Thoughts on a dream

Last night, I had glimpses of lucidity. I've been leisurely thinking about it and I thought I would share with you.

In the beginning of my memory of the dream, I possessed the narrative knowledge that I was heading back to my bedroom (delusion). Yet, my observation and logic told me my bedroom was nowhere near physically, but also, realistically, because I knew the nature of the dream was maze-like and discontinuous (lucid). I mean, it was evident to me that walking through a door could lead me anywhere on the whim of the dream.

I remember previous dreams going there through a specific hallway, then a room, then a last hallway. I know I can mimic this previous dream to get there and that I must maintain my awareness on the destination because that is what will truly get me there, not the physical layout. So I followed my dream memory (true or not, I don't know) all the way to my bedroom. Along the way, I remembered from the dream memory that there would be a distraction that would cut me off from my destination. Turns out, as I stayed focused on my path, I found no distraction until the end inside my bedroom.

First of all, I immediately accepted the destination room as my bedroom although it looked like none of the bedrooms I've ever had (delusion), and then, there was someone moving around busy. I immediately assumed the worst, because what good thing can a stranger do in my bedroom uninvited? (delusion). Aware of my infinite power (lucid), I propelled flames out of my hand to erase the person and their schemes, feeling safe thereafter.

So there it was, my dream. I find the intermingling of delusion and lucidity interesting. The delusion of a bedroom but the lucidity that there is no physical path to it other than focus. The use of memory to anchor the focus. The delusion of harm and the lucidity of power.

Now, I think about how I could replace the delusions with lucidity. The delusion of a physical destination (bedroom): there is no bedroom. I don't want to go to a bedroom. This didn't occur to me but if it did, I imagine I would have been lost. Where can I go when there is no physical destination at all? Because access to waking memory is difficult for me in dreams, it is difficult to replace this sense of disorientation with a dream goal. But that's the solution I see. There is no bedroom, but there are emotions to visit. I need more intention training where I practice orienting myself in a dream I guess. About the delusion of harm. If I judge the dream by waking life standards, obviously many things seem wrong, and I panic. Replaced with lucidity, I should not worry about nonsense.

The problem is not really fear but that I try to explain it, to create a narrative. The first thing that comes to mind when weird things are happening is some shady explanation. It is not appropriate to think this way in dreams. Non-sense is natural. Not only should nonsense be a welcomed dream sign, I should just observe without judging it; without constructing a narrative.

My fear is that by not judging nonsense, by not creating delusional narratives for the dream, that it will break apart. I fear, not in dreams, but in this waking reflection, that the mortar of dreams is delusions. There are no paths anywhere; it's the delusion that there is a path that leads the dreamer to the destination. There is no destination; it's the delusion of a destination that leads the dreamer forward. There is nothing really and delusion keeps the illusion up and moving. While I fear this as I write, I am also reminded that lucidity can also create a path by directing attention and destination can also be chosen soberly.

Inspired by meditation, my dream goal presently is to move through doorways, analogously to breathing. The goal is a rhythmic movement that keeps attention dynamically focused.

Hm, I would personally avoid the doorways as a way of keeping attention focused... :cheeky:

Doorways are thresholds and threshold crossings (light reading 1) (light reading 2) (light reading 3) are particularly prone to alter the way you're perceiving things and what you are able to recall. Without wanting to diverge your topic into this subject, I'll just say that I personally find that it's a bit like workwear and stuff like that; if you put yourself into a certain physical context, your mental context adapts to match the physical one.

So, if you wanted to use doorways for such an exercise, I'd recommend planning ahead in some way what kind of places you want to pass through, and that perhaps you may want to have the doorways be as non-defined as possible.

As for the rest of your thoughts, it's interesting. I just woke up this morning after having had a dream in which (at the end) I was in some city with someone and I was simply well aware of having godly powers (lucid element). And yet, I was not myself, I was a black woman with long curly hair (some kind of thought intrusion no doubt) and I was having a discussion with the other dream character about how I would rather drive something than fly somewhere (accurate emotional response). In the end, neither of us flew or drove; we ran and walked through the city streets (unspoken joined compromise), and because I knew I had godly powers (lucid element), I was simply going against traffic on a 3 lane road and finding amusing how they would simply avoid me, while on some level thinking about racing games where I've done the same (echo of real memory). Near the very end, I was looking at street signs and reading stupid things on them such as "8 girls 8 cups" and telling the other dream character about these (distraction focusing on the trivialities of life/dream-life) while on some level I had been returning to a much, much earlier part of the dream, although it was the other character partly leading at this point.

