Oneironaut or cop out?

Hey,

I thought I would share some thoughts. I find I often drift away from this community... Maybe because I don't even know if I can call myself a lucid dreamer (or because I find the website has become less technically accessible over the years).

Don't get me wrong, I am an oneironaut. I dream (non lucidly). I give attention to my dreams, I remember and play with them. They affect my personal growth and my personal growth in turn affects them. It is one of the most rewarding parts of my life.

But, am I just copping out of lucid dreaming?

The other night, I had a dream, turned into a nightmare. There was a sadistic all-powerful monster. He stopped the school bus he was driving beside me where I was walking on the sidewalk. I was struck with dread, knowing I was his target and I was powerless. In the past, my response was always to run away from big threats like this. But this time, because of the work I have done on this, I almost immediately recognized the monster as a metaphor for the various things that gave me fear, most likely, fear of professional and social failure. I calmed, knowing it was merely perceived danger and I was safe. I knew confronting it was necessary so I approached my antagonist, accepting the sacrifices that would have to be made in order to move on. Very close to each other, the monster hesitated, tried to be terrorizing but failed and felt very uncomfortable from my behavior, ending the dream on a good note.

Before, when I actively tried to "lucid dream," if I had "realized I was dreaming" (and I put the quotation marks on purpose), I would have still felt afraid and would have unskillfully flown out of reach and into a broken dream. Or maybe, I would have shouted out loud "Hey friend, come with me!" and expected the antagonist to be good (but he wouldn't be, instead, even killing me as I naively made myself vulnerable).


There's definitely something to say about "lucid dreams" defined by "knowledge that one is dreaming;" they are a unique experience. Yet, I often find that I use my sudden or gradual "knowledge that I am dreaming" to cheat out of any problem, leaving them unresolved.

I always want to deepen this hobby so I could re-commit to lucid dreaming... But I wonder if I could do it in a more subtle way (in fact, that's why I stopped lucid dreaming sort of)....

I don't like the term "lucid dreaming". I know people have discussed the definition at length, talked of different degrees and etc... But maybe there's just different things. Maybe there are many sorts of dreams (kind of obvious now that I say it), like lucid dreams and vivid dreams and etc... and they're just about different types of awareness being at play. I feel even being self-aware doesn't even have that much to do with lucid dreaming, it's another thing altogether, or else, lucid dreaming is like a homophone. And the dream I described above, where I was not aware I was dreaming but was aware that my experience was a metaphor, that's some kind of other type of awareness (I don't know which)?

Anyway, this is my response to the "Did you know you were dreaming? Then you were lucid dreaming." "Your dream was vivid but you weren't lucid" "You weren't self-aware so not lucid" etc... Maybe there's more than a word. Why are we focused on lucid dreaming? What's up with that? But, honestly, I'm more interested in how I can "lucid dream" without it meaning I go around shouting "I am dreaming!", fly away from enemies and enact the same response to the "I can do literally anything" scenario in every dream.

Okay, well, sorry for this rant. I'm probably out of context because I don't participate here enough. I will leave this here anyway :)

It sounds like you're moving beyond the stage where dreams are like a video game or a playground, and ready to start trying to solve some life problems with them. This is what dream work becomes about later in life.

About facing monsters - you want to avoid the 2 extremes of violence and running away or submission (AKA fight, flight freeze or fawn). It's just like confronting people in real life, and actually dreams are in many ways testing grounds where you can try out ways of dealing with life situations without the real-world consequences, or maybe more properly where you see the kind of results that will be attained by whatever methods you've developed for dealing with people and problems. Just like in real life, if you go on the attack the other does as well and becomes bigger and stronger. If you run away or become too conciliatory it brings out the predator in them and they also go on the attack. What's needed is the in-between - the human solution. Negotiation. The game of verbal parrying and thrusting - not fisticuffs or pretending everybody is your best friend. You train for it in daily life, by learning how to deal with people when they get too aggressive or try to take advantage of you, and you practice it so it becomes your second (or first) nature. Then it will begin to show up in your dreams.

