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Mikaelz, That reads rather as straight Buddhist philosophy. While I have nothing against Buddhism, far from it, I would hesitate from transplanting terms like consciousness without clearly defining what we mean. Consciousness actually means 'with-knowing-ness' - i.e. that which has the capacity to know. As such I do not accept that it is the same as sense perception as the senses are necessarily limited to the narrow wavelengths (in the case of sight and light) which they are able physically to respond to. I can know a tree without a tree being present so I can be conscious of the form of tree or I can have consciousness with no object (as in no-mind). That is my view anyway. Whatever the analysis we give to this we can still say without any doubt that we experience our existence in terms of both a subjective inner world and an objective outer world and that these two world have differing features and rules or laws with which they conform. For instance in a subjective dream time can flip back and forwards or stop - in the outer world time is inexorable, we have no choice about that. What I would like to suggest about the inner world is that the psychologists and psychiatrists have made a mistake about the sub-conscious. Whereas they treat it as a finite (if large) kind of basement of the mind, full of hidden images and emotions and so on, actually it is infinite and not only infinite but infinitely connected between us. Its just that most of us only scrape the surface. Mystics look into it to see the truth and shamans journey through it to achieve their goals. How does that grab everybody? Kate, Exactly with the matrix analogy, I'm with you on that one. John

Agree with you and, yes I do have my own space of plants love in my tiny apartment. I have a dracaena (dragon plant or lucky bamboo as is named), a plumeria and two ti plants, two cactuses, and this year I want to do some balcony gardening (carrots, cucumber, potatoes, beans) . Last year I had begonias on my balcony but I want to experiment with legumes. But I still dream having a garden to cultivate it like a Chinese flowers garden...

I dream to have a space of love like this

I like this passage so much I wanted to use it in response to Nietzsche's quote about 'right and wrong': Perfect knowledge sees all in One. Small knowledge breaks down into the many. When the body sleeps without dream, the soul is enfolded in One. When the body wakes, the senses begin to function. They resound with every encounter with all the varied business of life, the strivings of the heart; men are blocked, perplexed, lost in doubt. Little fears eat away their peace of heart. Great fears swallow them whole. Arrows shot at a target. Hit and miss, right and wrong; that is what men call judgement, decision. Their pronouncements are as final as treaties between emperors. Out of their crooked mouths, words are retched up like vomit. O, they make their point! Yet their arguments fall faster and feebler than dead leaves in autumn and winter. Their words flow out like piss, never to be recovered. They stand at last, blocked, bound, and gagged, choked up like old drain pipes. The mind fails. It shall not see light again.

A successful wizard can receive a new piece of information and integrate it in his belief system in moments. As Sloppy Z says, it might come in a dream or be so fast that if you blink you miss it.

Thank you for your suggestions. During the past month I have taken daily walks in the park, I've done exercise (swimming) twice a week, and I have always eaten heavy, healthy foods. I cook myself, and I know how to cook fairly healthy. I take the occasional beer. I wouldn't dream of doing marijuana, whenever I did it last year I had cosmic-level highs. I have just begun a twice-daily practice of rooting routines. Feet, ankles, knees, squats, and so on (I got myself a copy of "GETTING GROUNDED" by Michael Nagel). I will look into these supplements. I wonder, what is the rationale for taking minerals, and increasing collagen production? I have given up most activities I enjoyed :-( Music is too intense, reading is almost pointless, and I can't take more than the occasional movie. Despite this, I have managed to sustain a good humor on most days. But it gets tough, particularly if I spend five days a week trying to read without concentration, plus phd-student life is very isolated. :-( I'll keep you posted on how the rooting thing develops.

