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    Thread: What if life actually is all a dream?

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      What if life actually is all a dream?

      I am not saying that this is what I believe, just speculating:

      What if life is all a dream? What if what we perceive as being waking reality is just a repeated dream, with laws of physics and such just due to our expectations - or more specifically if it is a big shared dream the laws of physics would be due to shared expectations, and thus very hard or almost impossible to break because then someone would need to reach a level of lucidity (enlightenment) with awareness and control strong enough to counteract shared expectations.

      The other day I had a memory which I realized I had no way to tell wether it was a waking memory or a dream memory, and the only way to tell was to call my husband who had been there in the scene in my memory, and verify whether he also remembered it. He did, and thus I decided that it was a waking memory. However, it occurred to me that if at the time I called my husband to verify the memory I was also dreaming, then my "proof" would count for nothing.

      What if what we call waking reality are dreams during which we fail to recognize that we are dreaming, even in hindsight. What if those are the times when reality checks fail? Reality checks can really only prove that something is a dream, but can they prove that the rest is not a dream?

      Is there any way to prove that our lives are not all a dream?

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      Imo, no there's no way to prove that our lives are not a dream. If you could put our brain in a jar and connect it to a computer full of data, anyone could make us believe that we were a bunch of super-heros, because we would have no way of finding out that the information that our brain received was only data from a computer.

      We are in the matrix ^^
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      I love this post! There is so much essence to it, I don't want to spoil it with my comments...

      I think RCs fail because we move through life asleep... when we awake life feels like a dream, just lasts a bit longer

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      In a way our lifes are dreams, because every one of us experience the reality subjectively, and everyone sees it differently. It's because of our beliefs, memory and experience. Every one of us have different experiences in same situations. And every one of us reactes to the situations differently. Very few people see reality the way it really is. Those people who meditate much (enlightened buddhists) can see reality for what it is. When I think deeper about this I start to understand, that there is no "bad situation". There are only situations and nothing more. Neither are good nor bad. You imagining it. But you still can enjoy them and even more because you are not afraid if it will sudendly end (in case it's a "good" experience) or you are not uncomfortable while experiencing it (in case it's a "bad" experience). It is very hard to explain this kind of thing. It is almost impossible. There is no language which can teach you this. Only direct experience or personal realization can do it. There are some books on this topic and they are really interesting and makes you more optimistic about your life. Eckhart Tolle is a very good author on this topic.

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      Ah, but I am not comfortable with the idea that there are no good or bad experiences even if it is all a dream. To me morality matters, even in dreams. Good and bad exist, whether we are dreaming or not. No matter how enlightened I become, I hope I will never believe that the Holocaust or pedophilia or rape is neither good nor bad, but just is/was. To me the question of morality is separate from the question whether it can all be a dream. Even if it is all a dream, it does not mean that morality does not apply. Also I would argue that my religion could still be valid even if it is all a dream. A dream like nature of reality would not negate the importance of it. Love could still be better than hatred, even if it is all a dream.

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      These worlds are real, but there is a greater reality than these lower worlds

      Joanna, this is a really good question - is this life all a dream? I think in some ways yes, in that when we can experience greater degrees of reality in comparison it seems dream-like. How do you tell what's illusion? In a sense we are blinded by illusion here in that the mind tries to have control over the most spiritual part of ourselves - we are each Soul, a divine spark. So when the mind and emotions "rule" the day, how can the divine nectar of the most sacred part of ourselves get through and let us see what's what? One technique I use is to sing an ancient word - it's a love song to God and an unconditional prayer - called HU. It's a very simple thing, but powerful. It's been used by many people in many lands for thousands of years. When sung for about 10 minutes a day (sung Huuuuuu) - it can help you tune into the inner guidance to become aligned with your spiritual purpose and see beyond the illusions of life. Once one connects to this "voice of God" one can see past the illusions of life in these lower worlds. I think we are here to gain spiritual experience, so I don't discount the value of life here. However, there are more wonderful worlds in the spiritual realms that one can experience. Here's where you can find out more about HU. Eckankar: Miracles in Your Life You'll see a really nice video there - just a few minutes long.

