I have searched and can't find a thread specifically about interpreting our dreams (lucid or otherwise) and if someone has an idea where this post would fit into an already existing thread, let me know. I know we've had threads on this in the past.

I dreamed last night that I was a contestant in a beauty contest. This was a part of a larger dream involving my family and other stuff, but the part that was most lucid and interesting was the contestants.

There were about 5 or 6 of us, all travelling together on the way to this contest. All the other women were young and had all the acoutrements of beauty contestants everywhere: lots of make-up and clothes and shoes. At the beginning, I was sort of blending in, but I decided to "come out" to them and see what would happen. We were all sitting around talking and laughing, and I just started saying things like, "I don't really know how to be in a beauty contest" and "I only have a few pairs of shoes." "I'm a lot older than you girls." Stuff like that. And at every turn, I could tell they were making an adjustment, and accepting me. They were lovely. There were times I was clearly out of the loop, but it seemed like it was nothing personal on their parts.

It seems to be at least partly about this place, and I think some people would be surprised to find out that I don't think of myself as an insider. I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I read some of the posts in the other forums and think there's no way I'd post a reply. I'm just so clueless. Miss Communion lost in a sea of Agency. Seems like every thread about which I might have some expertise dies a quick death.

It's also about this new phase of my life, cut adrift by my former husband, having to relearn and remember starting a new relationship, and being "on the market." God what an awful phrase. But it does feel like I'm a rather over-aged slab of meat on the sale rack, even though I seem to have found a buyer. All is impermanent! Change is constant! There're no guarantees, yet love is the ever-present ground of Being.

Man, this is life without a net. But it's so great that I'm not alone, with my fingernails clinging tenaciously to the second tier. Thanks everyone.

Liz

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It seems to be at least partly about this place, and I think some people would be surprised to find out that I don't think of myself as an insider. I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I read some of the posts in the other forums and think there's no way I'd post a reply. I'm just so clueless. Miss Communion lost in a sea of Agency. Seems like every thread about which I might have some expertise dies a quick death.

This is a total surprise to me. Seriously, I wouldn't have guessed; you come across as one of the strongest personalities on these forums, at least to me. I've noticed other people mentioning that they sometimes feel intimidated by other posts (or posters?), and that they are hesitant to post themselves as a result. Why is this? I don't think there really is a need to feel that way for anybody. Not that I always feel totaly secure about posting myself, but rarely (well, never) to the extend that it stops me from posting.

About dreams: you know what it's like when falling asleep: you normally don't experience it (don't know if you do in some states, but I'd like to know. Anybody?) A few weeks ago I actually did have a 'falling asleep' experience; I watched myself falling asleep (and for a second felt what that was like) while I was waking up!  So I was in an in-between state between dreaming and waking at that moment. Pretty confusing, but also enjoyable. I don't know about the symbolism of it all, though.

Peter

 

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"All nations should be like Amsterdam" -- Ken Wilber

Sure, strong personality, but that has nothing to do with how much I know, does it? In fact, I've been really unfocused on theory lately, to the point of forgetting some key stuff. I just don't care the way I used to. More potentially surprising news: I have trouble being agentic at all. I want to care about developing my lines further, but I just don't at the moment.  My agency tends to show up in bursts of development, so I guess I'm just riding the waves until then. (Okay, had to rephrase "comes in spurts" to avoid potentially bad double-entendre puns from you guys, lol)

I have trouble with the falling asleep experience sometimes. I didn't really get to a point where I could reliably fall asleep at will until I was a new parent and so sleep-deprived that I could train myself to sleep when I needed to. It's often these crucible-like times in our lives when we make the biggest leaps.

My current trouble is that when I fall asleep while lucid, I tend to wake up. I'll start dreaming while being aware, and then the thought awakens me. Frustrating and stupid. So I have to be asleep and already dreaming before I become lucid. I'm sure this is something that is just a learned pattern that needs breaking.

It's pretty common to dream about waking up while asleep, but I've never heard of what you describe. It seems disorienting! Can you tell me more about what that state was like?

Liz

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tamgoddess:

I decided to "come out" to them and see what would happen. We were all sitting around talking and laughing, and I just started saying things like, "I don't really know how to be in a beauty contest" and "I only have a few pairs of shoes." "I'm a lot older than you girls." Stuff like that. And at every turn, I could tell they were making an adjustment, and accepting me. They were lovely. There were times I was clearly out of the loop, but it seemed like it was nothing personal on their parts.

It seems to be at least partly about this place, and I think some people would be surprised to find out that I don't think of myself as an insider. I have no fucking idea what I'm doing. I read some of the posts in the other forums and think there's no way I'd post a reply. I'm just so clueless. Miss Communion lost in a sea of Agency. Seems like every thread about which I might have some expertise dies a quick death.

I enjoyed reading about your dream, Liz -- I can really relate to it. Like you, I'm weighted with communion, even to the point of unhealthy fusion sometimes, and I feel like I have very little agency to offer. When I read or listen to the material here -- the ISC writings and the AV material and the forum postings -- I realize I know almost nothing. (As such, this place is endlessly fascinating to me ... there's an advantage to knowing nothing ).

