Trying to Validate info from Dream Characters

So this morning during one of a series of chained lucid dreams I find myself in a room with my two cousins and one of my brothers. I explain to them that I am dreaming and I get told "you always think this isn't real. You have to understand that there is no such thing as time. The past , present, and future are all happening at once." I can somewhat wrap my head around this and I tell them "ok so I am seeing some vision of a past or a future life right now. I need some way to validate this during waking life. Please tell me where we are right now, a physical location that I can validate." They all are grinning at me at this time and we pull out a map. None of the landmarks or coastlines look anything like I've ever seen before and then they point to a dot on the map. I'm excited to see some sort of proof or anything I can validate upon waking and to my surprise I read -Zimbabawabe Museum- or some such nonsense. I look up in disappoint and they are all laughing at me.
Now the experience itself is pretty laughable I understand and I have had similar ones before and gotten just as much nonsense type answers. The point of debate and conversation I'd like to bring up is my current belief about prophecies and visions etc, handed down to us from all of the "holy" books we have in the world. I have been raised as a Christian and have heard countless stories of visions and prophecies received during dreams etc throughout my life. Now, not to say that I am not a believer or a Christian at this time but, it does cause a lot of concern when trying to decide which stories to believe and which to disregard as someone's personal expectations coming to life during a lucid dream or even a vivid dream.
Big point I need to make here before people post : This is NOT about Christianity..this is about religious figures of all belief systems in general and their prophecies and visions.
Would love to hear your thoughts.

I find the concept of having "visions" and "prophecies" in dreams rather ridiculous. They're dreams, for Christ's sake. You're basically having vivid hallucinations the entire time. You can't trust "information" that you receive in dreams, if you ask me.

I, and many others, have had validated info from dreams.

For instance, in one long dream I was shown a constellation and it turned into a river and it was flowing into a star at the bottom of the river. I felt the star was important and as I woke up I heard a female voice say "Achernar!". I looked up the name later, just thinking it was dream gibberish, but it turned out it's a real star... and it's at the bottom of the constellation Eridanus which is constellation of a river (!). I've never heard of the constellation, or what it was... or that star name ever before that.

Also more recently I had a dream I posted on here about the name George and how it means someone who works the earth and is farmer. Again, woke up and didn't really expect it to validate exactly... but I was curious because of previous experiences. Boom, Googled the name and it means earthworker/farmer.

This kind of stuff happens a lot to people, but you usually get a feeling that it's something important not random dream gibberish.

That being said, most of the time dreams just work with symbolism and don't directly correlate with hard reality. But you probably knew that already :cheeky:

Interesting topic! If we suppose that the dream world is not merely the processing of already known information from the waking life, but that you can also extract new knowledge from it and bring it into waking consciousness, then maybe it could be possible to learn a new language or a new instrument from a DC. This would be a nice proof of the validity of information obtained while dreaming.

If so, then I think dreams should be viewed as an equal or 'just-as-real' plane of existence. Or perhaps even a higher template plane reality, from which waking experience is derived, after all this ALL could be one big shared lucid dream. Nobody should claim that it is 'obvious' (or common and trivial couldn't-be-otherwise-reality) to find himself on a giant rock in a vast empty space, circling around an even more giant, always energy giving fireball, while having a flesh-bone structure to command at will at a mind-over-matter-level (I mean how weird and holy is all the stuff we take for granted?!).

In my opinion it is not so important whether the visions come from dreams or not, the source of new information in general is weird in either case. The criteria for believing in visions should be questions like 'is it useful to me?', 'does it feel good/right?' or 'can I/someone benefit from it?', rather than 'what is the reliability of the source'. The value of new information does not depend on the source. If you disregard something because it is 'only' someone's dream experience, then what 'other/holy' source do you believe in? To my knowledge the human mind and imagination is one of the many holy and profound expressions of God.

I've learned verifiable things from dreams, but I assume I must have picked up that info from TV or a book without realizing it. Which is an amazing concept - there's so much information that we observe every day but don't consciously remember, if that info actually turns up in our dreams then just imagine the possibilities as a learning tool, if we could somehow sort out that info from the nonsense dream logic.

But there's a pretty big leap from random dream info to religious prophecies. If dreams and prophecies were the same thing, everyone who sleeps would be a prophet. But I do think that yes, you can use your understanding of how dream symbolism works to judge and interpret stories of religious visions. The stories are usually more interesting that way, more relevant to your life too. But when it comes to judging whether a particular prophecy or vision or even a dream has any real spiritual truth to it - I think that's the part where faith comes in.

We know so little about dreams that I don't believe they can be entirely written off as hallucinations or misfirings of brain activity in the subconscious (this may be the current scientific explanation, but it's not as though scientists claim to know much about dreams at all; after all, we all did think the world was flat once). As a big fan of the multiverse theory, I like to think that perhaps dreams are somehow connected to that.