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      Quote Originally Posted by Samick View Post
      In a way our lifes are dreams, because every one of us experience the reality subjectively, and everyone sees it differently. ...When I think deeper about this I start to understand, that there is no "bad situation". There are only situations and nothing more. Neither are good nor bad. You imagining it. But you still can enjoy them and even more because you are not afraid if it will sudendly end (in case it's a "good" experience) or you are not uncomfortable while experiencing it (in case it's a "bad" experience).
      I started subscribing to this idea just a few years ago. When I was in a bad situation, I was wondering why is it happening and I felt sorry for myself. Now I believe that everything is just a situation. It's on us, if we see it as good, or bad. I even believe, that we are presented with situations so we can learn from them. And others, for example our tormentors are here to help us learn to cope and how to solve situations. My life since then is somewhat more peacefull. I don't hold grudge, I try my best to forgive.

      But I don't believe that this life is a dream. Maybe it's a simulation, maybe it's suppose to be a learning place, so we realize, nothing matters, except love and knowledge.

      Quote Originally Posted by JoannaB View Post
      Ah, but I am not comfortable with the idea that there are no good or bad experiences even if it is all a dream. To me morality matters, even in dreams.
      The way I understood Samick's post was, that if something bad is happening to him. He takes it as just a situation and makes the best of it. I don't think he meant that it's ok to hurt others, because there is no good or bad.

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      To clarify I don't actually believe that life is a dream, It just occurred to me that I have no way of knowing that it is not - it could be all a dream, and it could be that it is not a dream, based on the evidence either is possible.

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      But what is a dream really and what is life? Changing through the ages definitions?

      I keep an open mind - life is a mystery, and chances are we may never understand what it is. Yet, that does not prevent us from marvelling the beauty of it, even in it the simplest things or during the hardest challenges.
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      Australian aborigines believe, that waking world is a dream and dream world is the "real deal".

      If we don't really see the world with our eyes, we only see it as our mind interprets it based on light waves reflecting off of the objects, then who knows what really is out there.

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      Is life itself a dream?

      JoannaB, I have a question for you:

      Does it matter?

      As long as you are being true to yourself in all situations, kind and fair to the people you encounter, and fully open to the wonder and surprise of any reality in which your soul might currently reside, does it really matter whether it's a dreaming mind, an all powerful God, or random acts of nature pulling the strings of your environment? I'm not sure it does.

      Great question, though, and one that every dedicated dreamer ought to find herself asking at some point -- and generally never really being satisfied with the answers!


      P.S. -- and where in whatever reality is Sivason? This question was designed for him...

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      Sageous, I agree that for the most part it does not matter, EXCEPT my earliest lucid dreams were "I am flying! This must be a dream. but I could also fly in real life." After some unsuccessful attempts to defy gravity in real life, I decided that it couldn't be done, and that my early lucid dreams were just not aware enough and thus had faulty logic in them. But if this is all a dream, maybe I could become enlightened and fly in real life too. I feel that that would be awesome. You could of course rightfully say: what does it matter since you can fly in dreams once you get lucid (something I am currently not yet able to achieve again, but I know I someday will). And to be honest while it logically does not make any sense, why I would prefer to be able to fly in waking life, but I don't have to be logical all the time! I still think that flying in this part of my life would be awesome. And even though most of me knows it is not possible, but a part of me wishes it were.

      Also note that if this is all a dream, I then sincerely hope that it is a shared dream and that I am not actually the only conscience out there. Unless of course the tulpa people are right after all, and this is all God's dream, and the way he created us was that we are his tulpas. I suppose that would work. Although personally I am rather inclined to not actually believe that.

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      ^^ You may have missed my point, or I suppose I failed to make it well enough.

