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E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c D.r.e.a.m.s
Volume #11 Issue #7
July 2004
ISSN# 1089 4284
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http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
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Download a cover for this issue:
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C O N T E N T S
++ Editor's Notes
++ News – PsiberDreaming Conference
The Association for the Study of Dreams
September 19, 2004 - October 3, 2004
Virtual Conference - Online
++ Review: IASD Dream Conference 2004
Strephon Kaplan-Williams
++ Column: An Excerpt From the Lucid Dream Exchange
Lucy Gillis
Robert Waggoner interviews Beverly D'Urso
++ Article: Evolution of the Dream
(From "How To Fly")
Linda Lane Magallón
++ Column: Lucid Living On The World Dreams Peace Bridge
The World Dreams Peace Bridge
A View from the Bridge
Jean Campbell
++ Column: Spectral Waves: The Quest for the Holy Grail
Spectral Moon, White Spectral Wizard Year
Ron Adams 2004
++ DREAM SECTION: Dreams from June, 2004
Host Kat Peters-Midland
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D E A D L I N E :
July 21st deadline for August 2004 submissions
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Post Dreams and Comments on Dreams to:
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple
Send Dreaming News and Calendar Events to:
Peggy Coats <
info@...>
Send Articles and Subscription concerns to:
Richard Wilkerson: <
rcwilk@...>
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Editor's Notes
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Welcome to the July 2004 issue of Electric Dreams, your portal to dreams and
dreamwork online.
If you are new to dreams and dreamwork, please join us on
dreamchatters@yahoogroups.com and we will guide you to the resources &
groups you need. To join send an e to
dreamchatters-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Announcing two new staff members to Electric Dreams. Kat Peters-Midland has
volunteered to take over the Dream Section. Kat is a therapist, dream
worker. You may know her as the editor and publisher of the Rocky Mountain
Dream Journal. If not, be sure to stop by the RMDJ site and get a
subscription at:
http://www.rmdjournal.com/
Janet Garrett joins Electric Dreams as an archive specialist and is
currently transferring all the past Electric Dreams articles to formatting
for the web. Be sure to see her work in progress at
http://www.improverse.com/ed-articles/index.htm
Electric Dreams is looking for a Dream News Editor. If you are interested in
this position, see the details below. This is a really fun position as you
get to know all the players in the field of dreams.
This month in Electric Dreams:
Strephon Kaplan-Williams reports on the 21st International Conference of the
Association for the Study of Dreams. Strephon’s life marks a balance between
someone who has spent decades studying Jungian therapy, and yet has also
gone beyond the Jungian fold and deeply influenced the Dreamwork movement.
Whether you were there or missed this year’s conference you will want to
read this review.
Lucy Gillis shares travels around the dream world to find the most talented
and experimental lucid dreamers. This month, “DreamSpeak: An Interview with
a Lucid Dreamer.” In this three part series, Robert Waggoner interviews long
time lucid dreamer Beverly D'Urso.
Linda Magallón. author of Mutual Dreaming, offers us a selection this month
from her book on How to Fly. In the article, ”Evolution of the Dream,”
Magallón offers some theories on flight in dreams that delve into the way
evolution has expressed itself in our hopes, fears, desires and dreams.
Jean Campbell honors members of The World Dreams Peace Bridge in
“Lucid Living On The World Dreams Peace Bridge.” If you have never heard of
the Peace Bridge or if you are an active member, be sure to read her column
“A View from the Bridge.”
The Waves is a newsletter reporting on the explorations underway at the Sea
Life forum. They take a community approach to dreaming, running monthly
dreaming projects to learn more about the world, and the evolutionary path
before ourselves and our planet. This month from Ron Adams, “The Quest for
the Holy Grail”
Keep in mind that the Fall PsiberDreaming Conference is almost upon us. For
more information, read the invitation from
the Host, Ed Kellogg, Ph.D.
Talking with dead people, flying spirits, flashing Virgin Mary eyes, dying
whale in a bathtub, and dating a serial killer…What do they have in common?
They are in the Electric Dreams Dream Section. Be sure to read all of these
dreams and more. If you want to contribute dreams, enter them at
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple
or join the dream flow at
dreamflow@yahoogroups.com
(
dreamflow-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)
--------------------
For those of you who are new to dreams and dreaming, be sure to stop by one
of the many resources:
http://www.dreamtree.com
http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/library
Electric Dreams in PDF: (thanks to Nick Cumbo)
http://www.dreamofpeace.net/community/electricdreams/
--------------------
Dreamin’ up a storm,
-Richard Wilkerson
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Global Dreaming News seeks new Editor – (volunteer position)
If you feel you would be a good candidate to report the news that is going
on in the dream world, be sure to contact Richard Wilkerson at
rcwilk@...
