Can dream visitors eat memories (tamper with the mind)?

[MatthewOlson]

Hello BD! I'm just throwing this post out there because I was curious about it recently. One of my old roommates from college (his name is Walker) entered a discussion about lucid dreaming once (he noticed the dream journal next to my bed, and questioned me about it), and I found out that he used to do a lot of LDing when he was younger. He told me about some of the stuff he was able to do in LD's, but then he started mentioning about why he took a break from LDing for a while. ... It turns out that, one night, he was lucid dreaming, and he had a terrible nightmare that a group of dream visitors (He didn't mention anything about what or who they were) entered his dream, and began feasting on his memories. Recalling the conversation just now, I wanted to begin a discussion here about the prospects of 'visitors entering ones dreams/psyche and eating/abusing/tampering with ones mental consciousness'. Would you say that it were possible that dream visitors could eat other peoples memories? ... How about put memories there that were not there before? ... Or maybe dismember a persons relative sanity? ... Really, what are the limits of permanently tampering with someone elses mind and reality while in the realm of dreaming? Also, this is not a 'fear-based' thread, or a thread meant to cause paranoia. I personally try to practice ways/meditations to prevent outside entities from tampering with anything. ... Which, in that case, is another question altogether (How to prevent the above in the rare instance it occurs, if it CAN occur?)

[Dumblesnore]

This sounds to me like something inspired by Inception (not bashing the movie, just saying). But I do believe this is possible, and have heard of such things occurring. Ultimately, in my opinion, the way this would work is someone would need intent on entering someone's dreams. They also, I think, would need to know in advance the person whose dream they are entering. The part that is odd about your story is how your friend stopped willfully attaining lucid dreams as a result of this experience. To me, whether you are lucid or not, if this malicious group wanted to enter your dreams and do something to you... I would think they would be able to, lucid or not. I would've taken a different approach to the situation, but it didn't happen to me so to say the same is an unfair judgment. Point being that while I do think this is possible, A) I don't think it's "accidental" B) I don't think its "easy to do" C) I don't think it's something to worry about (due to the rarity, unless there are others who have had similar experiences that aren't speaking up for a number of reasons) Just my take on the piece. -Dumblesnore

[nina]

No one can "eat" your memories. That's ridiculous. Dream characters cannot do anything to you that real people in real life cannot. Then again if you are extremely weak minded, you might let someone convince you that something you remember didn't actually happen, or that something happened which really didn't. But there's absolutely no reason to think that dream characters or other dreamers would be able to have some sort of access to your mind. No one can hack your brain.

[EbbTide000]

Hello MatthewOlson I have a condition called Dissociative Disorder with Imaginative Reconstruction. I had it all my life but only got the diagnoses about ten years ago. 80% of those with Dissociative Disorder get missing time the other 20% seem to have an unbroken memory, like every one else. But when we Dissociate our brain fills in the missing time with its best guess at what might have happened. So I cannot trust my memories. I have a waking life memory eater (reality changer), (Hahahahaha) Goodness knows what happens when I dream. Thank you for popping by my synchronicity Game thread today. It's now 10:10pm Monday 8/8/11 in Adelaide, where I live

[Queen Zukin]

I had a dream once, that I upset the God of Tangent, and he ate all of my memories of trees.

[EbbTide000]

Hello Queen Zukin I wonder if memory is a barrier? Don't know, just wondering.

[Queen Zukin]

Hello Queen Zukin I wonder if memory is a barrier? Don't know, just wondering. I don't understand what you're asking.