When I say the human solution it means a lot of things. Like a single dream image it can contain multitudes of meaning, even if some of them seem to be contradictory. As humans we have options that aren't available to animals, such as discussion and negotiation. Animals tend to react to strangers by either going on the aggressive or becoming conciliatory, or as Terry Pratchett says they see everything as either something to mate with, eat, or be eaten by. Something like that, I think I screwed it up though. But human also implies humane - which seems to mean we can find mutual values without resorting to the extremes. Don't let yourself be taken advantage of but also don't try to take advantage. It takes a lot of courage but also a lot of tact.

I used to react to monsters by either attacking or running. Then in here I found out some people project pure love onto them. I tied this for a while and it had some amazing effects. I turned a frightening bear into a pair of my old dogs and we had a joyous reunion. But that's not always the best solution. With some monsters it just makes you vulnerable. It was from Jung that I learned about the negotiation alternative. I called it parrying and thrusting before, and it does involve that, but it also involves trying to find common ground to build trust and friendship on. Treat people like your best friend, but only if they deserve it - make sure they're not trying to betray you first. But you do need to be prepared to thrust and parry at a moments notice when it becomes necessary. I think the point is to learn how to move fluidly between all these modes and to know when it's necessary to do what. Your dreams are essentially a reflection of the way you're living your life, and if you keep encountering monsters maybe you're seeing things in too frightened of a way.

Well I feel like I'm just repeating myself and starting to babble now.

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

Hey,

I thought I would share some thoughts. I find I often drift away from this community... Maybe because I don't even know if I can call myself a lucid dreamer (or because I find the website has become less technically accessible over the years).

Don't get me wrong, I am an oneironaut. I dream (non lucidly). I give attention to my dreams, I remember and play with them. They affect my personal growth and my personal growth in turn affects them. It is one of the most rewarding parts of my life.

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Oneironaut... never heard that term before. I like it.

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

But, am I just copping out of lucid dreaming?

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Eh, I don't see the appeal of lucidity much myself. It's much more interesting to me to explore and remember, with all the blessed surreality and subconscious elements uninfluenced and unsuppressed by the conscious mind.

In my opinion, Occipitalred, this represents true lucidity:

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

But this time, because of the work I have done on this, I almost immediately recognized the monster as a metaphor for the various things that gave me fear, most likely, fear of professional and social failure. I calmed, knowing it was merely perceived danger and I was safe. I knew confronting it was necessary so I approached my antagonist, accepting the sacrifices that would have to be made in order to move on. Very close to each other, the monster hesitated, tried to be terrorizing but failed and felt very uncomfortable from my behavior, ending the dream on a good note.

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While this represents minimal lucidity, if not false lucidity, because it seems you were still assuming your threats to be real:

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Before, when I actively tried to "lucid dream," if I had "realized I was dreaming" (and I put the quotation marks on purpose), I would have still felt afraid and would have unskillfully flown out of reach and into a broken dream. Or maybe, I would have shouted out loud "Hey friend, come with me!" and expected the antagonist to be good (but he wouldn't be, instead, even killing me as I naively made myself vulnerable).

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As I think Darkmatters already said, it might be that you have elevated your lucid skills to the point where your presence in the dream is simply a given. Even if, based on the popular definitions of lucidity (which in my opinion are very often misguided or just plain wrong -- i.e., lucidity does not equal vividness), it seemed that you were not lucid at the time, the fact that you were able to calmly deal with a dream threat by recognizing its true nature, and then interpret that metaphor in real time indicates to me that you were very much aware that you were dreaming, and in substantial, perhaps advanced, possession of self-awareness. Speaking of that:

In my mind, self-awareness -- awareness of your presence in the moment, in a waking-life manner -- equals lucidity more than anything else, including the ever-popular "This is a dream!" exclamation. While I believe that it is more common than people care to admit for that exclamation to occur during a decidedly non-lucid dream, the resolution you reached in your bus dream probably could not have happened non-lucidly. You really need a pretty high level of self-awareness to be on hand to call anything in a dream a metaphor, I think, much less determine that metaphor's value. What may have been missing in this scenario, and what may have made you think you were not lucid, was that you seemed to lack access to memory. If you had such access, you might have been able to further act on your interpretation of the dream by, say, boarding the bus and sorting out the specific events that caused it to appear (maybe by allowing the driver to bring you to the bus's destination), because you would be able to access those events as real, waking-life memories... sort of a full-immersion moment of therapy.

