The Dream Cartography Thread

[Queen Zukin]

I'm looking for volunteers who would like to participate in a long-term venture into dream cartography. I've been reading a lot about the Russian DreamHackers and dream cartography. Dream cartography is the mapping of your dreams. It's similar to having a dream journal, but instead of writing the plot down, you are mapping the location. Overtime, you'll find that locations will coincide and that you'll have some major "breakthrough." Taken from some translations: "And last but not least: we nearly went crazy when we found out that our maps had common basic details. Some special places are present on nearly every map. For example, K. writes about a huge building, which has a link with a stadium. And I have this formation too. And, as I know where this place is situated, I can give K. some useful advice and in this way I can help her create a map. And, in the case of telling K. about the nearest landmarks, she may have had a very interesting insight-she came to know that she had already visited those landmarks thousands of times, and consequently she was caught up by a wonderful and inexpressible feeling of dream recollection." ... "Then "hackers" found out that if they got their practice right (by searching for necessary places and avoiding unnecessary places) a Dreamer becomes involved in a shocking process. Each new recollection and description of a dream will rope you into a chain of very old recollections (ten or twenty years old)! Hundreds of places, where you have been hundreds of times will be revealed in a bright flash! In such moments a man lives through a very powerful state. ["It is like a 'weekly Satori' "] You will not feel euphoria, but rather a strange thirst-faster! More! The everyday "reality" of your family, friends, your job, the "real" world will leave you. You are neither here nor there-on a strange borderline. Dreams become very transparent. You remember yourself in a Dream every night. Achievements turn out to be heady. The words of Castaneda and don Juan gain a new meaning. You see something in them that you didn't manage to catch before. BAH! Subsequent collapse into an insufferable depression-you want to commit suicide. And yet again you have to gather up your strength bit-by-bit and continue your practice until new ups-and-downs come, breaking certain membranes in yourself. And later you take your map, knead it like a piece of dough, and use it purposefully. Then you don't need it any more. By this time, as a rule, there is no "fog of war" on it. Some time later you turn your attention to those strange "blind spots" on the "border range" of the Tonal. But, as the saying goes, that's another story." A few years ago, I did some dream cartography of my own. I took a big sheet of paper and began the process. Overtime, I condensed it into something smaller. The end product was this: I did, in fact, have some strange breakthroughs while making this map. I found that some places did link up to each other, and by mapping I was able to remember dreams that I had had years ago. Unfortunately, my motivation ran dry. It's been years since I worked on that thing and the bigger version is lost somewhere. I think it wouldn't really make much sense to add onto something so old and remote feeling, so I've started a new map. I've used a large sheet of poster board as my canvas, except this time I am using stickie notes so I am able to move things around in the process. I'd like to use this thread to motivate others to try dream cartography. There isn't a lot of information available, and what is available is usually in Russian. From what I've read, dream cartography could be helpful to lucid dreaming, but it also has a "supernatural" potential. I would like to investigate these claims by creating a thread where other members can develop and share their dream maps. If you're new to this, here's an awesome dream cartography tutorial. My new dream map looks lame and sad right now, so I'll post an updated picture of it in about a week's time. Participants: Queen Zukin KestrelKat DawnEye11