Raven Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 Unrelated, but happy birthday to Harry! Have a wonderful year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NORM Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 I'm interested in what members make of dreams. Are they God talking to you, are they the universal consciousness trying to guide you, are they simply a process carried out by our bio-computer (i.e. brain)? Do you try to interpret them? If so, how? Or do you just write them off? Cheers Paul I think I have an unfair advantage. I came of age in a time when good quality hallucinogenics were readily available. Psychotic drugs enhance the imagery you normally see when dreaming - fragments of visual stimuli (optic nerve) plus remembered associations. After awhile, I got so used to them, that I could "pre-program" my trips. I can now do that with dreams. It's very entertaining. So, no; I do not ascribe any significance at all to dreams, nor do I think that G-d has anything to do with them. NORM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulS Posted April 14, 2012 Author Share Posted April 14, 2012 Norm, Would you in any way attribute the drugs to 'opening a door' to the subconscious perhaps? Subsequently dreams could still be of significance, although not delivered from on high? Cheers Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NORM Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 Norm, Would you in any way attribute the drugs to 'opening a door' to the subconscious perhaps? Subsequently dreams could still be of significance, although not delivered from on high? Cheers Paul That's what we originally thought in our hippie-ness. But, since I was able to construct my own trips just by selecting imagery beforehand, I reckoned that what we were really seeing was the equivalent of a tape-loop (sorry; that's an 80's trick with cassette music tapes - one splices segments of different songs in a continuous loop for an interesting effect) inside our heads constructed of random bits of memory and visual misfires from the optic nerve caused by the drugs. BTW, my hallucinogenic dreams weren't delivered from on high, only; while high. NORM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 Would you in any way attribute the drugs to 'opening a door' to the subconscious perhaps? I don't want to encourage this but I know there are "fans" of Jill Bolte-Taylor who talk about mind altering drugs as a means of achieving an ecstatic/unitive experience. She had a massive left brain stroke and an accompanying ecstatic unitive experience from the right brain and believes if we spent more time experiencing the transcendent - from the right side of the brain - we and the world would be better for it. She's right and she found out by having a stroke. But we don't need accidents and drugs. There are some chemically altered experiences I have drawn on but I think it is by accident that I found it worth while. Everything you need to know about "opening the door" is available without controlled substances. You can see best at night by using your peripheral vision so don't focus, play. Practice meditation or centering prayer. Dance. do something to get your left brain to shut up. Imagine. Write. Draw. Exercise until you are exhausted. All these are techniques are used by the mystics (and shamans). I am biased; I take drugs to keep my mind in place. Dutch Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NORM Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 Everything you need to know about "opening the door" is available without controlled substances. You can see best at night by using your peripheral vision so don't focus, play. Practice meditation or centering prayer. Dance. do something to get your left brain to shut up. Imagine. Write. Draw. Exercise until you are exhausted. All these are techniques are used by the mystics (and shamans). I am biased; I take drugs to keep my mind in place. Dutch The most vibrant experiences were using quite natural substances, such as Peyote or Psychopsilocybin (aka; magic mushrooms) Tea. They are not controlled substances. However, there is something to be said for meditation. I will often listen to something like Pink Floyd, Smashing Pumpkins or some such and induce a psychedelic state without taking anything by simply concentrating on the bass track or a particularly repetitive guitar riff. In Eastern meditation, they will repeat a mantra - some nonsense words or phrases - over and over until putting themselves in a trance-like state. I don't know if it is from left over residue from some of the psychotics (last time I imbibed was some 30 so years ago), but if I concentrate real hard; I can induce hallucinations at will. It's pretty cool! NORM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yvonne Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 I saw a TV show on the a science channel last night (yes, I'm a nerd). Scientists said (and I knew this, I think) that every body has about 20 dreams every night, that most mammals dream, and its our subconscious at work. What they haven't figured out is why we dream. It was also noted that when we have interrupted sleep and do not dream "enough", that both our physical and mental health suffer. Interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 When my college roommates took peyote I got them to climb the large oak? trees in Audubon Park, New Orleans,La, and hang by their knees upside down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 As previously noted, there are different possibilities for different dreams, for any person. Some just seem random and relatively insignficant 'neuron firings' as the brain processes whatever, while some may