The lesson is that ignorance has a price. Learn to think for yourself. Alchemy is simply using Metaphors - albeit in an acient (dead) language AKA: 'conceptual metaphor.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conceptual_metaphor Metaphor Definition: Metaphor is when you use two nouns and compare or contrast them to one another. Unlike simile, you don't use "like" or "as" in the comparison. Examples I am a rainbow "I am a rainbow" is a example of metaphor because it is comparing two nouns, a person, and a rainbow, but does not use like or as. I am not Anger "I am not anger" is an example of metaphor because it is contrasting two nouns. MY LIFE IS A DREAM My life is a dream, like a tiger waking up from her deep sleep. My life is like a dream, it's all up to me, the trees are purple, the stars talk away the night, the moaning moon lights up the sky. By Autumn I AM LAS VEGAS I am Las Vegas growing by the infinite awake morning by night, or day. I am Las Vegas My hand is the sand. By Rachel I AM A SWORD I am a sword, Sharper than a tongue Nobody can defeat me, Because I am a sword, I can not be hurt by what people say About me, I will not show my anger Against Someone else. By Alex MATH Math is the career for kids. If you don't know math you won't make any money. you won't get a job. you won't get a house. By Jake http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112392/metaphor.html

vortex, You are so deluded, it hurts. You don't have the slightest understanding about how the world actually works. So why don't you move to Mexico then? They don't finance any wars, have low taxes, and have no socialized medicine. http://www.heritage.org/Index/country/Mexico Looks sexy, right? The numbers are sexy, I mean. Mexico is Ron Paulian/Ayn Randian wet dream of a country.

Susan, hi! You said once k is started it cannot be stopped. I had the experience i told you about when i had an energy drink and my vision suddenly went inside and i saw a green vine with stars on and they all closed up one by one. Once the energy had descended i sensed entitys around me and would get lashes on my hands which were very painfull and left visible marks. Since then not much has really happened in terms of k at all. do you think i had a reaction to something in the drink which locked everything up. i had a dream the night before where i was told not to drink it! doh as far as you know can medication for bi-polar/psychosis stop k working? sorry im not being very clear with questions thanks Ed

This is absolutely crazy thinking. First of all, there is no guarantee that if you have kids you'll be reborn as one of their descendants. That's not how reincarnation generally works. Secondly, you have a lot of hubris, and in your hubris, you imagine that being your own descendant is a plus. In fact, being your own descendant can be a negative. What if you become a descendant in someone else's family, and that family is a family of enlightened people? Wouldn't that be better? Why would you forgo that simply out of pride for your own bloodline? You worry about becoming an ant too much. That's just a superstition. When you dream, are you an ant in your dreams? No? Then you are not likely to be reborn as an ant. Unless you become obsessed with being reborn as an ant, you won't be. Rebirth is not a punishment. It's not like some God hands down rebirths based on what you deserve. It's nothing like that. Being reborn is no different than walking down the city streets. You go where you turn. If you turn left, you go to the street on your left. The fact that you end up on that street is not a punishment from outside! You went there yourself! Rebirth is like that too. Rebirth is what happens due to your own volition and it reflects your will. OK, so why do sages warn about being reborn in hell? Simple -- many people want to go to hell without knowing it. Many people have contradictory desires, and if you cling to both contradictory desires very strongly, you create hell. So it's not that it's an external punishment, it's just that some people unwittingly use their own volition to will hell upon themselves. So what you should be worried about is this unwitting-ness. You should become more and more aware of what it is you really want and why. This will prevent any kind of "hell" surprise from happening to you.

Awesome dream, I've had purple girls show up in my dreams when I was younger. Dreams are nuts.

