What we Need to Remember About Us

We exist strung between enormous duality – sleep and waking, male and female, pain and pleasure, light and darkness, life and death, and death and resurrection, war and peace, matter and anti-matter, negative and positive, the void and bodily existence, success and failure and the many other things that torment so many such as, “Am I attractive or am I not attractive to others?” To be whole we need to accept and meet these opposites. In the pursuit of love we need to recognise that we must integrate the other gender to become whole. See Archetype of the Animus

Most of us do not even admit it, that we are a very strange creature who becomes unconscious for a large period of our life. We simply accept that we sleep because we need to rest. Daily we pass through an extraordinary change that we often take so much for granted we miss the wonder of it. The change occurs between sleeping and waking. For most of us being awake is when we most fully feel ourselves. Compared with this sleeping is a period during which we lose any focused awareness of being an individual, of having a body except in our dreams and we sink into what is generally called unconsciousness — the lack of personal awareness, darkness. See Lucidity

We all know what it is like in our daily life with its pleasures and tribulations, but few know what it is like in the other polarity of ourselves. This part of us is not limited in awareness by our physical senses, but has a more global awareness. As one person who experienced it regularly describes it, in our body awareness it is like looking through a crack in a wall at a big river.

So all that we can see is what ships are passing in front of us now. But in the other level of us it is like looking over the top of the wall and seeing the whole river, what has passed us and what is coming.

Yet this swing between waking and sleeping can be seen as the extremes within the possibilities of our experience. Sleeping and waking are the polarities, the North and South Poles of what we can confront. In quite a real sense we can say there is nothing beyond what is included in those polarities. When we begin to explore the depths of sleep through dreams and other ’sleeping’ phenomena, then the apparently black depths of sleep begin to reveal an amazing life and energy. Light is taken into the darkness. Things become visible that were hidden. What was unconscious begins to become known. The huge area of our experience that seemed to be a blank gains life and substance. Then the unconscious is recognised as an area as vast and varied as the physical world.

We are unconscious in sleep because our limited awareness of self – our personality or I – has lost all awareness of having a body, a gender, sight or sound, so exists in a vast timeless zone of bodiless awareness. It has become everything – and as everything it cannot have a shape, a body, a locality, for all or any of those would be something. This in older cultures was seen as the ‘little death’, because they understood that is is what happens when we die.

It is a vast darkness that is the source of everything, the source of our own existence as a person. It is our unconscious self until we pierce it with consciousness. We haven’t actually lost our self or I, it has been expanded enormously, and if we claim it we claim also it enormously expanded abilities. See Life’s Little Secrets; OBE Experience; Bodiless Awareness

But in fact you are a dual being in many other ways. You have a hidden side of being both female and male; of having a huge heritage of experience gathered from your forebears and the past that you are barely conscious of; and many other aspects of duality you become conscious of as you journey more fully into your unconscious self.

An Example of the Wider Life

“I woke early this morning to pee. As I woke I was aware of having been dreaming, but I could not remember what the dream was. However, I was experiencing a strong feeling of being connected with all things. I had a deep sense of being part of everything, and of everything being a part of me. It was very real and I had a spontaneous image of standing in a great garden, an immense place of creation and unity – the Garden of Eden feeling. As this happened I had an insight that most of the people in the world do not have, and perhaps do not want to be a part of this unity. This thought, in the way it was experienced was completely new to me. I couldn’t understand why anyone would not want to experience this wonder and communion. I knew I was at the wedding feast, the celebration of life or creation. It was a wonderful feeling to be a part of this mystery. Therefore the realisation that many people did not want this was slightly shocking or unnerving. It made me ask myself the question of whether I was naïve, perhaps not seeing or realising something. This realisation went on to the sense that in fact a sort of battle was going on between those who were part of the celebration, and those who didn’t want it. I thought that those who didn’t want it were perhaps frightened of losing the control they thought they had over their life and the world. I knew I was playing a part in this battle or struggle”.

Disciplines of mind, and the use of certain drugs, enables people to explore areas of experience that do not occur “naturally”. Through these it enables the practitioner to enter the condition of sleep while maintaining a certain amount of critical awareness, as happens in lucid dreaming. This really is a voyage of exploration, and is different to what happens when a person explores a dream. Exploring a dream brings contents of the unconscious into waking experience. Mental disciplines and lucidity enables a personal dive into levels of awareness that are usually cloaked in unconsciousness. Perhaps this can be likened to the first humans who dived under the sea with a submarine and began to personally witness the immense range and variety of life that exists under the surface. But it has to be said that the imagery of dreams and lucid fantasy are still almost at the level of waking. The depths and heights of what is usually unconscious within us revealed worlds completely different to what we know during waking life. Those worlds are no less real than the world of our conscious personality. They are in fact a balancing polarity to what we know and experience in our daily life.

In waking life

In waking life we exist as only an awareness of our body that is locked in a position in time and space, and only aware of what our limited physical senses allow us to see. For instance you can see less than one percent of spectrum of light, and hear less than one percent of the acoustic spectrum. So ‘naturally’ you are almost blind and deaf. It can help if you realise that just as your eyes do not directly allow you to see, but nerve impulses are sent to the brain where they are translated into living pictures. Nothing we sense in the world is directly known, but it is all impressions that are translated into a sense of smell, sight, hearing, etc. So the eyes receive reflected light from an object that is translated into nervous impulses, which is then received by the brain which translates what are formless nerve impulses into what we feel we see. And yet we maintain we are in the ‘real’ world when we are awake.

Another aspect is that we often carry our morals, viewpoints, fear and means of protection into the inner world of dreams. But they are not necessary in our dream or inner life.

In waking life through the learning of language we have developed a sense of self, and believe it is our highest reality. See Animal Children; Archetype of the Paradigm

The other polarity of our awareness

At the other end of our awareness is an ocean of consciousness that does not have a focussed sense of self. This ocean of consciousness that is at the core of our being is what has been called many names. In India it has been described as Sat-Chit-Ananda – Being-Consciousness-Bliss. When we discover it as the centre of ourselves it is no longer seen as exterior or distant. But in waking life where we lack awareness of it we see it either as non-existent or as separate and distant.

This part of us is not limited in awareness by our physical senses, but has a more global awareness. As one person who experienced it regularly describes it, in our body awareness it is like looking through a crack in a wall at a big river. So all that we can see is what ships are passing in front of us now. But in the other level of us it is like looking over the top of the wall and seeing the whole river, what has passed us and what is coming.

Another persons description is – “I simply dissolved into an apparently spaceless and timeless void which was total “no-thing-ness” yet at the same time the most intense, blissful aliveness I have ever known. I think this is what is meant by the mystical notion that so-called normal human life is really a state of chronic forgetfulness of “who we really are,” and I suppose my NDE must somehow have shocked me into recognizing my identity with the Void, with the result that my forgetfulness is now spasmodic rather than chronic. Needless to say, I was bowled over by all this at first, and spent many weeks coming to terms with it.”

Although that is an amazing possibility, it is not uncommon for people to experience it. In certain circumstances we can be aware of the deepest levels of our body, its functions, organs and tiny . The Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, in his book Realms of the Human Unconscious, gives details of people experiencing vivid and specific awareness of what he calls Organ, Tissue, and Cellular Consciousness. Also, Dr. Bernie S. Siegel started the Exceptional Cancer Patient Clinic through his experience that patient’s dreams showed what was happening in their body. Such dreams diagnosed their illness long before present technology could.

You are Dual in Many Ways

As a living creature you are dual in countless ways. For example we are all both female and male, only polarised by our body. We are also alive and dead – in fact in every moment of our life we face the possibility of death. In fact we only live because we are constantly dying. Our body is all the time dying as thousands of cells die, and in doing so the new and living body can continue. If we allow ourselves to realise that it illustrates the meaning of the phoenix – it is consumed by the flames, and yet it arose anew. We have the fire of life within us, we eat and feed the fire that consumes us and gives birth to us continuously. It is the warmth of our body, the warmth, even passion, of our emotions and that is life – continuous through death.

We are all angels and devils, murders and saints. heterosexual and homosexual. Any long sturdy of ones dreams will show you that unconsciously we are potentially everything; the light and the dark, the energy and inertia, the whole universe.

There is even more of you

During the last century an enormously expanded understanding of the human mind and consciousness has arisen. In other cultures much of what our own scientifically oriented culture has arrived at had already been stated. However, it is important for the western individual to gain insight from their own perspective, as much from past cultures is stated in language that is often not properly understood, and we often fail to really grasp what is being presented.

So in beginning to consider the levels of our everyday awareness and how this links with our physical brain, we can look at what anatomy, physiology and psychology have defined.

Basically the brain is separated into two halves, generally called the left and right hemispheres. But it is now understood that our brain developed its sections over the long span of evolutionary history. Because of this it has, within and also separate from the two hemispheres, a number of levels. As our present brain evolved it developed four separate ‘brains’ or levels, each with its own memory, motor and other functions (David J Mahoney, 1991). Each new level, as it developed, elaborated on and extended the function of the preceding levels. So, from the spinal cord the hindbrain and midbrain developed. The first level of brain that developed beyond the spinal cord has been called the Reptilian Brain. This is because what we carry within our human brain is still found in reptiles. This ‘brain’ often encompasses several parts of the physical brain.