      I had thought you were questioning your state globally, that you were finding the reality of your dreams was tending to bump into the reality of waking life in your memories; which, by extension, caused you to wonder about the nature of the whole deal. If that was the incorrect interpretation, then my bad.

      That you cannot personally fly in waking reality only means that waking reality's design prevents it... as does dreaming reality for many people. In other words, waking reality will always, by design, prevent you from non-assisted controlled flight -- does the fact that there are specific rules, rules shared more or less by the billions of beings on this earthly reality, really prove that it all isn't just an incredibly organized dream? ... So don't jump out any windows here, no matter how confident in personal-powered flight you become in dreams!

      Again, this world may be just your dream, or one shared by all, or a single being's dream within which you are just a participating DC, or perhaps reality is all there is and dreams are just, well, dreams. It really doesn't matter. Does it?
      Last edited by Sageous; 04-12-2013 at 05:41 AM.
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      Quote Originally Posted by JoannaB View Post
      Ah, but I am not comfortable with the idea that there are no good or bad experiences even if it is all a dream. To me morality matters, even in dreams. Good and bad exist, whether we are dreaming or not.
      You seem to be confusing two different things here. I'll respond to them separately:

      1) Morality does not apply to experiences, only to actions or intentions. An experience is something that happens to you, not something you do. What makes the holocaust or rape immoral is the actions and intentions of the perpetrator.

      2) the goodness or badness of an experience (clumsy wording, sorry) is relative and is largely dependent on YOU. Certain parts of an experience are beyond your control, and therefore it would be pointless and destructive to indulge in useless emotional exhibitions like moaning or lamenting - for instance the US economy. Does it suck? Hell yes! But there would be no point in bitching or moaning about it or engaging in hand-wringing --- none of those actions would change it in any way. Of course you can't help worrying to some extent about how it will affect your future and the lives of the next generations etc - that's a natural reaction and again, you can't help feeling that way. But some people will go farther and bitch and moan about it to everyone who's around - wasting a lot of energy in histrionics and wrecking the stability of their own state of mind. Negative emotions are destructive - to yourself and to everyone in contact with you, and it's up to you wether or not you indulge in them and to what degree. Who would you trust more to be leading in a bad situation - someone who's able to put aside excess emotional histrionics or someone who allows themselves to indulge in them?

      This is the pure genius of the Buddhist approach - clear your mind of the destructive excesses of emotional histrionics and choose how you feel about each experience. If you're hungry and don't know where your next meal is coming from, will you jump up and down and bash your head against the wall and cry out loud, or will you rid yourself of pointless fear and anger that only bring on anxiety symptoms, and get yourself in a clear and positive state of mind?

      About the 1st example I posted - the US economy, the best approach as I see it would be to put your energy into learning possible ways to approach it - research into moving to another country or try to find some way to get yourself set up incase of a disaster - and then put it out of your mind. Literally just stop thinking about it - no good letting it cast a black shadow over everything in your life. Learn to control your thinking so you can decide which emotions can get a handle on you. Don't have the TV on all day on a news station where you'll constantly be reminded of all the bullshit for instance, and take the initiative to give yourself something else to focus on. You can gain a great deal of control over what you think about and how, and this gives you much better control over your state of mind at any given time. It's simply a way of being proactive about your emotional state rather than reactive.

      Another way to look at it - hypothetical example: two soldiers both lost their legs and are now wheelchair bound. One is always bitching and shouting about it, the other manages to stay in a positive frame of mind. Which would you rather hang around with? Which would you rather be?
      Last edited by Darkmatters; 04-12-2013 at 06:57 AM.

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      Quote Originally Posted by Sageous View Post
      ^^ You may have missed my point, or I suppose I failed to make it well enough.

      I had thought you were questioning your state globally, that you were finding the reality of your dreams was tending to bump into the reality of waking life in your memories; which, by extension, caused you to wonder about the nature of the whole deal. If that was the incorrect interpretation, then my bad.

