That mantra is a brilliant idea, I'm gonna use that too. Thanks for sharing.. it happens a lot that I just forget I'm dreaming and that I lose lucidity, I'm guessing this should help.
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That mantra is a brilliant idea, I'm gonna use that too. Thanks for sharing.. it happens a lot that I just forget I'm dreaming and that I lose lucidity, I'm guessing this should help.
Of course I've thought about that, but your conclusion makes no sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba
When I see something in the waking world I am not seeing with my physical eye in any direct sense of the word. The eye, like a camera, encodes the retinal reactions into bioelectric impulses which are then translated in the brain.
The brain can be seen as a kind of organic Virtual Reality modeling system. It is with the brain that we see, not the eye. The eye is simply the source of the input. There needs be no "third eye".
When dreaming, Instead of getting the signal input from the eye, the brain uses its own memory reserves to generate the virtual world. There is no eye at all, there is only perception. The eye you experience in a dream is also part of that memory modeled virtual world. It is not acting as an eye, it is simply the prerecorded experiences of what it feels like to have an eye.
So no i am not convinced by the existence of a third eye.
I am however fully convinced by the extremely potent abilities of the human mind as a fantastic biological computer capable of modeling the world in which it inhabits. It is easily proven, and has been on many occasions, through various experiments. People with various pieces of thier brain missing, who suddenly loose otherwise normal perceptual abilities. Also there have been experiments Exciting neurons through electrical impulses causing utterly vivid and convincing hallucinations for the subject.
The dream world is essentially no different from the waking world you are experiencing right now. The only real difference is the source of the data input. Right now your virutal world is being created via sense data, whilst dreaming it is created by recorded sense data.
When you enter a dream it can be seen as a very simple process. Your mind switches from a live stream of sensory data, to prerecorded data.
It is of course a billion times more complex than this, but that is the essential process.
"The next time that I'm dreaming, I'll realize that I dreaming and do a reality check."Quote:
Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba
The reality check is important, because I had dreams where I dreamt that I knew I was dreaming, but wasn't lucid at all, so remembering to do a RC is another fallback.
There needs to be a third eye. How else can you combine the input of your two eyes? It's this virtual reality modeling system that is the third eye, the minds eye, your imagination. The system that combines your two eyes into one scene, that system is your third eye, your minds eye. But ok, I think we're on the same page here, you just call it the virtual reality modeling system, I call it the minds eye.Quote:
Originally Posted by spaceexplorer
Yeah, but i dont think that the third eye and the minds eye are the same thing, I dont think we're discussing what people were refering to in that case. Thats not the impression i got from what others were saying.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChaybaChayba
Spaceexplorer,
I think you may be right about the location of this thread. The philosophical question is going into too much depth now, I think there are at least two 'camps' if you will.
1. The mind and therefore consciousness are located and operate completely within the brain and therefore dreaming is simply a fuction of the mind which is always contained within the brain.
2. The mind and consciousness do not arise within the brain but use the brain as a conduit between consciousness with the body being vehicle for experiencing physical reality. Therefor the mind is capable of existing independantly of the physical body, however at times dreaming can be located as a process of the brain interacting with the mind as above. (this does not detract from my appreciation of what is beautiful and divine in the physical world also)
So through your personal experience you are currently in camp 1, through my personal experience I am currently in camp 2. This is just the way it is and its not my place to try and convince you but its interesting I find how we are opposite on at least two points you mentioned and the consequences of this.
I've experienced more awe and wonder with a tool of science (the telescope)
than I've ever experienced through meditations. And i think the reason is because Im not focusing on me-me-me... im looking outwards at the wonder of which i am just a tiny speck of dust.
I've experienced more awe through meditation than through any tool of science, I also own a telescope and love looking at the moon through it :-) and as a point of trivia am about to embark on my thesis to a Master Degree in Science and Technology (I am not a full time student). Focusing on me-me-me is to focus from the perspective of the ego, which is enforced through the current western scientific view, our seperateness. So interestingly you can look inwards at the wonder of which your consciousness is just a tiny drop in the ocean... as you would know these altered states of consciousness transcend language (made up of words which are symbols that point to things other than themselves) and this means you are also looking outwards at the nature of the universe.