The neurologist Paul MacLean gave a definition of these physiological and psychological facts of our brain in 1990. He said that these levels of the brain work like “three interconnected biological computers, [each] with its own special intelligence, its own subjectivity, its own sense of time and space and its own memory”.

In fact there are even older levels than these, but let us look at the most obvious.

Taking the Reptilian Brain first, this is sometimes called the ‘R-complex’, and includes the brain stem and the cerebellum. It carries our genetically transmitted ‘instinctive’ behaviour such as suckling at the breast as a baby, aggressive response as with and including territorial defensiveness, the courtship and mating behaviours in reproduction. One of the best known expressions of this brain is the ‘flight or fight’ response in survival situations.

This brain deals with behaviour that is either innate, as described above, is learned and has become habitual, or is a conditioned response. If it is habitual we can repeat it without having to learn it or be very aware of how we do it – as with riding a bicycle or driving a car once we have mastered the skill.

The functions of the second, Mammalian or Human ‘brain’ MacLean likened to the skills shown in mammals such as wild dogs and apes. Whereas the lizards do not demonstrate mutual activity in hunting or caring for young, mammals show enormous awareness of bonding, caring for young, group activity, hierarchy and recognition of family and pack. They also have a much bigger pool of behavioural responses and can learn even more. This ‘brain’ integrates and refines the functions of the reptilian brain. It provides emotional range and intensity, and gives a greater complexity to what motivates or deters us. It is this greater awareness of how we relate to others, and the social structure in which we exist, along with a sense of what place in it we occupy, that enables us to modify and coordinate the impulses arising from the reptilian brain. Here too lie the beginnings of being able to reflect and learn from experience in that way.

At times when we tap the resources of this brain we discover enormous insights and wisdom concerning relationships and social interactions.

And then there is the brain most of us are familiar with the Human Brain. So as we grew in our mother womb we developed through the levels of evolution. At one time we were like a fish with gills, and so within us is all levels of our past that is closed to our waking mind, but is there withing our Global Mind. So we have within us all animals – no wonder we dream of them so often. See Brain Levels and Dreams

A man – Jesse Watkins – stressed out of his normal awareness said – ““I was more than I had ever imagined myself. Not only was I living my life now, but I had existed from the very beginning of time, from the lowest form of life up to the present. The real me was all that experience. Then at times I could see ahead beyond even the awareness I now had, to where we become aware of it all.” Jesse felt that the new ‘world’ he was experiencing was something humans were moving toward, but most people couldn’t reach at the moment. In that world were beings Jesse called gods, beings who could live and move in that world easily, beings who were not afraid of the enormity of the experience. From this he felt that all the things that happen to us in our life are helping us evolve toward becoming like the gods Jesse met.

A Leap Forward in Understanding Dreams

Such a leap forward in understanding dreams came when Aserinsky and Kleitman found rapid eye movements (REM) in 1953. In 1957 the REM were linked with dreaming. This defined sleep into two different observable states, REM sleep, and NREM non rapid eye movement, pronounced non-REM sleep. Within NREM three different stages have been identified. So whenever you dream your eyes move rapidly to follow what is happening in your dream.

Electroencephalographic (EEG) machine that measure brain activity shows that while awake the brain waves are low in height and the frequency is fast. As we relax prior to sleep EEG shifts to what are called alpha waves, with an 8 to 12 cps cycles per seconds. There is a transition between this drowsy state of alpha waves to sleeping, in which theta waves occur, with a 3 to 7 cps. and in this first stage we experience random images and thoughts.

This is called stage one This lasts about ten minutes followed by stage two, in which ‘sleep spindles’ occur that have 12 to 14 cps on the EEG; about half our sleep period is spent in this second stage of sleep. Deep sleep is reached when our brain exhibits Delta waves, with 1/2 to 2 cps. The illustration shows the periods of dreaming in red. It is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sleep_Hypnogram.svg

After approximately an hour and a half from falling into deep sleep, an exciting change occurs. We return to level two and REM’s occur. Suddenly the brain is alert and active, though the person is asleep and difficult to wake. This level has been called paradoxical sleep because of this fact.

We lose Control and our Voluntary Muscles are Paralyzed

During REM sleep while we are dreaming our voluntary muscles are paralyzed – except for our eyes. It is thought this was developed during a period when our forebears were sleeping in trees. Any movement would have made them fall. The eye movements were of course not dangerous.

An important fact about dreaming is that all the signals for movement while we dream are sent by the sleeping brain to the muscles but are blocked by a part of the brain called the pons. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/man-who-didnt-dream/.

But this block can be bypassed by having a passive attitude while awake (See Keyboard Condition). This allows for a little recognised phenomenon which, while awake and in a passive state, allows the dream process to break through as spontaneous movement, sound and emotion, exactly as with dreams. In the past, and still in the present, this spontaneous movements and speech are all things that happen when this dream process breaks through into consciousness. Things like Seitai, Chi Gong, Tai Chi, Shaktipat, Pentecostalism, and Reichian therapy, where spontaneous movement is practiced by thousands of people.

But when this spontaneous movement breaks through to consciousness many people are frightened of it and rush to the doctor to sedate it. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/sleep-paralysis/ – See also http://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/lifes-little-secrets/

The Life Will

In life and sleep we have two powerful actions working in us. The first is our waking experience based on having a body, its limitations, vulnerabilities and a particular gender. Our second is the power that gave us life and continues to express as dreams, in our breathing and heartbeat – our life. This I have given the description as the Life Will.

While we sleep our conscious self is largely or totally unconscious, and while we dream our voluntary muscles are paralysed – therefore another will or motivating force moves our body. So we have a Conscious Will, and what I will call a Life Will. The first one we have experience of as we can move our arm or speak in everyday activities; but the second will takes over when we sleep. See Sleep Paralysis

This Life will can move us to speak, to move our body, and in fact do things that we cannot do with our Conscious Will and in fact runs all our important life processes like heart beat, digestion and also dreams.

As Freud pointed out this inner will has full access to our memories. It can do so many other things that are described else where – See Edgar Cayce and the Cosmic Mind; ESP in Dreams.

For simplicity I have called this experience, of what is actually ‘waking lucid dreaming’, ‘LifeStream’. It would take us too far out of looking at dreams to explore it, but it can be studied within these features: LifeStream–People’s Experience of LifeStream– Life’s Little Secrets – Arm Circling Meditation

This Life Will or motivator has been active for millions of years and we see it working all the time in animals. We are partly split in half because we are often opposed to what our Life Will in us wants. So the only way to express what is good for us is in dreams when our conscious will is largely passive or we are restricted by being tied down.

Life Will created your body and pre-existed you as a person you know today. It was working in you prior to your ability to speak or know in the way you do now. But of course it has fantastic wisdom and skills, as can be seen in animals.

But we have to remember that having a personality with self awareness is a very new thing and has only existed for a short time. Before that we were like animals that lived only in the Life Will – what we usually call instincts. So the development of self awareness was an immense step, and left us very vulnerable, and still does. Look around at the number of people who have to take anti depressant, or who have to use alcohol every day, or smoke or take other drugs – all means of facing the difficulty of meeting self awareness.

That is actually the story of the Garden of Eden. At first we were all living in an instinctive Life Will state, having no decisions to face and all directions automatically handled instinctively. But when we left the Garden of Eden by having developed our own will we felt naked and afraid – in the words of Genesis.

So we are in a situation in which we have only a limited awareness instead of the amazing wider world of the unconscious – the Life Will. We are in general very small creatures, and when we begin to meet the enormous world that we left in the Garden, and we meet it with human personality, it often frightens us. We fear that our ego or personality as it is will be lost, destroyed or overcome by the Hugeness. My experience is that nothing is ever lost, instead we are added to. See The Waking Lucid Dream

Example: Your wife’s dream of resisting waves of great pleasure was very interesting. I wonder why we resist and block pleasure. I’ve also noticed doing it in other things. The other day I was going for a run and got stitch and tired quite a long way from home. I was running under some huge oaks and I practiced “communicating” with them and their strong energy to exchange energy. And I felt the boost which kept me going. I was so high on this feeling that I cut it off. I think the reasons were a) that I was frightened it would be taken away from me for some reason by an external agency and then I wouldn’t know whether I could access it again, whereas if I cut it off, there was always the possibility in my head that I could access it; and b) gosh, if I can do this what can/should I do with this ability – where does it lead – it doesn’t seem to fit in with my life.

The man dreaming this reach conclusions based on his beliefs, his inner world, which was educated in an old, almost middle ages, view of what a human being is. He believes in an external agency, which he also feels doesn’t fit in within his life as he knows it through his old view. Please see There is a Huge Change Happening – Quantum Physics

Our Reaction to meeting the Huge that we Are

We are all subject to the forces of growth – it is one of the main functions of life. But because growth is a push toward change, change that we do not want to face, we often resist it, often without realising we are doing so. Psychiatrist say we have resistances to meeting the uncomfortable aspects of our self. A young woman who was anorexic dreamt of cutting off her breasts, suggesting trying to cut out the living process that was moving her into being a full woman. So such resistance can also relate to how we try to dissociate from our own process of growth and ageing.

