Let's hear it then. No holds barred & no inhibitions... what is there that lies beneath the surface??
It was a meeting with my shadow ... personified by 'K', the woman who years ago, i had so mutch trouble understanding, who felt like a part of me and whom eventually i had to accept and love as she was, without wishing her to be any different... because to do otherwise ... nothing would work. So this was all about loving what is and letting love into those dark parts and seeing them for what they are instead of through a fearful lens. I could ramble on about these mirrors in relationships ... ego, shadow, projection which ultimately teach us to own it and realise it is not personal. And to also realise that some of these dark looking parts of us are just a part of our born nature and our animal nature ... Eckhart talks some about our difficulty in dealing with our animal nature. I hardly ever dream about her and i havn't spoken to her in over a decade. I came to terms with that shadow play that happened between us and as i understand it she didn't ... there was too mutch fear, too mutch ego ... too mutch self image. So in my dream she turns up as more of an archetype/ a goddess rather than it being actually her (earthly personality and identity). The dream became more lucid as i found myself in her house. There was a young guy, a lodger or partner there ... he has dark short spiky hair and stubble and seems very relaxed. I ask him if he minds me being there and he's fine with it. And then i'm in the living room talking to 'k' (like i said it's been over a decade since we talked irl) and i'm happy to be there talking to her. However, she is a stuffed cuddly toy green dinosoar with a little white t shirt with something written on and it's a bit odd talking to her like this. I tell her i didn't mean to arrive at her house and that i just ended up there ... like i didn't want to impose or something. She turned into human form and we are sitting at the kitchen table ... it's like meeting a long lost old friend again ... like being with my beloved once more ... and everything is fine. She looks like something out of a horror film though ... pitch black eyes and her skin is tighter and older ... her hair is different; but this means nothing ... she's as beautiful as she ever was. She leans over and kisses me on the lips and i stroke her cheek and we just share this intimate moment of being together. It was a strange dream in the sense that it had the quality of actually being somewhere real like true astral travelling ... i'm sure that guy and the toy dinosoar and the blue van outside actually exist in reality... somewhere, yet she herself seemed more otherworldly and archetypal so i think mutch more than this being to do with herself (the woman called 'k'), it's more to do with what she represents in me ... yet the house and environment definitely felt like somewhere real. And this dream comes at a time where i'm on the edge a little ... i'm about to leave the area where i live and grew up and i have no idea what to do next or where to go ... i have a little money saved and i'd like to travel somewhere and do something completely different ... that's my rough plan LOL. So my future is both non existant and wide open at the same time. I feel i'm letting go of alot and just happily walking into the unknown ..and i feel ready, up for it, ... i've changed my outlook alot over the last year and a half and sometimes i even wonder if i still have fear in my life ... sure there's still fear but i feel so mutch more fearless right now. I wanna live and feel alive and share the oneness i've been feeling more, i want to get out and be me and stop hiding under a fucking rock! But most of all i want intimacy ... simple, beautiful, non judgemental, take me as i am intimacy. This has all been happening for a while but i want more and i'm just hungry for experience right now ... i guess it shows So my dream was a good one ... it tells me i'm at least working with my shadow rather than against it or running from it ... that there is love there and compassion .. and awareness too. It probably means i may be facing a trying time ahead also ... need to stay awake. Aren't dreams always like this? Less boundarys, less self conciousness and inhibition. Nothing's fixed or permanently labeled and everything flows and merges and that conciousness, like in dreams, which pervades everything in the dream as if it were all you. Anyway blues, ... you've merged with the light, and i'm sure it meant holding nothing back and inhibiting nothing ... a total trust that you were the same thing and a total trust that what you were was it and what it was, was you.