Hey Stais, thanks for taking the time to write all that out. A couple of points: People have mentioned this a few times in a few other threads, but part of what happens when you repeatedly do stuff like this (masturbate) is neural pathways get made and reinforced, your mind starts making associations, and when it sees certain triggers or signals, certain responses get made. For instance- you watch porn, you get aroused. You watch porn, you get aroused. Your mind learns that when you watch porn you should get aroused, so the next time you watch porn, you get aroused faster. If you keep doing this for longer and longer times, when you even THINK of watching porn you will get aroused. Same thing with trying to stop. You can say you don't want to masturbate or ejaculate anymore, and be able to go two weeks without doing it, then watch porn or have a dream and ejaculate. Since you focus so much on that ejaculation and the circumstances around it, your mind puts a signal around the circumstances. So the next time you try to quit, you last a week, maybe a week and a half, then your mind sees the same triggers, the same signals, and even though you say, "no, I don't want to ejaculate", your mind and body think, "oh, well last time I thought this I ejaculated, so time to ejaculate again". Which is why you fail sooner, and sooner, and sooner, until pretty much nothing works. Also, a good quote that I like from star wars: "Your focus determines your reality". If you are so focused on the energy being lost when you ejaculate, you will lose energy, simple as that. Try not to worry about it, and when I say don't worry about it, I mean think of something positive. When you think of the negative, you are still thinking of that thing. For example: if you think "I don't want to ejaculate". What are you always thinking of? Ejaculating. So rather than saying that, think, "I want to play the guitar in my free time." Rather than thinking of ejaculating you think of the guitar. You get into the habit of playing the guitar, and your mind forgets the association of that free time and ejaculation, and replaces it with the guitar. Now, I've had the same experiences as you when it comes to "arousal without ejaculating", namely after a while things get to full and hot, and stuff winds up coming out anyway. There are methods out there to circulate the energy, but that's not really for me, in the long run it just bothers me and I wind up ejaculating anyway. So I suggest not doing that anymore, especially because some techniques can be harmful. The strange orgasm you had, I think, was something getting messed up or stuck somewhere. There is what's called a "ruined orgasm", where you pretty much get the ejaculation but don't get the full "release", which feels funny. And there's also times when you have orgasm but are trying not to and keep everything in, and that feels weird too. In my experience backing off for a week or two and doing normal orgasms/ejaculations straightens everything out. Also, the thing about porn and your body in general.... As you have already figured out your body has natural cycles where you want to be sexually aroused, and when you don't want to be. Well, the more porn you watch and the more triggers you make, the more your body becomes aroused, even if it doesn't want to be. Your body might be saying, "It's time to rest", but your mind is thinking, "I'm watching porn, that means get aroused". THAT is when problems get caused, I think, and that is when masturbation moves to something that can be harmful. If you watch porn when your body wants to be aroused, and don't watch it when you don't want to, well there's nothing wrong with that- it's just adding to an already aroused body. The problem with porn and with all the triggers you make is that it reaches a point where it is hard to really listen to when your body is wanting to be aroused and when it doesn't want to, and that's bad. If that's the case, you gotta cut the porn. You can tell it's starting to happen because of the dreams- I think you said you usually have the dreams when you watch porn, then it got to a point where you had the dreams even though you didn't watch porn, right? What happened was you watched porn, went to sleep, dreamed about sex, porn, sleep, sex. Then you stopped watching porn, but when your body went to sleep, it thought- sleep = sex, and that's when it started. You have to establish some new pathway. And going to bed thinking, "I will not ejaculate" won't help because again, all you are thinking about is "ejaculating". Think of something else!! Hope this helps. If you aren't a native English speaker I hope you understood everything okay, and if not feel free to ask me anything

