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This is a good passage. I have died more than once in my dreams (and I know we are only talking dreams here....but) and still, on the very moment of actual "death", there was only ever non-existance. Words cannot describe the feeling...only, the sheer opposite of excitement I guess. Pure lifelessness. Just a dream anyway, but reflective of Jung's opinion.

Latest dream of the Dalai Lama, on a opposite hotel balcony, jumping off and flying away! lol.

Yeah, I did mean forget about it entirely. If youre coming to emotional turning points, reading your dreams is secondary. They arent messages you need to revere. That you remembered a dream.. big deal! Youre stringing dots together while awake now but were making positive change before the dream. Next dream , what about it? Youre going to chase any dream you remember? Dusty needs to buy a pogo stick? Just because a dream can be spun complimentary, or hideously ,doesnt mean you should redirect your life based on IT. Youre just falling for the flattery we are all suceptible to. Keep making positive efforts, give yourself credit, dont rely on the endorsement of crazy ass dream interpretations.

Well ... look what is going on in Ojai .... 'Dream Bliss' !!! http://greenlotuswellness.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Bliss-Sisters-Retreat-Ojai_May9-11-6.pdf

Rara, I can't agree with advice to forget about a dream like that. At the very least talking about it like you have done is surely wise. I didn't read it as a physical suicide wish at all. My immediate reaction on reading of your dream was to interpret it as an inner conflict between a desire to extinguish the self as a separate ego, and the ego's desire to live and stay in charge. This extinction is a goal of Daoist cultivation, but when the reality of such a surrender actually hits home it's extremely emotionally confronting. But such a 'death' is a vital stage for inner growth and allows the birth of a new expanded self. You were partly aware of this possibility with your dream thought, Then I kept thinking to myself, I hope there is another life coming...

Well this got deeper.. I don't think any of us are really 'qualified' to interpret dreams, especially one like that...so I would agree with Stosh. Forget about it. The fact that it shook you up so much means you clearly aren't seriously considering such an action, so it'd be silly to spend time worrying. Maybe you just had some bad cheese with your macaroni, or something... Moving on? Though I think we might have worn this whole butterfly dream conversation out for now...

Good thing it was just a dream. Good to that when you awoke you were still yourself and not a butterfly. Yes, some things we do in life are terminal (didn't want to use the word final). Once done they cannot be undone and the results can never be changed.

IMO No you should forget all about it, minimize it , ignore it.This dream made you upset and there ain't nothing you can do about death. Dwelling on it as a dream is just putting yourself in a more negative place. Your waking mind has more tools to handle the issue than than you have in the moment to moment craziness of a dream. You should already know this to be true,, that in a dream emotions are blown out of proportion, events may be nonsensical , meanings convoluted , and they're often irrational and unrealistic. Modern investigation suggests that we try novel solutions to old problems ,thereby we edit and improve our considerations and reactions in waking life. BUt not every tested resolution of a dream is one we will settle on , nor does it always contain some deep innate factual revelation we should revere. Your 'hey! thats funky dark' reaction is really the way I think a person should look at sleeping dreams. ( not the martin luther king style 'dreams')

Does anyone have any input of the meaning behind people appearing to you in your dreams unexpectedly? I have a love interest who I thought I had gotten over, but seem to be repeatably teased in my dreams by them appearing unexpectedly. This seems to bring up the issue for me again. Any input greatly appreciated or if you can share similar stories about those occurrences when people appear to you in the dream state.

Pain day sky beauty die black joy love empty day life die pain passion joy black day hate beauty die life joy ache empty day pain die love passion joy black light And if God is dead what am I, a fleck of dirt on the wing of a fly hurtling to earth through a hole in the sky And if Warhol's a genius, what am I, a speck of lint on the penis of an alien buried in gelatin beneath the sands of Venus Time sun hurt trust peace dark rage sad white rain sun anger hurt soft trust night rage rain white hope dark sacred sun time trust hurt rage anger rain white light And if a bird can speak, who once was a dinosaur, and a dog can dream; should it be implausible that a man might supervise the construction of light the construction of light Pain day sky beauty die black joy love empty time sun hurt trust peace dark rage sad white rain hate anger hope sacred passion life night ache soft light

Now it is the time of night That the graves all gaping wide, Every one lets forth his sprite, In the church-way paths to glide: And we fairies, that do run By the triple Hecate's team, From the presence of the sun, Following darkness like a dream, Now are frolic: not a mouse Shall disturb this hallow'd house: I am sent with broom before, To sweep the dust behind the door. ... aha!