I'm beginning to ramble, and have no time now to fix, but I guess the tl;dr: here is this: it could be that the bus dream represents your true colors as an oneironaut, so you haven't been abandoning lucidity at all; rather, you may have risen above the "Hey, this is a dream!" phase of lucid exploration.... and yeah, I'm not a fan of the term "Lucid dreaming," because it implies the wrong things and it poorly attempts to umbrella the entire range of awareness a dreamer can experience in a dream.


Also:

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Originally Posted by LabyrinthDreams

Eh, I don't see the appeal of lucidity much myself. It's much more interesting to me to explore and remember, with all the blessed surreality and subconscious elements uninfluenced and unsuppressed by the conscious mind.

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Good point, and I'm a big fan of non-lucid dreaming -- but you might want to consider that lucidity can allow you to explore ... "all the blessed surreality and subconscious elements uninfluenced and unsuppressed by the conscious mind" during the dream, as it happens. Lucidity does not always equal dream control, or even influence, and if you are deeply lucid you can discover that you can indeed witness all that unconscious process and creation without effecting it... a dream need not be changed if you are present in it, and a dreamworld can be far more deeply appreciated in the present moment of lucidity than it can by remembering it later, I think.

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

But, am I just copping out of lucid dreaming?

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No, you're just approaching it in a better way by making better use of your lucidity. It is better to use lucidity to resolve nightmares than to run away from them.

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

I always want to deepen this hobby so I could re-commit to lucid dreaming... But I wonder if I could do it in a more subtle way (in fact, that's why I stopped lucid dreaming sort of)....

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I think auto-suggestion is the most subtle of the lucid dreaming techniques. Before going sleep to, pick some dream goals and set the intention to identify dreams while they are happening in order to complete those dream goals.

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

I feel even being self-aware doesn't even have that much to do with lucid dreaming, it's another thing altogether, or else, lucid dreaming is like a homophone.

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To lucid dream, one has to use their knowledge of dreaming. Knowledge of dreaming is not of much use when one is not aware of this knowledge. One needs self-awareness to be aware of what they know. Therefore, self-awareness is needed to lucid dream.

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

I don't like the term "lucid dreaming".

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I sort of don't either. When I talk to others about lucid dreaming, I tend not to mention the term because I feel others can be put off by it because they think it is weird. Instead, I'll just assume everybody can lucid dream and bring up lucid dreaming by saying something like, "try transforming into a different animal during a dream. It's really neat!"

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

Why are we focused on lucid dreaming?

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Lucid dreaming makes it easier to complete dream goals.

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Originally Posted by Sageous

Good point, and I'm a big fan of non-lucid dreaming -- but you might want to consider that lucidity can allow you to explore ... "all the blessed surreality and subconscious elements uninfluenced and unsuppressed by the conscious mind" during the dream, as it happens. Lucidity does not always equal dream control, or even influence, and if you are deeply lucid you can discover that you can indeed witness all that unconscious process and creation without effecting it... a dream need not be changed if you are present in it, and a dreamworld can be far more deeply appreciated in the present moment of lucidity than it can by remembering it later, I think.

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I've heard that point before, but I must disagree as lucidity of any sort does influence at least one important segment of the dream: The dream self.

Perhaps this isn't an issue to those who only ever dream as themselves, but my dream self is often enough someone else completely, a different character, sometimes with radically different personality or outlook on the world. While lucid, by definition, I would be unable to be anyone but myself in dreaming, unable to think through the mind of another, because I would have that lucid sense of self interfering with that process.

I have no wish to kill the interesting characters I can become with non-lucidity, nor challenge the dream-self when it is more open-minded to the idea of being someone else, or even becoming nothing at all.

Well, I'm happy I went ahead and posted this :)
Reading your posts has led to some good reflection.

In terms of facing monsters, trying to find the right strategy, I always struggled because I interpreted the event too literally. I thought, I can't fight them off. If it were in real life, they would be too big to defeat. I can't "send them love" because in real life, that would not actually transform them into puppies. Realizing that they are metaphors for not actual physical threats (those are unlikely in my life) but for other sources of fear, has allowed me to finally stop fleeing or fawning. I will use your negotiation technique, Darkmatters. I couldn't really use that with as much power before though. I find understanding what these things really mean to me, even what they mean unconsciously, I mean, makes it much more powerful.

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

they see everything as either something to mate with, eat, or be eaten by. Something like that, I think I screwed it up though. But human also implies humane - which seems to mean we can find mutual values without resorting to the extremes. .