Why is it such an either/or, 1 or 0, black or white choice for you? How about this approach: 1. Get a job you enjoy. It doesn't have to be a dream job, but it should at least be moderately enjoyable to you. (Or start a business that you enjoy.) 2. Pay attention! This "pay attention" bit is what spirituality is all about. Being mindful 24/7 is the source of all wisdom and spiritual power. It's the opposite of being mindless or careless. You'll always have moments for reflection. Even at work you can catch a moment to pause and to reflect or meditate. If you choose this route, your father will not even have to know that you are developing spiritually. He'll just think you are like everyone else. If you want to do nothing but meditate, you have to arrange something to make your situation stable. There are many ways to do it, but if you go this route, get ready for your father's initial unhappiness. How much is spiritual development worth to you? Is it worth pissing off your father? Buddha famously pissed his father off by becoming a homeless ascetic. My advice, since you already seem to be enrolled, is to do your best to pass your classes. Try to graduate. It doesn't matter what your GPA is. Practically no one cares about it. Just do the best you can. Try to at least pass the classes you hate. One way or another, you'll have to learn some skills. College teaches you survival skills in a sense that you can get a job with those skills and earn a living. College also gives you a credential, which while not absolutely necessary, makes life easier. So if you can at all stomach it, hang in there and graduate. Think about it this way. Even if you don't go to college, but instead go into wilderness, you cannot avoid learning survival skills. You'll have to learn how to find water, how to heal yourself, how to hunt and gather food, how to build simple dwellings, how to make a fire and so on. Or let's say you become a bum on the street. That too requires learning. You'll need to learn how the shelter system works, where to get food, where to take a shower and so on. If you think about it, none of this learning is necessarily more pleasant than what you are learning in college. No matter where you go you will be learning things. So basically you will end up with a college-like experience pretty much no matter what. See my point? Spirituality is not diametrically opposed to worldly life. It's not the same as worldliness, true, and sometimes worldly passions can interfere, but in general it's not at odds with the mundane. Even the purest spiritual life has mundane repetition to it, a routine, like getting up every morning. That's mundane too. So I would advise to try to avoid extremes if you can. Try to avoid black or white, 1 or 0 types of choices. It's not an all or nothing proposition. You don't have to polarize your thinking so much. The decision is always yours to make, no matter what you end up deciding.

Just a quick thought from me... I think "hell" in the dream world symbolizes that which you're avoiding, the unconscious parts of you, or something having to do with your power. It doesn't actually mean you are becoming evil or anything.

Yeah, but that sort of thing is not really always effective- it's like, as long as I don't run into a certain stimulus it's fine, right? But whenever I run into a certain stimulus, even after a long time, it triggers the event. Also, even if it is not the exact same thoughts, the same types of thoughts arise. So, I might not get into a 10 minute thought strain about closing the door, but I might get into one about opening the drawers. I gotta get to the root. Thanks for the advice If there's one thing I have given up on a long time ago it is trying to reach some sort of "state". Because every time I get to a "state", a "state" where I'm "done", a "state" where I "have a problem", it always changes and shifts. So rather than trying to get a new state, rather than trying to get rid of a new state, I'm trying to stop channeling "bad energy" and trying to only circulate good kinds. Yeah, the ego is a problem, and I've definitely learned a lot about how the ego can function. Not really looking to get into drugs though Someone linked to an article about some doctor using psilocybin and describing some experience he had, and it reminded me of a lucid dream I had a while ago. Scary as heck Ego's definitely the problem but I dunno if I can handle the full ego death quite yet

Hi there. Well done for figuring out so much about how you feel. I'm looking forward to hearing more about your findings when you feel able. I'm going to tell you a couple of things I have done for myself which may or really may not be relevant to you.. if they are then hooray, if not, then pffft!!, move swiftly on... these things are really simple and quite amazingly effective, they are to do with thoughts and images arising, and you may well not have thoughts arising that perpetuate your state .. so.. the same technique may be applicable to a persistent psyche-soma response... one is a technique I got from a dream yoga book, which suggests that we regard daily life as a dream, this technique is to apply specifically to life problems that seem insoluble.. every time the issue arises in the mind, say to yourself 'it is just a dream'.. over a period of time, whatever was recurrently arising in the mind, gives up and goes away.. (like magic!) another technique like this which I employed super effectively was one I made up inspired by Richard Bandlers techniques for finding images of what you want to minimise/eradicate about your behavior/thoughts, and shrinking them visually so that they become very small, removing the colour from them so that they become sepia, and turning any volume down on them so that they are silent. What I did, was see the image of what I needed to be free from, and see it dematerialise, turn to dust and blow away in the wind. I did this repeatedly and a very very longstanding issue just stopped being an issue, surprisingly quickly. I guess it is mind training. I had no idea it was fast and effective. This may not be relevant to you because you may not have any thoughts to deal with, but instead have the residual issue of the forehead etc.. in which case you may be able to get an image for the physical stuckness and dissolve it .. or you may be able to work on dissolving the original trauma if you have recall of it. Another very helpful body -mind technique is EFT, google Gary Craig. The techniques are on youtube. Acupressure is also great, it's something we can do for ourselves. Anyway, I'm in danger of writing an essay here.. Good Luck and Welcome to the forum!

