The Disengaged Dream Self

[Leo Volont]

(Note to the Evil Moderators. Back Paging my threads is simply vindictive. If you want to ban me, then ban me. Burying me in unread pages would amount to the same thing. yes, I have made many friends here, but I will not persist in the face of your badgering and hostility). The Disengaged Dream Self Okay, to understand this little essay, one must first comprehend this particular premise, that the Waking Self and the Dream Self are not identical or even particularly integrated with one another. Their experiences are simply too different. We suppose they are the same because each one of them offers us the grammatical First Person Experience – the ‘I’ perspective. Also, in many but not all instances the Dream Self has roughly the same Body Image as the Waking Self. But this is where the similarity ends. The Dream Self lives in different habitats (perhaps always originating in venues from our actual past, but not ending there, as the Dream Self has nothing to limit the boundaries of its wandering), has different habits, lives by different rules, and even keeps different friends. The next time you are lucid, simply access your dream self’s memory by asking yourself, for instance, when was the last time I was here at this dream scene, or, where do I usually hang out here in dream land? If the results are the same for you as they were for me, then what will spill out is a complete and coherent set of memories indicating that the Dream Self doesn’t just roll out of nothingness during our REM Cycles, but actually has its own life. Several weeks ago the question came up of why we cannot do the same miracles awake that we can manage when we dream – when we can fly and exercise some degree of direct control over things. The Dream Self has these powers. The Waking Self does not. There have been many documented cases in History, the History of the Saints and Mystics, in which it has been found that certain individuals did have these miraculous powers. It was as though they had access to their Dream Selves while awake (like a reverse Lucid Dream, where the Dream Self realizes it is Awake). Could that be the answer, that in the lives of these Saints, they had managed to somehow integrate their Dream Selves inseparably into their Waking Selves? Well, supposing so, what would be the first step in achieving such a concord? Perhaps as we become Lucid we could use our momentary ascendancy over the Dream Self to set in motion the Dream Self’s approaching to a closer parallel with the Waking Self’s Life. Instead of the Dream Self haunting scenes often so unfamiliar to us, and consorting with people who are complete strangers to us, what if we could convince the Dream Self to focus on our territory, our friends, our Life. It is as though the Dream Self is attached to the things of Memory and Fantasy, and is frankly bored with the lives we live today. Well, that isn’t very mature, is it? The Dream Self must be made to understand that things could be so much better if both the Waking Self and the Dream Self could apply themselves toward the same goals and interests. It is often said that we use only a portion of our brain’s capacity. Well, how much more could we increase that capacity if when the next time we access our Dream Self’s memory, we find that the Dream Self had been following us to Work, to home, and off into our complicated areas of play and interpersonal relationships. With the Waking Self and the Dream Self engaged in living the same lives, we’d have a partnership between the Conscious and Subconscious Minds which certainly could sharpen intuitions, insights and even skills and abilities. But is it possible? Well, just the other night I presented this Case to my own Dream Self, and it consented to leave its accustomed realms and come to my new city, and in good dream style actually bought the Airline Tickets – one way. But there is still work to be done… my dream self insisted on buying 5 or 6 additional tickets for some Dream Characters with whom he did not wish to part. But it was a start. Or perhaps these Dream Characters will prove to be good allies in my day to day struggles of good vanquishing evil.

[Matchbook]

That's a wonderful essay, Leo.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Matchbook That's a wonderful essay, Leo. Thankyou. But I have been thinking that I may have been too onesided toward the Waking Life. The Dream Self might consider his Dream Realm to be the Priority Existence. It is the Essence of Oriental Wisdom to downplay physical existence. Afterall, most of our lives are played out in servitude to relatively ruthless capitalists. Are we to ask our Dream Selves to sacrifice their obviously full and textured existences so that the Robber Barons who enslave us can keep up their boat payment when we manage to yoke our Dream Selves into helping us squeeze out 17% more production. Yippy, more people somewhere else in the World can be unemployed now since we can now do the work which used to feed their children. But then I am not advocating living in a dumpster, to live only to sleep, so that the Dream Self may be King of his Dream Universe. The Truth must fall somewhere in between, where the Waking Self and the Dream Self can enrich both of each other's Lives.