Isn't it interesting how certain people bring such a rich experience into our lives, full of potential for Seeing and reaching a new depth of awareness? Some of our best "friends" in that respect often are experienced in a painful way while the relationship is going on. I've thought quite a bit about archetypes recently. I see everyone as being a backdrop for archetypes to play out. Every bit of our personality is shaped by certain archetypes. When we disown some of them we tend to project that dissociation onto others, and actually attract those archetypes to us... hopefully for the purpose of forgiveness, which allows for joining & re-union. Every personality quality exists within the realm of possibility that I am. I'm very familiar with this, LL. I've become quite fluid in just about every aspect of life. Years ago it was difficult because I was still wired in to the social conditioning that says "you must be solid and stable and rooted in this world". haha! Well, you know... whatever stability that takes place is purely circumstantial. If I find myself here for 2 years or there for 3 years or doing this now, and doing that later... that's only because it's what feels right. I flow with the changes, let my intuition guide me. Yes it can be strange and scary sometimes, insecure and vulnerable. But that's reality. We don't control any of it. We're always living on the edge! I hear you... and feel the same way. I'm always "hungry" for intimacy with others and desire that level of depth and openness. We're truly blessed when we can share that with another. It's very rare (it seems) to find someone who can be just as open with us in return. I've only found one such person (to be as open as I am) to relate to so far, and I feel extremely blessed for it. Most others I've encountered reach varying degrees of intimacy but at some point or another I discover their boundaries and defenses. Hmmm...I'm not sure how to respond to that. I feel a bit wary of describing myself or my experience in those terms. I can tell you that I'll never claim enlightenment, even if every other person on the face of the earth says that about me (which they don't and won't hahaha). No, one thing I know is that while I'm in this world I always dance with maya (illusion) and she will never leave my side because she is Of this world. I never assume she doesn't whisper to me. Never. I can tell you that I have seen what was pointed to and no longer seek it outside myself. But I definitely don't claim that there's total freedom from inhibition on all levels or a total trust.
I'm sorry... i don't wish to speak for you, i was assuming from things you've told me in the past that your experience was similar to my own. Well i never mentioned the word, but it is surely over used and tends to be used in rather high brow terms. Sure i can understand that. This 'shadow' of mine has mutch to do with this. I'd like to add though that the parts we disown and project can be what we'd consider good and virtuous qualitys also ... so shadow isn't ALL about bad stuff ... just unconcious stuff. And also that dreams of 'K' before now havn't always been about shadow ... she seems able to wear other archetypes also, .. she's quite the roleplayer! Yeah i consider myself quite adept at this lifestyle ... i don't really know anyone (apart from travellers) who's moved around and done as many different jobs as i have... but then, i don't know everyone. These days though i've learned to trust in it and follow my nose. The term 'groundless ground' only came to me last year ... it seems to describe it quite well, and actually since i heard that term, it just made me trust even more.
I really don't know exactly how to describe my experiences. I've felt incredible oneness and it's still there just not as pronounced. agreed. yes, agreed as well. she seems to have played a key role in your life. groundless ground. I like that.
The groundless ground. Here's something i typed out for edenfield ages ago ... strangely she had been reading the same passage the day before so i guess it was something that needed bringing to her attention. It was in a buddhist magazine. "Ones place is that to which one is most strongly bound. It is the foundation on which ones entire edifice of ones identity is built. It is formed through identification with a physical location and social position, by ones religious and political beliefs, through that instinctive conviction of being a solitary ego. Ones place is where one stands, and whence one takes a stand against everything that seems to challenge what is "mine". Delight in it creates a sense of being fixed and secure in the midst of an existance that is anything but 'fixed and secure'. Loss of it, one fears would mean that everything one cherishes would be overwhelmed by chaos, meaningless or madness. Siddhattha Gotama's quest has led him to abandon everything to do with his place - his home, his homeland, his social standing, his position in the family, his beliefs, his conviction of being a self in charge of a body and mind - but this does not result in psychotic collapse. For in relinquishing his place (alaya), he has arrived at a ground (tthana). This ground is quite unlike the seemingly solid ground of a place, it is the contingent, transient, ambiguous, unpredictable, fascinating and terrifying ground called "life." Life is a groundless ground: no sooner does it appear, than it disappears, only to renew itself, then immediately break up and vanish again. It pours forth endlessly. If you try to grasp it the water pours away between your fingers. The groundless ground is not the absence of support. It supports you in a different way. Whereas a place ties you down and closes you off, this ground lets you go and opens you up. It does not stand still for a moment. To be supported by it you have to be with it in a different way too. Instead of standing firmly on your feet and holding on tight with both hands in order to feel secure in your place, here you have to dart accross it's liquid surface, like a long legged fly, swim with it's current like a fast moving fish. Siddhattha compared the experience to "entering a stream." - Also i had a dream at this time. I was running on water ... along what seemed like a canal and every now and then there would be a wooden platform or bridge crossing it so for a short while i'd have something solid underfoot before pacing accross the water again. So i feel my dream was a reference to this groundless ground concept. Most definitely. That's why i consider her such a friend. We fought and loved. She told me she was bad news, that she would fuck me up and that i shouldn't go near her. And that's pretty mutch what happened ... i got messed up and had an emotional breakdown, we split up and she hated me. It wasn't until a year later that i began to see what was really going on ...all that stuff to do with ego and shadow and taking responsibility for our choices. Everything changed in this new light and my heart flooded open. Then it just snowballed and i went supernova. Yes, if we can own it we can forgive. You can't forgive it if you can't own it.