However, even the wisest man of our time, can only have access to the knowledge that has come before him. So, in that respect, I conclude that the wise men of old, came to thier beliefs based upon the world view at the time. Had they been born in our time, perhaps they would have become scientists not yogis.
I love the concept of this statement. As you would know from your studies the yogis, being a selfless lot, do not claim personal ownership of their wisdom. They claim it has arisen from the universal mind or collective unconcsious, brahman etc and has therefore arisen from somewhere beyond their conscious mind (and so the beliefs of their present day did not influence this and the beliefs of our present day continue not to influence their most pure and distilled wisdom. To the contrary their wisdom influenced and continues to influence world beliefs). However we are all capable of being scientists and yogis given the right set of initial conditions and possibly a dash of karma thrown in. So everyone experiences their own reality through their ego but the yogis claim to go beyond this...
So lets agree to disagree on this and respect the people that belong to the other camp, there are people here who have possibly experienced a reality beyond the normal waking confines of their physical body. Lets not seek to try and somehow prove this view false through 'logical deduction of the observable facts as defined by science' to try and convince ourselves our own view is true. Since dreaming has a place in both views then this is appropriate discussion on this section of the forum I would have thought.
Lets just help each other as best we can achieve what we are individually hoping to achieve.
Well firstly, talking about ego, if I may quote your words "The philosophical question is going into too much depth now."Quote:
Originally Posted by Ajna
Unless you are a Mod, who cares.
(I know you were talking about ego in the larger sense, but this one was apt as well)
I am researching your ideas now and previously, which have been around for centuries and am very intrigued, as I have been having OBEs recently.
(again people will argue they are False Awakenings, but thay should also look on the other side of the coin...Are their False Awakenings really OBEs)
We should always keep our minds and eyes open.
Your point of view is refreshing and the lesser path believed, which I like.
And to Ajna and/or Space Explorer, If your mind and consciousness exist in your physical brain together (if Ajna was right in assuming),
Did we have a consciousness before our fetus developed our minds?
Or is our consciosness developed at the same time as our minds?
I completely agree with this entire post except for one statementQuote:
Originally Posted by spaceexplorer
"So no i am not convinced by the existence of a third eye."
Specifically the visuals you are talking about are processed by the visual cortex at the back of the brain, in the same way visual stimuli from the eyes are processed but with the inputs coming from other areas of the brain... as you said
However, this in no way disproves the existence of the third eye as part of the chakra system and energy body... or any other energetic or spiritual phenomena. You cannot site these correct scientific findings as evidence that the third eye makes no sense, its out of context to do this.
and so I think your view is correct but only to a point, and so not the entire story - but thats just my opinion Spacexplorer
Thats actually one of my dream signs and causes me to do a reality check these days and become lucid for real and not just think that I'm lucid, strange.Quote:
Originally Posted by gigaschatten
So when I first read this thread I was intrigued and went and tried it right away. It was working it was strange the dream started far away ...I was focusing on the swirlinglight in my head and the visuals started getting closer and more "crisp" i guess you can say. and stupid me I had my phone on and very loud at that and it went off scared the crap out of me and blew the whole thing. I tried today for over an hour and cannot get back to where I was before...
So, how long did it take you guys to get the hang of meditation?
For me it took around a month or longer before I finally started to understand how to meditate and what meditation was really about. But it is something I'm trying to improve every day, and I still have a long way to go. Imo, meditation, like lucid dreaming, is a skill everyone should try to master in order to enjoy life as much as possible..
I cant understand people setting out to try things and leave their phones on, no earplugs, don't tell anyone not to disturb them etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Patrickstar12
just a simple mistake...something i forgot kinda like all humans do you know....forget :)
My opinion is yes we had a consciousness before we integrated into the physical body we currently inhabit, this consciousness is the same as the one you had in your past lives, the same one that exists(ed) is the subtler 'spiritual' planes and the same one you will take with you when you pass over yet again. You just experience it differently through the different ego structures that existed with the different physical bodies you have taken, and of course you cannot remember any of this with your conscious mind and the physical brains episodic memory.Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamChaser
Of coure I have no proof other than the ancient teachings of the many realised beings but given the verasity of the source and how much sense it makes once you have opened your mind I tend to see it as correct. The fact we cannot remember is no proof the above is not the case either.