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I found this part especially useful. :)

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Originally Posted by LabyrinthDreams

Oneironaut... never heard that term before. I like it.

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Well, I like the way the word almost even sounds like inneronaut, explorer of your inner world... And the way it doesn't define in which way you are an explorer of dreams. But like Dolphin said, I think I will refrain from using any such vocabulary like lucid dreaming and oneironaut when talking to people in real life. I think it makes it sound more accessible, more normal, to just talk about what you are doing without labeling it.

@Sageous

You just made me realize I had a flawed understanding of self-awareness. I imagined it as a feeling of enlightenment, a sense of awe while you contemplated your sense of being and your interaction/connection with everything else in general. That seemed impossible to maintain all the time, and if possible, not practical or favorable. The way you described it now and I also looked up the definition on google "conscious knowledge of one's own character, feelings, motives, and desires"... it seems much more realistic. This is what I have been practicing for a while: being aware of my personality, my cognitive, emotional and behavioural patterns, being very honest with myself about my motives and desires, and establishing strategies to respond to different states. So, as long as I am aware of my inner state, my patterns and values, I am somewhere on the spectrum of self-awareness?

I should probably review your memory thread. I have before, but I still struggle with understanding how to access my memory just as in waking life during dreams. In the dream, I described above, you got it right. I just was aware of how I felt, what the situation really meant to me, and how I wanted to address it (self-awareness, I guess), yet, I knew nothing about my past or the greater context. I didn't know about dreams or about my waking self at that moment. I see how waking life memory would have filled me on about how I was dreaming subtly. If I could achieve that, I would be very satisfied with the state of my lucidity. They wouldn't have to be like they use to be, intoning the "I am dreaming!" chant, ha! :P

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Originally Posted by LabyrinthDreams

I've heard that point before, but I must disagree as lucidity of any sort does influence at least one important segment of the dream: The dream self.

Perhaps this isn't an issue to those who only ever dream as themselves, but my dream self is often enough someone else completely, a different character, sometimes with radically different personality or outlook on the world. While lucid, by definition, I would be unable to be anyone but myself in dreaming, unable to think through the mind of another, because I would have that lucid sense of self interfering with that process.

I have no wish to kill the interesting characters I can become with non-lucidity, nor challenge the dream-self when it is more open-minded to the idea of being someone else, or even becoming nothing at all.

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But maybe you are these people. You in a different context. If you become self-aware in the dream, not merely label the experience as a dream, maybe you can recognize your character as a part of yourself. And you can play along with the dream addressing what matters to this part of yourself?

D'oh!! Double-posted again! There's nothing to see in this post - move along...

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

In terms of facing monsters ... I can't "send them love" because in real life, that would not actually transform them into puppies.

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I think in this quote you're talking about when you're non-lucid, right? If so then it makes total sense of course. But I'll tell you the great thing about monsters - they make you lucid!! After doing a lot of reading here on the board I kept seeing people saying this - that as soon as a dream becomes a nightmare (or when a monster appears - or something like a bear, which don't exist anywhere near me) you realize this is not reality. Not only that, but there's a shock factor when seeing a monster - if you've been thinking a lot about lucidity and maybe doing mantras before falling asleep, or writing goals in your DJ, make sure to tell yourself that when you see a monster you will ______ (fill in the blank - whatever your goal is). In my case I kept doing a mantra that if I see a bear or a monster I will fly toward it beaming pure love. This worked because there are no bears near me, so if I see one that definitely means I'm dreaming. Also, just in case some bear escaped from the zoo and wandered into my neighborhood or something, if I try to fly toward it in waking life nothing is going to happen, so no problem there. I also believe that because I was thinking about bears a lot and really wanting to test this idea, I was excited about it down deep, and that was definitely a factor.

So with all this in place, seeing a bear gave me a shock that prompted immediate lucidity. It's like a jump start.