The human personality – the You that you call yourself, with a name, is only a tiny thing. It is moved and tossed around by all manner of drives, ambitions, emotions, fears, temptations, worries, love and desire with its pains and hopes; it is something we take so seriously and get carried away into awful situations; we take many sorts of pain killers to deal with ourselves. Things such as alcohol, coffee, medical drugs and street drugs, and yet we are still prone to break down, as can be seen by the number of people who need antidepressants or are totally lost in themselves. Look around at the number of people who have to take anti depressant, or who have to use alcohol every day, or smoke or take other drugs – all means of not facing the difficulty of meeting self awareness.

Paul Levy writing about this says: “This process can be so extreme, so radical, that the ego experiences it as death …. This experience is related to the shaman’s descent to the underworld as well as the archetypal journey of the wounded healer. See Programmed

Many people as their awareness reaches beyond what they feel is their normal self feel scared. Such resistances cause us to create awful dreams and fears as a means of avoiding our own inner world and its wonders. We feel that we will be swallowed up and we will die. It is important to say that when we meet the experience of powerlessness through becoming aware of the hugeness of your Life, which we are usually unaware if, it feels like something alien or attacking, and it is a shock.

When we begin to meet the Hugeness that we are, we often react to it in our dreams or in waking with fear or panic. So we dream of being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures; or being swallowed by a whale or something huge, a tsunami, or even possessed by evil entities. If we realise that they are things we have created through our own fear we will pass on. But otherwise it will continue to haunt us as something that will get you; or you feel uncertain even lost in facing it! But it is only our small self image, our ego that reacts because it feels powerless, even though in reality the Hugeness is part of our totality. It is the enormous potential you have within you, it is Life you are frightened of or have been ignoring. It often frightens us. We fear that our ego or personality as it is, will be lost, destroyed or overcome by the Hugeness. My experience is that nothing is ever lost, instead we are added to.

An example of a man, Jesse Watkins, breaking through to his hugeness:

‘I felt that I had sort of – um – tapped powers that I in some vague way I had felt I had, or everybody had, although at that time I’d been a sailor most of my life, I had not – I had read quite a bit when I’d been at sea but I hadn’t read any esoteric literature then nor had I since, I hadn’t read anything to do with, er – with – ideas of transmog-migration of souls or whatever you call it, transmog – transmig – reincarnation. But I had a feeling at times of an enormous journey in front, quite, – er – a fantastic journey, and it seemed that I had got an understanding of things which I’d been trying to understand for a long time, problems of good and evil and so on, and that I had solved it in as much that I had come to the conclusion, with all the feelings that I had at the time, that I was more – more than I had always imagined myself, not just existing now, but I had existed since the very beginning – er – in a kind of – from the lowest form of life to the present time, and that that was the sum of my real experiences, and that what I was doing was experiencing them again. And that then, occasionally, I had this sort of vista ahead of me as though I was looking down -looking to an enormous – or rather all the – not looking so much as just feeling – ahead of me was lying the most horrific journey, the only way I can describe it is a journey – a journey to – um – to the final sort of business of – um – being aware of all – everything, and that – and the – and I felt this so strongly, it was such a horrifying experience to suddenly feel that, that I immediately shut myself off from it because I couldn’t contemplate it’ because it sort of shivered me up. I – it drove me into a State of fear, so much – I was unable to take it.’

Example: Dr. Karagulla, a famous neurologist, in her book Breakthrough to Creativity, has described an experiment she made with two doctors. To test heightened sensory perception she blindfolded one of the doctors and gave him a photograph. It was a medical picture of a pregnant woman. He was asked to pass his fingertips over the photograph and report any impressions and sensations. At this the other doctor began to protest that what she was asking was not possible. But at this point the blindfolded doctor began to speak of impressions which vividly described the picture he held. The other doctor began to protest so violently, and began to feel so ill, the experiment had to be terminated.

Example: I have had dreams about seeing clear deep water and I have been afraid of it as if I would drown and die and nobody would be able to retrieve my body back. In such dreams I also dreamt about Lotus ponds. Huge Lotus ponds. I would suddenly find myself in the pond and I can see the muddy roots and long stems rising up.

The two examples show how when we enter deeply into ourselves we often feel scared of it. But usually we grow beyond such fears.

Example: I was on a road and noticed that a magnificent elephant had appeared. It had enormous tusks and ears, the latter being powdered with blue dust and adding tremendously to its impact. As it was coming in my direction I was frightened and began to run. I ran off the road, over a fence into a field. I thought the elephant would be stopped by the fence. It wasn’t. It walked straight through it after me. Then I tried to climb a low bank back to the road. The elephant was drawing nearer and I was so frightened I could hardly move to climb the bank. The elephant caught hold of me and I suddenly realised it wasn’t going to destroy me, but wanted, despite it being a magnificent and powerful beast, to sit me on its back. I was still frightened however and ran to a doctor’s surgery. The elephant came and, thrusting its trunk into the surgery, drew me out to it.

This beautiful dream clearly shows how something magnificent and powerful coming into his life frightens him enough to cause him to run away. Fortunately his fear did not cause him to wake up, so he saw that in fact the huge unconscious and powerful side of him does not in fact try to destroy him, but wants him to join together to become a whole person.

When the Conscious Will and the Life Will find unity, ‘This union of the two wills constitutes the spiritual marriage, the accomplishment of which is in the Gospels represented under the parable of the marriage at Cana of Galilee. This divine marriage, or union of the human and Life wills is indissoluble, whence the idea of the indissolubility of human marriage.” Quoted from Clothed With the Sun by Anna Kingsford. We also think of it as Enlightenment. See Enlightenment

Carl Jung adds to our understanding of this. “We should understand that dream symbols are for the most part manifestations of a psyche that is beyond the control of the conscious mind. Meaning and purposefulness are not the prerogatives of the mind; they operate in the whole of living nature. There is no difference in principle between organic and psychic growth. As a plant produces its flower, so the psyche creates its symbols. Every dream is evidence of this process.”

The Human Personality

And a lot of the pain and the mental misery is largely because we put so much trust in what we think and feel. Yet thoughts are simple photocopies of reality and are never the real things. They are just sounds we make into words to help us move around a strange and confusing world. And feelings to are simply a response to what we meet.

We are small because we know nothing about who we are and how we came to be – except of course in the words we have been taught are really the truth. We do not know anything about the mass of things that keep us alive – except what we have read, yet more words. We are largely unconscious of what makes our heart beat, and all the millions of things that life behind our existence does, so we are moved by whatever moves us – whatever that is – childhood fears and social programming, or haunted by the past.

Also most people have lost contact with the animal they are, and so the human person is made even smaller by that loss. Yet we know if we think about without words, that we have evolved through past ages, and in our womb life go through the stages as we develop our reptile brain, our mammal brain and then the human brain – and they are still in us and working. And it is what I have called the Life Will or Life that lies behind it all and needs some acknowledgement.

And behind it all it the Nothing that is Everything. If we can acknowledge that then we may find firm footing. “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner as the outer, and the upper as the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male shall not be male, and the female shall not be female: . . . then you will enter [the kingdom].” Quoted from The Gnostic Apostle Thomas: Chapter 24

Also as we begin to meet the Hugeness that we are we often react to it with fear or panic. So we dream or being attacked by aliens or frightening creatures. If we realise that they are things we have created with fear we will pass on. If we refrain from the normal activities and diversions people enter into the conserved energy will flow into and enliven old traumas, and make alive the fears, pains and fantasies those traumas give rise to. So it could lead to neurosis or worse. It could also lead to fantasies of spiritual power or experience. It is, after all, the stuff of life, and is incredibly creative. It brings life to whatever it flows into, whether that is good or what we call evil. So we need to remember and keep in contact with our highest.

Example: During meditation in Convent Chapel – had been repeating a mantra dreamt about Chiayusin and then gone onto the meditation I cannot always do, the empty quiet within waiting for the delicate touch. I began to feel the delicate touch. As usual with this my spine straightened slowly without my making any effort. I sat extremely upright without effort or strain. Then my heart began to pound as it had never pounded before, except during heavy exercise or running. I also began to perspire and breathe heavily and slightly raggedly. I felt I had opened-up to an enormous power. Yet I had only brushed its skirts.

No wonder meditation is dangerous. If you opened to this before your body was ready, it could damage the heart, and maybe other organs. When I looked at myself in the mirror afterwards, my eyes were red and face perspiring as if just finishing sexual intercourse.

The heart pain – a pain right through my chest from front to back, or a general ache and pain in the chest – I have been suffering for some months now, I feel is tied up with this business of ‘opening up’. It started with my efforts at the head-stand and uddiyana. The head-stand had reached 30 minutes, and uddiyana had progressed to 1000 repetition daily. Then suddenly I began to suffer badly with what appear to be pains in the heart and chest. These pains do not occur during heavy exercise, but often during meditation.

However it is not as clear cut as that, as they also occur at odd times during the day, once as quite bad palpitation – this was while meeting S. during lunch break.

There appears to be some link with the sex act, as I have not had any sexual intercourse for a long time now. Neither have wet-dreams occurred. When any loss of sexual fluid threatens, even as I dream, I find myself doing the aswini mudra – tensing the rectum – and thus controlling it.

This control of the natural (?) loss of sexual fluid may have caused this build-up of heart tension.