Yumeria,
The thing with meditation is that you have to unlearn some things before you really start getting somewhere. One of these things is incessant mental chatter and its up to you when you really decide its not worth listening to and just watch it without attachment or aversion to it, then eventually it just goes away by itself. It always takes me 10-15mins to get past it properly anyway. Meditation is a journey with no destination where you are always in the now and there is nothing to achieve per se. So your technique will constantly evolve as your mind evolves and whatever stage you are at is perfect for you at this point. '
The biggest things that help you will be 1. motivation and 2. discipline. The motivation must be for the love of meditation itself and not for future gains such as improving your character or even to help you lucid dream, because then your not really meditating, your looking to the future which is only a soup of possibilities. If you meditate for the love of it the motivation becomes enduring. Discipline means doing it every day no matter what, even for 10 minutes, frequency and routine is more important than length or even technique at first. It does take alot of endurance to get these two working together in a positive spiral and its expected you will fall on and off the spiral so don't be hard on yourself, I fall off all the time... :-)
this sounds interesting, i'm going to try this tonight, so all we do is focus on the center of our forhead while we fall asleep and thats it? anything else? 0o
No surprise we have no memory between lives. Convenient.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ajna
As convenient as you just have to believe in God.
And we have no proof of OBEs. I am getting into them and are sure they are OBEs, but to prove it is hard (even to myself).
Lastly, where are all these consciousnesses stored before we get them? Do we get a random one?
Are they in a primordial pool and we absorb one when our mind is developed enough in the womb?
I bet there is another convenient, no proof answer there.
Lets all just go on Faith.
I'd like to ask some further questions too to Ajna and those who believe:Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamChaser
If the brain isnt where consciousness resides, what is it for?
Again, Why are only humans conscious to this extent if the brain complexity and size is irrelevant?
Isn't it hightly convinient for US that we are the creatures that just so happen, in this vast and unfathomable universe, to be the center of attention? those in the waiting room for enlightenment? Isn't it a strange conceit to believe this?
If consciousness/the mind does not reside in the brain, then why do physical chemicals like LSD and DMT have such a profound experience on us?
Isn't all this grandeous spiritual way of thinking, just a way to avoid the blatantly obvious and slightly disturbing fact, that we are just animals, who evolved larger brains, large enough to ponder our own existence, living on a rock, in an uncertain wild universe. Not the central characters to the story, but just the result of a process of physical laws and billions of years?
Isn't that more humble and realisic to accept, rather than us being the central role in a universe designed around us, with cosmic energys just for us to tap into?? What about the dolphins? the apes? the fish? the dogs?
This is my personal problem, almost all human spirituality puts humans as the most important thing in the universe. It almost always tells us what we want to hear. It all seems based on our egos, and avoiding our fears. Our fears that there is no bigger plan, and that what we see is what we get.
Reminds me of a carl sagan quote:
"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring." Carl Sagan
I would like to respond too if I may, unbiased ofc:Quote:
Originally Posted by spaceexplorer
Firstly, "If the brain isnt where consciousness resides, what is it for?" - I would say motor functions and thought. I think it's the Subconscious we should be asking about, but as you say spaceexplorer, why would that be in an external-head place?
Next, "Isn't it hightly convinient for US that we are the creatures that just so happen, in this vast and unfathomable universe, to be the center of attention? those in the waiting room for enlightenment? Isn't it a strange conceit to believe this?" - Conceit is the right word if we are thought to be the center of the universe. Or were you spaeaking of Humanity as a whole?
Next, "If consciousness/the mind does not reside in the brain, then why do physical chemicals like LSD and DMT have such a profound experience on us?" - Great point !
Next, "This is my personal problem, almost all human spirituality puts humans as the most important thing in the universe. It almost always tells us what we want to hear. It all seems based on our egos, and avoiding our fears. Our fears that there is no bigger plan, and that what we see is what we get." - yet your mind does not seem open to things like this, or are you open but want proof like me?
Hope I understood this correctly. Maybe Ajna can respond with some further answers.
I find this topic very cool.