Well, its a toss up, It does look on the face of it to be a sucky dream, on the otherhand ! Theres some common dream symbols... but on the other hand, if its all horrible repressed stuff ,, and yet on the other hand,, it could be a previous life event, evidencing reincarnation.....

No, I can't agree with this. To my mind both Stosh's and Dustybeijing's dreams are of significant symbolic significance. I concur with Jung's advice that "One would do well to treat every [impressive] dream as though it were a totally unknown object. Look at it from all sides, take it in your hand, carry it about with you, let your imagination play round it, and talk about it with other people." I'm no expert on dream interpretation but water especially the ocean is a common symbol for the unconscious. In Stosh's dream we have people fishing in shallow water in a city environment......In fact every aspect of his dream as recounted is rich in symbolic significance.

He said to them, "I watched Satan fall from heaven like a lightning flash." Luke 10:18 Doesn't sound like water. But the comet and water idea. ... " so Wallenganda , the Milky Way, the big black snake in the sky, felt sorry for Ungud the earth snake, all alone down there on the earth. So she spat some of her water down onto Ungud. He gathered it together and dived through the ground ... taking it down and leaving a big sand hill where he went through the earth " He took the water underground ... curled up in it and went to sleep .... and then he began to dream .... "

After that dream I think you should go back to sleep and hope for a better dream. Yeah, maybe one with butterflies in it.

Since the thread seems to have fallen asleep I guess its ok to tell my own dream from last night. Im walking up a street in Bklyn where I grew up, I get to an intersection about the width of a four lane road, to my right on either curb there was a row of 15 guys about three feet apart, each set up with a fishing rod cast out into the street which was filled with green shallow water about a foot deep. So I turned generally in that direction and asked what they were fishing for. Noone answered at first but an angry old dude turns round and says , they're fishing for Billyjacks, and only two of them had caught one , and they were both at the same level.

this one is really nice, makes me dream of flying away as a small naturespirit

I haven't picked up any dreams from the mainstream dream dispenser ever since the last one went bust. (That was my American dream, which was something else to someone who was not born American -- it didn't mean a house in the suburbs, a car, and snubbing the Joneses. It was a dream of freedom. I thought America was about that. But what I got instead was a house in the suburbs, a car, and the Joneses who would snub you if you don't wash it as often as they wash theirs. And will inspect your lawn for dandelions, and snub you if you have any.) If your ideal of happiness is to sit back and take things less seriously, teach your kids that. Whatever it is, if it is real, it's worth it. If, however, you think it's about happiness and then you sit back and take things less seriously and are miserable, it might mean you didn't contemplate your ideal thoroughly enough. I thought mine was freedom, but what I did toward getting that had a war on dandelions as the practical outcome, and this has little to do with freedom, on closer inspection. So now I have a different dream. But one reason I made many mistakes was that no one ever taught me anything about real dreams who had any experience living them. I was ignant. Ignant.

Teach them how to learn. Make an idol of competence and show them how to worship it. Make another one of inner richness -- of treasures not for sharing with just anyone but for illuminating the soul -- and show them how to worship this one. Make a third one of a dream, a big one, because only great goals move the soul to action, small ones bore it and put it to sleep. And the last one of skills, not "just in case" skills, not skills of fear and insecurity, but skills of building that dream, making it real. Place one idol in each corner of their room. Worship one per day together. Don't teach them anything you are not doing yourself. Every week, spend four days on that -- can be minutes, can be hours, but got to be four days every week. Take three days off, ask them to forget all about it for three days, empty their mind, fill it with whatever randomness life puts in their way. Teach them not to take more than three days a week off their task, the task of acquiring perfection, nondecay, immortality. Also sprach Taomeow.

I personally think Zhuang Zhuo used the dream in 'The Dream of the Butterfly' purely as a device to switch realities to another totally separate perspective, namely that of the butterfly. However, no matter what his intention was - which we'll never know - it's our interpretations that matter; the ideas and images the allegory suggests. That's the beauty of allegory; it's meaning is not confined within definite boundaries.

BTW The butterfly dream wasn't the only dream Chuang Tzu talked about. We'll see it later in the Father and Son thread.