The experience in the Chapel this morning shows a definite link with heart action and deep meditation. Remember that Jim Droust had the same experience when beginning a projection – OBE – i.e. terrific heart beats, so intense they frightened him.

I feel somehow that it may be a result of unconscious fears of being controlled by the unconscious forces. On the one hand we have the unknown – unknown by consciousness – force, and on the other the conscious self seeking, without really any clear conception of what it is looking for.

When one finds something real within oneself – something previously unconscious – one tries to block by various unconscious physical tensions, thus topping the normal flow of the life energy in the body. When we find the real thing we are frightened. Like a young inexperienced boy seeking sexual experience – when confronted by a full grown woman he may be scared silly, as it is an experience he has never met before, and cannot cope with his present psychological equipment.

We are many things – some of which we find alien to us

The characters we meet in dreams, their variety and difference to how we know and think of ourselves, present us very clearly with the enormous variety of talents, sensitivities, possible approaches to a situation, and personality types that we hold within us. If we can tap them they are an enormous resource.

Technically they are called autonomous complexes,and hold in them such varied and spontaneous responses to life, that they have enormous creative potential if they can be met and expressed in a way that does not dominate or destroy the central personality. So it is helpful to integrate these disparate aspects of their personality and unconscious. So it is helpful to integrate these disparate aspects of their personality and unconscious.

Although it can be very disorienting and even frightening to meet ones internal infant, and feel its explosive moods and deep instinctive longings, it can enlarge our perspective of life enormously, as well as our ability to relate more widely. Apart from the infant there are many beings we touch in our dreams. Everything from the deeply animal such as the dog in our dreams, or the wolf, to the sadist, the lover, the monk and the business tycoon. If we do not meet these characters and manage them in our life, they will certainly manage us, and lead us into relationship tangles, emotional responses and actions that are not what we ourselves choose to be or feel. See: examples under compensation; sub-personalities; Integrating a Parent or an Alien; Unconscious;autonomous complexes.

Example: Today I read something I had written at the end of The Conjuring Trick. I was so moved I could hardly breath but was trying to make sounds. When I allowed this without interfering I felt like an animal that could not form words and so all it could do to express its intense feelings was to make these sounds over and over. It wasn’t a sound of pain.

It went on for some time but slowly tried to move toward speech in words. At first it sounded like alla, alla, which reminded me of Allah, and I wondered if this was a sound made by other humans who felt such overwhelming immensity and could only make these sounds. But it developed further and became alow, alow which in turn became ‘I low’ which became ‘I love’. Such deep feelings that are made by a beautiful animal consciousness inside us, and it has to slowly rise to the level of human speech. And finally it poured out of me in the words, “I love myself.” Which actually meant I love something hard to express – something so huge that was everything and everyone that had led me to this realisation that I am an enormous collection of hundreds of people, animals and things beyond understanding.

And that in turn became, “I felt the wonder years ago” all in a voice of great emotion. “I felt that wonder and it has been burning in me ever since.”

A few years ago I wrote in my Journal – So as I felt this I could feel the enormity of it, and I could feel this was what I really wanted to do. I wanted to be a force in the world showing a completely different way of looking at life and dreams. In one woman’s dream she wrote to me that she could see a massive wave building up and coming towards her. It was so huge that the water was retreating as the wave was building. She said she couldn’t move because there was nowhere she could run from it, and so she stood in fear of it. Then as it hit her she woke in fear.

Now I want to say to somebody like that, “Why are you frightened of life?” I say this because it is so obvious in the dream that what is coming to her is something so huge and wonderful, and yet she is the terrified of it.

That wave was a massive force of positive change that if she had met it would have transformed her life. Unfortunately many people are frightened of Life. See Life’s Little Secrets

Example: As I looked at my impressions and rising feelings, I saw how powerful has been the realisation that within ourselves we are nothing. That our real existence is formless and beyond conception. It is the realisation that frees us from the prisons of recrimination, of feelings of defeat, of ideas and words – even of constant failure. Being formless, there is no mood, no passion, no philosophy that can hold us. So we can slip away from the agony of guilt or self judgment, we can laugh at the phantom of being right or wrong.

But it is a frightening realisation too. For it brings us to the realisation that nobody else creates the hell or heaven we experience life to be. Nobody else creates our love or smouldering vengefulness. We are alone in our creation.

We are like a creature that cannot exist without other things

And I am not talking about air, water and food. If we look at all the human suffering in the world, not the sort brought on by floods or volcano’s or earthquakes and wars, we see enormous areas where humans cannot easily survive. Of course there is enormous mental breakdown, a vast number of people needing alcohol or street drugs to get by. And there are those living in emotional hell.

It is partly because we do not or have not learnt to survive amidst the huge forces that are part of human existence. How many of us actually realise that we are only just recently in our development left the animal existence, and admit the tremendous needs it places on us. Most of us totally take no notice of those needs, and so a great amount of splitting occurs in our personality. We have lost touch with the natural world and do not honour it as part of our life as many native peoples do, and this we can learn from our inner world, our dreams. We do not tend to the hurts we feel as a natural animal that we are, are so become sick in our soul – a soul that we deny we have.

The Influence of our Dream Process

As explained above, the dream process can also produce movements and sounds while asleep or awake. But it is not usually realised that the whole phenomena of dreaming can occur while awake and you are in a receptive state of mind. Any visions, voices heard or hallucinations are all the product of the dream process breaking through the barrier that usually only allows such things while asleep. If you have had such an experience you will see, if you think about it, that as with dreams, images, people, voices appear as if outside you. That is exactly the work of dreams, which project a whole dream, its drama and characters, onto the screen of our sleeping mind. See Visionary for more information.

But even more important for our understanding of what we are is the fact that as our body is paralysed we also lose all sensations arising from our body senses -our eyes, ears, taste, touch and smell. In that condition we are bodiless, but to maintain our confidence, as people get terrified when they get near to realising that they are fundamentally bodiless consciousness, we create a dream image of ourselves with a body. Out of that arises all the fear of death – for even if we lose all our limbs we are still us.

Dreams are a reflection of your inner world

Dreams are a magical mirror in which your innermost hopes, longings, fears/terrors and genius are made real. They are made real as external environments, people, animals and relationships. So the person you dreamt about is not them, but is a dream image made out of your feelings and memories.

Unfortunately this wonderful virtual reality world is usually felt as dealing with other people, as externals, like something that can damage us, or something like the Devil that can possess us. But the greatest truth I have found in exploring dreams – not interpreting them – is that we are alone with ourselves in the world of our dream. If we can acknowledge and admit that our terrors we dream are actually our past hurts or fears that we have not faced presenting themselves for us to heal; that the ghosts and demons that can rampage about our night are embodiment’s of our fears and ideas presented to us as truths; that our wonderful visions and insights are an expression of our own infinite potential, then we can walk a pathway to finding what we really are. Remember that your are more than you appear. Audio Introduction to Exploring a Dream

If you think about a person, do you honestly think your thoughts are them? Thoughts are like photocopies and never deal with reality. Your dreams are like thoughts, they do not deal with the dreamed of people or things. But they do deal with the reality of your own inner life. It is similar to computer games where you can be killed or fail a thousand times and emerge none the worse. But if you learn the rules of the game of Life then you can go up the levels in this virtual reality world.

So in dreams if you dream of an evil creature devouring you, as in the last example in Archetype of the Devil, it is only an image created by your thoughts and beliefs, and you can alter it by changing you attitude to it. Even you body, what you call you, is only a dream image, so nothing can hurt you. but of course the fear you feel is what you have carried with you and is only an emotion. See Avoid Being Victims– Secrets of Power Dreaming

Something else that creates a lot of confusion is that people fail to recognise the difference between their inner dream life and the demands of their waking life. In our waking life it is good to recognise that our actions and deeds can hurt others and change the way they feel – even traumatise them. But in dreams we are nearly always facing ourselves, and what we do is always a virtual reality that we can experiment in and try out all manner of behaviour. So it can be very dangerous to ones psychological health to hold back ones anger or sexual feelings in a dream – whereas in waking life it may result in awful consequences if we release all our feelings on another.

We are all victims

The situation of being a victim is a central and key point so time will be taken with it. We are all born victims of circumstance. But we need not remain a victim.

Therefore it is wise to be able to recognize that these are habits of reaction to events. We might say we are victims of the world or life. But we can alter it by learning how to change our habits. And it started for me a long time ago, because I had to learn things without which no change could have taken place. I do not mean book learning, but learning by living it. The first thing I remember learning was that I could change habits. Fortunately it was a simple habit. I noticed that as I walked through the building I worked in I left the doors open. I believe I had read somewhere that the only difference between a criminal and a successful person was their habits. So whenever I left a door open I would close it – even if I had forgotten and walked on, I turned around and closed it. Within a short time it became a new habit to close doors, all done now without effort. So that was the first thing I learned, and then moved into greater challenges with my psychological habits. These were hard because many of them were unconscious and I had to dig deep to find them. See Life’s Little Secrets.

The next thing I needed to learn was that we are all victims, but we do not admit it. What I mean is that we are all victims of beliefs, convictions, words people say, what people or parents have told us or hit us about – and I am not talking about traumas. We are all born victims of circumstance. But we need not remain a victim.

