Pandora's Box

[dreamboat]

Ok..........This is getting crazy now. The problem is is that my dream recall has always been excellent. But it's getting to the point were I am getting so involved with my DC's that I am actually missing them, even to the point of actually crying when I wake up. One dream was of the 'Son' I never had or the most valued friend one could ever wish for. Whilst in the dream state this is all well and good but on awakening this is making my life miserable. I have heard there are different levels of DC'c. ie simple projections of ones-self or even spirit guides and those from a different realm. It's getting to the point that I wished I could not dream at all. I have had the option of making these dreams Lucid, but to do that would deny their ultimate "reality". The weird thing is.........this "connection" with the DC's is getiing stronger. Is this just my minds way of telling me to get off my ass and do something about it or are these Characters on a more Deeper level.

[Leo Volont]

Dream Characters often represent an ideal. You go into few details, but it would seem to me from what I have been told, that your favorite Dream Characters are such ideals. Particularly as they can behave convincingly within the dream, the Higher Mind is very sure about their personalities and qualities. Indeed, the thing about some DreamCharacters is that one would think it better if they were the ones to wake up to the use of the Physical Body, and not the weak, flawed, tentative personas such as we are. In cases of Schizophrenia it IS the dream characters who are able to surface in control of the body. In that famous Black and White Movie "All About Eve", the denoument of the Movie was that the mousy persona eventually gives up to an Ideal Personality. How many of us would, in our present personas, accept the sentence of our effective Persona Death, in order to step aside and allow an Ideal Personality to wake up in our bodies the next morning? However, we can do our best in incorporate some of the best traits of our dream characters. In real life we cannot pick up too many of the mannerisms of our friends, because they would object to being copied. But a Dream Character might only be flattered. And then my think has turned to the notion that by attempting to imitate Ideal Persona of a certain Dream Character, it may act as an invitation to attract their Inspiration -- it may allow them to surface, subtlely, not absolutely, to share their influence rather than imposing a Personality Coup suggesting of the above mentioned schizophrenia. Dreamboat, it is not as thought your personality is universally hailed as perfect beyond all improvement. Perhaps you could shift toward being more like your Ideal Dream Character and less like yourself. I am willing to bet that within six months of such an endeavor, even your writing style would become indistinguishable from what it is now. Your dreams are showing you a better man wishing he could get out and have a chance at the World. Well, let him.

[dreamboat]

Well........Yes I have always been concise........but I do not wish to be this DC, Only to meet them. Are you saying they are just fragments of myself. You know I am sick of Microsmic views. I really hope they are "Out of Myself" and something else.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by dreamboat Well........Yes I have always been concise........but I do not wish to be this DC, *Only to meet them. *Are you saying they are just fragments of myself. *You know I am sick of Microsmic views. *I really hope they are \"Out of Myself\" and something else. Not 'fragments' -- you give your own surface persona too much credit. You know when people talk about how we only use a miniscule percentage of our brain -- they are speaking only of the surface persona. Believe me, nobodies brain is going to waste. Whether these fully coherent Dream Characters are a sympathetic emanation from some Universl Mind, or are 'homegrown' from your own organic brain from the racial genetics of ancient and traditional Ideal Types, the fact remains that these different personas exist in our dreams just as we do, and it is beginning to rather mystify me that more of them don't get to the Surface in Schizophrenic Breakthroughs. You know, they probably do all the time, but there is nobody to complain. "Whatshisname has not been himself", but if he is better than before. Would wife, children, bosses and co-workers raise the alarm if suddenly 'Fred' was no longer such a obnoxious dweeb? Imagine your wife no longer being a relentless shrew who spends money only to get fat on the sofa, but wakes up one morning to cook breakfast and to welcome you with "Did you sleep well, darling?" Would you immediately run her off to the doctor, or would you fairly suppose that in the Lottery of Personalities she has finally brought home a winner. There are many of us who, if we were to die at the personality level, to be succeeded by another personality, from the dream realms, we, our personalities, would not be missed in the least, and everybody in our lives would hail the new us as such a wonderful change for the better. "Fred... he used to be such a fool, and now it is as though he is a new man. Whatever self-improvement seminar he went to must have really worked for him". Actually, it not Fred anymore. But nobody is complaining. "Schizophrenia" is when a mousy submissive wife wakes up and tells her redneck husband to 'get bent'.

[dreamboat]

Well..........Yes............I am quite Schizoid and always have been. So much for my DC's then. I am not sure if this is a positive or a negative.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by dreamboat Well..........Yes............I am quite Schizoid and always have been. *So much for my DC's then. *I am not sure if this is a positive or a negative. No, you are not schizoid. Your Persona has always been quite uniformally the same. You may wish you were Schizoid... to let somebody else drive for a change. yes, it is very reasonable to suppose that some other persona could step forward and take over your body and do so much better with it than you have, but that has never happened, has it? So you don't really mean you are Schizophrenic, do you? I suppose that is just a careless way of saying that you do not behave coherently or that you are altogether acting for the advancement of your own best interests. That may make you appear foolish, but it is not Schizophrenic. You may not approve of the erratic and self-defeating nature of your Persona, but that is what your Persona is. So don't call yourself 'schizoid'.. there are truer words for what you are. But if you have nothing good to say about yourself, maybe you should render yourself some discretion and say nothing at all.