[EbbTide000]

No question I woke checked my email and found your message which said: *I had a dream once, that I upset the God of Tangent, and he ate all of my memories of trees.* It got me wondering. I thought about the Cheshire Cat talking to Alice (in wonderland) The Cheshire Cat seemed free of memory. This annoyed Alice. But after reading what you wrote I'm wondering if it is am important clue on my ... umm ... puzzle? ... journey? I don't ask questions much but I let dreams, reveries, sync's inform me (as it will). Since reading what "U" wrote about 4 hours ago I've been pondering lots and lots and lots. Once, I fell off my pony. I felt so peaceful. I wandered home, I was 12 and on a 1200 acre property. They saw me coming and knew something was wrong. Usually, I was sooo prim and proper about everything to do with riding. But there I was high and peaceful, arm draped through the reins, walking beside my pony, with my hat on askew and all dusty. Mum said, "are you ok, Debbie?" I looked at her, as if for the first time, I knew it was mum. I felt wonderful but peacefully. I said, "Yes mum". Some one else asked, "Did you fall off, Deb?". I tried to think. Then mum asked, "Did you fall of Sutan, Debbie?". I could think, but it didn't matter, nothing mattered. And I said, "No mum". Someone stepped forward, assuring me that they would look after my pony. And I was take to the country hospital with concussion and loss of memory. Loss of memory is wonderful. I am trying to imagine what it would be like to cast your gaze on a tree for the first time after having all your previous experiences with trees, eaten (totally forgotten). (???).

[EbbTide000]

Hello Queen Zukin Here is The Cheshire Cat. Enjoy! Modern Cheshire Cat ‪Alice In Wonderland - Cheshire Cat Clip (HQ)‬‏ - YouTube (1:00) 642,147 views Alice in Wonderland:"Alice Meets the Cheshire Cat" Scene ‪Alice In Wonderland- The Cheshire Cat‬‏ - YouTube (3:05) 7,457 views Alice: Now let’s see, where was I? Humm, now, I wonder which way I ought to go? Cat: (Cat singing nonsense song) Alice: Now where in the world do you suppose that … Cat: Loose something? Alice: Ahh, oh, haha, well er, no, I was just wondering … Cat: Ah ah that’s quite all right. One moment please … Second chorus … (cat continues to sing his song) Alice: Why, you’re a caaat! Cat: A Cheshire Cat (cat continues singing) Alice: Oh wait! Don’t go, Please. Cat: Very well, Third chorus … Alice: Oh, no, no, no, thank you but I just wanted to ask you which way I aught to go? Cat: Well, that depends on where … you want to get tooooo? Alice: Ooo it really doesn’t matter, as long as I can Cat: Then …. it really doesn’t matter … which way …. you go. (cat disappears, singing) Cat: Oh, by the way … if you’d really like to know … he went that way. Alice: Who did? Cat: The White Rabbit. Alice: He did? Cat: He did what? Alice: Went that way Cat: Who did? Alice: The White Rabbit. Cat: What Rabbit? Alice: Didn’t you just say … I mean … Oh dear ! Cat: Can you stand on your head? Cat: However, if I were looking for a White Rabbit, I’d ask the Mad Hatter. Alice: The MAD hatter? Oh, no, I don’t Cat: Or, there’s the March Hare, in that direction. Alice: Thank you, I think I’ll visit him. Cat: Of course, he’s MAD too. Alice: But I don’t want to go among MAD people !!! Cat: Oh you can’t help that! Most everyone’s mad here. Ahha, aha,hahahaha! You may have noticed … that I am not all there myself ahha hahaha singing. Alice: Goodness! If the people here are like that … I umph … must try not to upset them.

[EbbTide000]

O O O Queen Zukin I was looking at YouTube and thinking how I wanted to send You another YouTube when this amazing Guy, The King of all dreamers, sent me something. I am on a big list of his and though we hardly privately email we are really, really, in sync. He sent me this: Butterfly Lovers ‪Buterfly Lovers‬‏ - YouTube (5:24) 2,564,729 views check out (0:25) into the clip OMG OMG OMG This is even Beyond Dreaming. Sexy Sexy Sexy Beyond Dreaming. Enjoy

[Marm]

Too much TV.

[purplepoppies]

Hmmm... I tend to think anything that can be imagined can be executed. So, if mind readers are real (and they must be, since we've already established that the imagination/mind is on a separate plane, which makes shared dreams possible) and you can access someone's mind with enough discipline, then certainly you can dreamwalk into someone else's dream. But I don't know if I'd say memories could literally be destroyed by someone else. I mean, you could look at that in many ways. Either 1, memories are just as "tangible" as physical reality and therefore can be altered. 2, memories are intangible and infinite so, even if destroyed, they can be brought back. How very curious.