Your natural response to your environment is to be influenced by it. A disturbing event would stimulate you to feel fear, a calming event to feel pleasure. Your moods are usually influenced by what happens to you. So being in prison would be more depressing than being free. Being rejected would cause more pain than being admired or loved.

We are all an amazing keyboard influenced and moved by all the interactions with people, animals and events. The keyboard responds to and produces all the emotions and fears we are capable of. So if we watch movies or read, then words and images move us to tears, fear, wonder, curiosity, terror or even enlightenment. Yet we are only seeing images, yet we are moved, and unless we are aware of it, we can become victims of our own impressions. People are often terrified or deeply worried by their dreams; they run in fear from an animal chasing them, or are paralysed by a demon attacking them, yet they are only images that we create in our sleep or witness on a screen. To run from them is to run from your own feeling of fear. That might be the right thing to do on the street if you see an attacker approaching you, but it is not good to become a victim of your fears, worries, speculations or even hopes.

So we need to see how events, words, our own thoughts are playing on our own victimisation. If you learn these two you are taking steps toward your own wellbeing. Change the habit of being a victim.

Example: I was in a prison cell with two other men. I felt it was in Spain somewhere. We ate, slept and defecated in the cell. I was standing at the bars of the cell, and had the impression I had been in the prison for years. I was shouting and cursing the people who had put me in the prison, full of hate and self pity.

One day as I stood raging at the bars I suddenly realised that my years of shouting had availed nothing. The only person who was upset by it was me. I was the victim of my own anger and turmoil. It was as if I had been haunted all my life by ghosts of anger and passion. I dropped the attitudes or ‘ghosts’ and was free of them. Years went by and one by one I recognised and dropped other habits of emotion and thought that had trapped and tortured me. I realised I could be totally free within myself.

One morning I woke and sat up on the mattress on the floor that was my bed. The last ghost of inner entrapment fell away. A fountain of joy opened in my body, pouring upwards through me. It was so intense I cried out. My cell mates called a warden because they thought I had gone mad. They stood looking at me as I experienced radiance so strong I felt as if I must be shining. I was aware my joy poured into them, although they thought I was possibly insane. I could sense the enormous change in me influencing them, and I knew it couldn’t help but change them also. I realised that I might never be released from the prison, but it didn’t matter as I had found a fuller release than simply walking the streets. Even though remaining behind prison bars, I would still be touching people’s lives deeply. Nothing would ever be the same again.

The dream enabled me to experience what it would be like if all the angers, beliefs, justifications, thoughts and emotions that usually posses my awareness dropped away. The freedom and bliss were extraordinary.

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Many of us get stuck in life situations from which we may never emerge. The situation might be one of never establishing a full and satisfying sexual relationship; constantly feeling hurt by the actions of others; existing in a state of depression or anxiety; forever having to seek activity or company to deal with ones own inner emptiness; experiencing enormous jealousy or anxiety in a relationship – the list could be endless.

There is however a self help path we can take that can radically change such situations. The first step is to recognise how we personally hold such inner conditions in place. Maybe we might even ask the question as to why we maintain such an awful relationship with life.

The answer to that question might very well reveal the most powerful process that freezes us in our difficulty.The power is self justification.

I recently asked a man who had experienced enormous pain through, as he felt, being misused by a woman friend. When I pointed out that this was the woman’s normal behaviour that he himself had described to me, so why was he hurt by it, he said that she should have been more caring for his feelings.

I then asked him if perhaps he was asking her to act like an adult while he maintained the emotional level of response normal in childhood – namely blaming someone else for his hurt. In response he again justified himself by saying that it was normal to feel hurt from such an action.

Such justifications, and the statement that it is normal to feel pain in love, at the death of someone close, at the twisting and turning of life events, or because of the unthinking remarks of someone, are the chains that bind us to that misery. Carl Jung wrote, “If we could fully meet our shadow, we would be immune to any moral or verbal insinuations. We would already have seen this for ourselves.”

The answer is to meet our shadow – to acknowledge our own follies – to see our own childish behaviour – to be self aware.

Of course that path is not for the weak hearted. It means to stop the continual justification of why we feel and respond in the way we do, and instead, to pull back what we hide from ourselves to reveal the underlying causes of our responses and behaviour. It lies in taking ourselves by the scruff of the neck and perhaps saying, “I am still responding to this as if I am a three year old. Come on, time to grow up, and stop justifying yourself for feeling angry, jealous, afraid, and ill.”

Growth is an innate urge in us. If we stop holding it back we will emerge from childhood and our countless justifications.

The Con About Evil

Some of the Eastern philosophies do not make such a big thing about evil and the Devil. But in the West we have been brain washed to believe we face an exterior evil, Satan or the Devil. There are so many dreams showing this, along with the huge fear of being possessed by a devil or the devil. It is a fear put into us to give others power over us, for without some person who could save us from such evil we would feel powerless.

A much more helpful way of seeing this is explained in the Chinese philosophy illustrated by the yin-yang symbol. The symbol shows the black and the white in a circle. The good and bad, the negative and the positive are shown as equal and necessary parts of a whole, not as something that has to be represses conquered or got rid of.Also each part had a dot of the opposite in it. So in the very good there is the germ of the bad. And in the bad there is the germ of the good. In that we are balanced. There is no struggle.

Of course there is evil in the world, but it doesn’t do us any good to run around like headless chickens being afraid of it and dreaming we are possessed by it. As the symbol above suggests, it is part of our nature and life itself, but it is only when we tip the balance toward the dark side it becomes dangerous.

What do You bring to Your Dreams?

Something that is obvious as you watch not only your own dreams, but other people’s, is that that we take into their sleep and dreams all the fears, terrors, sexual questions and longings, as well as all their speculations and beliefs. The huge bear, tiger or frightening person they are terrified of is actually fears either inherited or are frightening experiences from the past. They are purely mental things that you haven’t faced, and therefore are the victims of – victims of your own fears. See Victims

Obviously that only applies to those dreams that are frightening, and to the people whose sleep is disturbed by thoughts and fears and so can never sleep well. The number of these is enormous.

Here is an example of how a dreamer carries a mass of false information, beliefs and speculations into her dream.

In my dream I was in the hospital giving birth I could feel the strong pain medicine working and I assume I had been given an epidural. I held my same sex partner’s hand and she comforted me. Soon after I was handed a beautiful baby girl whom I decided to name Veridian my mom tried to convince me to name her something else but I refused. The child slept in my arms and my partner held my hand still. Then I woke up. It was strange because I was brought to tears upon waking up and finding the beautiful baby girl not in my arms. I have never had any desire to have children and I know it would be impossible to be impregnated naturally by my partner but yet I was so drawn to this child it was an instant bond and upon realizing it was all a dream I have been very emotional when reminded of the child. I am also in my teens so I have absolutely no need or ability to be impregnated because I would never cheat on my love.

But to highlight what is meant here are two other dreams also by young dreamers.

I dreamed that I gave birth to a healthy, happy, and smiling baby boy (even though I looked barely pregnant in the dream and gave birth at home with no pain). I was very happy and felt a lot of warmth, care, and protection towards my baby and cuddled him a great deal.

Last night I had a dream that I gave birth to a baby girl, but I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I felt like I needed to push, so I did and began to give birth, but it didn’t hurt at all…I did not feel any pain. I was home alone giving birth by myself on my couch.

The first dreamer carried into her dream a fear that birth would be painful and she would need drugs to mitigate the pain. Then she carries in the feeling of disagreement with her mother. She also believes that the only way to have a dream baby is through sex with a male. Also she says that she doesn’t want a child, but her feelings in the dream and her emotions show otherwise.

The second examples show young mothers who do not fear childbirth and so have no sense of pain. So we can see that we create our dream situation by what we carry into it. It might be that the first dreamer has a fear of childbirth, though her body and instincts are crying out for a child – even a dream child.

There is also a suggestion of even a bigger problem in the girls dream. Her dream gives her a child, yet she says, “I have never had any desire to have children and I know it would be impossible to be impregnated naturally by my partner but yet I was so drawn to this child it was an instant bond and upon realizing it was all a dream I have been very emotional when reminded of the child. I am also in my teens so I have absolutely no need or ability to be impregnated because I would never cheat on my love.”

The problem is that she has the body of a healthy woman, a body which is built and has inbuilt urges to create a child, yet she is totally unaware of this. Such a separation between her basic life urges and her conscious personality leads to tension and neurosis. Of course she could decide never to have children, but to block the natural urge can cause troubles. Such splits in our nature put us at odds with ourselves.

But there is something that almost everybody brings into their dreams – their image of their body. Yet when we sleep and dream all our physical senses are switched off, and fundamentally we do not have a body but are just consciousness.

Another thing we need to bring is information. When I visited Canada and was involved in teaching everyday and working with clients I realised that in the UK I had to struggle with people to just understand therapy. Also I had to spend enormous amounts of time explaining basic facts about the mind and how it works. Working with people in Canada was wonderful.They didn’t question what I asked them to do; they were not resistant to their own emotions, and they were a joy to work with.