Pretty soon there was something in the corner of an empty warehouse room that looked suspiciously bearlike - in fact it was definitely a big grizzly at first, but seeing it quickened my heart and I immediately sort of knew I was dreaming (I din't hit full high-awareness lucidity, but that's not necessary). Almost before I knew what I was doing, I was flying toward it arms spread for a bear hug, filled with love for it. And lo and behold, as I approached I suddenly saw that it was just a persepctive trick that made it look like a bear - it resolved itself now into my 2 dogs laying on the floor in such a way that their bodies merged visually into what resembled a bear (I love the way dreams try to trick you like that - always these sort of crappy excuses - "Oh no it wasn't a BEAR - it was dogs and you just weren't seeing them right.. yeah yeah, that's the ticket!") Not only that, but afterwards I started seeing a lot more bears and always going lucid because of it. Once I found myself in a 70's style wood-paneled room in a trailer looking out a big picture window at a bear swinging on a swingset. Bam! Lucid immediately! Then I turned around and standing behind me was a ridiculous looking tall skinny man in a bedraggled and obviously fake bear suit asking me "Y U got a headache?" in a funny cartoon voice that made me laugh out loud - I actually did have a headache at the time. I woke immediately after, but for a moment there I was lucid.

Haha, Darkmatters, that bear on the swing set just cracked me up :P

So about that quote, no, I didn't mean when non-lucid. I meant in my previous phase, when I was trying to resolve dream problems as if they were literal events. In real life, I practice active daydreaming. Carl Jung has a book about that apparently and I need to read it. But the deal is while awake, I visualize myself in a dream and solve it. Not just solve it like you are writing a book ex. "Knight encounters dragon. Knight stabs dragon in the chest. Dragon dies. Knight wins." I mean, emotionally. I feel the threat. I feel the confidence. The feelings are important because I am practicing strategies of how to react in real life and in dreams. The thing is I did it wrong. Because I thought for example, the dragon would be real. A real physical threat. But it's not. I can fight physically but it only makes sense if I imagine that to mean the dragon was a task and by fighting, I am accomplishing it. Something like that. I could give it love, if I understand my conflict with the dragon originating from a misunderstanding and me lacking compassion for it. Things like that.

Wow ok, I see now. Active imagination. That's cool. Are you able to actually visualize things? When I've tried I mostly just sort of imagine things, with no visuals or what I call pre-visuals, sort of a dim idea of what it might look like but nothing clear. Occasionally some things become more clear, but I haven't been able to get anything in sharp focus. If I try it after waking up it works a lot better for visuals, but I tend not to have much if any control, and I can just fall back asleep. Hard to find the right balance.

If you're doing dragons - do you watch Jordan Peterson? A few things about your post make that seem likely. So a dragon would be a cat snake bird with fire who guards a treasure, and if you defeat it then you get to bring the treasure back. My first thought is that kind of monster you definitely don't beam love at. But then I thought maybe it's your shadow, in which case that would probably be exactly the right reaction. If you were going to try to beat it, you don't usually fight a dragon, they have to be tricked. Maybe bargained with - many dragons talk. Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud here.

Haha, you caught me! Jordan Peterson has been my biggest influence since this summer. I watched his most recent lectures on personality and maps of meaning and I am now following his bible study thing. It's really helped me wrap up the work I had been doing. Actually, the book I said from Carl Jung about active daydreaming, it's actually him who recommended it. I don't think he's an oneironaut; he only ever describes other people's dreams and talks of lucid dreamers as "they." His philosophy is very influenced by Carl Jung and he has convinced me to look into Jung's writings (I have been following your thread on the subject.)

Because you brought up Jordan Peterson, I'll go right ahead and use his philosophy in my words (in blue color)
Stories and dreams may be "not real" (not part of the physical tangible world) but they are "true"; they are like numbers (not real, but true), social, human truths... They have evolved through thousands of years of evolution, prehumans/humans who didn't know how to communicate human truths; the stories that remained over that much time were the ones which followed observable human patterns and resonated with people (though they didn't know why, just that they matched the patterns unconsciously)

In my old luicd dreams, when I acquired the knowledge that I was dreaming, I would exclaim "This is a dream!," the assumption being: "this is not real." Next, the dream would usually disintegrate as I grasped for any tactile sensation in the darkness. The problem might be this train of thought: This is a dream ---> This is not real ---> Nothing matters ---> Dream Nihilism/Maybe Black Void and Superficial Hedonism (negative consequences) or White Void (positive consequence).

Telling oneself nothing matters is very unhealthy because though it might be true in a way, it leaves you nonfunctional. To function, you need a hierarchy of values. When looking at the world, there needs to be things more important to you, for example, instead of seeing just points of colors, we see resources, people, threats. Our brains are programmed to see things that matter.