The most interesting thing i find about dreaming is that conciousness is not confined to my head and my own personal experience of the dream, because i am no longer 'me' in the dream, although references to 'me' still arise. Many times i've been more than one person in the same dream or experienced or witnessed something that happened to someone else as if i were them. As an example, a couple of weeks ago i had a rather rambling dream in which i was having a relationship with a girl called Keeley i used to work with a couple of years ago... i awoke wondering why on earth i should have a dream about having a relationship with Keeley? (don't get me wrong she's a nice girl and all). The very next day i met her ex boyfriend who i also worked with at the time and who was having a relationship with her at the time i worked with them both. I had not seen him OR Keeley in over two years. I told him about the dream. And so it occured to me then that my dream was not mutch to do with myself at all but rather about him and Keeley and the relationship they had. Yet i wasn't surprised because i've had dreams like this before. - Like the very short dream i had last year in which i was putting my hand into a lions mouth ... it crunched into my hand with it's large incisors breaking a bone in my hand. Well the next day i spoke to my mother on the phone and she told me that my nephew, Owen, had hit his bedroom wall out of frustration because of a girlfriend (the lion i guess) ... breaking a bone in his hand. Or the time i warned my sister that police would raid her house and find tied bundles of cannabis stalks hidden somewhere ... because i'd been there and seen it in a dream; and that's exactly what happened a month later. Why she didn't click when i said "tied bundles of cannabis stalks" i don't know! So i feel that awareness goes far beyond my normal reality when i dream. I find it quite amazing really.
Hehe, i was just being coy of course ... why do i do that? I don't know. But i know that when i dream alot like that it really brings that awareness into my waking life and brings it alive with a sense of connectedness and synchronicity, wonder and trust, and a feeling that i'm doing exactly what i'm supposed to be doing... because in one sense i've already done it on an astral level. Most often when i remember a dream i'll be keeping an eye out the next day particularly for details from my dream ... just for the fun and interest really and it's amazing what i can find in my day if i pay attention, but i'm always trying to find bits of confirmation so i can learn more about how my dreams work. I remember just before christmas i had a dream in which a woman approached me slowly and was just looking at me as if i should know who she was. I said "I don't know who you are." and she said she was called Liz and the dream went on to reveal that she was the landlady of a girl called Lucia i know. - The next day at work in the class (it's a cookery school and the class all wear aprons and name badges) there's a woman who looked strikingly similar to the Liz from my dream and i decide i really need to look at her name badge to see if she's actually called Liz and her name badge says 'Elizabeth' ... well, i love it when a hunch pays off. I talked to her a couple of times that morning and she seems pretty friendly so as politely and unthreateningly as possible i tell her that i think she was in my dream the night before and ask if she could perhaps speak to me before she leaves because i'd like to confirm, if possible a couple of things more about the dream ( like if she was actually Lucia's landlady). Well perhaps i freaked her out or maybe she just forgot but she never got back to me on that. I just find it so entertaining following up on dreams!
LL, you sure have an active night life. LOL! Personally I rarely get anything from my night dreams. Often they're a way for my subconscious mind to release some energy that wasn't fully expressed during the day. I do feel, however, that I'm in constant communion with "guidance" or intuition or whatever you want to call it. Like there's an uninterrupted conversation going on within me, whereby I receive insights, perceptions, and revelations. I should probably clarify what I meant earlier when you said "many times I've been more than one person in the same dream." I was comparing what you discovered in your night dreams to what we find in times of waking as well. P.S. Happy belated Birthday! (when was it?)
Yes and this is what i seem to be finding out ... that it's the same thing percieved differently ... the dream state is mushy and fluid and mythic and less separation. The waking state seemingly solid, separate and not-mythic, but it's the same thing, the same 'world'. Yeah my birthday was a couple of weeks ago ... Jan 24th. Thanks!