A statement about a therapeutic clinic emphasizes this. “The patients seemed to suffer that lack of psychological awareness characteristic of the Englishmen I had met, and the environment at Powick had done little to change it. They suffered a debilitating ignorance of their own particular problems and the larger issues of psychotherapy. They struggled in a darkness of confusion and misunderstanding, without theoretical guidelines to illumine the revelations of the subconscious, free them of horror and loathing, and allow their constructive integration into the ego. No wonder they blocked”. So it is important to educate yourself about. See and read What we Need to Remember About Us

Dreams are Virtual Realities

Dreams are virtual realities that we create in our sleep. Even the wonderful dreams of God and angels are an external virtual reality, and mirror of our own inner immensity and our enormous variety. Unfortunately people either accept them as externally real, or as fantasy. But they are reflections of your potential, that cannot be seen in your daily life that is so dominated by your physical senses and hungers and fears. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/the-magical-dream-machine/

So the images and fears we experience in our dreams are projection upon the vast screen of our mind. They are all projections from you. Running from them is like trying to escape from yourself. But such dreams are like a computer game with full surround virtual reality. In such games you can be killed a thousand times and yet you survive to deal with the monsters again. That is unless you learn a way through and go on through the levels. But unlike those games there is a wonderful intelligence behind the dreams we have, and if you listen and learn from it you will find a real mastership – not a false one of deny any fear or repressing anything that threatens you.

Nothing Can Hurt You in Your Dreams

You cannot be killed in a dream. All you can experience is the anguish and perhaps fear of dying, but in dreams you cannot die – or drown, or burn or any other threatening thing. We make the mistake of taking our very real values from our outer life into our inner life of dreams.

Here some examples to show the difference when you take fear into your dreams, and when you do not.

Example: I am usually in a house or something, with these spirits that are trying to attack me. Sometimes I see a ghost in my dream, it looks just like what you would think a ghost would look like, with a perfect face. Sometimes they attack me physically, cut me, or throw my entire body around. I have even been in rituals in the dreams with a feeling of something more, like demonic. It is terrifying, it is so real, I have a hard time coming around after, it shocks me for hours at times, depending on the dream.

Example: I was getting ready to leave and this dark haired guy told me I couldn’t leave, I felt scared and was going to leave anyways, he pulled out a pistol and shot me in the stomach, I fell down, but there was no blood. The thoughts in my head was, “OH NO”. Next thing I remember is that I was still on the floor in the same place and I got up and I remembered being shot but I didn’t seem to have any pain or blood and was moving normally etc. I started looking for a way to leave I was sneaking around trying not to get noticed so that I could get out of there w/o the shooter guy seeing me.

The interesting thing in the second example is that even though she could see no hurt came from being shot, yet she was still scared of the guy with the shooter. And it is overcoming such fears that can release you from terror and hurts that haunt us. But here are some dreams where the dreamer feels no fear.

Example: The mobile home was so large the edge of it was over the ridge I was walking. There was no space to duck down to avoid it. I looked to my left and there was a sheer drop for about 200 feet. This was like the face of a massive dam in shape. I jumped down and as I was falling and falling I wondered how I was going to land. Would I smash to bits on the obviously hard ground below? I didn’t have any great fear about this. So it wasn’t a nightmare or anxiety dream. I never seemed to resolve this question because suddenly I was on the ground without any sign of hurt or even a bump.

I was in a large motor vehicle with perhaps three or four other men. The vehicle was like a very large lorry or removals van. We were driving along an unpaved road in slightly mountainous or rugged countryside. As we were driving along we became aware of a huge vehicle trying to overtake us. This had caterpillar tracks on each side of it like some tanks. It was immensely wide and going very fast. We pulled over as far to one side – the left – of the road as we could to allow it to pass. But as we did so we got too near the edge of the road and went over a precipitous drop. Quite a long period of the dream was taken up with the experience of falling. We seemed almost to go into freefall, a weightless state, because the fall was so long. It was long enough for me to think many thoughts about death, whether death would be instantaneous. I was not aware of any sense of fear or terror, simply an awareness of falling and what it might mean. Then we had crashed and I was still alive. I then had a memory of standing at the bottom of the huge drop waiting for someone.

As can be seen, when there is no fear there is no hurt or terror. Also even when there is terror in the dream there is no hurt. Like the computer game, you can get up again and continue the game – of life – until you learn to overcome your fears and go up to the next level of the game.

The People Animals and Objects of our Dreams are Projections

In the world of dreams our most intimate fears and longings are given an exterior life of their own in the form of the people, objects and places of our dream. Therefore our sexual drive may be shown as a person and how we relate to them; or given shape and colour as an object; or given mood as a scene. Our feeling of ambition might thus be portrayed as a business person in our dream – our changing emotions as the sea or a river; while the present relationship we have with our ambition or emotions is expressed in the events or plot of the dream.

Every image and person in your dreams is an expression of your own life process. As such it is alive and intelligent and is something sent to help you. A dream is like a projection from a movie projector, except that you are the projector.

Everything you see as outside you is coming from you, your emotions, your fears, your beliefs, your joys and explorations and are all you, clothed in the dream images and drama. So when you dream of someone you should not feel you are dreaming about that actual person. As with most dreams, the person in the dream is not the person themselves, but is a collection of memories, associations and feeling about him or her. #

Here is an example:

Sitting in a window box facing outwards, with Neal H and my son on my left. I felt very scared of falling and asked my son and Neal to climb back into the building. I felt too scared to move until they had shifted.

When I explored the dream I saw it related to my recent situation. Although I am now working for two magazines, the frequency of payment is much less than before. So we are running out of money – my wife being out of work. I have felt very insecure and anxious during the last few days (the fear of falling). I thought of going back to the my previous employment to work, that I see as trying to get back to the safety of the building behind me – in the past. The two boys are my younger self that is more vulnerable, the parts of me I am trying to grow.

When I imagined doing that it was purely out of fear. In staying in the box though, I feel I am growing and opening to something positive entering my life. So I feel the dream shows that my unconscious assessment of my situation is that if I trust the flow of events I will enter a new stage of growth and experience. I am going to try that. It has obviously worked.

Dream Images are all Aspects of Your own Mind and Abilities

Most of us make the mistake of believing our dream images are all something outside of us. In fact they are all images underneath which are amazing destructive or constructive powers. Supposing one dreams or a devil attacking or possessing one, it is not an external devil, but is the persons ability to create havoc with their own beliefs and mind powers.

Here is another example:

As I looked I saw eyes shining in the dark. It was very eerie. I asked my father to get a torch so I could look down the hole. He went but did not come back. I thought he was frightened. The room was very dark, I saw a candle on the shelf, and tried to light it. It kept guttering out. Eventually I lit another candle that gave a good light.

Here the dreamer is meeting his fear of something, and the candle keeps going out. It is obviously his own power of thought and belief that put the candle out, a destructive power. But as he faces his fear he has the power to be able to see clearly by using his power of confidence.

Here is an example of a dreamer who has conquered fear.

Example: I was walking up the several flights of stairs to get to the attic room. I was holding a small dog in my arms – one of those rather flat nosed toy dogs.

When I arrived at the attic I put the dog down. But now the attic was empty and dark. I could feel my hair stand on end and my skin ‘crawling’. Actually I feel it all again as I write this. The feeling arose because there was an unformed dark shape creeping around at the far end of the room. The dog was really afraid and came into my arms.

Then the dark creature leapt at me, transforming into a massive mouth with huge fangs and awful demonic face. Immediately I leapt at it in the same way and smashed against its face with my own huge fangs. This utterly disarmed it because it had felt, in its primitive way, to terrify me. It surprised me too that I could so immediately transform into a monster when necessary.

Then I approached the dark form, back in its original condition, trying to find out what it was and why I had met it in that way. Gradually I experienced its situation. It had originally been a human being, but had gradually lost its humanness and become this slinking darkness. I was slowly able to help it realise that it could once more take the path to become human if it wanted to. Then it asked me how that could be done. I told it that first of all it had to come out of this dark and empty place to mix with people. The human environment created a different surrounding and influence that would penetrate it and help it to change. It also asked me how I knew about its condition and how I could transform into its own monstrous form. I told it I had once experienced that condition, and that’s how I knew it was possible to come out of it.

By playing with the symbols or images of your dreams in the right way you can make enormous inner changes and heal almost any problem. See Secrets of Power Dreaming; Using Symbols to Change Life Problems

Take Everything into You

Instead of running or avoiding things, even scary things. take them into you. This is like eating; you take something in and it becomes you. This is because we project all things outside of us in dreams, and to some extent we lose the energy they would otherwise give us. So accept that every part of your dreams is an expression of some part of you. So taking it into you makes you stronger and more capable. In fighting the tiger you are fighting or running away from yourself. Taking it in means you have its strength. Obviously you need to face and deal with your fears to do that, but that again is a wonderful thing to do.

Example: I dreamt I was outdoors walking through open ground, maybe at times gardens. I was with others – not sure who, and we frequently came across large snakes which we reacted to me as if they were venomous. Then I came across a lot of them and they swarmed onto me. I froze, terrified that if I made a move I would be fatally bitten. But they just swarmed over my body and got under my clothes without harming me. Gradually I relaxed and slowly began to move about with the snakes still on me. They started to feel like a built in defense system which would attack anyone who was aggressive to me. At one point several large and aggressive dogs walked past me. They turned as if thinking about attacking, then appeared to sense the snakes and ran off cowed. As time passed the snakes felt like part of my body.

