Random thoughts on Dreams, Meditation, and our Society

Today I was thinking about how experiences in everyday life come into your dreams such as places you've visited (sometimes modified) and people you may or may not be friends with.

This got me thinking about the differences in society and how those differences could affect the dreams of those within that society. 100 years ago people couldn't dream of the cars of today because they had no concept of what it would look like or operate. Another thing that interested me was that often in my own dreams there was dialogue but after I woke up I remembered the emotions I felt in the dream more clearly than the dialogue.

We've all heard about certain groups of people (not so much in Western culture) who spend most of their time in solitude and meditation to "cleanse the mind and body" or something along those lines. Because our dreams are a reflection of our lives, if we spend our time meditating, we are not allowing human behavior and the many distractions of society to cloud our perception. My dream experiment would involve spending lengthy periods of time in a sensory deprivation tank and seeing what effect this could have on dreams. For those who have never heard of these devices, after spending several minutes in them you start to lose your human identity as your senses of touch, sight, and sound are deprived (almost exactly what happens when you go to sleep every night).

Suppose a person grew up away from society in a tribe that didn't have an established language or verbal communication. Would this person's dreams ever have dialogue and even if there was dialogue, what would the speech be generated from (for lack of a better word). If one has no understanding of language and has never heard verbal dialogue, could his subconscious ever create a situation where verbal dialogue was used?

Many posters on these forums, when asked what things they like or aspire to do in LDs, often write about domination over physical objects, transcending physical limitations (flying or gliding), or sex. I can't help but think that the way we live as humans limits our options on what we dream of doing (nothing against anyone who enjoys these activities in LD's). Basically we only dream of obtaining what is possible as humans, or what we have seen others obtain in movies and fantasy writings that exhilarates us.

Let's just say for the sake of argument this person lived in a isolation tank and had all his bodily needs taken care of inside the tank. Could his dreams involve humans or even this planet in any way? His existence is lived out in dark hole where everything that makes our human experience doesn't exist. Undoubtedly this person would lose physical strength over time, but he would have the potential to do much more with his mind than any of us could, even while dreaming, since virtually 100% of his time would be spent using his imagination with no external distractions or stimuli....... An LD for him could involve something much more complex like creating a universe or changing his consciousness. At what point would this "person" cease to be human? He cannot speak to humans, he has no concept of a body and thus no concept of body language so he really can't communicate with humans in any way!

Some people are constantly striving to find "themselves" or "their identity" as if one day everything will just click. But how can one find themselves when they are always searching for the answer outside themselves? I guess my theory is that to unlock the full potential of our brains, our society needs to change drastically. No more emphasis on repeating the past generations' cycle of growing older, having kids, and then dying. No more emphasis on making tons of money to buy material possessions that in the end will not satisfy you. No more emphasis on physical appearance over mental intelligence. No more emphasis on doing whatever necessary to maintain acceptance from your peers (an outside perception of you).
NONE OF THESE THINGS DEFINE OR GIVE YOU VALUE AS A HUMAN! You are defined by the capabilities of your mind and if you do not strive for an independent mind, you are wasting the precious gift of life.


Sorry if this post rambled on............ I just needed to get these thoughts off my chest.......

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by andrewh817

Today I was thinking about how experiences in everyday life come into your dreams such as places you've visited (sometimes modified) and people you may or may not be friends with.

---

I agree with you, only I'm not so optimistic. Imho society will never drastically change. It's always been more or less the same, no matter what cultural framework.

Quote:

---

Many posters on these forums, when asked what things they like or aspire to do in LDs, often write about domination over physical objects, transcending physical limitations (flying or gliding), or sex. I can't help but think that the way we live as humans limits our options on what we dream of doing (nothing against anyone who enjoys these activities in LD's). Basically we only dream of obtaining what is possible as humans, or what we have seen others obtain in movies and fantasy writings that exhilarates us.

---

Imho that's an expression of escapism and not really of domination. Or rather it's a domination with a negative sign. Kind of "I can't do shit in RL, but here I'm a God". The same effect can be reached while playing a game or even reading a book if you associate strongly with a character. All are means for escaping the real limits of RL.

Quote:

---

No more emphasis on repeating the past generations' cycle of growing older, having kids, and then dying. No more emphasis on making tons of money to buy material possessions that in the end will not satisfy you. No more emphasis on physical appearance over mental intelligence. No more emphasis on doing whatever necessary to maintain acceptance from your peers (an outside perception of you).

---

I agree, although I find the emphasis on mental intelligence just as bad as an emphasis on physical appearance...

The problem with all these things is that once you throw them away, it's hard to find any "meaning" in your life. These things are what gives life a feeling of being worthy to live it, of having something in it. Outside of them there's just void.

Quote:

---

NONE OF THESE THINGS DEFINE OR GIVE YOU VALUE AS A HUMAN! You are defined by the capabilities of your mind and if you do not strive for an independent mind, you are wasting the precious gift of life.

---

I'm not so sure that you're defined by an independant mind. What you're doing this way is replacing one rigid system with another. This way it can make more sense and would still feel like worthy to live for, but imho it's just as rigid and nonsensical to define all over again what makes you human, instead of just being free to be whatever you want... ;)