[Serinanth]

/rant on/ So in my experience this is one of the reasons I have had to distance myself to the dream world. Watching some one you've loved for a life time die and then waking up to another life can be traumatic. I do not know what to beleive anymore, other than "now" that is. Dreamboat, have you met and people in your dreams that understood that it was a dream? Some one I loved very much asked me. "What will happen to me when you wake up?" What do you say to that? I just sat there for the longest moment trying to figure out what to say to her. And then I just spoke "I will remember you". And I always will. I might have had a similar experiance as you Dreamboat. Being lucid does not mean having the ability to change the world in a thought. It is simply the act of being aware, there are different levels of awareness mind you Let yourself become aware, and then live the life you are delt, and do all that you can to remember those people that affected your life and learn from them. Leo.. well met =) I find your thoughts of letting a dream personna shine through the dreamer facinating. I have actually found myself doing this, trying to impersonate some of their qualities. But going so far as to ending your own personna creeps the hell out of me. Some time ago while under the influence of a particular fungus I lost sense of self, it was a terrifying experience. That I would not ever wish to happen again. I wonder though, during that time where I felt no self, where I recognised the lack of it, but I could not access that feeling of self what if "i" was one of those dream characters that found himself first? I look back on my childhood and wonder, was that me? How did I change so drasticaly? The brain works as a pretty good storage device for experiences, much easier to access than the universal mind or whatever you want to call it. Either way this brain will remember what happened during its physical life, if we are in fact astral beings and are only using the brain as a mode of interaction with this physical world then what would happen if another astral mind took over that body, they would have access to the physical memories in the brain. I dont think it supposed to happen though as feeling like you are living in separate realities confuses the $&%* out of me. Uhh anywhoo.. /rant off/

[Jrels]

Wow... Serinanth... I remember reading some of your posts when I first joined. Your statements really gave me a good perspective on LDing, and I think you have the right perspective here as well. It can be sad, but DC's do not posses the same significance as people in the waking world. Maybe talking to these dream characters "on the level" as Serinanth did, will help resolve some of the issues.

[Serinanth]

Its not the right perspective its just my own. If you identify with it cool =) means I am not as alone as I thought in this world.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Serinanth Leo.. well met =) I find your thoughts of letting a dream personna shine through the dreamer facinating. I have actually found myself doing this, trying to impersonate some of their qualities. But going so far as to ending your own personna creeps the hell out of me. Some time ago while under the influence of a particular fungus I lost sense of self, it was a terrifying experience. That I would not ever wish to happen again. I wonder though, during that time where I felt no self, where I recognised the lack of it, but I could not access that feeling of self what if \"i\" was one of those dream characters that found himself first? I look back on my childhood and wonder, was that me? How did I change so drasticaly? The brain works as a pretty good storage device for experiences, much easier to access than the universal mind or whatever you want to call it. Either way this brain will remember what happened during its physical life, if we are in fact astral beings and are only using the brain as a mode of interaction with this physical world then what would happen if another astral mind took over that body, they would have access to the physical memories in the brain. I dont think it supposed to happen though as feeling like you are living in separate realities confuses the $&%* out of me. Uhh anywhoo.. /rant off/ yes, you have a point about the feeling of NO PERSONA being in charge. it is like a car barrelling down the autoban without a driver, or an airplane coming in for a landing and the pilot suddenly vanishes. Isn't that what Autism is -- a brain and a body without a central coherent will to give direction and make the choices. I was supposing a different Persona Complex would jump into the drivers seat. Just as our Higher Self can give us dreams with various Dream Characters, so we know that our Higher Self can certainly envision other personalities in -- why not let them be in charge for awhile. This is not just theory. Multiple Personality Schizophrenia proves it out. Our Experiences and memories can be taken in any number of ways. Some Personas are cowardly, some brave, some brash, some timid, some emotional, some sensible, some sensual, some spartan, some demonic, some saintly. And I really do think that alternate Personas take over in more cases than we ever suspect, because I am supposing that in most cases, better and more respected personas take over from worse and obnoxious ones. Since the change is not pathological, nobody complains, and the health departments are not notified.

[Merck]

This is a good read. I had a theory about dream characters and their personalities, though I won't be able to prove it but its just another possibility. Couldn't is be, that the dream characters that are seen in a dream are not necesarily only aspects of your own self but rather a mixture of personality traits the dreamer might posess as well as personality traits that the dreamer has seen in other people they have met in the waking world? The possibilities would seem to be vast considering the number of people a person might come in contact with throughout life. Unfortunately there wasn't anything that made me come to this theory other than just thinking about it for a second because it does seem logical since the dream world is all created by the dreamer's mind (as far as I know anyway but I could be wrong). Well that's my one cent. Let me know what your opinion on it is.

