What is the opinion on dreams?

[Cadcam]

When I was young, I dreamed a lot, but they were loose ideas and not very storied.

 

Now as an adult, I find that they are like movies, with a plot and dialog.  They are very involved and realistic, though not always bound by the laws of nature.

 

I'm wondering how mystics magicians and occultism account for them, because from my POV they are designed.

[thelerner]

For the majority dreams are a jumble of ones thoughts, desires and fears.  Most dreams are junk dreams, but not all.  Some have great value in pointing out directions and opportunities we should head in.  As we do more work on our subconscious more and more dreams have value.  

 

Dreamwork at its highest level can mean astral travel through different dimensions but that's pretty high level stuff and people can confuse it w/ lucid dreaming.  While I've worked on it, that stuff is above my pay grade.  Low level stuff like pre-programming dreams is more my grade though even then I'm rarely lucid.      

 

I admire Rawn Clark's Hermetic inspired work.  And he claims to have had regular astral meetings with other like hermetic magicians where they'd call each other the morning after and compare notes.  

[Cadcam]

22 minutes ago, thelerner said:

 

I admire Rawn Clark's Hermetic inspired work.  And he claims to have had regular astral meetings with other like hermetic magicians where they'd call each other the morning after and compare notes.  

I'd have to call bullshit on that one.

[Daniel]

3 hours ago, Cadcam said:

I'm wondering how mystics magicians and occultism account for them, because from my POV they are designed.

 

This is how I account for them.  Every dream which is remembered is an opportunity, but, not all dreams are significant.  Dreams which are highly significant produce strong emotions, both pleasant and not, on waking.  And.  Dreams which are highly significant repeat.

 

Edited August 5, 2024 by Daniel

[Daniel]

1 hour ago, Cadcam said:

I'd have to call bullshit on that one.

 

Yes, I agree, we'd need to know a lot more about this, but, let's not over-react?  There's ways for them to stack the deck in their favor in addition to severely lowering the standards for what would be considered a "successful astral dream encounter between good friends."

 

... regular astral meetings with other like hermetic magicians where they'd call each other the morning after and compare notes. 

 

Notice:  it doesn't say what happened in those "meetings".

[thelerner]

2 hours ago, Cadcam said:

I'd have to call bullshit on that one.

I probably would too.  About such stretches I'm normally pretty skeptical.  Yet I've read and listened to his stuff.  He's not the kind to pull rabbits out of his hat on demand, ie if evidence was demanded he wouldn't give it.  Mostly because that's not his focus.  He gave away his techniques for free.  He's a private person and the claim was more matter of fact, not the main focus of his writing.  I don't think he cares about convincing anyone.  He's not into fame or making money off his practice.  

 

So while I wouldn't put money on it, I definitely could be wrong, I like to think its true. 

 

Nor is he alone.  Michael Winn of the Healing Tao talked about meeting people in dreamspace, running a flight school there.  He does make money from such teachings.  Sells a series on Taoist Dream practice.  Do I think his claims are true?  I don't know.  

 

I've studied dreamwork.  Have little talent in it though.  Working on it makes my insomnia worse.  Astral travel seems like it would be easy to prove, ie what card did I have out last night.  Historically in an anecdotal way, dream communication is mentioned across cultures.  Particularly Tibetan.  Doesn't mean its real, but it could be.. pretty rare though.   

 

Stanford lab has done fascinating work on lucid dreams and the ability of such dreamers to communicate through eyes looking right left right patterns with outside observers.  Last I heard after a decade and hundreds of experiments they couldn't show proof of astral travel and considered it most probably examples of believing one's lucid dream.

 

Yet, one science lab is not the whole world.  One university lab measuring human speed would not necessarily find a person who could break a 4 minute mile.  It takes genetics, luck, hard hard practice.. and helps to believe it can be done.  Still as years go by books on astral travel get put in with Big Foot, Loch Ness and UFO's.  Yet UFO's aren't and shouldn't be a closed book.  

 

In Rawn's case, I'm willing to believe, not that it gets me anything.  

 

 

[Ascetic]

Dreams can contain horribly accurate information. There was one that had me as an elite of a mage society, and I was given access to one of their libraries.

How horribly odd it is that some information is useful and enriches your mind. It really didn't feel like a joke, that it took so many loops to get to one of these libraries in a Mage society, you would literally have to get permission from an Elder to read a single book and you were expected to then study that book for up to a year.

I could really only read about the process of an adept becoming a Mage, or opening a Vase. But it was legitimately useful, and I woke up feeling an enrichment and information I could never lose. Regardless, it felt weird because I lived the dream as someone else, and then woke up as myself. 