So, I think, when gaining lucidity, the train of thought should actually be: This is a dream ---> it is a true experience. (nothing is real; nothing is a physical tangible thing. Everything is a social, psychological, human truth).

So when you meet a monster, the monster shouldn't be only dismissed as non-real (it cannot harm you); but regarded as true in the way that it is a symbolic representation of the threat of the unknown and chaos, etc... And it can be dealt with as you deal with chaos in real life. You see. And you speak. (The mythological solution.)


In brief: I think it's a mistake to equate "dream" with "not real." I think lucidity should be more closely associated with an understanding that the experience is "true."
Even entering the White Void due to lucidity/understanding that nothing is real might be a positive state short-term but probably not useful to stay there all the time. Disclaimer: I say this as someone who's never been in a White Void, just many Black Voids. :)

So this might resolve LabyrinthDreams' criticism of lucidity. Lucidity does not need to destroy the dream, because it can be aware that the dream is true.

(Note: Realizing that the dream is true as I describe it here is not equivalent to when people experience being in the astral and interpret their experience as real. True is not real. Like numbers are not real, only true.)


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Can I visualize things? It depends. I've tried to start threads about the different types of visual visualization but they never really worked. Near sleep, like you said, I can hallucinate and clearly see images or movies. For me, that's more rare and not controlled (though sometimes guided). When fully awake, I find there are different eyes I can visualize with...?
1. I can try to actually see clearly an image in my mind as if seen with open eyes...but that's very hard.
2. What's easier is to see things with my memories' eye. For example, can you remember your childhood house? Well, it's that easy. Just common daydreaming is the same, I think. You see images but as if not with your eyes, and the vividness can be good but is kind of peripheral...
3. Then, I can also play with the colors that decorate the darkness of my closed eyelids and can somewhat summon them with open eyes but I'm not sure what the use is.

For active daydreaming, I use #2; vividness is not important.
It was a natural progression from being a daydreamer. I then used mental temples to store memory (especially dreams) and I did focus a bit more on visual details for fun. What happened next is I was living with a host that was very judgmental and I was very vulnerable to that. When away from this person, I would find myself spending excessive amounts of time arguing with her in my mind. It felt like torture and I couldn't stand it. Suddenly, I realized the person I was arguing with in my mind was not real... Why was I arguing with the ghost of a real person? That's when I decided to expand my use of daydreaming/mental temples. I imagined myself King of my mental court. The "ghosts" of the real people in my life attended my court, and the judgmental woman was there. She was speaking her opinion. I listened as I let the implication of my regal role sink in. In my mind, I had authority over what I paid attention to and could have the final word. So after respectfully listening to the opinion, I lovingly but firmly dismissed her. I watched as she walked down the steps of my castle and descended to the town below. For the first time, I felt free from judgement. I had granted myself closure. This scene became what I called a "metaphor" and I used it many times to address issues of managing cognitive attention and judgement. I think this was 4 years ago and since then, many "metaphors" have formed, thus forming my personal mythology. I also analyze my common daydream fantasies and created metaphors to structure the wisdom I learned from them. And then, I do active daydreaming where I explore common dream themes.

So that's part of my training that has led me to the dream I described in my first post. I want to read Carl Jung because I guess that's maybe what he was also doing and it could improve my practice. I'll have to find out.


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Also, Darkmatters, I have made use of your negotiating technique today in my active daydreaming and real life situations and it has helped me remove another layer of anxiety from my life. I liked how you said that as humans, our conflicts could be solved by finding common ground, mutual agreements, etc... So, I use the mantra "What do you want, what do I want," and generally, finding the ways in which our wants align comes easily... which honestly removes all the tension. So I am thankful for that. I am expecting another major dream theme for me to change due to this... ;)

Thanks for explaining that in so much detail - that was an amazing post.

I've had a lot of experience with the inner dialogues - I used to talk about them here on the board years back and I called them imaginal dialogues. People were telling me that I might be schizophrenic or something, that it isn't normal to hear voices in your head etc, but I suspected it's something some people are more sensitive to and others aren't aware of it. Later I found corroboration for that. People who have suffered narcissistic abuse (one or both parents being narcissistic, or someone else in a position of authority in your childhood) tend to experience it strongly. I studied Narcissistic Personality Disorder and eventually found an excellent resource on youtube called Spartan Life Coach who teaches how to recover from it through assertiveness training and developing self care and emotional literacy. Training in Stoicism also helped immensely and formed the foundation for all the rest of it.