I really like that description of dream.time vs space.time. discreete vs gooey forgive this rant...its a bit re-inventing the wheel, but its fun to frame things in different textured words I like to call precognitive type experiences you talked about as a sort of dilated consciousness experience, and thought I could share my view on it here. When we are awake, we are generally focused and involved...this observing capacity of ours fixes things, I guess I mean that because we are so aware, things around us will 'generally' act within what we expect (at the simple physical level...emotional levels are with good cause unpredictable). But when we rest, are asleep, trance or space-out (get out of space and into mind) we have little focus, we take in a very wide range of information from all sorts of time and place. While awake we focus on parts like eg someones message or the task at hand but i think as people we struggle to take everything into account. As dreamers there is no part to behold. We can emulate events of interaction but as we know the events don't directly relate to truth
I definitely see what you're saying lostminty, ... it's like a natural in and out breath or expansion and contraction of awareness, forgetting oneself and remembering oneself, sleeping and waking, in and out and so on and so forth ... the inner experience of dreaming and that omnipresent awareness of spirit and simply knowing and the waking 'surface' experience of our bodily senses in wierd 3D world of solid objects and substance ... collisions and breakages. It's like the whole solid world thing is this dream, condensed and slowed down, frozen in time so to speak where it trudges along getting stuck and sticking to things. Like taking something formless ... a thought, a dream or a song and throwing it into some magnetic field, or a sandpit or liquid nitrogen or something so it creates form and density. For a long time now i've come to understand that spirit and body are the same thing ...at least as a rough model, as someone quoted recently on these boards somewhere "Spirit is the subtle form of matter and matter is the gross form of spirit." ... yet in this sense only because the 'universe' seems to exist through a spectrum of vibration and as i understand it awareness or conciousness is aware throughout this spectrum yet can focus in one density or another where the rest becomes 'peripheral' yet still there in our awareness to a lesser degree. Most peoples focus centers around the outer material surface reality ... which could be said is the densest, but that's just the focus ... we are multidimensional, we exist on all levels and are aware on all levels simultaniously yet still somehow a part of that awareness can become trapped in it's focus, trapped in the illusion of separation that this outer, solid physical reality creates. It got lost in it's creation and forgot it's true nature... and the nature of it's creation. Kinda like being stuck in the holodeck where you then started believing it was all real and forgot who you were. Holographic theory is a whole subject on it's own and one part of it is that nothing actually exists in the sense that everything in our sensory perceptive experience ... form, image ect arises through the movement of thinking, that thinking ripples the still pond of pure awareness and gives rise to the individual and the world, both physical AND astral. And so nothing has a place or time except in the dream ... the hologram .. the projection. Just things that are going through my mind about all this ... thinking out loud really.
I very much enjoyed your thoughts there, this act of forgetting and remembering...reminds me of how the quantum world is in a way chunky, there are very exact limits and thresholds that must be overcome all at once. Like, when light strikes particular chemicals (esp phospohrous) then that material eats up the photon...and suddenly exists on a higher state. But only if the photon is vibrating at a high enough frequency (or has enough energy). Most materials would just reflect the light, but phosphorus makes the light a part of its vibration. It doesnt last long tho, the phosphorus ejects the light...but at an EXACT energy level, ie the exact energy the phosphorus absorbed to become higher state...the excess energy was thrown away as heat. I like that phenomena because it shows how something can use something else purely for what it needs, how anything of a high enough quality can serve the same purpose dispite being markedly different. what is rare is a substance that can take 2 photons of lesser energy and use them to push to chemical to the next level. It is possible but it requires the chemical have time OH MY! i forgot all about an invention, and i think im right in thinking it will revolutionise solar energy
Blues, remember this bit? Well a strange thing happened a couple of days ago ...as i've said i'm in wales right now and i visited a local art gallery with my mother ... the woman there seemed really pleased to meet me because she seemed to know my mother very well. But then this woman was just looking at me as if i should know who she was ... i said with a smile "Am i supposed to know who you are?" and she said "I'm Lynn don't you remember?" ... so i instantly remembered that she was Lynn who i'd met 12 years ago when my mother and I had gone for a meal at her place, her husband Brian (thank god i remembered his name) and the beautiful Sian who Lynn had tried to fit me up with back then were there too. So i hadn't recognised her because the Lynn i remembered had dark hair whereas this woman had dyed blonde hair, but yes it was the same Lynn alright. And Lynn kinda sounds like Liz, does it not? It just goes to show you can't take anything for granted eh? And it kinda makes the dream content appear so mutch more complicated too. Cherea ... care to elaborate a little?