[zhineTech]

no. i think absolutely not.

[Windhover@]

no I dont think so.. I think its impossible to 'eat' memories, but... this reminds me of the book about dreamwalking I've read tells that dreamer can obtain or steal 'energy' in other person's dream, who is called 'dream vampire'. like Dumblesnore said, its not something worry about cuz its hard to do and its rare.

[MatthewOlson]

XD ... Hooooollllyyy craaaaap! This topic has been dead for almost a year! Certainly this topic had something to do with your synchronicity game, Debrajane, Debrajane! Well, I will say that my stream of synchronicities has run dry, so unfortunately I haven't been subject to any alignment of... well... anything. But I am more than happy to have assisted you yet again in your synchronicity game! The time is 2:19 AM on 8/21/2011. *shrug* -after edit- By the way... thank you all who participated in this topic. My spirit has become... a tad duller these days. Hope you can forgive me.

[EbbTide000]

Thanx DarkMatter’s for your PM Jill Bolte Taylor’s stroke of insight (00:17) Jill Bolte Taylor: I grew up to study the brain because I have a brother who has been diagnosed with a brain disorder called schizophrenia. And as a sister and later as a scientist I wanted to understand why is it that I can take my dreams, I can connect them to my reality, and I can make my dreams come true. What is it about my brother’s brain and his schizophrenia that he cannot connect his dreams to a common and shared reality so they instead become delusion. So I dedicated my career to research into the severe mental illnesses and I moved from my home state of Indiana to Boston where I was working in the lab of Dr Francine Benis in the Harvard Department of Psychiatry. And in the Lab we were asking the question, “What are the biological differences between the brains of individuals who would be diagnosed as normal-control as compared to the brains with individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, schizoid affective or bipolar disorder?” So we were essentially mapping the micro-circuitry of the brain, which cells are communicating with which cells with which chemicals and it what quantities of those chemicals. So there was a lot of meaning in my life because I was performing this type of research during the day but then in the evenings and on the weekends I travelled as an advocate for NAMI (The National Alliance on Mental Illness). (1:49) But on the morning of December 10 1996 I woke up to discover that I had a brain disorder of my own. A blood vessel had exploded in the left half of my brain. And in the course of four hours I watched my brain completely (?) in its ability to process all its information. The morning of the haemorrhage I could not walk, talk, read, write or recall any of my life. I essentially became an infant in a woman’s body. If you’ve ever seen a human brain it’s obvious that the two hemispheres are completely separate from one another and I have brought for you a real human brain. (…) (2:43) So, this is a real human brain. This is the front of the brain, the back of the brain with the spinal cord hanging down and this is how it would be positioned inside of my head. And when you look at the brain it obvious the two cortices are totally separate from one another. For those of you who understand computers our right hemisphere functions like a parallel processor. While our left hemisphere functions like a serial processor. The two hemispheres do communicate with one another through the corpus callosum, which is made up of some 300 million axonal fibres. But other than that the two hemispheres are completely separate. Because they process information differently each of our hemispheres think about different things. They care about different things. And dare I say, they have very different personalities. (…) (3:50) Our right human hemisphere is all about, “This Present Moment”. It’s all about right here, right now. Our right hemisphere thinks in Pictures and it learns kinaesthetically through the movement of our bodies. Information in the form of energy streams in through all of our sensory systems and then it explodes into this enormous callarge of what this present moment looks like, what this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like and what it sounds like. I am an energy being connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere. We are energy beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family (4:44 !!!) And right here, right now we are brother’s and sister’s on this planet, here to make the world a better place. And in this moment we are perfect, we are whole and we are beautiful. (But) (05:00) I need a break folks but I will continue the transcript in a bit. Here’s the link if you want to listen to it yourself. Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight | Video on TED.com

[Darkmatters]