Events in a lucid dream have also been reported to effect the physical body. Here's an extract from Robert Wagnor's book "Lucid Dreaming" where a man gets burned by a cigarette in his dream:

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Lucid now, Dan finds that an attractive woman sits on his lap and asks him if he is having a good time. He laughs and replies that he is having a great time, but that he will have to leave soon -- his alarm is about to go off and wake him up. The woman asks him in surprise what he means, and he replies that all this is a dream and none of it is real.

"You mean you think I'm not real?," the woman asks in some annoyance.

"That's right," he replies.

With this, the woman becomes even more annoyed. "I'll show you who's real or not!," she says, and crushes her lit cigarette out on the back of the dreamer's right hand. Instantaneously the young man awakens in the rented room with a terrible pain in his right hand. He turns on a light and sees a round burn the size of a cigarette on the back of his right hand."

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Also, I remember several years back when I was a student I had the most powerful LD experience ever. I was broke (as students often are) and I checked my pair of jeans for any money, all the pockets about 5x each time for some reason. Nothing but a couple of 1p coins. Then I fell asleep and had an LD where I found a £20 note. I was upset that I couldn't bring it back with me, then all of a sudden a huge, insanely powerful red beam comes out of the sky into my hand and energizes the note. It's so powerful I'm shaking. Then I wake up, stand up, put my hand in my pocket and there's a £20 note in there.

The only other explanations are that I slept walked, stole £20 from somewhere and put it in my pocket and got back into bed, all during this LD... or that someone broke into my house and put the note in there while I was asleep for 30 minutes.

This is an interesting topic to contemplate. I personally believe in prophecies and visions. I think there's a difference between a vision and a dream though; if you believe various psychics or people who claim to be able to see the future, the visions can occur at any time, waking or sleeping. Not to say everyone who claims such things is telling the truth, but can you honestly believe everyone who says they have had visions is lying? That's like saying everyone who's ever claimed to see a UFO is lying--or barring that, mistaken in some way.

I also think there are different levels of dreams. I mean, let's face it--some dreams are easily just a jumbled reflection of our thoughts from the previous days, or reflections of what is stressing us, that sort of thing. Then some dreams are more of the type that tell us something about ourselves...self-reflective, I guess you could call them. These dreams, if we pay attention, can tell us a great deal about us.

Why is it, that the more civilized we humans get, the more close minded we become? Do you really think it is just coincidence that for the most part, it's only our "modern" age that we've stopped paying attention to dreams? There are a wide variety of cultures and civilizations that have in the past (many that still do) hold dreams in high importance. But the more "civilized" we get, the less we believe in the more mysterious nature of things, and we just disregard dreams entirely, passing them off as something random that happens when we sleep, and belittle those (or think them crazy, or stupid, etc. etc.), who claim to have prophetic dreams or visions.

Let's put it another way. Remote viewing, something that has arguably been verified many times by many different people (let's not forget the US government FUNDED a remote-viewing project and actually used that info to get some scarily detailed plans of different buildings and things), is possible. If we can see places we've never been with enough effort/practice, why should we not also be able to either induce accurate visions/precognitive dreams?

When did we humans become so close-minded about things?

~SilverWolf~

Yeah SilverWolf but the part that worries me a lot is that there is so many prophecies and visions and dreams throughout history in so many cultures but how much of it could be for example; a guy has his first lucid dream and he is completely blown away by it, believing with certainty that he has just had a vision or received some godlike knowledge by being able to communicate with some character in the dream (or another world he most likely will think) with full clarity, when in reality that's all it really was, just a lucid dream that means virtually nothing. Like I said in my original post, I am not a total nonbeliever by any means but I have been pondering a lot just how much of the info we have throughout history about these "visions" etc are nothing more than a person experiencing a lucid dream or other elevated state and taking it too much to heart.

I think one probably has to look very carefuly at their dreams before making a decision as to whether their dream was prophetic in nature. I've read on websites that keeping track of your dreams is important in this, because you can have validation later that your dream really was prophetic. Then, there's the question, can you tell if a dream is prophetic while it's happening or when you remember it upon waking? Does a prophetic dream feel any different than a real one?

I've never had any dreams I can say definitively were prophetic myself. I've had spells of deja-vu where I was sure I had dreamed something, but nothing I can verify. I think most people could say the same thing. I would bet lots of people have at least portions of some of their dreams come true and probably don't know it.

And then you will have people who think every single dream they have is a vision, people who attach spiritual/divine/prophetic components to every dream they ever remember. So, to sift through all of that and fine the real genuine visions, I think, would be very difficult.