I think from re-reading what you wrote and what I wrote regarding our dreams, I am reminded of how (crudely speaking) you seem to be more of a thinker and I seem to be more a feeler in some regards, and that although there is a narrative focus for both of us, you fear its absence more than I would. In my mind, if the dream narrative wasn't there, not a big deal; life itself is narrative-less and the only reason there seems to be any narrative to things at all is because we try and attribute meaning to everything, even when it's not there in objective terms. I mean, meaning is technically never anywhere... You know what I mean. :P

If my dreams were to lose narrative, I'd see this as an opportunity to either let single elements intrude on their own and explore them individually without "clutter" or to intrude thoughts lucidly myself and explore them, but because I know myself, I know the former scenario would always be more likely than the latter. Although when I'm awake I feel there's a big weight to my conscious mind, considering my experience both from my dreams and my visualisations, I feel that actually the conscious part in me is small and somewhat insignificant apart from the fact that it is the only part of self that has the autonomy to stick to a decision, most of the time.

So in a sense, if the mortar of dreams is delusions, I would only expect as much; what else could it really be? Space is either filled or it's empty and that seems like an applicable way of thinking of dreams; there either is content or there isn't. So really, dreams largely seem to work inversely where the "stuff" (content) is actually the equivalent of the "nothing" (space's emptiness). If you find "nothingness" in a dream, that seems to be like finding matter in space, it's not too common in the grand scheme of things.

Truthfully I feel I can't really comment much on the non-sense aspect you mention, because I have never been quite able to relate with how you view it. Maybe I don't break it down the same way and I generally assume there is sense to the non-sense, I just don't know what it is while also assuming I may never find out, though I also assume that many things are just intrusions/echos from waking life.

Hey Darkest Darkness! (replying as I read)

About the doorways, it's interesting what you bring up. It's not so surprising because we remember better by association and by leaving a room, we lose the association of that room with whatever happened in that room and what was to be remembered in that room. In that sense, I don't think the door in itself is the problem. If I were to just teleport repeatedly, it would probably have the same result, you are right.

The thing is, I do like to do this in my visualization daydreams. You already know I practice dreaming by doing visualization sessions. While in a common daydream you imagine a story in your head, a visualization daydream is more of a sensual experience. I really just observe through my mind's eye and experience a waking dream. It's not a dream but I think you know what I mean. A way I find to make this experience more vivid is to walk through memories. And so sometimes, I'll start at my earliest memory and then walk through memories from when I was a bit older and on and on to now. It's this that gave me the idea to quickly change scenes because it works well while travelling through memories, I find. Picking up on the first thing as soon as it's triggered by the previous scene. But I really never had that kind of access to memory in my dreams to do that same exercise in dreams.

My problem with planning a route, as though yes, that's good advice, well, it's not as easy really. Do the exercise. Look into your mind's eye and follow the waking dream. How far can you go? And, then, just walk through memories. I find the second easier. I get lost a lot faster in the first exercise. Where to next? What now? Like writing and eventually reaching a 'writer's block.' Even just a small one minute one is not so good in a dream... right?

I enjoyed reading your dream! I actually thought the light reading links were going to lead me to some of your dreams too haha.

I wonder if you are not overestimating my meaning of the words "nonsense" and "narrative." Maybe not. I'm just not sure. What I mean is really quite mundane. It's like if I walk into a plane and there are people running (nonsense), I will quickly assume something (narrative) and the narrative is likely to be negative: people are running because the plane is being attacked. As opposed to: people are simply running in an airplane. The thing is the narratives I assume are often not reflected by the dream. In that same example, I would react either by fleeing or looking to fight the attackers but finding no problem at all: the people were really just running without cause and I was the only participant of my narrative.

I understand that writing all of that down makes it seem more complex than it is but it's this simple: I walk into an airplane with people running. My brain goes "danger" and I respond, but the dream doesn't follow. I overreacted. It was just nonsense. (like in my original dream, there was someone in my bedroom, that's it).

It's true that dreams are entirely illusion, but they are not entirely delusion, as in when there is a lucid element. It's a delusion if you believe it wrongly. If you interact with the illusion of your dream whilst knowing it's an illusion, that's lucidity. I just still struggle how to conceptualize living in an illusion. I really don't struggle with it when I go on memory safaris but I guess I get more disoriented otherwise. But seeing your perspective is inspiring because I it means there are different attitudes out there. And it seems to me like you walk through non-sense like I walk through memories because it's not so much nonsense to you.

I'll add that when I say nonsense I also I'm talking about discontinuities in logic which often trigger accurate logical responses (that are not relevant in the dream), because they should be responded to more abstractly for lack of a better word.