Cool, I was hoping you'd like it! As soon as I read your post about about getting a concussion from falling off the horse I remembered this video. I wish there was a way to embed it here... I'm afraid a lot of people will just skip it because it's more trouble than just clicking the PLAY button, and this is one of the most important videos I think I've ever seen. So amazing that a neuroscientist suffered a stroke (and recovered from it thankfully) and, as she said, was able to study it from the inside of her brain. And perhaps important that the blood clot was pressing on the language centers in the left hemisphere rather than anywhere else, otherwise she quite possibly would have had an entirely different experience!! What she describes sounds very much like what people go through on acid, or from a powerful meditation experience. It also reminds me of the differences between consciousness and the unconscious. She said her "inner chatter" shut off completely - total silence - and she no longer felt confined within her body but seemed to expand to the limits of the cosmos - all worry and stress disappeared and she was unable to recognize even the most familiar objects... including herself. She experienced a complete "oneness" with the universe. The concepts of past and future dropped away... she was living entirely in the present moment. So it sounds to me like she somehow discovered the physical brain apparatus governing these different mental states. A terrible brain injury put her into a completely transcendent state that ancient eastern mystics struggled for all their lives to attain... instant nirvana. Amazing!! Maybe science can find a way to achieve this on demand? Just a little electrode jammed into the right spot, touch a 9-vol battery to the studs embedded in your head (under the hair of course... no need to make it unsightly!) and BAM!!! Instant state of grace!! LOL ok, I don't know about that last part, but I think the ideas are fascinating.

[fOrceez]

Is he sure that it wasn't just a part of his dream plot? I mean, it WAS a nightmare, afterall..

[EbbTide000]

Yeah DarkMatters I learnt years ago that folk don’t click on my links. That’s why I take the time to transcribe the bits that I want them to know. When I click on links on Internet Cafes they just instantly open and start playing. To back-up a bit: We are energy beings connected to one another through the consciousness of our right hemispheres as one human family (4:44 !!!) And right here, right now we are brothers and sisters on this planet, here to make the world a better place. And in this moment we are perfect, we are whole and we are beautiful. (But) (5:01) My left hemisphere, our left hemisphere, is a very different place. Our left hemisphere thinks linearly and methodically. Our left hemisphere is all about the past and it’s all about the future. Our left hemisphere is designed to take that enormous colarge of the present moment and start picking out details, details and more details about those details. And then it categorizes and organises that information, associates it with everything in the past we’ve ever learned and projects into the future all of our possibilities. And our left hemisphere thinks in language. It’s that ongoing brain-chatter that connects me in my internal world to my external world. It’s that little voice that says to me, “Hay, you got to remember to pick up bananas on the way home, I need them in the morning”. It’s that calculating intelligence that that knows and reminds me when I have to do my laundry. But perhaps most important it’s that little voice that says to me, “I am, I am!” and as soon as my left hemisphere says to me, “I am” I become separate, I become a single, solid, individual, separate from the energy flow around me and separate form you. And this is the portion of brain that I lost on the morning of my stroke. (6:33) On the morning of my stroke I woke up to a pounding pain behind my left eye. And it was a kind of pain, caustic pain like when you bite into ice-cream. And it just gripped me and then it released me, and then it just grrripped me then it released me. It was very unusual for me to ever experience any kind of pain so I thought, “Ok, I’ll just start my normal routine”. So I got up and I jumped onto my cardio-glider, which is a full body, full exercise machine. And I’m jamming away on this thing and I’m realising that my hands look like primitive claws grasping onto the bars. And I thought, “That’s very peculiar and I looked down at my body and I thought, “Woe, I’m a weird looking thing”. And it was as though my consciousness had shifted away from my normal perception of reality, where I’m the person on the machine having the experience, to some esoteric space where I’m witnessing my self having this experience. And it was all very peculiar and my head-ache was just getting worse so I get off the machine. And I’m walking across my living room floor and I realise that everything inside of my body has slowed way down. And every step is very ridged and very deliberate, there is no fluidity to my pace and there’s constriction in my area of perception so I’m just focussed on internal systems. (8:00) And I’m standing in my bathroom getting ready to step into my shower and I can actually hear the dialog inside my body. I heard a little voice say, “Ok, you muscles you got to contract, and you muscles, you relax”. Now I lost my balance and I’m propped up against the wall. And I looked down at my arm and I realised I can no longer define the boundaries of my body. I can’t define where I begin and where I end because the atoms and the molecules of my arm blended with the atoms and molecules of the wall. And all I could detect was this energy, energy. And I’m asking myself, “What is wrong with me, what is going on” and in that moment my brain chatter, my left hemisphere brain chatter went totally silent. Just like someone took a remote control and pushed the mute button. Total silence And at first I was shocked to find myself inside of a silent mind. But then I was immediately captivated by the magnificence of the “energy” around me. And because I could no longer identify the boundaries of my body, I felt “enormous” and expansive. I felt at one with all the energy that was. And it was beautiful there. And all of a sudden my left hemisphere comes back on line and … (9:16) Ok folks, I need another break. And my 5 hour deal at this cheap Internet Café is nearly up so I won’t be back until tomorrow to continue. So, bye for now.