And one of the reasons I decided to use my little-girl picture as my avatar (besides that fact that it's just so cute and gosh, maybe it would help ensure approval at some level) is that it's an emblem for how I feel on these bright new forums: like a child among adults, a kid sneaking into the second-tier party ...

A recent non-lucid dream: All of us who were at the 2024 Vancouver gathering as well as other people in my day-to-day life (local friends and loved ones) were gathered together in Portland. We were all slumber-partying at some big, rambling cabin -- or kind of a combination brownstone and cabin -- right in the middle of the city, near a waterway. At sunset, there was a fireworks display over the water. Arthur and I had wandered outside to watch it and we realized that they were not fireworks at all, but clusters of falling stars--meteorites?--heading straight for us. Several did zoom right at us, but as they approached, they seemed to disappear. It was as if the stars "fell into" us -- and in doing so they changed our state of consciousness. When Arthur and I came back in to try to explain what had happened, no one could understand us. And at the moment I can't recall exactly what the nature of the state change was. But an inner something had shifted, and we could not articulate it. We counseled others to go and watch the "fireworks" so they could experience the state-change, too.

Weird how Arthur keeps appearing in my dreams as a kind of "guide" to state-changes!

I'm also having lots of "communal" dreams lately -- people from far-flung parts of my lfe all gathered together -- and dreams involving images of stars and galaxies.

Mary 

 

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Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

~Rumi

I've often wondered about dreams myself. I rarely have them (or perhaps it's that I don't remember them), but the few that I can recall have always had tangible "real world" events surrounding them.

For example, I was sleeping and dreaming about being in a forest, I walked into a hut out in the middle of nowhere and my hands were cold. I look around the hut and found a glove and put it on my left hand. The glove started shrinking, and my hand was killing me from the pressure.

Scarring the hell out of my wife, I apparently woke and started screaming "Get it off, Get it off". It wasn't until she turned the light on, to see me sitting up in bed and holding my left hand, still screaming.

I had apparently fallen asleep on it, and it cut off the circulation. I assume this entered my dream state to tell me to take care of the problem.

But again, I rarely seem to dream. I remember that particular one above because my wife (years later) still kids me about it here and there.

Anyone know of a reason why people don't have dreams as often as others? My wife says she dreams all the time.

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In a black and white picture....there's a lot of grey junk

Hey Tam

Great dream!  Interpretation seems totally straightforward.  Coming out is good. 

To me you seem very laterally integrated and smart and AQALicious...but then...perhaps I'm biased.    Maybe you've put the theory aside and you're living it in a more embodied fashion.

& hey - what's this about being "on the market"? 

arthur

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"You've never seen everything." - Bruce Cockburn

kessels: About dreams: you know what it's like when falling asleep: you normally don't experience it (don't know if you do in some states, but I'd like to know. Anybody?) A few weeks ago I actually did have a 'falling asleep' experience; I watched myself falling asleep (and for a second felt what that was like) while I was waking up!  So I was in an in-between state between dreaming and waking at that moment. Pretty confusing, but also enjoyable. I don't know about the symbolism of it all, though.

Peter

Fascinating.  Clarification: while your body was waking up, are you saying that you felt your consciousness was going into a sort of "reduced state," as normally happens when your bodymind falls asleep?  Were you lucid just before that?  Do you think you might have gotten confused as to which way the transition was going and thought you were falling asleep?

Here's something interesting: if you lie down and try to sleep in a lucid dream (according to reports I recall reading a while back) many people will wake up (physically). 

I've been conscious while falling asleep numerous times, but not lately - I go into the sleep paralysis state when that happens.  Things get really weird.  Actually...I think my consciousness may blank out and I end up in the sleep paralysis state.  Hmm.  Well, hopefully it will happen again soon and I can figure this out.

arthur

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I am seeking meaningful work.

bio: http://aqalicious.gaia.com/

I spend most of my "forum time" these days on The Integral Pod: http://pods.gaia.com/ii/

"You've never seen everything." - Bruce Cockburn

tamgoddess:

My current trouble is that when I fall asleep while lucid, I tend to wake up. I'll start dreaming while being aware, and then the thought awakens me. Frustrating and stupid. So I have to be asleep and already dreaming before I become lucid. I'm sure this is something that is just a learned pattern that needs breaking.
Liz

Liz, have you tried spinning right away, to prolong the lucid dream state?  If you can do that, and you want to go deeper into sleep, then I recommend you do something to draw your mind deeper...like focus on the sensation of walking.  Or reach into your pocket and pull out a sleep potion or some such.

arthur

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I am seeking meaningful work.

bio: http://aqalicious.gaia.com/

I spend most of my "forum time" these days on The Integral Pod: http://pods.gaia.com/ii/

"You've never seen everything." - Bruce Cockburn

Mary, I love that I'm showing up in your dreams.    Weird that you'd associate me with state-change.    Love your avatar btw.

green rabbits moving sideways,

arthur 

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I am seeking meaningful work.

bio: http://aqalicious.gaia.com/

I spend most of my "forum time" these days on The Integral Pod: http://pods.gaia.com/ii/

"You've never seen everything." - Bruce Cockburn

I haven't done the spinning thing-one needs to remember these things first, and I never do. I also love how you're Mary's Dream Guide!