      That you cannot personally fly in waking reality only means that waking reality's design prevents it... as does dreaming reality for many people. In other words, waking reality will always, by design, prevent you from non-assisted controlled flight -- does the fact that there are specific rules, rules shared more or less by the billions of beings on this earthly reality, really prove that it all isn't just an incredibly organized dream? ... So don't jump out any windows here, no matter how confident in personal-powered flight you become in dreams!

      Again, this world may be just your dream, or one shared by all, or a single being's dream within which you are just a participating DC, or perhaps reality is all there is and dreams are just, well, dreams. It really doesn't matter. Does it?
      Sageous, oh that is correct, my memories were causing me to wonder about the nature of the whole deal.however, I don't feel that I missed your point. You had asked what difference it would make to me whether the whole thing is a dream or not, and I gave you an example. Perhaps extending it from the example to the more general: if waking life were a dream more might be possible in waking life by shear power of a strong will. Yes, I feel that it could matter deeply.

      Datkmatters, I appreciate your point. And while in theory I agree and can appreciate the Buddhist approach. However in practice that is very different from my mentality. I am a person driven by strong emotions. On the other hand, I don't think that life being a dream would necessarily mean more controlled emotions. yes, Buddhists approach it that way and life is a dream is a very Buddhist tenant. however, I think those are separate. In fact dreams are often more driven by strong emotions than reality is, and in dreams strong emotions result in big changes. So "this is a dream" therefore "must not engage in excess histrionics" does not logically follow. It is one approach, but I think the state globally of what our life is is a separate issue from whether we should or shouldn't let emotions control our lives. Personally, I am not convinced that detachment from strong emotions is the best solution, but that's a separate issue.

      Edit: Even though I kind of think that this is off topic because to me at least emotions versus reason is a totally separate subject from the nature of life whether it is a dream or not. However, it occurred to me that detachment from strong emotions does not have to be a prerequisite to enlightenment or superior: immersion in strong emotions and an acceptance of one's own emotional nature is an alternate path, and to me a preferable one. Different people have different ways to become lucid, and different people have a different approach to emotions. To me a datachment from emotions would be kind of castration.
      , and would leave me less complete and not myself.
      Last edited by JoannaB; 04-12-2013 at 12:50 PM.

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      Well I think the Buddhist idea is "If life is a dream, then let's get lucid!"

      Personally I don't advocate complete detachment, just acceptance of things as they are and learning how to wrest control away from emotions when necessary. Emotions are like stupid silly monkeys jumping around and doing ridiculous things - there are times when you definitely don't want them to be driving. But I mean sure, when your emotions are positive then by all means, indulge away! Of course some people have a problem with positive emotions as well - maybe they get too carried away and do things they later come to their senses and wonder why they did. In those cases, just like in cases of runaway negative emotions I'd say it's best to learn how to swat those pesky emotions on the nose and tell them to sit the hell down and shut up.

      But hey - Im not gonna get too attached to the idea of convincing you of something you seem dead set against..

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      You compare emotions to pesky silly monkeys, I compare them to the essence of what makes us human what differentiates us from robots and prevents us from being truly evil - true evil to me is detached from all emotions clinically using reason and logic without being hampered by pesky emotions of love and compassion. Even negative emotions have their place and purpose in my opinion. Men who value reason greater than emotions have used that for many decades to control women and dismiss them as being hysterical emotionally driven hypochondriacs. Emotions have been given a bad rep. Oh, and I am not saying that all men are in favor of cold logic and that all women value emotions more, that's a stereotype that of course does not apply to all but being a stereotype it is of course based on generalizations of some truths. I think different people are wired differently, different approaches work for different people. And one legitimate approach is the emotional approach and I believe it is as valid as the rational approach for different people. And yes, I know that I said that detachment from emotions leads to evil. I should have phrased that as it can lead to evil. But come to think of it, so can the strong emotion approach of course.