On the imaginal dialogue, I learned the same trick that applies with changing bad habits. You need to replace them with new (good) ones or there's a hole left there and it's very easy for the harshly critical voices to just come back. So I tried something similar to your scenario, though it didn't occur to me to take the role of a king. I was more like a mediator or host at a round table and I would invite guests. They could be real people I had known or characters - as long as I had a pretty strong idea about their personality. I would send away anybody who was nasty and critical and then replace them at the table with somebody that I thought would be more helpful. I used some teachers who had been good role models, some people like Freud and Jung, Sherlock Holmes. I would have used Dr House as well if the show had been around when I did this - or maybe not, considering he's pretty close to narcissistic himself. But he's also incredibly intelligent and doesn't give a hoot about social convention, so that allows a lot of unfiltered wisdom to get through. I found some would speak up and some not, or some wouldn't have anything helpful to contribute. By creating a discussion like this with different types of characters you're accessing different parts of your mind - you have potentials that you normally don't access but you can sort of jump-start them through exercises like this, by giving them a face and a voice.

I also found I needed to get the ball rolling by asking questions and directing them to specific people. The mind is a question-answering machine. If you look into something called cybernetics (not the merging of man and machine, but its psychological meaning) this is what it's all about. If you ask a well worded question your unconscious will go to work to answer it. Let it sleep on it, but be sure to keep the question forefront in your mind - think about it several times through the day and just before falling asleep. It will produce answers. But it's important to keep refining the question - often getting to a proper understanding of the problem is all it takes to solve it.

It's also important - and I think you understand this one - to get your mind functioning in a productive way rather than just meandering or idling. I recently wrote about the 2 modes of thinking on the Jung thread - dream thinking and focused thinking. I find it takes an effort sometimes to get the conversation around to important issues or it just gibber-jabbers on and on endlessly. In fact this is what I do when I notice there's already a voice going - I'll enter into dialogue with it and turn it from criticism into productive dialogue.

Not only are dreams real, but they're compensatory - meaning they're corrections of wrong conscious attitudes. Jung discovered this - in fact it was a correction of Freud's wrong idea that dreams are wish fulfillments. And it means they are exactly what you need to hear. Not all of them doubtless, but the important ones. That is way more important than just being real or meaningful. So in a sense dreams, stories and myths are more meaningful than mere facts. Does the fact that all the planetary orbits remain on the ecliptic mean anything to you on a personal level? Does it help solve any life problems? Well, that dream of discovering you were in your underwear at school is a lot more to the point and helpful if you understand how to interpret it. Though my gut instinct tells me interpretation is for afterwards - the after-game analysis. I think it would get in the way if you're trying to interpret things as you experience them.

Now I remember, Jung did say it's important not to enter into interpretation too soon after a dream - just write it down in detail along with any emotions and associations. Don't try to interpret it until some time later - probably several days later. A too-hasty interpretation can be very damaging because you think you understand it now and you won't explore it farther.

Oh, here's another thing I received corroboration on just recently, from a Peterson video. It was either his latest Biblical one or an interview I just saw on Transliminal (I think it was Transliminal). I remember years ago in here I got the notion that the left and right hemispheres of the brain seem to correspond fairly well with the conscious and unconscious minds. One works in parallel and can process massive amounts of information incredibly rapidly but tends to be very generic and non-specific, while the other is slower and works in serial but allows for much more close attention to detail. People told me that was not right, but the idea persisted. Well now Peterson says that apparently dreams are a way for the hemispheres to communicate - one works symbolically through images and the other linguistically and logically and tends toward analysis. Bam! It feels good to be right! :rockon:

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Originally Posted by Occipitalred

I can't "send them love" because in real life, that would not actually transform them into puppies.

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But it does in dream life, which in an important way is more real than the outer objective life. And of course active imagination is where you're accessing the unconscious - the part that creates dreams. You need to talk to it in it's own language, which is dream imagery.

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

People were telling me that I might be schizophrenic or something, that it isn't normal to hear voices in your head etc, but I suspected it's something some people are more sensitive to and others aren't aware of it.