actually have potential significance in a variety of ways. As I noted, I have had some dreams so vivid with such impact they remain impressed in great detail in my memory many years, others are fleeting, gone within moments of awakening, some come with and leave me with strong emotional impact even after waking, others don't. My own thoughts on this dream thing come from both personal experiences over my life, plus what I've read of studied, and how any and all of that have combined into just what seems to make sense to me. So here goes.. I did begin some years ago to write out dreams that seemed signficant in such as emotional impact and/or persistence in my memory. Another element I have come to respect as indication of something of signficance is recurring dreams, recurring elements in dreams, and patterns, particualry in dreams occuring within close time periods and sequentially. I have also recognized at times my having had "dream sequences", the occurence of dreams on different nights over a relatively brief period that seem as if "miltiple episodes" of a single or developing larger "story," or sometimes the "same" story or "message" just put into different forms, such as in biblical parables, espeically as Jesus used them, different ways of demonstrating the same point. I didn't notice that part until i did start recording, writing down, dreams that felt signficant. And I do think I've observed some interesting and possibly 'useful' things about them, my own dreams, anyway. As for symbolism, as also others have noted, it is not always so easy a matter to 'interpret'. While some symbolism may be somewhat shared in common by many within a society or culture, many others are personal, out of onne's own life experiences. And, that any one element can have different 'meanings' or 'interpretations' as they may appear in different contexts...such as I think it was josph that observed above, a mountain miight at variouus times represent an obstacle, a challenge, or even an exciting adventure, or a high place near God. Figuring out some of my own symbolisms as have occurred in my dreams indicate that either I or what/whomever 'spiritual power' might be involved has a rather odd sense of humor at times....such as a toilet representing the White Throne of Judgement! And feces, particularly human feces, most often appearing in some context in which I have to deal with them somehow, clean them up, etc, have been pretty consistenly relating to my having to deal with the mess someone else is making, or simply my having to put up with and deal with someone else's, well, you know. My thoughts about why there might be so much symbolism involved are along the line of how much of what goes on in our minds, obervations we make and how they are processed, likely goes on in the non-verbal regions of the brain, not just the obvious "right brain", but also the more primitive regions of the brain, where everything is based on sensory perceptions and processes, vs rational cognition and/or verbal/language. This might compare somewhat to how it may be for animals that do not have brain capacity for language, verbal skills. They have only sensory impressions, and i can imagine how an animal's mind might even use symboIism in dreams...such as the brain processing something strange as fearful, might in dreams by represented to the animal in the form of some actual real thing it has had fearful experience of. The same may be true for us. Some vague, unknown fear may be expressed in the form of something we consciouusly do recognize as fearsome, or dangerous. Even the form that element takes may provide clues to the nature of the fear itself, whether it is something we'd percieve as immediately of extreme threat, such as being confronted by an enraged lion or savage dog, or the lurking presence of the anaconda as someone here mentioned. Something like the anaconda could even represent, through out cultural symbols, an untrustworthy and potentially dangerous person lurking in our life. re cultural symbolism as a person as a 'snake in the grass' that might be further carried to a 'snake lurking around my home" to indicate that person is perhaps much closer to us in our life than merely lurking out in the grass. I relate that somewhat to Paul's mention of one having been caught up unto the third heaven, where he saw/heard things 'unlawful to speak'...that 'unlawful' being not in such context as any rules or commands to not speak, but actually unspeakable, things there are no words for speaking. Of my own seemingly significant dreams, i have recognized what seem to be several fairly distinct "types".... "Alert system." My unconsiouus mind seems to have been observing, making not of, and processing information about things going on around me that I've not been entirely consciouusly aware of, and/or making "connnections" between things that have not occurred to me in my concious awareness. Depending on the nature of whatever it is, the situation, this may contain elements of "warning" of danger, or simply things relevant to my concious choices, decision, in my actions or how I'm percieving situations and events around me. By "feeding" that information into my conciousness through dreams, it helps me be more informed in those choices and decisions, how I may choose to handle variouus situations. In this context, I've come to think of this as an "extention" of my natural "senses" in percieving my environment, which includes not onnly physical elemets, but psychological and emtional ones as well, my own, and of others. "Guidance system." Related to the same unconcious observation and processing as in the previous, but may actually include elements "suggesting" or "directing" me in some way, in