      One can be lucid with strong emotions too. The lucid dreams that I had as a young adult elicited some of the strongest emotions that I ever had which carried over into waking life. The adrenaline rush, the empowerment, the sense of triumph.

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      Quote Originally Posted by JoannaB View Post
      Sageous, oh that is correct, my memories were causing me to wonder about the nature of the whole deal.however, I don't feel that I missed your point. You had asked what difference it would make to me whether the whole thing is a dream or not, and I gave you an example. Perhaps extending it from the example to the more general: if waking life were a dream more might be possible in waking life by shear power of a strong will. Yes, I feel that it could matter deeply.
      Okay then; you did indeed completely miss my point.

      I did not request examples or arguments about doing dream things in waking life; that never even occurred to me. Instead I suggested you to consider that perhaps the best thing to do is maintain a strong sense of Self in all conscious environments, and whether if you do that, would the base nature of your environment really matter. I didn't realize this was another thread about bringing the things you do in dreams to waking life; had I, then I would not have posted. Sorry, and never mind.

      I guess that's why Darkmatter's main point -- that Buddhists, whose lamas are arguably and historically both masters of lucid dreaming and relating the two worlds of dreaming and waking, might have a valid way to hold to their Selves in any conscious environment -- was also overlooked (BTW, when I read his first post, I found it wasn't about abandoning emotion at all, as he mentioned it only to point out the distraction that extreme, uncontrolled emotion might cause). I guess we may both have misunderstood the nature of this thread. I hope we didn't lead it too far astray.

      Again, all apologies for misunderstanding your OP. I was not looking for an argument, just making an apparently irrelevant suggestion.
      Last edited by Sageous; 04-12-2013 at 04:02 PM.

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      Oh, no, I am the one who should appologize. I get overly argumentative at times. I guess that's a danger of relying so heavily on emotions. I am much more likely to bring my own threads off topic. Most of the discussion in this thread has not been on my original topic, and I mostly have myself to blame for that. I think zoth's first comment hit the nail of my original topic right on the head. On the other hand I think that off topic conversations are not a bad thing. I like discussing more than one topic. Not sure whether or not I missed your point or could not understand it because it was too foreign to my way of thinking, but that does not mean that I do not appreciate having comments from others who think differently - I do. And maybe I should when I am less distracted and more focused reread your comments and maybe I will get something else out of them. To be honest I do not even know what really would be the consequences if any if I were to find out that life is all a dream - most of me thinks/feels that it would matter a lot though. However, my original point was that I think there is no way to prove that it is not a dream, and I found that to be an interesting observation, before getting sidetracked by all kinds of topics that may or may not be related, and may or may not have been misunderstandings. It is so hard for two people to understand eachother at times because we approach things from such different points of view with so many different experiences, so something that makes perfect sense to you may not make any sense to me, and vice versa.
      Last edited by JoannaB; 04-12-2013 at 04:14 PM.

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      ^^ Okay then, and fair enough!


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      JoannaB,

      Maybe I should read more carefully but....Since you believe in God, it seems to me almost axiomatic that the world is God's dream. Suppose it wasn't God's dream, what would that even mean?

      I don't think we can make sense of it strictly as a collective human dream. No human has the awareness necessary to coordinate different aspects of it. I guess we can agree that there appears to be at least some degree of coordination. That seems to me to imply some type of mind on that scale. Even if its not even conscious in a human sense, it still seems to me to amount to a kind of intelligence.

      The 'depth' of the collective dream is clearly in some sense deeper than sleeping dreams. In our sleeping dreams, we deal with images that represent objects. We may dream of a phone for instance, but its just a symbol of a phone that looks like a phone, internally it doesn't have a design. Unless you build cell phones for a living you'd have no idea how to dream that, and even then you'd only be able to dream it in an incomplete manner. And if you analyzed it you'd likely find a lot of mistakes or inconsistencies with the way you imagined it. Waking life, in contrast, seems to be mostly without such inconsistencies. If you examine something closely, the details generally become real in a way that doesn't contradict other details. (I don't think this is always true, but it seems to be built into the dream to a remarkably comprehensive extent.) And it seems to me that the objects in the waking dream, just like objects in sleeping dreams, are metaphors that represent things. What I mean to say is that the images represent objects which represent ideas, or something like that. I guess I don't really have a point in this paragraph, just expressing some thoughts.