The GDNews editor will receive the support of the Electric Dreams staff in
making contact with all the essential people in the dream world, and will be
responsible for putting this information together once a month for
publication. This is a really fun position and you can expand then news as
you like. In the past, we have included reviews of dream books, dates for
conferences, seminars, talks and other events, new websites and research
news and requests.
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IASD Dream Conference 2004
©2004 Strephon Kaplan-Williams
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[IASD is the International Association for the Study of Dreams]
Whether you have gone to an ASD-IASD Dream Conference or not recently, you
may wonder what it is like.
Is the yearly conference like it is described in the brochure?
What actually happens there?
What is in it for you if you choose to go next year to Conference 2005 to be
held in Berkeley, California, USA?
Don't miss it, is all I can say.
An ASD conference is equivalent to being at the finals of a tennis grand
slam tournament, The Rose Bowl, The World Cup Finals, listening to the Dalai
Lama, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. No, we would not go that far on the
last one, but it is always a tremendous experience for those who let
themselves fully participate.
Why?
Do you want to live at the leading edge of culture and consciousness in
life? Then the dream and the dreamwork movement is one of those segments of
the cultural edge in modern life, though wars and political issues get the
limelight in the regular media.
At the annual ASD conference you will meet each other and chances are you
will find many truly dedicated people to interact with and learn from and be
inspired by.
Is it not important to lead a dedicated life?
Let me give some personal examples from this last conference which I
attended with my assistant and workshop presenter, Daniela Seebe from
Germany. I also was a Featured Presenter with around sixty people in
attendance and a workshop presenter with maybe twenty by the time the people
all came in.
Maybe there were around two hundred and fifty in all at the conference. I do
not know the exact number. Imagine that all these, presenters and
participants alike, have been drawn here to Copenhagen for four days to
engage in dream rituals like tribes of old thousands of years ago because of
their dreams and wanting to know the meaning of their dreams and their
lives.
One presenter from Finland, Annti Revonsuo, as a scientist presents his
research with slides to support his thesis that threat in dreams is basic
and goes back thousands and thousands of years in our evolutionary history
in which our ancestors had to dream of real threats in the night from
animals and natural phenomenon such as forest fire and earthquakes, dreaming
these things but also trying to understand them in a way to survive them and
keep their families alive and together.
It's a wonderful theory, and he is setting out to prove it by inference
through content analysis studies. I for one accept the possibility but offer
a different thought in my conversation with him and in my presentation, The
Dream and Its Dreamwork, available as a CD from me or ASD.
My contribution is that through analysis of the dream ego, the dreamer in
the dream, you can measure through a series of dreams what the dream ego is
for the dreamer and any significant changes in dreams and life. No one has
focused on this so far. Content Analysis does not focus on the dream ego as
the most significant and common symbol occurring through a series of dreams.
I am now developing The Dream Ego Assessment Profile and using it with my
students since two years ago.
So is not threat only one of the key factors in dreams? See Patricia
Garfield's latest book on key dream themes, The Universal Dream Key.
This is an example of major thinking around dreams currently happening.
Come, load your mind with good stuff to ruminate during the coming years.
Key thoughts help determine how we think about and live our lives.
What are the major dream themes as I see them in using the technique I am
most known for, Following The Dream Ego? I have twenty in The Dream Ego
Assessment Profile which you can send for as a download to use, or get at my
website when it is soon available at www.dreamwork2000.com.
To name a few: Active-Passive, Fearful-Fight, Choosing, Congruent. There are
twenty in all, twenty major dynamics with which to evaluate your behavior in
your dreams and apply the insights to your life.
Is Threat not also true for modern times despite governments and
technologies that are supposed to protect us? During the cold war in the
Seventies and Eighties I remember well how so many people, including myself,
had dreams of atomic bombs exploding. When a threat is made visible we can
better deal with it. Anxiety is fear without an object. When we find the
objects and experiences we are afraid of we can the better deal with them.
There are of course many lessons from working with dreams.
During my presentation on a new tool of mine, The Dream Alphabet, a
precocious eight year old sitting in her father's lap shared her dream and
the reasons from school for having it, all in a very adult like manner. In
the end I asked her, "Are you telling it like it is, or are you
complaining?" She thought a few seconds and then said clearly, "Telling it
like it is." Some adults smiled in appreciation that the newest generation
was already working with dreams. Her father, Fred Jeremy Seligson, was an
American living in Korea with a Korean wife and teaching at a university
there. This precocious eight-year old girl bridged continents and cultures
in her genetic and destiny heritage. Her father uses the Dream Cards in
Korea as part of his work.