"What do you mean by being fatter?" refuted the robot. "You are all haggard-looking and skinny like dried fish!" "How can that be?" exclaimed the boy and the ball-shaped alien in bewilderment. "We were all treated to an exotic grand feast at the palace!" "I've captured our epic on video," interjected the Octopus-like alien, "Let's view it now." The four of them thus sat down and glued their eyes to the TV monitor depicting the playback of the footage. The initial scene had no issues; it simply showed their walk in the darkness. However, things got a bit spine-chilling when it showed that they were complaining about the unbearable sun. "Where is the sun?" yelled the robot. "We don't see any sun here, right? It is still in darkness." More inconceivable things were screened thereafter. For example, when they were pointing to a lake, there wasn't a lake at all. When they were "swimming", they were simply stroking their limbs on land. Even when the boat arrived, the men were represented as "fireballs" and they were still walking on foot because there was no boat to begin with. What happened at the palace? It was an abandoned town with lots of skeletons lying around. As they were "feasting", they were either consuming "air" or swallowing dirt from the ground. By now, you should be able to decipher what had actually happened at Shangri-La. Such senses were injected into them, making them believe what they had experienced was genuine. But in reality they weren't real. Whenever we have dreams that seem so real to us, we will think that IS reality. But when we wake up, we then know it was just only a dream. So how can we prove that we aren't now in a "larger dream", that we haven't woken up? Perhaps we will "wake up" only after death? Of course, I am not disputing the idea that we can neither disprove that now isn't a dream but reality. But Heartists go on the belief of the Second Axiom, that nothing exists physically. And now the Third Axiom.....

Halucinogens will not activate it - What has happened is that you have lost controll. You are meeting what is called "The Guardian of the Gate" which is your fears, hopes and desires in a lucid dream like halucenogenic state of mind. Good luck as you have done this to yourself. The only way out of the trip is Vitamin B Complex and Vitamin C in average doses. B Complex is the mind's vitamin. According to what you took - it may take some time to get it out of your system. If the situation gets too heavy the hippies used to titrate the halucinations with medical pot but that is very expensive and some places it is illegal without a Dr.'s prescription ...

There's no evidence that the brain evolved due to cooking foods, though you may be right about how far back the tradition went. http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/when-did-humans-begin-to-cook/ Cooking was more of a cultural thing and allowed humanity to develop socially. "Also the enzymes in food have very little to do with human digestion" I'm talking about the specific enzymes and vitamins present in vegetables that lose potency and bioavailability when cooked too much. Sure the protein, carbs, and fats don't get destroyed.. but what about the essential fatty acids (which the brain needs desperately for fuel) and antioxidants (which serve as fuel for the immune system)? I'm not a raw food expert, nor do I even follow the diet. I just think its ridiculous to call those who follow such a diet 'new-agey' when they are just eating consciously, and in good health, with their fellow non-human beings in mind. It's egotistical to have awareness of other's pain response and right to live? I'm saying animals are more evolved than plants. They feel, they perceive, much more so than plants do. Go touch a plant and see what happens; then go touch an animal. That is empirical evidence, not theory. They are more worthy of compassion than plants because of this; their subjective experience possesses consciousness of perception, consciousness of feeling, even consciousness of rudimentary thought through desire impulses. Some, if not most, animals actually dream. If you had to save a human or a dog who would you save? If you had to save a dog or a plant who would you save? C'mon man, you're digging yourself a hole. Humans surely weren't created by God 6,000 years ago with a cooking pan in their hands. I'm not sure what sort of rebuttal you can make. You're saying humans always cooked? About brain size, the current brain is actually shrinking dramatically. Not saying its connected to cooking, who knows, but its an interesting scientific find by a recent Harvard study. Too lazy to find it right now. There is a connection apparently between eating meat and evolution of the brain. That I cannot deny. There's also a connection between religious institutions and the development of civilizations and science. Should we always keep these mythological religious institutions around then? Is the effect dependent upon the cause? Like I said, there is considerable research being done about supplementation of the necessary vitamins which we get through eating meat. I know plenty of vegans, vegetarians, and those that eat raw which are all extremely smart, creative, healthy, and active. All happen to be spiritual too. They all supplement and do just okay. If you reduce who you are to 'just an animal' then of course that gives you no need to change. If you are just an animal, why not live in the woods and lick your mother's ass for breakfast? Ah, but you're not just an animal.. you're a little bit more than that.