Exactly!Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamChaser
I was thinking it is a conceit for our spiritual systems to always put us at the centre of the universe, one way or the other. Same way we used to think the sun went around the earth.Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamChaser
You'd be suprised how open I am to these things. Don't think because im critical i'm not open minded. I really think that to be truely open minded you have to be critical, because you have to be willing to turn your back on something, even if you really desire it to be true, if the evidence dosn't back it up. How i'd love to be proven wrong, that is why i push people who believe so hard, because i require strong evidence, before i am willing to accept extraordinary claims. I push hard, because if something is true, it will stand up to criticism and testing.Quote:
Originally Posted by DreamChaser
So yes, I want proof like you. I would love to discover these things to be true. Truely love it. But im not going to accept something just because i really want it to be true. I'd rather be dissapointed and right, than live in a happy illusion being wrong.
By a very strange coincidence... I found this video by one of my personal heros, Carl Sagan...
I think Ajna and others would appreciate it as much as I do.
It seems to bridge a gap between science and philosophical thought.
Damn, Carl Sagan is brilliant!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-_DdX8Ke0
The brain? As I said previously, I think its the mechanism that allows the mind to integrate with and experience the physical world through the body.Quote:
Originally Posted by spaceexplorer
Of course its not irrelevant, all those complexities in the brain allow our consciousness to form a complex experience of reality as seen through the ego. You do know what the yogis view of consciousness is right? We are not talking about what they call the 'mental formations' here, as you are.Quote:
Originally Posted by spaceexplorer
Have you really understood the deeper meaning of the eastern teachings? My view is actually the opposite of this...Quote:
Originally Posted by spaceexplorer
This questions is best answered by Rick Strassman M.D. in his work DMT - The Spirit Molecule and Inner Paths to Outer Space. Your question almost answers itself. Both he and I believe DMT allows the disintegration of body and mind to occur at the biological level. This will obviously cause a profound effect when our conscious experience is no longer limited to the physical senses and our observer perspective of linear time and three dimesional space.Quote:
Originally Posted by spaceexplorer
Your question about animals first of all is very common and usually found in Q & A sections of buddhist texts. Animals are definitely not seen as lower life forms but instead, and just like all of us, are equal sentient beings who desire happiness. Your views are quite nihilistic and deny the fact that humans can have an experience devoid of their ego selves. I used to share your view until I discovered some ancient wisdom and concepts such as oneness and the collective unconsciousness as proposed by Carl G Jung.Quote:
Originally Posted by spaceexplorer
Anyone who has had an out of body experience or used DMT are accutely aware that their previously held notions and views of the universe and the nature of reality are severely limited. You just cannot compete with the direct experiences when you have them, and nobody can taken these away from you.
Thats exactly what I am trying to do. Its very ironic that we can both express our different views with the same quote. Most people in society cannot see beyond their satisfyingly reassuring delusion and experience the larger reality.Quote:
Originally Posted by spaceexplorer
This debate is like trying to match a square peg in a round hole, your thinking involves a box which does not allow the room to fit these "grandious" concepts into it. And I am very suprised you have not mentioned Heisenburgs Uncertainty Principle, Eisteins Quatumn Entanglement, Dark Energy, The Higgs Field etc etc etc. These are scietific concepts which are now matching up with what some of the eastern traditions have been saying for thousands of years. These conclusions based on your much respected impiracle research, are what were able to prove the ancient wisdom for me intially and open my mind, and lead me from a science based perspective to the larger reality. Greg Bradens (who was Cisco's first systems engineer and used to have a 'sensible' view of the universe) book The Divine Matrix talks about everything I have been with the scientific evidence to back it up. If you really want some evidence get that book and Rick Strassmans books I mentioned earlier. When in a meditative state this all seems highly irrelevant also, all part of the drama.
As I said in my other post, we are not going to convince each other here, we would each need time to learn and experience new things for this information to digest properly. Lets agree to disagree and work on our own development.
Nice video spaceexplorer. Thats one young looking Carl Sagan! I like the guy and have read one of his books "Billions and Billions" I think it was called.