~SilverWolf~

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Originally Posted by TheSilverWolf

Let's put it another way. Remote viewing, something that has arguably been verified many times by many different people (let's not forget the US government FUNDED a remote-viewing project and actually used that info to get some scarily detailed plans of different buildings and things), is possible. If we can see places we've never been with enough effort/practice, why should we not also be able to either induce accurate visions/precognitive dreams?
~SilverWolf~

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The following video is Dr. Dean Radin at Google Tech Talks going over a huge amount of studies using clinical trials which prove these things exist. It's a very interesting video and worth the long watch for anyone interested in this kind of stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw_O9Qiwqew

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Originally Posted by TheSilverWolf

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Why is it, that the more civilized we humans get, the more close minded we become? Do you really think it is just coincidence that for the most part, it's only our "modern" age that we've stopped paying attention to dreams? There are a wide variety of cultures and civilizations that have in the past (many that still do) hold dreams in high importance. But the more "civilized" we get, the less we believe in the more mysterious nature of things, and we just disregard dreams entirely, passing them off as something random that happens when we sleep, and belittle those (or think them crazy, or stupid, etc. etc.), who claim to have prophetic dreams or visions.

Let's put it another way. Remote viewing, something that has arguably been verified many times by many different people (let's not forget the US government FUNDED a remote-viewing project and actually used that info to get some scarily detailed plans of different buildings and things), is possible. If we can see places we've never been with enough effort/practice, why should we not also be able to either induce accurate visions/precognitive dreams?

When did we humans become so close-minded about things?

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I agree, I would also like to see more openness towards mysticism and/or phenomena out of the 'ordinary', same goes for the psychedelic experience. In all of history we never had such great potential for finding answers (or at least clarity) to the 'real/ancient' questions in life, sucks when this is not accompanied by an open minded and honest scientific approach. Why not use it in the fields where human curiosity demands it instead of disregarding investigations right away and even forbidding them? It seems to me that exploring dreams is a good place to start and fortunately we all can do that.

@HoldOrFold: please teach us how to bring money from your LD....

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Originally Posted by Nelzi

I agree, I would also like to see more openness towards mysticism and/or phenomena out of the 'ordinary', same goes for the psychedelic experience. In all of history we never had such great potential for finding answers (or at least clarity) to the 'real/ancient' questions in life, sucks when this is not accompanied by an open minded and honest scientific approach. Why not use it in the fields where human curiosity demands it instead of disregarding investigations right away and even forbidding them? It seems to me that exploring dreams is a good place to start and fortunately we all can do that.

@HoldOrFold: please teach us how to bring money from your LD....

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Just imagine if we were more open minded, and actually funded scientific research into some of this stuff, instead of mainstream science scoffing at the mere idea of even considering serious research into the "fringe science" areas (to steal a term from my favorite TV show since LOST).

~SilverWolf~

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Originally Posted by TheSilverWolf

Just imagine if we were more open minded, and actually funded scientific research into some of this stuff, instead of mainstream science scoffing at the mere idea of even considering serious research into the "fringe science" areas (to steal a term from my favorite TV show since LOST).

~SilverWolf~

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Yes, I catch your drift, but the scientific spirit does not depend on money, because money itself is a purely fictional and practical idea. While it is a nice and valid symbol for exchange, it has no real value to itself. Saying that we can only research in funded fields is what got us so close minded in the first place: We use a lot of our knowledge and scientific energy to optimize technology, because it is financially rewarding. Real scientific spirit has nothing to do with money.... anyways, I think were getting off topic here, sorry :P

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Originally Posted by Runeword

Yeah SilverWolf but the part that worries me a lot is that there is so many prophecies and visions and dreams throughout history in so many cultures but how much of it could be for example; a guy has his first lucid dream and he is completely blown away by it, believing with certainty that he has just had a vision or received some godlike knowledge by being able to communicate with some character in the dream (or another world he most likely will think) with full clarity, when in reality that's all it really was, just a lucid dream that means virtually nothing. Like I said in my original post, I am not a total nonbeliever by any means but I have been pondering a lot just how much of the info we have throughout history about these "visions" etc are nothing more than a person experiencing a lucid dream or other elevated state and taking it too much to heart.

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Our dreams, prophecies, and visions are all miracles. Life is a miracle. Language and culturally validated meaning is the issue here because our definitions are inadequate to the felt presence of immediate experience. The world is made of language. We can say that world is composed of tiny packets of matter squealing along empty space at close to the speed of light and subject to a certain set of interlocking scientific laws. Or we can say that the world is made of tiny little demons performing calisthenic exercises each one the size of the cross-section of an ant's eyebrow. Or we can say we are the sons and daughters of the Great Anaconda God who stepped out of his canoe at the 1st waterfall etc. But noticed what you get each time is words. The world is composed of description. Who knows what dreams really are, you know?

