The Dream of the Butterfly

[blue eyed snake]

Thanks Rara,

 

 

Li Po has beautiful poems...a simple Google search will give you sites with most of them on

I have a pen friend that once new a medium (who died last year in his 50s) My friend told me about when he had sick family members, the medium would channel one of the 8 Immortals (when I remember which one, I will edit this post) In trance mode, the medium would ask this immortal to heal the family member. Apparently, before the immortal began work, he had to drink tonnes of Guinness.

Wtf?!

Well, my friend said it worked so maybe there's something in this drinking thing after all.

 

even though I stopped drinking two years ago, due to severe liverproblems ( ....and I didn't even drink that much  ) i find i can by now become drunk on meditating or a walk in nature, i do not miss alcohol. Maybe when i'm healthy again my teacher will teach me healing without needing to drink, i would like that, but patience is first.

 

 But I like Li Po 

 

 

To drown the ancient sorrows,
we drank a hundred jugs of wine
there in the beautiful night.
We couldn't go to bed with the moon so bright.

The finally the wine overcame us
and we lay down on the empty mountain--
the earth for a pillow,
and a blanket made of heaven.

Li T'ai-po

 

I do not need wine for that, and i long for the summer, i'll go out camping, and lay the body down in the soft sand and growths of the dunes, indeed: the earth for a pillow,

and a blanket made of heaven.

 

[Rara]

Thanks Rara,

 

 

 

even though I stopped drinking two years ago, due to severe liverproblems ( ....and I didn't even drink that much ) i find i can by now become drunk on meditating or a walk in nature, i do not miss alcohol. Maybe when i'm healthy again my teacher will teach me healing without needing to drink, i would like that, but patience is first.

 

But I like Li Po

 

 

To drown the ancient sorrows,

we drank a hundred jugs of wine

there in the beautiful night.

We couldn't go to bed with the moon so bright.

 

The finally the wine overcame us

and we lay down on the empty mountain--

the earth for a pillow,

and a blanket made of heaven.

 

Li T'ai-po

 

I do not need wine for that, and i long for the summer, i'll go out camping, and lay the body down in the soft sand and growths of the dunes, indeed: the earth for a pillow,

and a blanket made of heaven.

My pleasure. Maybe one day we can have a Li Po sub-forum...his carefree drunkeness is wonderful. Lots of drunken style of kung fu and even tai chi adopt this emotion without one needing to be drunk too, so happy you can get there in meditation!

 

The Guinness-downing immortal is Iron Crutch Li! If you fancy a read: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Tieguai

 

My friend responded to me on messenger today with the disclaimer: but it's just what the medium saw, so I just took his word for it. It's just a story.

 

So, of course, we take this with a pinch of salt too.

 

Please. Can Taoists stop being so imaginitive?! The Dao Bums are getting so confused!

[Rara]

Yeah, well, way, way back in my teens and early 20s alcohol did allow me to be more imaginative. But the hangovers were beyond acceptable. Drinking gone, imagination gone.

I'm less imaginitive these days. I write less and less songs.

 

I blame adopting kung fu. I've learn to channel any anger more appropriately so that I don't lash out. Problem is, I have little left for my notepad now.

 

So I guess Chuang Tzu didn't hit wallbags. He dazed and had butterfly dreams. Or just made it all up for fun. Either way, that crazy cat has got a few of us hooked!

Edited May 26, 2015 by Rara

[Geof Nanto]

I like this couplet from Cao Xueqin’s  The Story of Stone written on a banner ‘Welcome to the Land of Illusion’......

 

Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true

Real becomes not-real when the unreal’s real

 

For Xueqin the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’ are both regarded as being different parts of a single underlying Reality.

[Marblehead]

 

For Xueqin the ‘real’ and the ‘imaginary’ are both regarded as being different parts of a single underlying Reality.

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.

[dust]

I have dreams with a recurring theme: Walking along the street, I jump into the air, and once in the air I 'jump' again, and with each jumping motion I get higher and higher, until I'm gliding around up in the sky. It's exhilarating. I've whizzed around all over the world. Every time, though, I eventually lose my mojo and fall to my death.

 

When I wake up, I have no illusions about this actually having happened. But there is an underlying 'reality' to it.

 

I don't know how often dreams mirror the subconscious, or to what degree, but there is no doubt in my mind that they do, sometimes, mirror a certain reality -- often one that we are not willing or able to face consciously.

[Stosh]

It means you get depressed after working so hard and end up ,not making a dent.

[dust]

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?

[Geof Nanto]

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.

[Marblehead]

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

[Geof Nanto]

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.

[Stosh]

Yes I'm sure it's something along that line...

Whats the worried face mean? 

[dust]

Because you're at least pretty close with your interpretation! So a smiley face didn't seem appropriate...

[Stosh]

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. 

[Marblehead]

After that dream I think you should go back to sleep and hope for a better dream.

 

Yeah, maybe one with butterflies in it.

[Geof Nanto]

After that dream I think you should go back to sleep and hope for a better dream.

 

Yeah, maybe one with butterflies in it.

 

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. 

[Stosh]

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.....

[dust]

Yeah..that's a thinker!

[Stosh]

Yeah, the thing that stood out to me was the underwater view of a lure just laying on the pavement on the midline road marking.. and thinking, hmmm its not even suspended.

[Marblehead]

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.....

How many hands you got?

[Stosh]

Just two, but theyre multipurpose.

[Rara]

So, last night I had a nightmare that I took a lot of pills in an attempt to kill myself and it worked...only for me to regret it all as I was dying.

 

Then I kept thinking to myself, I hope there is another life coming...

 

Then I woke up, fully aware that I had been dreaming and not impressed. Wasn't easy getting back to sleep at 4:30am after that.

 

WTF?! Maybe I should start a new thread for this in GD. Idk. But wow, how dark!

Edited June 2, 2015 by Rara

[Stosh]

So, last night I had a nightmare that I took a lot of pills in an attempt to kill myself and it worked...only for me to regret it all as I was dying.

 

Then I kept thinking to myself, I hope there is another life coming...

 

Then I woke up, fully aware that I had been dreaming and not impressed. Wasn't easy getting back to sleep at 4:30am after that.

 

WTF?! Maybe I should start a new thread for this in GD. Idk. But wow, how dark!

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') 

Edited June 2, 2015 by Stosh

[Marblehead]

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.

[Rara]

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')

Thanks Stosh. I must admit that I was quite shaken up today because of it but ignoring it, yes, gladly. It was just disturbing at the time because it made me wonder, why am I dreaming of suicide? Is there something going on beneath the surface?

 

The positive part is - i realised it was a dumb move in the end. So at least I know for this reality!