Myths are always symbols and symbolic, religion is a mechanism of control. I like the concept of Buddhism not being a religion but a science of mind and reality with its own theories and experiments to prove them. The word or 'signpost' "God" or "gods" has been so misused by the west it is a word that just can't be used now in these concepts and debates. When most westerners think of the word 'god', we traditionally think of a judgemental father figure, like that depicted in the renaissance paintings and in the bible or a fantastical being who we could never hope to touch. I'm not suprised terms such as polyathiest have emerged as these concepts should rightly be rejected in favour of the larger self empowering concepts like 'god' in the sense of the laws of the universe or a divine energetic matrix or that which cannot be known or fathomed with a conscious mind...
The Hindu's depicted in the video are also lay people and have their own symbolic views of the universe. However fully realised selfless beings such as forest yogis or lamas or bodhisatvas etc usually share a different view. It is a view that transcends language...
So for that reason lets go back to our WILD and LD techniques because I don't have much more I can say on this right now :)
If we stopped debating our knowledge, experiences and views, this site would be very empty.
I was just getting into learning from this debate.
Oh well.
One thing I'd like to point out Ajna, Is that I don't necassarily disagree with you, I'm playing devils advocate to test the strengths of your argument and the quality of your character. Your character Impresses me, your arguments certainly seem to be based on investigation in eastern mysticism (and not just some passing read of the latest Deepak Chopra book :P). So you get my respect on both counts.
Whether your conclusions are correct, I really have no idea, I'm certainly sure that modern science hasn't got all the answers (but not because it cannot know all the answers, just because it's very critical self correcting nature takes time and detailed research - and the universe is a very very big place). Does that mean eastern mystcism can fill the gaps or is even right? I have no idea. I would assume possibly not but not definitely not (although I do think that it is a conciet to believe that with even a lifetime of meditation and spirituality, that any human could understand a universe as ancient and as vast as our own... we could maybe understand ourselves in that time, but the entire universe? surely not.). Certainly in my experience a huge amount of eastern mystcism has been warped and abused for the sake of making cash (Sai Baba, Osho etc.)
But also in my experience (such as DMT, Meditations, Lucid Dreams etc.) I have experienced things that have transformed my personal beliefs about the Universe. Things such as loosing all sense of self (whilst using DMT), and experiencing directly (what felt like) the essential wild, thunderous eternity of the universe, as a matrix of awareness in which all things could arise. Not some loving god, but an ancient, almost cold "being" (if that world even fits) of which i was eternally a part, wild and untamed like the ocean. Realsing that I forever was that eternity, but also a dew drop in its ocean. Realising that personality was like wearing clothing (it can be taken of discarded and changed) but that awareness was the essential spark of "life."
(Actually If i stop playing devils advocate and go with this experience alone as a source of information, I would answer my own question by saying that the brain is where human experience, personality, and memories are processed.... but that all time and space is in fact built upon a canvas of awareness. This is not my belief (well i try not to believe, its certainly one of my "possible theorys of the universe"), but what I would conclude if i took this experience completly on face value)
So was that experience genuine? certainly felt like the most vividly real, "more real than now" experience of my entire life (does vividness of an experience make it any more genuine? im not convinced it does, i could be knifed to death whilst in deep sleep, would be a completley unvivid experience for me, but would be very much genuine!). I felt as if I had remembered what had been forgoton. On a private level (i'm breaking with my own code of ethics of keeping spirituality private here) I wil cherish the experience as part of the eternal mystery of existence. I will hold onto my experiences as a reminder that there is more to this universe than mine, or any human mind could ever personaly concieve. On an outward level, I will continue to study all avenues of possibility, and i'll continue to play devils advocate and use critical arguments to see if these "ships of thought" are strong enough to ride upon. I would love to believe that my experience was based on the hidden realities of our Universe, I think the truth is I'll never know for sure. That however I feel, Is part of the beauty. It keeps us all striving for answers and in doing so finding deeper levels of beauty and truth to the world. Any honest, open, thourough and critical research of the universe has my respect. I believe you are trying to do the same, as I and understand your place in this mystery. And I wish you all the joy of adventure that you can have. All I hope is that you, like me, are willing to discard even your most cherished notions of the universe, should the evidence prove them false.
Also to clear things up, I use the term Polyatheist because I think it helps make a point that Christianity isnt the centre of the universe. In actual fact, I'd call myself a Pantheist (well probably more realistically a Scientific Pantheist), which I do believe means you and I are probably closer on a philosophical level than my devils-advocate arguments would have lead you to believe.