A Dream is Like a Seed

A dream is something that comes from a deep part of you; it is something that is working upwards toward being conscious. As such it often, like a seed, takes time to break through to the surface, and then it has to grow. So often dreams are not recognised for their full meaning until later – sometimes months or even longer. The dream images are attempts to communicate something that has probably never been thought about or even been consciously thought about, so has never been put into common conscious thinking before. It is a communication from the depths, from beyond thought, and so any interpretations that are given by thinking may completely miss the point.

But the source of the dream, which is a process of Life, is intelligent in its own way, and will take part in any attempt to communicate. So exploring your dreams by entering into their imagery and attempting to understand them will be a two way process.

Always Move Toward Pleasure in Your Dreams

Always move toward pleasurable experiences in your dreams. If you find yourself flying in a dream, relax and let yourself float on the wind. If you are attracted sexually to an individual in a dream who in the waking life would be a taboo for you (your wife’s mother, etc.) let yourself enjoy the experience rather than dwelling on the negative aspects of the situation.

Morals and taboos are all for external waking life. Our inner being encompasses all aspects of life, and should be allowed safe expression. Inside you there are a murderer, a great lover, a sadist and homosexual, an inventor and genius, an angel and devil, as well as God and the stars. To repress them is to force them into expression in your outer life.

But expect some high or deep emotions emerging as you explore this. After all, we are passionate and living creatures.

Satisfy Yourself in Dreams

If you can, always move your dream to a satisfying ending, even by visualising it when you are awake. Seek something creative in your dreams too. See Secrets of Power Dreaming – it explains how to do this.

The Animals in Your Dreams are Necessary Parts of You

So the snakes, crocodiles, lion, horse or other creatures are a part of you that if you took the time to really feel the feelings they provoke, and get past the blockages we have as protection, then you become more whole, more sane, and with more powers. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/brain-levels-and-dreams/#mammalbrain

You have to realise that there is nothing outside of you while you dream. So it is all taking place within your community of yourself. Therefore it doesn’t matter whether it is a dragon or a parent, it is still you paralysed by you if you fear it. So instead of pitting yourself against yourself, it is wise to integrate any figure and have their/its power.

So claim the strength instead of using it to paralyse yourself. To integrate another part of you open your heart and your body to feel the creature. Open by accepting it as a part of yourself – just as the blood and guts and faeces are a part of you. Allow yourself to grow emotionally and become strong. Seehttp://dreamhawk.com/approaches-to-being/the-lifestream/

Learn from Your Dreams – They are the Greatest University

Also, many people have amazing dreams but apparently learn nothing from them. If you come away from a dream empty handed then you have received a wonderful communication and ignored its message. OK, it may be difficult to understand. So what, things are not handed to us served up with gravy. Struggle with it, pray for help with it, live with it, for this is a message that is vital to you.

And yes, I mean vital. Without understanding your dreams you are like a ship in a storm without a rudder or even an engine. See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/acting-on-your-dream/

Of course it is not an easy teacher for its lessons have many levels of meaning. See Clicking On

Learn About the Different Levels of Your Mind

The real heroine or hero of the inward journey that comes from exploring dreams and incorporating them does not remain in a symbolised version of themselves. They do not accept the Devil as an exterior agent, or Christ as an outer and perhaps historical character. They do not accept their dreams at face value, but are ready to face themselves with the courage necessary. For it is an uncomfortable journey to actually see oneself. It is a demanding climb to have ones awareness stretched and widened beyond ones personal limitations in order to include a vaster experience of yourself. Therefore there are inbuilt or personal resistances to actually having direct insight.

It helps to be clear about this point of allowing fantasy if one understands the way completely unconscious inner events gradually emerge into consciousness. W.V. Caldwell, writing about the way Van Rhijn has defined the levels of consciousness says there are four stages. It says that dreams come from a part of us that is not known – unconscious. To become conscious the impulse has to travel through levels of our mind:-

a] The deeply unconscious physiological process, such as cell generation and digestion. Problems which cannot move more fully into consciousness and so are held at this level become psychosomatic pains or illness. This becomes clearer if we consider human life in relationship with other life forms. A plant for instance might have some sort of bacterial illness, but would not be able to bring that to awareness. In a sense many things which occur to us, although they are very real and definite, never become a part of our conscious life, but always remain in the ‘plant’ level. If they are to move from ‘deeply unconscious physiological process’ to becoming known consciously, there are stages such events go through.

b] As the physiological or psychobiological process moves nearer consciousness, its next level of expression is postural or gestural. Thus we may express our deepest hidden feelings in an unconscious body posture or movement. Not only our feelings express in this way, but also our physical tone or health shows in our postures and movements. Even the plant droops if it needs water.

c] Next, when something moves from the gestural to the next stage of expression it becomes a dream or a dream image or symbol, which although it may not be understood, is now entering the arena of awareness. It is still a part of the move toward consciousness. This is sometimes called the mythic level, and is something we see working in producing religious thinking or myth creation. It still remains at the symbolic level.

d] At this stage, what had been deeply unconscious, then symbolised, now rises into consciousness and is capable of being verbalised or thought about and analysed. If one had attempted to verbalise something in level two it would have been so far outside of consciousness as to defy description. Also, when looking at these levels or stages, they suggest that the dream process is a means by which deeper stages can be portrayed to awareness in order to make them known. Therefore, by working with the dream process we can tap deeper levels of awareness and make them known. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level.

When this level is reach you can describe a dream in a way anyone can understand.

An interesting example of these four stages and how someone can work through them is given by Reich. When the abdominal tensions of a patient were released the man found his body making spontaneous movements. These were allowed and the movements gradually led the man to take on the posture of an animal – he and Reich both felt it to be a fish. This puzzled both of them as to it meaning, but as the movements continued the man first realised he felt like a fish caught on a hook and line, then suddenly, that was how he felt in regard to his mother.

As can be plainly seen, the first level is seen in the example as the man’s unconscious abdominal tensions, built into his physical structure. When these are loosened and considered by the mans conscious attention, and the spontaneous self-regulatory/dream process is allowed to function, level two manifests as movement and gesture. This moves to level three where the movements are recognised as a symbol – the fish. Then the fourth level, insight and understanding are achieved when the man realises the fish represents previously unconscious feelings he has about his mother. At this point he can verbalise and analyse. I believe that being aware of such facts enables us more easily to open ourselves to the process of self-regulation and trust what it produces. It is not by thinking about a dream that makes it known but by working with the process that has taken it from the psychosomatic, through the postural upwards to the dream level.

It is also important to realise that you are dealing with intelligence, even though it is unconscious. The unconscious has a much wider awareness that our conscious and logical mind, and asking it for clarity if what you experience is not clear is very useful. In fact while you are allowing the spontaneous to arise you can ask any question.

We Cannot Avoid Death in Life or Dreams

Death is a fact that we all face, and it is no good running away from it in our dreams. That only makes it more scary. Because you CANNOT run away from death you should meet it face to face. If you do that it will transform into the beautiful part of life it is, instead of the horror we have been taught to see it as.

What I find again and again is that people are often so shocked by the death of someone, as though it were a surprise. We all know we are going to die, and honestly we haven’t a clue when. So it is wise to realise that someone we care about will die, and even we will face our own demise. It is therefore worth not walking about with blinkers on trying to avoid the fact. It is worth thinking about what you want to do with them now, and what you would like to say to them now. Do not run around in a daze when they die.

Fall into that Big Black Hole

Falling and the big black hole are things we need to avoid in waking life, but should not be avoided in dream life. Here is a dream of a dream of a man who understood.

“I can remember being dressed as an heroic warrior running through crowds of people or soldiers who were trying to stop me. I pushed or knocked them aside and ran toward what was a huge caldera – the mouth of a volcano. It was hugely deep, and in its depths was a massive glow from volcanic lava. But I knew that this was the core of oneself, so I ran and leapt into the void falling into what I knew or felt sure was the light at the core of my being.”

The hole is an important part of you and should not be ignored. If you can enter it you realise that it is the way to your own center and power. It is the hole described in Alice in the Wonderland.

But the hole and facing death are really gateways to discover who, or what, you are. Most people say, “I don’t believe in God. There is no evidence for His existence.” Some people say, “I believe in God with all my heart.” But both people are locked into only knowing a tiny part of them based on our conscious self, emotions, words and thoughts. They are so sure of themselves based on an almost infinitesimal small part of them. And the silly thing is that they are so sure of themselves from this small understanding.

Behind that conscious self, so new, so fragile, is the darkness of unconsciousness. And there in the darkness is the Hugeness that lies behind our small self. So, ask your self, “Who am I? What am I?” And do not be fooled by repeating your name, what you have achieved, and all the ready made word descriptions. Keep asking. As a man who did this and kept on asking those questions says:

“I was sitting opposite someone during a meditation. We had been posing the question for days – ‘Who are you?’ Suddenly I realised that it was a silly question, because I was the answer. All thought stopped and I existed as the answer. My being had always been this. In this state there was an awareness of being connected with everything around me, in the beginning of creation. This was the first day. Also I was aware of what I felt was a monkey running to keep up with what was me. It was what I had always thought of as the real me, and it was nothing but a monkey that wanted to be the real thing but couldn’t. The monkey me was a photocopy of everything we believe, not the reality. Our conscious mind is a photocopier and yet we are so sure we know reality.’