Some thoughts on dreams from C. G. Jung........ "The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness, and which will remain psyche no matter how far our ego-consciousness may extend." • Dreams are impartial, spontaneous products of the unconscious psyche, outside the control of the will. They are pure nature; they show us the unvarnished, natural truth, and are therefore fitted, as nothing else is, to give us back an attitude that accords with our basic human nature when our consciousness has strayed too far from its foundations and run into an impasse. • If, in addition to this, we bear in mind that the unconscious contains everything that is lacking to consciousness, that the unconscious therefore has a compensatory tendency, then we can begin to draw conclusions-provided, of course, that the dream does not come from too deep a psychic level. If it is a dream of this kind, it will as a rule contain mythological motifs, combinations of ideas or images which can be found in the myths of one's own folk or in those of other races. The dream will then have a collective meaning, a meaning which is the common property of mankind. • It is obvious that in handling "big" dreams intuitive guesswork will lead nowhere. Wide knowledge is required, such as a specialist ought to possess.' But no dream can be interpreted with knowledge alone. This knowledge, furthermore, should not be dead material that has been memorized; it must possess a living quality, and be infused with the experience of the person who uses it. Of what use is philosophical knowledge in the head, if one is not also a philosopher at heart? • One would do well to treat every dream as though it were a totally unknown object. Look at it from all sides, take it in your hand, carry it about with you, let your imagination play round it, and talk about it with other people. Primitives tell each other impressive dreams, in a public palaver if possible, and this custom is also attested in late antiquity, for all the ancient peoples attributed great significance to dreams ' Treated in this way, the dream suggests all manner of ideas and associations which lead us closer to its meaning. The ascertainment of the meaning is, I need hardly point out, an entirely arbitrary affair, and this is where the hazards begin. Narrower or wider limits will be set to the meaning, according to one's experience, temperament, and taste. Some people will be satisfied with little, for others much is still not enough. Also the meaning of the dream, or our interpretation of it, is largely dependent on the intentions of the interpreter, on what he expects the meaning to be or requires it to do. In eliciting the meaning he will involuntarily be guided by certain presuppositions, and it depends very much on the scrupulousness and honesty of the investigator whether he gains something by his interpretation or perhaps only becomes still more deeply entangled in his mistakes. • The art of interpreting dreams cannot be learnt from books. Methods and rules are good only when we can get along without them. Only the man who can do it anyway has real skill, only the man of understanding really understands.

Yes I'm sure it's something along that line... Not to turn this into a dream interpreting session or anything (unless anyone has a burning desire to share).. I just thought it was a solid example of dreams -- apparent fiction -- betraying reality. Is déjà vu relevant to this conversation, I wonder?

Over the years I have compromised my understanding of this but I still hold that a dream is just and dream and not a part of physical (as it truly is) reality. Our brain plays games with us. Oftentimes we are unable to detect when it is making things up or when what we perceive is actual reality.

yea well, as i said earlier, the ' reality' of the butterfly and the ' reality' of Zhuangzi are about the same as 'reality' Even MH seemed to agree with that. So i like the remark of Rara who said: <<Possibly, but rather than answering the questions,I actually thought it was more useful to just acknowledge the type of questions he is asking. They are rhetorical and also, he seems to have his answers.>> then we seemingly have a drunken taoist poet named Li po who gave us a verse about the end of the endless changes of things? <<Chuang Tzu in dream became a butterfly, And the butterfly became Chuang Tzu at waking. Which was the real—the butterfly or the man ? Who can tell the end of the endless changes of things? The water that flows into the depth of the distant sea Returns anon to the shallows of a transparent stream. The man, raising melons outside the green gate of the city, Was once the Prince of the East Hill. So must rank and riches vanish. You know it, still you toil and toil,—what for?>> then i see the post of darkstar: <<Laozi said, "I will now revert my spirit and return to Namelessness [Dao]. I will abandon separate personhood and end my existence; Yin Xi went into the courtyard, prostrated himself and said, "Please, spirit being, appear one more time. Yin Xi then looked up and saw Laozi's body . Laozi then spoke, >> But Taoist texts was not happy with the translation and gave us the following beautiful formulation: Now i will cut my connection to my physical body and extinguish my materiality" By Taoist texts: <<I was disappointed to see Komjaty to distort the bolded phrase. If LZ is not a separate person and does not exist anymore then who is addressed, who appears and who replies in the consequent dialogue? In fact, LZ in the original says: "Now i will cut my connection to my physical body and extinguish my materiality" 絕身滅有 nothing about abandoning separate personhood or ending existence here. Both continue in the immaterial realm.>> so Lao zi cuts his connection to his physical body and extinguishes his materiality, but to me it seems it follows from the text that he is still being/ existing as ( a) something not on the material plane. thereby giving substance to the story of the question whether the butterfly or zhuangzu is real, and the remark of the drunken poet who asks us whether there is an end to the endless change of things. thereby i bring the topic back again tho the metaphysical realm.... (Maybe i should read the drunken poet, the 8 immortal always look happy and drunk on pictures, might be a style i need to adopt , just play and be happy ) edit: fixed very strange layout