[Leo Volont]

Originally posted by Merck This is a good read. *I had a theory about dream characters and their personalities, though I won't be able to prove it but its just another possibility. *Couldn't is be, that the dream characters that are seen in a dream are not necesarily only aspects of your own self but rather a mixture of personality traits the dreamer might posess as well as personality traits that the dreamer has seen in other people they have met in the waking world? *The possibilities would seem to be vast considering the number of people a person might come in contact with throughout life. *Unfortunately there wasn't anything that made me come to this theory other than just thinking about it for a second because it does seem logical since the dream world is all created by the dreamer's mind (as far as I know anyway but I could be wrong). * Well that's my one cent. *Let me know what your opinion on it is. Opposing the materialist view of dreaming as confined to individual brains, we have the theory of the Collective Consciousness where we see dreams as more of Life Force Phenomena. Indeed, as soon as we have evidence of at least ONE SHARED DREAM, we can no longer confine dreaming to any single brain, but must allow that Dreaming has reaches outside. And then we have extraordinary dream characters outside of any memory --- real life, movies, books --- really some tremendous stuff. In one of my first dreams I was introduced to the Oracle Archetype. A Voice said she was a Prophetess and a Poet, and then the curtains parted and out on the stage came this young woman, dressed a bit gypsyish and she launched into a spontaneous poem, and as she focussed her attention from person to person in the crowd, she included their lives into the lines and rhythms of her perfectly unbelievable poem. And I don't write poetry. This Oracle, this Prophetess and Poetress was an honest to God Archetype -- a perfect representative instance of a Type -- the Paragon -- the Model on which all those who aspire to that role must in some measure conform. Indeed, how could dreams ever manage to inspire us, if they could only re-mix and review the same materials of our low lives or of the low culture that gestated us. Because dreams can inspire us, it certainly indicates that they come from someplace higher than we have yet ever reached, and have yet to have ever seen.

[Serinanth]

Originally posted by Leo Volont Opposing the materialist view of dreaming as confined to individual brains, we have the theory of the Collective Consciousness where we see dreams as more of Life Force Phenomena. Indeed, as soon as we have evidence of at least ONE SHARED DREAM, we can no longer confine dreaming to any single brain, but must allow that Dreaming has reaches outside. And then we have extraordinary dream characters outside of any memory --- real life, movies, books --- really some tremendous stuff. In one of my first dreams I was introduced to the Oracle Archetype. A Voice said she was a Prophetess and a Poet, and then the curtains parted and out on the stage came this young woman, dressed a bit gypsyish and she launched into a spontaneous poem, and as she focussed her attention from person to person in the crowd, she included their lives into the lines and rhythms of her perfectly unbelievable poem. And I don't write poetry. This Oracle, this Prophetess and Poetress was an honest to God Archetype -- a perfect representative instance of a Type -- the Paragon -- the Model on which all those who aspire to that role must in some measure conform. Indeed, how could dreams ever manage to inspire us, if they could only re-mix and review the same materials of our low lives or of the low culture that gestated us. Because dreams can inspire us, it certainly indicates that they come from someplace higher than we have yet ever reached, and have yet to have ever seen. And thats why my perspective of the dream world is that of another reality, similar to this one but real nonetheless. Why there is concequence to my action and why I feel one must act with morality in the dream. I cannot prove what happened to anyone else, how does one prove they had a dream? But the two of us are pretty damned sure that the other was not a construct and that we were in the same dream together.

[Jrels]

The whole reason I began to want to lucid dream was so that I could explore the dream world to find something or someone which was not a creation of my imagination. Whenever I became lucid, I would immediately seek out a DC whom I could interview. I would ask random DC's what their interests were, what they remember of their past, what their fears were, and things like that. I soon found out that all of the DC's I've met do not have the capacity to comprehend such things. So after several searches, I began to conclude that I would never meet such a DC. My last attempt went something like this... In a LD I was confronted by obstinate DC's. After I had made it clear to them that I was at an advantage over them being lucid, I asked them if they knew of any way I could meet a person such as myself in the dream, a real person, I remember I used the term "special person." They seemed to know exactly what I was talking about and instructed me to follow them. I did and they led me into a room with an old woman. This woman invited me to join her in a simple prayer to God for mercy on all of humanity. She was filled with sadness and passionately wept. After this, the LD ended. Still, looking back to this event, I am almost certain this old woman was a construct. She showed me nothing more than a discussion of things that already occupy my day to day thinking. I am not saying it is impossible to meet a non-construct in a LD, I just wish I could do it myself. When I am awake I tell myself I will continue the search in the next LD, but it seems like whenever I become lucid in a dream these days I have a predetermination that it is all a personal creation of my mind.