I never got to his presentation but I taught him and his daughter some
spiritual aikido during the intermissions. He uses the Dream Cards, he said.
A number of others came up to tell me they were using the Dream Cards
regularly. One was Lauren Schneider, a psychotherapist and "dream tender"
from Southern California. I wish I could have met them all. But maybe next
conference year all of us who use and love the Dream Cards will get together
to share. Maybe we will have a Dream Cards Day during or after. Anything is
possible where dreams are concerned.
Such tools unite us all. When I wrote and published the first comprehensive
dreamwork manual in 1980 it was the first. Now in the book store there were
at least ten different dreamwork manuals of good quality and a range of
around thirty authors who have recently written about gaining meaning from
your dreams.
Near the end of my presentation I invited any presenters present to stand up
and just tell the audience briefly what they were offering at the conference
so people could know them. Twenty presenters stood up. A side effect of this
was that we all grew to appreciate the dedication to dreams and dreamwork
that the other presenters had.
The dreamwork movement has surely grown tremendously since incorporated in
ASD in 1984.
When you go to a conference you can also become a part of a dream and
dreamwork family, those regulars, presenters and participants alike who
attend most conferences through the years. You appreciate the caring and
warmth that people show each other. You appreciate that many of the regulars
have not only maintained the organization but have also developed a
dreamwork interest which they present.
I was interested to learn that the outgoing president, Bob Hoss, was trained
also as a Gestalt therapist and has written an excellent dream course manual
which he does giving basic dreamwork techniques, including working with
color in dreams.
Many people were doing courses for people in the helping professions. Alan
Siegel, Dr Dream, teaches other therapists, not only in America, but if I
got it right, also in China.
Robbie Bosnak has a dream group in Japan, and Daniela Seebe and I met two of
his Japanese students at the reception given by the mayor and city council
of Copenhagen for us.
Imagine being treated as royalty at a centuries old town hall by the
president of the Copenhagen City Council because we were all active dreamers
in sleep and in waking life.
A further short talk with Robbie Bosnak led to the interesting theory that
dream and the psyche are in a fluid state. Thus rather than dream figures
being fixed parts of ourselves like sub-personalities these figures are more
fluid dynamic entities and functions happening now. Bosnak himself keeps his
own personality identity fluid by constant travel to many countries and
cultures to do his special forms of dream groups.
There is an incredible amount and kind of dreamworking the dream going on
now. When you join ASD you link yourself into an endless chain of
dreamworking possibilities, some dreamwork psychology, some educational,
some creative.
Fariba Bogzaran is a trained psychologist but seems to emphasize more the
creative ways of re-experiencing dreams. Jeremy Taylor is the Johnny
Appleseed of the American dreamwork movement because of his constant
traveling around for years giving presentations on the value of dreams and
dreamwork.
I did not get to attend many of the presentations. Patricia Garfield asked
if I had attended her presentation on the dreams of Hans Christian Andersen.
Alas, I had not because as a presenter myself I had many contacts to make
and people to relate to and that morning I had not the extra energy. But I
bought her book and had a special lunch with her, just the two of us as
long-time friends and cofounders from the past until the present. She
informed me we are almost the same age. I experienced from her her deep
feminine wisdom, a "golden moment" for me at the conference.
My conversations and interviews with psychologists pointed again to the need
for psychotherapists and psychologists to be trained in dreamworking the
dream. They get precious little of this in their regular training. And so my
idea of declaring a separate branch of dreamwork psychology seems to be
gaining steam. We have a name for it, starting this year, and it is called,
IDPA, the International Dream and Dreamwork Association.
This is just a little slice of life. When you go as a participant or
presenter you feel the bonding with all those who take their dreams
seriously. You find inspiration and community in meeting others in such a
friendly and stimulating atmosphere.
You learn many new key ideas around dreaming and working with dreams.
Bob Hoss asked Jeremy Taylor and I to give brief remarks to the question,
how are we doing as an organization twenty-one years down the road from the
founding of ASD? Patricia Garfield was unable to be there at the membership
meeting.
Jeremy and I embraced each other. We have stayed dedicated to educating the
public to dreams and dreamwork, along with Patricia Garfield with her many
books connecting dreams and life.
What I could say most is that the dream itself is the treasure at the end of
the rainbow, and the rainbow itself is the many approaches to working with
dreams.