      OK, maybe this does meander towards a point. Sensate data isn't the only kind of awareness we have of the waking dream. I think you could actually distinguish a really comprehensive simulation from the actual thing. It wouldn't be aligned right with what you feel the dream should be, you would feel it to be missing something, that it was like a mask with nothing in it. I guess that part of this is because objects and events do represent something deeper, and if the story that the dream tells isn't right, you sense that, even if all the details seem quite perfectly done.

      As it happens, I feel this way about the waking dream also, and maybe that's most of what what drives my obsessive quest to get to the bottom of it all. It feels to me like someone took the world and replaced it with a hollowed out caricature of itself, nothing seems to be the way it was or should have been. If the world were a body, it would be in shock. If it were a computer, it would be booted in recovery mode.

      I guess I feel something else besides that too, that the zombie-corpse-of-a-cosmic-angel aspect of reality isn't the full extent of it, that there's something healthier sort of abiding in the background. That would be like your God I guess.
      Sivason and Sageous like this.

    22. #22
      Member Flex's Avatar
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      "How can the world be real if what we observe the world through is not tangible?"

    23. #23
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      <span class='glow_9ACD32'>Karlitaki</span>'s Avatar
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      Life isn't a dream ... are u dreaming ? XD
      if it was a dream then why i can't wake up whenever i want ?
      no offense but life is life , finito.

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      Quote Originally Posted by Karlitaki View Post
      Life isn't a dream ... are u dreaming ? XD
      if it was a dream then why i can't wake up whenever i want ?
      no offense but life is life , finito.
      Maybe because you are not ready to wake up yet. Maybe it is not you or I who is the dreamer. I am a religious person and it has occurred to me that life could be God's dream. It could also be a shared dream. But you could also be right, and this idea of life being a dream could very well be a very silly idea. I am not sure which.

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      Is Life a Dream?

      Joanna, I think that's a really intriguing question. I've experienced many dreams which are more real than waking life. There was a Chinese sage who once asked (you may have heard this before): "Am I man dreaming I'm a butterfly, or butterfly dreaming I'm a man?" The world of dreams is real and so are the experiences we have there. The "rules" there are a different than here, as those worlds exist at a different level of vibration (colors are more intense, spaces are bigger). The challenge is that the dream censor will "clothe" our dream in symbols so that it's hard to decipher the meaning sometimes. The reason it does this is to protect the ego, or that part of ourselves that isn't very open to receiving truth directly, because it would upset us and cause an imbalance. However, there's a way to bypass the dream censor I've found. And that is to do a spiritual exericse before sleep. What I do is sing an ancient word called HU, which can be sung by anyone of any faith (pronounced or sung as Huuuuu). It opens you up to the truth within, and aligns you with Divine Spirit's plan for you. You can say, "Please give me the experience that's best for me tonight in my dreams," and then go to sleep as usual. Try this for a couple of nights and see what comes. If you're having a particular challenge or problem out here in the physical world, you might want to ask for guidance about that, and have pen and paper ready in case you wake up in the middle of the night with an insight. The same principle applies in waking life for me. In a sense life is a dream in that life is always giving us messages through daily events - they're like jewels if we really look and are open. If you're interested in the art of spiritual dreaming, I can suggest a book for purchase on Amazn that includes people's stories about how their dreams are really relevations of inner truth Amazon.com: The Art of Spiritual Dreaming (9781570431494): Harold Klemp: Books. I can also recommend the Spiritual Experiences Guidebook which is free and shows how you can understand your dreams better, get keys to past lives, do Soul Travel, etc. Free Book: Spiritual Experiences Guidebook and CD

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