[Darkmatters]

But perhaps most important it’s that little voice that says to me, “I am, I am!” and as soon as my left hemisphere says to me, “I am” I become separate, I become a single, solid, individual, separate from the energy flow around me and separate form you. And this is the portion of brain that I lost on the morning of my stroke... And it was as though my consciousness had shifted away from my normal perception of reality, where I’m the person on the machine having the experience, to some esoteric space where I’m witnessing my self having this experience. Now see, this here is what reminds me so strongly of meditation. Especially the part about witnessing... the goal in mindfulness meditation is to simply witness your thoughts and let them pass, without becoming attached to them. It also reminds me of Castaneda's descriptions of the Tonal and the Nagual. So maybe that's exactly what we're doing with meditation (or Castaneda's "not-doing")- shutting down the left hemisphere and letting the right hemisphere do its thing. DebraJane, I hope you're not transcribing this all word by word yourself!! I noticed there's a little box to the upper right of the video that says Interactive Transcript - you could probably just copy/paste it all in directly from that. In fact, let me do the honors... to follow your lead, I'll back up just a bit from where you left off: Then all of a sudden my left hemisphere comes back online, and it says to me, "Hey! We got a problem! We got a problem! We gotta get some help." And I'm going, "Ahh! I got a problem. I got a problem." So it's like, "OK. OK. I got a problem." But then I immediately drifted right back out into the consciousness -- and I affectionately refer to this space as La La Land. But it was beautiful there. Imagine what it would be like to be totally disconnected from your brain chatter that connects you to the external world. So here I am in this space, and my job -- and any stress related to my job -- it was gone. And I felt lighter in my body. And imagine: all of the relationships in the external world and any stressors related to any of those -- they were gone. And I felt this sense of peacefulness. And imagine what it would feel like to lose 37 years of emotional baggage! (Laughter) Oh! I felt euphoria. Euphoria. It was beautiful. And then, again, my left hemisphere comes online and it says, "Hey! You've got to pay attention. We've got to get help." And I'm thinking, "I got to get help. I gotta focus." So I get out of the shower and I mechanically dress and I'm walking around my apartment, and I'm thinking, "I gotta get to work. I gotta get to work Can I drive? Can I drive?" And in that moment my right arm went totally paralyzed by my side. Then I realized, "Oh my gosh! I'm having a stroke! I'm having a stroke!" And the next thing my brain says to me is, "Wow! This is so cool." (Laughter) "This is so cool! How many brain scientists have the opportunity to study their own brain from the inside out?" (Laughter) And then it crosses my mind: "But I'm a very busy woman!" (Laughter) "I don't have time for a stroke!" So I'm like, "OK, I can't stop the stroke from happening, so I'll do this for a week or two, and then I'll get back to my routine. OK. So I gotta call help. I gotta call work." I couldn't remember the number at work, so I remembered, in my office I had a business card with my number on it. So I go into my business room, I pull out a three-inch stack of business cards. And I'm looking at the card on top and even though I could see clearly in my mind's eye what my business card looked like, I couldn't tell if this was my card or not because all I could see were pixels. And the pixels of the words blended with the pixels of the background and the pixels of the symbols, and I just couldn't tell. And then I would wait for what I call a wave of clarity. And in that moment, I would be able to reattach to normal reality and I could tell that's not the card ... that's not the card ... that's not the card. It took me 45 minutes to get one inch down inside of that stack of cards. In the meantime, for 45 minutes, the hemorrhage is getting bigger in my left hemisphere. I do not understand numbers. I do not understand the telephone, but it's the only plan I have. So I take the phone pad and I put it right here. I take the business card, I put it right here, and I'm matching the shape of the squiggles on the card to the shape of the squiggles on the phone pad. But then I would drift back out into La La Land, and not remember when I came back if I'd already dialed those numbers. So I had to wield my paralyzed arm like a