Well its very chaotic which is why I am not at the airport:), lucky for me I am staying with friends and that's ok. From news today looks like the cloud is spreading and flights still canceled so who knows when things will get going. I like it here so it is a dream come true I suppose :lol:

Yeah that really is a great question! I find myself frequently wondering, if reincarnation does exist, if anything exists really, how I will "stay aware" in the meantime if I can't even get myself to have a lucid dream when I want!

I posted earlier siddhi's should be accepted but not desired. I try to contradict myself once a day, so let me say I desire 'powers' in dream work. From the simple memorizing of the multiple dreams at night, which is very doable, to lucidity and beyond; looking at and understanding other dimensions that may or may not be out there. In dream work is an oft forgotten but necessary step on the spiritual road. I'm haunted by a question Ron Jeremy once asked 'How will your practice help you when your dead?' I may be wrong but I suspect a possible answer lies with mastery of lucidity. Michael

Have you ever had a dream where you were not you? Where the situations you found yourself in were extremely generalized? Rather than, I was dreaming about being in high school again doing something with so and so. Its more like; I was a tree. And then I watched planes flying overhead. Next I was in the water, floating down into a factory. Way more symbolic and distance/generalized conceptual. Not personal reflective. Advertising? My classes are not open to the public. You have to be in the Master's program of a TCM college to take them... What do you think a book is? Its nothing more than a whole collection of experience and opinion from one particular person, the author. Unless its a non fiction, historical, or reference. Those categories do not apply to self help/spiritual arenas. Therefore the nature of your "evidence" is still opinion. The closest therapeutic modalities that deal with nexus points deal with those tissues that I mentioned earlier. Cranio sacral, myofascial release, visceral organ release and chi nei tsang are some of the common applications. Before you respond with a "screw this person" mentality, please reference some of what I mentioned. Left brain responses are common to Americans because of the education system. But the full experience of reality is more appreciated when using all parts of the brain. From the Left logistical to the right emotional, the limbic reactive and frontal cortex responsive. Even the deep reservoirs of central core stems add to the rich experience. But don't limit yourself to one half of your brain, all the time. The left side is always skeptical of everything!

Hi there. Could you explain what is a "Jungian" dream state, please?

assemblage points... good topic. From my experience, there is a small crossover between Taoism and this theory. You will discover the nature of these points as you experience the nexus effect of you spirit/conscious body. The closest physical structure in the body is the nervous system combined with the conscious projections of the mind and organs. Its a strange phenomenon, but one that is not far away from upper crystal palace meditations in Taoism. In my elective at the college, I teach practitioners to access and manipulate these nexus points in their patient's body. The main ones we deal with are the central cord nexus, the heart nexus, the solar plexus region and the root nexus. Those are easier to feel and not as drastic in effect. The strongest one is the central cord nexus. When we manipulate and move this region, people almost always have an out of body experience. They describe situations where they leave their body and enter what could be termed as a "Jungian" dream state. Sometimes they work through their own projections, and sometimes through other "dimensions". Its very much a mind experience and very close to the stage 4-7 hypnosis levels.