes police-monks patrolled all the time. Each of us was led to a cubical and told to enter. The door was shut, locked, and a seal applied. When all of us had been sealed into our own little box, monks brought writing materials and the first set of questions to a small trap in the wall. We were also brought buttered tea and tsampa. The monk who brought that told us that we could have tsampa three times a day, and tea as often as we wanted. Then we were left to deal with the first paper. One subject a day for six days, and we had to work from the first light in the morning until it was too dark to see at night. Our cubicles had no roof, so we got whatever light came into the main examination hall. (Page one 372 words)