Through the looking glass..

[lucidjane]

I recently re-read Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and it occured to me that the entire story is like one big lucid dream!! Alice can will certain changes to happen or characters to appear, and she's quite aware that she's within a dream world. There's a great bit about dreaming in the part where she meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee - where they say that she is just a part of someone elses dream and if she weren't, how would she ever know. Also - on the nights when I read the book before sleeping, I had longer and more memorably lucid dreams. Interestingly, the Matrix has many Alice in Wonderland references too. I wonder if Carroll was a serial lucid dreamer!

[Leo Volont]

It may be more likely that the author of "Through the Looking Glass" was no stranger to the opiates and hashish. Though Lucid Dreaming may serve to break down the ordinary boundaries of how we perceive the Self and the dimensions of our personal Universe, some of the borderline psychodelic drugs then in use could likely be just as liberating.

[singedredrose]

hey lol ur right... when i was lil i liked that movie so much.. now i think iz friggin gay...

[ColtEtish]

I plan on getting a gram of 2c-i this summer, I know a great canadian website that the DEA can't shut down and one in Hong Kong. I see psychadelics as a tool towards enlightenment, they arn't it, it's just something along the way.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by ColtEtish I plan on getting a gram of 2c-i this summer, I know a great canadian website that the DEA can't shut down and one in Hong Kong. I see psychadelics as a tool towards enlightenment, they arn't it, it's just something along the way. But after awhile Tripping becomes sort of normalized. Back in the late sixties the hippies used to joke about sitting in the diner and drinking coffee long enough to straighten out, and THAT would become the new Altared State... instead of being high or tripping all the time. We actually forgot what it was like to be normal. Anyway, after a certain point the psychodelics have given you their message and they simply have nothing left to say. And then what you have is that funny sick feeling they give you before you take off. If you already know what the Trip will be, then it is no longer worth getting sick for, or even worth the hassle of setting aside the time for it. It is like any other experience where you can largely say "Been There, Done That".

[lucidjane]

On that point - not to advocate drugs at all </disclaimer>..buutt.. I took ecstasy a couple of weeks ago and found myself lucid dreaming every time I was asleep for about a week after - no mental effort involved =) I'm getting quite good at dream control since then (lotsa practice). I think with the relatively 'new' designer drugs like e - there hasn't been all that much research (relative to older drugs) on how it effects the psyche (and of course, that's why you shouldn't take them mmmk?!). It will be interesting to see what comes of it in the coming years and decades.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by lucidjane On that point - not to advocate drugs at all </disclaimer>..buutt.. I took ecstasy a couple of weeks ago and found myself lucid dreaming every time I was asleep for about a week after - no mental effort involved =) I'm getting quite good at dream control since then (lotsa practice). There is quantity and there is Quality. I can't conceive that the Dream Mind can churn out night after night material that can remain steadily cogent. If dreams are meant to convey serious life lessons, then I wonder how a person can be expected to digest these huge epiphanies every single evening. Now a lot of emphasis is placed on what is called Dream Control, which I take to mean that people practice cheating their Higher Mind out of presenting material that probably took a great deal of effort to plan, create and then to present. Dreams are Creations of Intelligence, and in many cases exercising an arbitrary 'control' over them is to simply destroy what may have been important content. Often time Lucid Dreams seem to resent people who meddle too much with their over-riding 'control' -- thus the phenomena of "false awakenings" which is simply a mechanism to trick dreamers into supposing that they are no longer dreaming, so that they will suspend their efforts to interfere with what the Dream Mind must think is important content. ________________________________________ But more about drugs and Lucidity. Whatever tends to increase Conscious Energy may increase Lucidity. We have all felt how the Conscious Energy that supports Lucidity is almost tangible. Sometimes we can feel the power to maintain lucid awareness just ebb away from us. Now, we should consider how this conscious energy might be generated. There can be a positive addition of energy into your system, which is a good thing. This is like people sending you love and good vibes... that type of thing. But then there are the negative ways that Conscious Energy may be generated. The Ultimate Negative is at Death -- with the complete dissolution of the body and nervous system all kinds of Energy is released -- thus we have people having Near Death Experiences recounting stories of blissful tunnels of white light. Many Religious People have great success with Fasting, as the privation of food causes a kind of slow dying which releases energy along the way. The success of Breathing Exercises may be both Positive and Negative -- Positive where breathing is rapid and deep, but where the Breath is held, then it is by bursting brain cells by the millions and releasing their energy in a small death that Energy is perceived. So, when doing drugs to attain to greater conscious energy, one needs to wonder whether the energy is coming from Positive Additions of Energy into your system, or whether the drug is simply killing you little by little and thus releasing your dissolved Life Energy into one last fleeting and evanescent puff -- delightful for a moment, but leaving you a bit run down afterward. In this sense, that you can sometimes have very interesting Energy Experiences when you run down your Health -- channelling the dissipated energy to drive Consciousness -- you can now understand that often when you feel healthiest, when you are recuperating from illness or finally deciding to live wholesomely for awhile, the seeming Paradox occurs whereby you seem to go into a Spiritual Dry Spell. This you can understand as the Psyche taking time to store and gather its energies, instead of dissolving and spending them out. We need to remember that Breathing goes both in and out, and we can only spend what we first must earn.

[ColtEtish]

Sounds like you described burned out to me, psychadelics arn't something you do every day, or at least thats my feeling. I would say maximum once a month, more like 2 for your soul and bodys energy to completely regernate. Otherwise it's not going to be as special anymore.