Weird theories about being able to measure how large the outside of a Vase is, if you only have the inside to measure from/can only act from the inside. It's my general emphasis, that mundanity here doesn't stop magical societies from developing outside of consciousness. And I think they'll eventually invade worlds like this one.

 

I wish I could have read about the theory of Ether that they had in those libraries... Things like that would change everything, might even make it possible to get a grip of Magic here.

Edited August 6, 2024 by Emaciated Ascetic

[thelerner]

Don't know about Etheric or Akashic but altered states like hypnosis can be good for investigating one's own memories.  There are many guided meditations on the subject on Youtube.  I like the Entrance ones on walking through the library of memory, though I tend to clip off 10 or 15 minutes of the beginning induction.  

 

They have you walking dreamlike through a library and the books you pick up are times of your life.  Will the visions be accurate..?  IDK, probably they'll be colored by emotions and desires yet its a worthwhile practice.  

 

This type of thing is easy low hanging fruit.  In everyday life we're bombarded by images and thoughts, we sift through them kind of like through a straw**.  Being open to the subconscious can widen that straw.   

 

 

**doing more open eye meditation lately and it explores aspect about vision.  How attention brings a surprisingly small focus field, the rest is blurry but you can make friends with that blurriness, live in it.  How the window of vision itself is eye shaped.  

[Thrice Daily]

Brilliant read this thread thankyou.

There are elements in this video that get close to my lived understanding of dreams and the links to mortality / immortality also the apparent opportunities that we have to live beyond 1000's of deaths paradoxically even in this one life. It has to me been possible to experience in waking, but also possible at times in dreamstates...

 

I'm a believer that there are infinite universes and this is the true meaning of the potential to experience everlasting life. But we are limited as to one we can see and how far we can go in the choices we make here before reaching mortal death in this (and possibly many other universes close by) universe. Simultaneously though we are still running many different combos of outcomes and they can at times be viewed even partially controlled or at least partially experienced through the inner senses / dreamstates awake or asleep, maybe second attention is a better wording. 

 

I've been shown many things that defy the laws of time and space and have led me to be unbound from this physical form (and time) and able to roam, only then somehow, to regain consciousness and return back to this time and to this body, aware that this live will always loop back to itself, no matter how many times I die or become another part of time/universe. I've had many experiences like this over the years, It wasn't till listening to the first ten minutes of this video that I smiled, and thought yeah, it's nice to hear something so closely entwined with what I've been led to believe is true through life experiences. Hope you give the video a try, if you like this thread I think you'll love it.

 

 

[Thrice Daily]

In other words, I think you can inhabit other universes (and times) and then come back to this one, I think dreams are potentially a conduit for this . I'm not 100%, but I'm fairly certain this is the case  

Edited November 20, 2024 by Thrice Daily

[Cadcam]

Well, I can say from experience that some dreams, at least, are formed and written. I think that there is a personality behind reality, and if anything,  I'd say that this personality likes to create, and for that reason I speculate that dreams are just one more venue for them to do so.

[Nungali]

It appears so with some type of dreams - and there are many different types - but in these types of dreams why cannot the writer be the self ?   I have had  stories 'come in' , both in the dream state , in the trance state and in the conscious state ; some times its just an idea but other times they require little  work - all the essentials are there . Its not like one is consciously  thinking it up and then deciding how to write it .

 

There are other vast parts of the self that we have little understanding of their workings  ( ' the unconscious ' ) but are well aware of the results .  A bit like your computer or phone , you see the results on the screen , but the workings to get those results are relatively hidden and complex .

 

Story telling , dreaming and oral memory are essentials of early human consciousness, the first two have survived well.  This is an extension of a specific and integral part of human nature , that nature that distinguishes  us from the other animals . Note that I am not saying it is those things themselves as we know other animals dream but that essential part of the distinctive human nature is all about a consciousness that creates, projects , travels through time to imagine various scenarios and how they might play out and how to successfully negotiate through them ;  mentally its a dream or story but the essential difference is our ability to use that 'power' to make an object or artifact  .... 'technology'   ,  a 'tool' .

 

Of course all that can be done consciously as well  eg  I can learn a drum rhythm , practice it and play it  or I can go into a different 'state' and play 'automatic' and  different and interesting rhythms might arise 'by themselves ' ,  then it can feel like it isnt myself that is  drumming .  The really big dreams, visions , inventions , systems seem to come from this 'super conscious' area .

 

I put it down to the 'super conscious' aspect of the psyche .   But there are all types of dreams and sometimes they can get mixed up, there are certainly 'base' ones  so its not a good idea to rely on dreams too much or give them too much credit  as their 'borders' can blur .