stump and cover the numbers as I went along and pushed them, so that as I would come back to normal reality, I'd be able to tell, "Yes, I've already dialed that number." Eventually, the whole number gets dialed and I'm listening to the phone, and my colleague picks up the phone and he says to me, "Woo woo woo woo." (Laughter) And I think to myself, "Oh my gosh, he sounds like a Golden Retriever!" And so I say to him -- clear in my mind, I say to him: "This is Jill! I need help!" And what comes out of my voice is, "Woo woo woo woo woo." I'm thinking, "Oh my gosh, I sound like a Golden Retriever." So I couldn't know -- I didn't know that I couldn't speak or understand language until I tried. So he recognizes that I need help and he gets me help. And a little while later, I am riding in an ambulance from one hospital across Boston to [Massachusetts] General Hospital And I curl up into a little fetal ball. And just like a balloon with the last bit of air, just, just right out of the balloon, I just felt my energy lift and just -- I felt my spirit surrender. And in that moment, I knew that I was no longer the choreographer of my life. And either the doctors rescue my body and give me a second chance at life, or this was perhaps my moment of transition. When I woke later that afternoon, I was shocked to discover that I was still alive. When I felt my spirit surrender, I said goodbye to my life. And my mind was now suspended between two very opposite planes of reality. Stimulation coming in through my sensory systems felt like pure pain. Light burned my brain like wildfire, and sounds were so loud and chaotic that I could not pick a voice out from the background noise, and I just wanted to escape. Because I could not identify the position of my body in space, I felt enormous and expansive, like a genie just liberated from her bottle. And my spirit soared free, like a great whale gliding through the sea of silent euphoria. Nirvana. I found Nirvana. And I remember thinking, there's no way I would ever be able to squeeze the enormousness of myself back inside this tiny little body. But then I realized, "But I'm still alive! I'm still alive, and I have found Nirvana. And if I have found Nirvana and I'm still alive, then everyone who is alive can find Nirvana." And I pictured a world filled with beautiful, peaceful, compassionate, loving people who knew that they could come to this space at any time. And that they could purposely choose to step to the right of their left hemispheres and find this peace. And then I realized what a tremendous gift this experience could be, what a stroke of insight this could be, to how we live our lives. And it motivated me to recover. Two and a half weeks after the hemorrhage, the surgeons went in and they removed a blood clot the size of a golf ball that was pushing on my language centers. Here I am with my mama, who is a true angel in my life. It took me eight years to completely recover. So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here, right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere, where we are. I am the life-force power of the universe. I am the life-force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form, at one with all that is. Or, I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere, where I become a single individual, a solid. Separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor: intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the "we" inside of me. Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner-peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be. And I thought that was an idea worth spreading. This all ties in really perfectly with some investigative blogging I did some time ago. I don't consider what I wrote to be conclusive... I was just juggling ideas that seem related, and throwing them at the wall to see what sticks. For anybody who's made it this far and hasn't left in disgust yet, you might be interested in this: Apollo to the left of me, Dionysus to the right. ... And I thought that was an idea worth spreading.

[EbbTide000]

Thanx DarkMatters And I am enjoying you research. Also I like your avatar DarkMatters You are a meaty dream researcher. You are a head-down, tail-up, nose to the grindstone type of dream Blacksmith. Your research keeps the dream work horse firmly shod. That is important because: For Want of a Nail For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of a shoe the horse was lost. For want of a horse the rider was lost. For want of a rider the battle was lost. For want of a battle the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.