You are More than you Presently Know

Remember what was said at the beginning of this section:

“At the other end of our waking awareness is an ocean of consciousness that does not have a focussed sense of self. This ocean of consciousness that is at the core of your being is what has been called many names. In India it has been described as Sat-Chit-Ananda – Being-Consciousness-Bliss. When we discover it as the centre of ourselves it is no longer seen as exterior or distant. But in waking life where we lack awareness of it we see it either as non-existent or as separate and distant.

As you learn to enter more fully into your dreams you will gradually realise that your real self isn’t the body with a gender of male or female, but a shape shifter. You also will have learned how to dive under the surface of your conscious personality and realise that there is a huge and wonderful world often called the unconscious. It is actually awareness of Life, and in it you can become a bodiless consciousness, or be an animal, or know the wonder of animal consciousness.

As this becomes real to you an amazing transformation takes pace in your understanding. Realising that you are or can be many things begins to emerge that whatever you believe fully can become real within you, and even in the material world. That might seem like a simple thing but it is immense. It means that within a world of constant change you can create a reality of your own. It is a gift to be so creative. But it is a gift that most people find an awful and terrible thing, because most people create a world of fear, horror, superstition, and feel, therefore believe, they are victims of fate or God. So they live in a dark world which is their own creation.

You are capable of a great deal more than you have ever been able to live. Your dreams link you with that limitless potential. In your dreams you leap beyond the limitations that usually bind and restrict you. Without effort you can fly; or you can be a visionary, looking back into past ages, or gazing into the unlimited possibilities of your future. Dreams allow you to solve intricate problems that evade you while awake – explore the complexities of a relationship by actually taking part in its drama in a full surround virtual reality – you can explore back through the strata of your lifetime to uncover past pains that still create present discomfort.

Those are not wild claims, but findings arrived at through the experience and the experiment in thousands of people’s lives. In fact dreams are one of the most extraordinary experiences and resources we have. They are unlike any other form of everyday human experience. In your dreams you can explore a massive range of your emotions from terror to ecstasy. You can experience every form of relationship, love and sexuality, without any danger of repercussions, loss of present partner, or physical illness. You can experiment with the future by trying out different directions in the virtual reality of your dream. You can tread unknown regions of the mind, moving beyond the boundaries of your waking awareness into estates where you transcend the limits of your senses and swim in the ocean of consciousness. And unlike the waking experience of creative thinking all day dreaming, during which you are always in some measure an observer; in young dreams you are totally participating in whatever you are experiencing. When you dream you are in the magic place where all the past is here involved in the present, and all that is present is creating your future.

All of those possibilities of your dreams enlarge your experience in a way that would never ever be possible otherwise. From experience you learn and grow. Such dreams also channel your potential into becoming real. Potential lies at the root of your being. Think of the latent potential that slowly expressed from the time you were a sperm uniting with an ovum. From that moment till birth your weight alone increased 27 million times. All the complexities of growth were possibilities that expressed. But even when you are fully grown, there is still unlimited possibilities waiting to be expressed.

Because I believe

The universe has good will,

Out of the very force of my life,

And from the stuff of mind,

I create a rock

In the midst of a shoreless sea.

In an ocean of change and uncertainty

I form an island of charm.

Because I believe.

If You Persist the Magic Mirror of Your Dreams will Show You the Wonder That You Are

An important part of exploration – in fact of all approaches to knowing who we are – is that it is a discipline leading to Union/Enlightenment. The path of dreams if practiced fully will lead to the union of your conscious little self, with your Core Self. In a real sense this is union with Life, the mystery that is ever with us but is little acknowledged. It is one of the most direct routes I know – having used so many. It has the advantage of keeping you whole, and actually confronting you with your fears, traumas – karma – instead of trying to get to the good place without the work of self transcendence.

Dispose Disposing >

< Drain

Comments

-google 2016-09-17 0:09:10

Fabulous, what a website it is! This blog presents useful
data to us, keep it up.

-Pauline Lomax 2015-11-10 17:16:15

I had the strangest dream. It started off like some kind of gangster movie in a fancy hotel. There were lots of strangers in the dream whom I knew were gangsters but it felt like I was watching a movie. Then suddenly, lift doors opened and there in front of me was the decapited body of a man on a chair. There was no blood. But the suit he was wearing was one of my fathers. I woke up upset. I have no idea why I might have this dream. And why he should be headless. All quite strange. Any suggestions about interpretation would be welcome. My father and I were very close and he died over a year ago. He used to have lots of dreams and premonitions. So I wondered if he was warning me perhaps.

-Martha C. 2014-05-27 9:58:13

I dreamt that I was driving my car on a narrow road and a bigger car (White Toyota Hilux 4×4) came from behind trying to overtake me from the wrong side and I stayed put holding onto the steering. Then a lot of people came each talking angrily and loudly to me to allow that car to pass but I didn’t move. So they lifted my car and started pushing it aside and I got out of it. Eventually they pushed it into a ditch where on landing it sounded like it fell on ashes and cloud of ash dust rose. After it settled down, a friend of mine called my name to show me my car. It was shaped like a huge drum that had passed through fire. I don’t know what this dream could really mean.

-Rhoni D 2014-01-09 14:29:25

About 2-3 weeks ago maybe, I had a dream. I’m quite young still but the disease in my body has taken a toll. My 88 year old grandma can run circles around me, in real life. In this dream, I was laying in a strange bed of an old friend I had to let go of because she started using drugs again. I was laying in her mothers bed. It was night. I layed in the bed looking up at the stars. I saw a Bright & Big shooting star go all the way across the huge night sky from left to right. Then it came straight down towards me and turned into an owl. I love owls. They have showed up in my adult life when I’ve been in danger or need of extra support to make big decisions and changes. This one was a big brownish red Owl, it had a very masculine quality to it. It was thick around (10-12 inches) and about 1.5- 2 feet tall. He came right to the window and handed me a perfect, healthy, strong, gorgeous right wing; at about the same time that my old friends mother came in the front door with more ingredients to make meth. I was scared of the people, but not the owl. Outside of the large window was about5 feet of level ground and then a sheer cliff mountain wall straight up. I felt hopeless and helpless before the owl came and gave me a wing.
The next day I wrote the dream down and that evening my friend and I saw (she noticed it first) a large white on bottom (I think brownish on top) owl fly to a tree right near my back balcony. Then it flew in front of us maybe 20 feet away to another tree quite close to us. We didn’t see it again. But a few nights later a large white owl flew from the further tree back to the close one, and then flew right over my head 10-15 feet above and it had to go out of it’s way to do that due to how our apartments are made. (each time it flew from the left to right.)
My health is challenged severely, yet I am still a very engaged mother. I’ve had to stop running around to beaches and having as many sleep~ overs, due mostly to finances, because I need to hire help on occasions, and gas in my truck is too much to drive to beaches much. Plus it hurts me physically to drive extra too, since I’ve no hired help around the house. My son has been in danger SO many times at his father’s house, whom has a private reputation for being a severe drug addict, besides the known sex addiction that ruined our “marriage”. My/our son has acted out in very angry strange ways and I finally found new counseling for him. Whenever he has a counselor his dad minds his manners better. This new counselor refuses to speak directly to my son’s father for scheduling and he (the father) can sense when/where/how he can take advantage of a situation (especially involving women) to work in his favor. He’s convinced my son that counseling is only for the weak minded (and I quit seeing my pain management counselor so I could afford counseling for my 11.5 year old son.) Well, now neither one of us are going, and my son’s father is taking me to court to sue me for lower child support and who knows what’s really up his sleeves. He scares me and he knows it. He is sneaky and creepy and he knows it. I’m terrified for my son and my health is scary too. I feel at my wits end. The other day before bed, I was looking at the stars, and watched the strange lights on a plane for a while, then I turned and saw the back of the owl flying to the left, far away from me. Did I miss my chance to do, learn, grow and develop as needed to protect my child. Or is it all too late for me as a mother and my son to be safe??

-Tony Crisp 2014-01-10 10:01:04

Rhoni – As a mother you are in a powerful inner situation to help and keep your on safe.

But we all live in a crazy and often sick world, and part of the sickness is the thoughts, threats and fears that impact upon us. The owl and its appearance is a sign of great support, but other people and their activities and thinking are acting upon your confidence.

If you can see that your inner world is like a very realistic computer game, in which awful threats and actions are committed against you, yet in fact nothing can hurt you except your own emotions of fear and threat. If you can find a way of standing in the middle of the ‘game’ and realise that it cannot hurt you, you will gain the support of the owl and hear the voice of your intuition.

Thoughts, feelings and emotions are all passing things and although felt deeply are like images of a computer game. If you can sit and spent time observing them and give them a descriptive name it will help. So the label might be: this a body sensation that will pass. It is not a part of my stable self. This is thought that will pass. It is not a part of my stable self. This is an emotion, an instinctive response that will pass. It is not a part of my stable self.

See http://dreamhawk.com/dream-encyclopedia/questions-2/#Summing and http://dreamhawk.com/inner-life/inner-world/

Tony

Tony Crisp