making choices, decisions. Not exactly 'telling me what to do" to "to do something", but making "suggestions" of what to do or consider doing. And I've found that usually very wise and potentially useful "suggestions", arrived at through a more complete consideration all relevant elements than my concious mind has access to or had used in concious processing. I've expereinced many "ah-hah!" momets from this sort of dream...as in, now why didn't I think of that! "Internal state/conflict/growth." Such dreams involving this are pretty much alway of extreme emotional impact. Usually, quite disturbing, often threatening. It sometimes takes a bit of doing to discern some of these from those of the first sort, as in, is the threat, the danger, from something without, from my surroundings, environment, or from within my own self. My uconsciouus is trying to "feed into my concious awareness" something that is "wrong" or "off", that for my well-being, I really need to deal with. Most of my most significant and dramatic stages of personal, psychological, emotional growth and healing of wounds and dysfunctions, have come connected to these, as if representations of not only what may be "wrong", but how it needs to be dealt with, and toward what end. Often these have come as dream sequences over a period of time, seeming to represent not only what is wrong, how to proceed, but also stages of progress in my dealing with them, growing, or healing in some way, sometimes all the way throgh to a 'victory' or satisfactory resolution. I've sometimes called this process that of "digging out old splinters and thorns, and draining the abcesses" so something can heal or be "made straight" again. Sometimes, it seems just helping me to understand myself better. "Prophetic." Predicting, or seeming to "observe" events yet in the future. Here, it gets a bit murky, just what might actually be the same kind of my own mental processes as above that are at work, playing out sequences of causes and effects toward consequences, in a manner that arrives at some "prediction of future," in a sense just as natural and ordinary as how the weatherman can tell us it's likely to rain later in the week, and what might actually have come from "tapping into" some "greater intellegence" or "collective consciousness" to "know" things I couldn't possibly know through "ordinary" means. Hope all this lengthy rambling helps others in considering upon their own "dream life." Jenell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted April 15, 2012 Share Posted April 15, 2012 1. Dreams present you with symbols. 2. Symbols mediate a transition to another state. 3. Now you have the choice to accept the transition, or reject it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted April 16, 2012 Share Posted April 16, 2012 Can you kinda explain that Myron? Sounds intriguing, but I'm not comprehending quite what it means. #2 and #3 in particular. Jenell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NORM Posted April 22, 2012 Share Posted April 22, 2012 When my college roommates took peyote I got them to climb the large oak? trees in Audubon Park, New Orleans,La, and hang by their knees upside down. My legs always turned to rubber. I would have fallen on my head. My "tea" was made by Navaho Indians and we stayed in a "sweat lodge." There were no oak trees around, thankfully. I do recall running frantically as I tried to shake off the hallucinations when they were too freaky. NORM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NORM Posted April 22, 2012 Share Posted April 22, 2012 1. Dreams present you with symbols. 2. Symbols mediate a transition to another state. 3. Now you have the choice to accept the transition, or reject it. I think it bad policy to base decisions on random dream visions. NORM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted April 23, 2012 Share Posted April 23, 2012 Wise words to keep in mind...always be very careful in choosing traveling companions! And that's especially important in choosing and appointing a designated driver for a trip! Jenell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeorgeW Posted April 23, 2012 Share Posted April 23, 2012 Wise words to keep in mind...always be very careful in choosing traveling companions! There is a saying in Arabic: ar-rafeeq qabl at-tareeq. It means, in effect, it is more important to chose the right companion (rafeeq) than the right route (tareeq) before undertaking a task or journey. George Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 (edited) I hear or read about the really stupid and downright dangeorus, even cruel, things some have induced others to do while "under the infleunce" of some mind/consciousness altering substance, or that someone has experienced while 'high' or 'tripping' alone or only with other 'trippers' without a trusted "sober" person, in a safe place, and think, that's got to be a form of insanity. While I've experienced alcohol, I've never used other such drugs or substances, but even if I'm going to drink a bit, may even possibly more than I should, so I'm impaired, the danger of not having a trusted sober companion to look after my safety seem obvious. I have had some personal encounter with actual serious shamans, some Native American, so other ethnic connected, and they've really put a lot into both knowledge and preparation when using altering substances, and, when overseeing others, take seriously their responsibility. And quite simply, anyone not emotionally and psychologically stable can end up with some pretty serious longer term lingering adverse effects. That preparation, btw, is not merely for the immediate occasion of any usage, but in preparing themselves mentally and psychologically as part of their "calling," as well as over the days and hours before a planned 'trip to the underworld.' Casual recreational use seems just more risky than I'm willing to take a chance on. Jenell Edited April 24, 2012 by JenellYB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted April 25, 2012 Share Posted April 25, 2012 Jenell, You mean I can't be your designated driver. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JenellYB Posted April 26, 2012 Share Posted April 26, 2012 (edited) I don't make a practice of putting myself in a postion of needing one. I'm much more likely to BE the desginated driver! Intrigued at the idea and potentials of 'ethnobotanicals' when I was around some into that kind of thing a few years ago, and one of my hobbies being North American cacti, I actually added to my collection some species known for their 'usefulness' in that way...they are growing quite well for me, and I have learned about 'extracting processes' for their 'use', but I'm too chicken--maybe I'm a control freak and can't get into the idea of deliberately entering a state in which I'm not in control of my own mind and actions---to actually follow through on them, lol! One of my son-in-laws that knows about them jokes that if word ever gets out what's growing out there in my cacti patch, I'll need to get a taller, stronger fence, and some mean-tempered big dogs! Jenell Edited April 26, 2012 by JenellYB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NORM Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 There is a saying in Arabic: ar-rafeeq qabl at-tareeq. It means, in effect, it is more important to chose the right companion (rafeeq) than the right route (tareeq) before undertaking a task or journey. George This is so true. In my travels around the world, I had a trusted friend and companion. We actually traveled under the names Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent in homage to the book that inspired our adventure. Fictitious names, it turns out, was a better idea than we had imagined. Especially when one considers what happened in Venezuela NORM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NORM Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 I hear or read about the really stupid and downright dangeorus, even cruel, things some have induced others to do while "under the infleunce" of some mind/consciousness altering substance, or that someone has experienced while 'high' or 'tripping' alone or only with other 'trippers' without a trusted "sober" person, in a safe place, and think, that's got to be a form of insanity. It is true that unscrupulous people can encourage a "bad trip," but the worst thing someone else can do is plant negative thoughts in the person prior to tripping. Your mind will enhance emotions like that. I've known people who descended into a deep and lasting depression that way. When I was younger, I lived near an urban park that was frequented by hippies dropping acid. We built tree forts surrounding a little meadow area that featured cement Gnomes and mushrooms (the hippies called it Munchkin Land). At the peak of their tripping, we would all let out with various animal noises. Without fail, they all ended up huddled together under one particularly large mushroom and had fun trying to guess the animals that had apparently surrounded them. When I experienced hallucinogens for myself, I realized that this probably wasn't too cool. The most rewarding trips were under the guidance of the Navaho Indians in Arizona near my cousin's house. They actually had people whose only role was to make sure that your experience was good (and safe). These guides would "help" you to journey to the center of [your] mind (which, I believe is where the Amboy Dukes got the idea for the song, Ted Nugent's protestations to the contrary notwithstanding) - the goal of such "trips" according to the Medicine Men who made the tea. Tripping alone is the definition of foolishness, just as drinking alone is the definition of alcoholism. NORM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NORM Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 I don't make a practice of putting myself in a postion of needing one. I'm much more likely to BE the desginated driver! Intrigued at the idea and potentials of 'ethnobotanicals' when I was around some into that kind of thing a few years ago, and one of my hobbies being North American cacti, I actually added to my collection some species known for their 'usefulness' in that way...they are growing quite well for me, and I have learned about 'extracting processes' for their 'use', but I'm too chicken--maybe I'm a control freak and can't get into the idea of deliberately entering a state in which I'm not in control of my own mind and actions---to actually follow through on them, lol! One of my son-in-laws that knows about them jokes that if word ever gets out what's growing out there in my cacti patch, I'll need to get a taller, stronger fence, and some mean-tempered big dogs! Jenell Jenell, be very careful. Mescaline is unlike most other hallucinogens like LSD. It doesn't take very much to produce a very LONG lasting high. I've tripped for three solid days on it, and if it is your first time, you will begin to question your own sanity. The first time I took it, I did - and I had already experienced quite a bit of LSD. Sadly, from what I've heard, what is sold as LSD these days is mostly methamphetamine and sometimes strychnine. I would recommend smoking marijuana - it produces a mild hallucinogen. Use a water pipe, though. The paper wrappers will hurt your lungs. NORM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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