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About the internal dialogues, my informed understanding is that psychosis is when your internal dialogue or voices are perceived as coming from outside yourself, or as coming from a different entity. If you perceive your inner dialogue and "voices" to be coming from yourself, your mind, then that's just normal cognition. The people who told you you might be schizophrenic probably were taking the words "dialogue" and "voices" too literally, or didn't have the self-awareness to notice their own inner dialogues. When you say you hear voices in your head, you mean you have thoughts but they are not your opinions, you are just reflecting on the opinions of others so you assign the thoughts to someone that holds them. I think it's very common for people to run dialogues in their mind, what could have they replied to that person to be more clever?, How will they tell such person good news, etc...

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

On the imaginal dialogue, I tried something similar to your scenario, though it didn't occur to me to take the role of a king. I was more like a mediator or host at a round table and I would invite guests.

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Yes! That's it. We are doing the same thing. And I too, in my King archetype, sometimes take the role of a host around a table with guests. But no kidding those people thought you sounded like the mad hatter! :chuckle:

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Now I remember, Jung did say it's important not to enter into interpretation too soon after a dream - just write it down in detail along with any emotions and associations. Don't try to interpret it until some time later - probably several days later. A too-hasty interpretation can be very damaging because you think you understand it now and you won't explore it farther.

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I generally enter into interpretation very quickly after a dream, throughout the day. For me, it's not a problem, because I only interpret dreams that are recurring themes. I interpret them in the context of the other dreams with that theme. That also means I don't have to worry about thinking I understood it and never coming back to it. See, I would not interpret a dream in which I ate chocolate chip cookies, was swallowed by a swan which wanted the cookies and reborn out of the womb of a grazing cow. That dream, I would just like because it was a weird experience.

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Not only are dreams real, but they're compensatory - meaning they're corrections of wrong conscious attitudes. Jung discovered this - in fact it was a correction of Freud's wrong idea that dreams are wish fulfillments.

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AND

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

But it does in dream life, which in an important way is more real than the outer objective life. And of course active imagination is where you're accessing the unconscious - the part that creates dreams. You need to talk to it in it's own language, which is dream imagery.

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I am not yet convinced that dreams are compensatory or that symbols are important in dreams. That's why I was never interested in Carl Jung before but now, I will give him a chance. Sure, any fancy headwear might be a symbol of power that we can quickly recognize, but if I have one dream with a crown in it, I don't care. What would be more interesting to me was if I had theme of often finding myself in a position of authority. Perhaps my inferiors usually resent me. Then, because I don't think dreams are compensatory, I would not interpret it to mean that people I lead in real life resent me, but instead, that I am a leader too afraid to displease them. Just to give an idea of how I do interpretation.

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

It feels good to be right! :rockon:

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:goodjob2:

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Originally Posted by Darkmatters

But it does in dream life, which in an important way is more real than the outer objective life. And of course active imagination is where you're accessing the unconscious - the part that creates dreams. You need to talk to it in it's own language, which is dream imagery.

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I said that for when I interpreted dreams more literally. But even now, if I send love to a monster in order to solve our conflict, I need to understand the meaning. Maybe the source of some conflicts or social tensions in real life (the monster and more specifically the fear it induces) is caused or fuel by the fact that I don't give other people a chance, to look at their perspective and give them compassion. I just quickly see them as an enemy. A self-fulfilling prophecy. And then it makes a lot of sense to give love to the monster. If I don't understand it, I might think more superficially that positivity killed the negativity. Not bad. But I might not know how to consciously apply this wisdom to the real life scenarios that cause me the pain of that monster. The change will then maybe only be subconscious.

The important point is that during evolution, subconscious symbols expressed truths that "people" did not know how to clearly communicate. But they could talk of a god of war that might have been a symbol of leadership and maybe he was associated with an eye which meant a good leader was a good observer and had good judgement (Blue because paraphrasing Jordan). The advantage of being modern humans, is we have access to so much knowledge. We can study these patterns so efficiently and we can also clearly communicate many of the symbolic meanings. That's why, while non-hazardously addressing symbolic obstacles in dreams with unclear symbolic solutions might have an effect on our unconscious psychology, I think it is more useful to effect this change consciously. What is the use of consciousness if not to self-reflect and effect conscious change on our psychology?