Dry spell revisited

[shadowofwind]

A couple of years ago we had some discussions about our 'beyond dreaming' experiences falling off. I see the forum is now almost completely dead, which seems to suggest that there aren't enough new experiences to talk about to sustain it. I thought that for myself part of the reason for the change might have been that I moved to a new city. But it can't be that everybody moved to a psychic dead spot. Most of my other explanations fall short for similar reasons. So it seems to me it must be something quasi-astrological, its out of season for some reason. Karma seems to be at least as active in my life as before, so its not as if the fates are resting, they're just not giving us strong dreams, apparently.

[Methos]

Personally, I think that most people are too busy to bother dream exploration anymore. Our lives are crammed full of all kinds of technical and material distractions which makes it easy to forget that a lot of awesome things exist in the world that are natural and free, like dreaming, chatting face to face, going to a cafe for a drink and conversation instead of just to use the wifi to text each other, actually laughing instead of saying el - oh - el in place of real laughter, etc. We're losing touch with our human-ness more and more each day, which might equate to losing touch with our dreams as well. Just my very humble opinion. I have a niece, who was bored because there was no wifi and nothing to watch on her 300 tv channels. Her mom said, "Go play with your dolls." She said, "How?" Mom said, "Use your imagination." She said, "Imagination? What's that?" She had no idea how to pretend or imagine something. It's what's happening to humanity in a nutshell, right there.

[shadowofwind]

Right, but I peaked about 5 years ago. Although the world is changing fast, that wasn’t very long ago. My dream life is almost completely gone, and I’m not playing video games and stuff instead, I am still thinking about dream related stuff to an extent. In any case, to some extent I think we said the same thing, but you described it in a more direct way.

[lucidbunnie]

Well, 5 years is a long time from my perspective. A lot can change. 5 years ago my significant other was in the physical and we would talk about dreaming and extraordinary experiences all the time. Today, it's a completely different world for me. She's a natural lucid dreamer so for someone like me who was not a natural lucid dreamer she was an inspiration and source for motivation not only dreaming but generally everything. We even had several verifiable shared dream experiences. Since her passing, I lost most of my excitement and wonder for dreaming. It's become more of a way for me to still interact with her. It became a medium than an experience to me. However, a couple of weeks earlier DawnEye started up Shared Dream Experiment and I was a huge part of it, but when my mom passed away and resurrected (thankfully) and in her weakened state I too have stopped trying for experiences like shared dreaming. As a freelancer, I'm also struggling financially because of my parents medical and utility bills. Like this everyone has their own reasons for not engaging as much as they used to or would like to.

[Sageous]

Though I tend to agree with you all, and might add also that the current state of the political world might be a distraction that challenges a dreaming state of mind (and could be causing a global psychic dead spot), I have another idea about this dry spell: I've noticed that Beyond Dreaming participation seems to move in cycles these days. Every now and then a group of people -- usually people new to DV -- gets interested in a BD topic. They'll discuss the topic, say, shared dreaming (which was the most recent blip), maybe do an experiment or two, but eventually they lose interest and move on, usually because the experiments failed, discussion has degenerated, or the original poster has moved on and is no longer driving interest. Then the forum is left to languish until another group wanders in to repeat the same steps. What's missing these days, I think, and what was here when I first joined DV, is a group of people who would regularly start -- and, importantly, maintain -- interesting threads in BD that drew in new people and generated conversation on a variety of topics simultaneously. Those folks were constants, and so prevented the above cycle from happening because there was no waiting around for a new person to show up and start a BD thread. So it might not be that energy, interest, or the priority of dreaming itself that have waned, but just the presence of a seriously interested few who found something new to discuss regularly.

[Methos]

Life does seem to like knocking the wind out of dreamers one way or another. Is there a seriously interested group at this site who are finding new things to discuss? I'm just getting back into active dreaming and am fully prepared to surge on alone if I have to. It would be nice to have a dedicated few to help keep the interest and inspiration up.

[LeaningKarst]

Honestly, I find it amazing that so many people have been willing to discuss their “beyond dreaming” experiences in such a public way to begin with. This stuff can get personal fast - maybe shared dreaming less than most, but it certainly has the potential for it. Not to mention that, when pretty much everybody has their own metaphysical framework and their own vocabulary for describing it, even trying to figure out whether you’re on the same page as someone or not can be frustrating—and that doesn’t make substantial discussion easy.

[shadowofwind]

Another obstruction for me with 'shared dreaming' is its too much contact. Once the initial novelty wore off, I mostly feel like I want to shrink away into my own space, like I've spent too much time at a party with people I'm not entirely comfortable with. I'm happy to talk about understanding what we've already experienced, though I'm busy trying to get a new business going, along with driving my kids everywhere, so my response time will be streaky.

[shadowofwind]

LeaningKarst, I posted before I saw your response.... Right. I think that understanding another person in these kinds of conversations actually requires a little bit of the same kind of empathetic mind-meld that the dreaming requires. I guess I'm more comfortable with that than with shared-dreaming, since I'm fully awake and the subject is more narrowly defined and controlled. As I've posted in the past, I think that our metaphysical frameworks are a fairly significant obstacle. Most New Age ideas and vocabulary are based on ~120 year old analogies with what was then cutting edge technology like radio (frequencies, vibration, etc.) Now we also have analogies involving 'dna' or quantum entanglement, but its not much better. I think that clearing away some of the confusion caused by our inadequate ideas is an important part of what comes next. Yes, for better or worse, I'm completely comfortable discussing deeply personal things with strangers. This is also part of what made it possible to objectively verify these kinds of experiences. If I were only interacting with people I know, it would be a lot harder to tell what information was coming telepathetically vs things I already knew or was inferring through other means.

[shadowofwind]

I see I overlooked Sageous’ post also.... I think that politics less crazy now than it was at other times such as the late 60’s. I also think it always seems saner to the ‘in’ party affiliation, which is part of why the previous 8 years seemed better to a lot of people even though a lot of things were trending the same way (drone strikes, prosecuting whistle blowers, border detentions, wars and legislation by executive order). Granted though that the current situation is in an absolute sense totally nuts, even though I’m pretty sure it’s not adversely affecting my dreaming.

[Sageous]

^^ Funny thing -- I regularly tell my wife it was worse in the '60's, but she's not buying it. I'm a bit of a news junkie (all networks), so I may have been projecting a bit there. Also: Is there a seriously interested group at this site who are finding new things to discuss? I'm just getting back into active dreaming and am fully prepared to surge on alone if I have to. It would be nice to have a dedicated few to help keep the interest and inspiration up. There was such a group, I believe, but they seem pretty much gone these days. That doesn't mean a new crowd might wander in one day...