An example I like about language is: A baby lying in a crib and a hummingbird comes into the room through an open window. The baby is ecstatic because this shimmering iridescence of movement, sound, and attention is just wonderful. It's an instantaneous miracle when placed against the dull background of the wallpaper in the nursery and so forth. But then, mother or nanny or someone comes in and says, "It's a bird baby, bird. Bird." And this takes this linguistic piece of mosaic tile and places it over the miracle, and glues it down with the epoxy of syntactical momentum. And from now on the miracle is confined within the meaning of the word. And by the time a child is 7 or 8 no light shines through because every aspect of reality has been tiled over with a linguistic association that blunts it, limits, and confines it within cultural expectation.

Language is POWERFUL and can be dangerous to direct experience and intuition about reality.

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Originally Posted by Third Eye

Our dreams, prophecies, and visions are all miracles. Life is a miracle. Language and culturally validated meaning is the issue here because our definitions are inadequate to the felt presence of immediate experience. The world is made of language.
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Your words smell like Terence McKenna, in a good way ;)

I also find it funny that we keep looking for mystical events within existence, while existence itself, you being aware right now, is the most mystical event ever. Existence is even the foundation of you wondering about mysticism, if there is such a thing. Wouldn't it be easier (energy-minimum-wise) for there to be nothing at all?

I also like your second part, the example about how we conceptualize immediate experience by naming phenomena and thereby putting them into boxes and overlooking what they really are. Why should any event be more mystical than for example the sun shining right now? It doesn't become obvious just because our human minds can now explain the basic mechanism of that, because the human mind itself is just one of the many phenomena within existence :D

not quite where i was hoping people would take this topic but still interesting regardless. one thing that was brought up that I often bring up myself is that the real understanding of what a dream really is, is just so up in the air. nobody really knows WTF is going on. Lucid dreaming in particular though can be so profound yet so nonsensical that it makes me feel a need to be very careful when deciding how much weight these type of dreams truly have. Going back to my original question of discussion; I wonder how often these experiences have been given too much credit throughout history.

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Originally Posted by Nelzi

@HoldOrFold: please teach us how to bring money from your LD....

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Yeah, it was among the most powerful of experiences I've had to date. I asked Robert Bruce, the author of Astral Dynamics, about it on his forum a few years ago in this post: Red Beam Manifesting Physical Stuff?

This was during a time I was doing lots of meditation and practices from the book New Energy Ways (Robert Bruce).

I remember feeling like I really wanted to take the money back with me. Then I had an insight from somewhere outside of myself to create this red beam. When I tried to do it, I felt the red beam was powered by a force outside of myself so I wasn't really in control of it.

Since then I've thought about how the beam was red is pretty important. I feel it relates to the muladhara/Root/Earth chakra which is the lowest of the 7, is red and is related to earth and physical manifestation.

If you wanted to experiment with this, I'd suggest at least reading those two books I linked.

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Originally Posted by Runeword

not quite where i was hoping people would take this topic but still interesting regardless. one thing that was brought up that I often bring up myself is that the real understanding of what a dream really is, is just so up in the air. nobody really knows WTF is going on. Lucid dreaming in particular though can be so profound yet so nonsensical that it makes me feel a need to be very careful when deciding how much weight these type of dreams truly have. Going back to my original question of discussion; I wonder how often these experiences have been given too much credit throughout history.

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I don't know if I would say dreams can be given too much credit; I'm the sort that believes all dreams are important in one way or another. Not that I think every dream has spiritual significance or is profound, but I do think they are all significant. Let me put it another way.

I think any dream, regardless of how mundane, has the potential to at very least allow us to learn more about ourselves. I think many cultures outside of the more "civilized" countries, such as my own United States, or China, Russia, Britain, etc. take dreams much more seriously, seeing that they do have a great deal of value. That isn't to say I don't think people can put too much importance on them, I just don't think we put enough. I'm not a follower of Sigmund Freud; he had some of the strangest freaking ideas I've ever heard. Two words: Penis Envy (I am not making this term up, google it if you don't believe me). Anyone who can come up with THAT theory really can't be trusted much in my opinion.

That said, I do believe, like Freud did, that dreams can tell us a lot about our psyche. I don't think EVERY SINGLE dream tells us what our sexual problems are, I think it goes deeper, hinting at the secret feelings we may have, or fears, or stressors, or hopes and ambitions, ones that we may even hide from ourselves. So while I don't think every single dream has spiritual or religious importance, I do think every one of them is a possible learning experience, and therefore should not be cast aside as "just a wacky dream."

Hope my post makes sense, lol :D

~SilverWolf~