Liz

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Cool dream, Mary. It does seem like some sort of higher-holon experiences are taking hold, doesn't it? Dreaming about groups of people, higher consciousness in a next-phase sort of we-space way. Great stuff. Take me with you!

(Hmm. Wonder if you were picking up on the vibe from subsequent gatherings of various people in Vancouver this summer. There were certainly some different states going on. I have experienced that when 2nd-tier types get together there is an disctinct uptick in the consciousness level.)

It's important to remember that we are always assuming things about people that we simply can't, like what their interior space is like. Sure, we need to do that in order to navigate, but we mustn't forget the fact that it's just a convenient way of getting around, and not mistake the map for the territory, yes?

Liz

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adastra:

& hey - what's this about being "on the market"? 

arthur

There's a "sold" tag on me, ok?

Liz

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I'm also enjoying reading about your dreams.  Liz, your interpretation of your dream makes sense to me.  I'm sure you could approach it from a number of angles -- looking at the place "beauty" and "acceptance" have in the story, the feeling of the need to "come out" to a group that you deem to be different, the relation of the young people to your own young self, the acceptance you are actually giving to yourself (allowing yourself to receive), the feeling tone of the dream beyond or behind the content (anxiety, contentment, insecurity, desire?), and so on.  But overall, I relate to what you are saying:  I also have similar feelings around groups I honor or respect, questioning my place in them, sometimes surprised that I am accepted....

Mary, what a wild dream!  Really cool.  I haven't dreamed about any of you folks yet, but I spend enough time here, I expect I will some day!

Kessels, about your falling asleep experience:  I've experienced that before, especially when I was practicing dream yoga and sleep yoga.  When doing sleep yoga, you actually are able to refine it quite a bit, "tracking" your senses as they slowly go offline.  Like Liz, though, when I do this and enter a dream state lucid, I often have a heavy hand and end up dispersing the dream into a blank openness that stays for awhile before I become aware of my body.

Just recently I had a dream in which I became briefly lucid.  It's been a few months since I've had any vivid or lucid dreams, mainly because I think I'm just too tired these days.  But this recent dream was like ones I've had before, in which I "dream" a complex creative product into existence: in this case, a song with lyrics and a video production of it.  I recall loving the song and wanting to share it with others, but at the point that it came time to replay it for my family, everything went blank after the first introductory scenes of the video.  I became lucid at this point, realizing this was a dream; I tried to manipulate the dream and get the song to come back, but it felt as if it had come from a different "state" that was more holistic than the one I was in and I couldn't retrieve it. 

As I mentioned, I've had these dreams before -- sometimes of new songs, sometimes of entire albums of new songs.  But I never can get them back!

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May the boundless knowledge that time presents and space allows illuminate the native perspectives of your original face.

balder:

...overall, I relate to what you are saying:  I also have similar feelings around groups I honor or respect, questioning my place in them, sometimes surprised that I am accepted....

There you have it folks, I couldn't have asked for a better illustration of my point. If Balder feels this way, we all must, to some degree! It also further establishes my feeling that I am just as ordinary as can be, in ways that are actually more comforting than ego-threatening.

Liz

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adastra:

Clarification: while your body was waking up, are you saying that you felt your consciousness was going into a sort of "reduced state," as normally happens when your bodymind falls asleep?  Were you lucid just before that?  Do you think you might have gotten confused as to which way the transition was going and thought you were falling asleep?

I haven't ever tried to have lucid dreams, and I think I've had only just a few short moments in which I had them over the last few years. The moments just before the 'falling asleep' experience, I wasn't lucid. I have often wondered what it would be like to experience the moment of falling asleep, and that morning I suddenly had the clear impression that I was witnessing it. Very shortly after that, I also saw my head on my pillow, so I was looking at myself sinking into sleep. That only lasted for a short moment, and then I realized I was waking up as well, so there was also a moment when I had the sensation of falling asleep and waking up at the same time. Then the waking up thing took over. Part of me had been calmly witnessing all of it, and it was weird, but not really scary or anything.

I was indeed feeling part of me going into another state, and I think a "reduced state" is a fairly good description, although I cannot say if that is the same feeling that one has when  falling asleep, since I have no reference. I really don't know much or anything about the details of dream states, so maybe I should read up on it or discuss it more with you guys.

The symbolism it has for me, come to think of it, is that the waking state is actually the 'least real' state (or province, in EQEL terms), so that we really wake up when we feel asleep, and vice versa.

Why do you guys try to be lucid during dreams? Is that just for fun, or does it help you in some ways? Not judging, just curious.
 
Sweet dreams,
Peter

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"All nations should be like Amsterdam" -- Ken Wilber