As Fariba Bogzaran asked of a presenter. Why do you emphasize only one
method? Are you open to learning about and using many methods and approaches
for working with the dream?
This I would say to all of us. Keep the dream as the focus but learn and use
many methods and approaches so that you may reap the incredible harvest of
working with your dreams to inspire your life and the lives of others.
Perhaps if you see yourself as a Dream and Dreamwork Educator you use only
one method for working with people's dreams. But if you are a Dream and
Dreamwork Psychologist or Practitioner you will of necessity use many
methods to help your people reexperience and live from their dreams.
How has ASD done, to repeat Bob Hoss' question?
It is wonderful to meet all the dedicated presenters on dreamwork and
dreaming. The ASD has succeeded in being at the forefront of re-creating a
now world-wide dream culture. While there are not millions of us yet with
the dream as a purposeful focus for our lives, at least there are many
thousands who read the books, go to trainings and workshops, and work with
their dreams.
As Jeremy Taylor said, there are many courses now in colleges and
universities on the dream and its dreamwork.
Dreams are here to stay. A new artifact of culture has rooted in the soil of
the future happening now. As came to me years ago, We dream to wake to life.
We also live the dream to inspire our lives.
I can seen the conference in California next year being the biggest of all
yet, maybe seven hundred people. Why not start now preparing to attend and
present?
Remember that the IASD yearly conferences are dream culture in themselves.
You will be inspired. You will dream special dreams, as I did, with C.G.
Jung speaking to a group of us dreamed by me on the first night of the
conference.
They have a contest every conference on dream telepathy. Why not also have
at least a reporting of the "great dreams" that come in from the holotropic
universe because of the conference?
"I have a dream!" says the prophet. "And we have the dreamworking techniques
for working with that dream!" say all the presenters who make the
conferences a living experience of dreams waking to life.
Join the family. Meet each other. Meet the participants and presenters. Help
out in any way you can. ASD is a small army of volunteers. Without their
dedication we would have much less dream culture in our lives.
I say join us and have your own amazing experiences.
And, oh, also pace yourself. It makes you very high and much energy goes
around at these conferences. Be prepared for a few days rest after to
assimilate all that has happened for you. This may be one of the highlights
of your year.
Strephon Kaplan-Williams
Strephon Kaplan-Williams
We dream to wake to life!
Visit
http://www.dreamwork2000.com
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PsiberDreaming Conference
The Association for the Study of Dreams
September 19, 2004 - October 3, 2004
Virtual Conference - Online
Invitation from Host, Ed Kellogg, Ph.D.
E-mail:
alef1@...
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http://www.asdreams.org/psi2004/
Join some of the world's foremost experts on the subject of psi-dreaming for
two weeks of cutting-edge papers, discussions, workshops, contests, and
chats at a bargain price. If you've ever had a precognitive dream, a lucid
dream, or simply an 'unusual dream' that puzzled you, this online conference
seems the place for you.
Past presenters include: Charles T. Tart, Ph.D., author of Altered States of
Consciousness, Robert L. Van de Castle, Ph.D. author of Our Dreaming Mind,
Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Ph.D. author of The Dreamer’s Way, Robert Moss,
author of Dreamgates, Marcia Emery, Ph.D., author of The Intuitive Healer,
Alan Siegel, Ph.D., author of Dream Wisdom, Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. author of
Lucid Dreaming, Dale E. Graff, author of Tracks in the Psychic Wilderness,
Stanley Krippner, Ph.D. co-author of Extraordinary Dreams, Jeffrey Mishlove,
Ph.D., host of Thinking Allowed - and many others!
Previous conferences brought in rave reviews:
"Bravo!", "Incredible!", "a wonderful experience," "amazing!", "topnotch",
"I am really thrilled," "great conference," "please, please do this
frequently," "I don't know how many accolades I can give you, too many to
count, I believe. The conference was simply great!! Good presenters, topics,
participants, and great energy."
If you missed the first two, make sure you attend the third!
Features:
1. Online Presentations, including provocative papers and workshops on
popular and cutting edge topics, such as: remote viewing, precognition,
dream telepathy, mutual dreaming, psychopompic dreams, lucid dreaming,
visionary dreaming, prodromal dreams, dream healing, the nature of dream
reality, and dreaming as a spiritual practice. Workshops will provide
resource lists for those who wish to explore topics in greater depth, and
practical instructions for techniques or experiments detailed enough so that
conference participants can try them out at home.
2. Dedicated PsiberDreaming Discussion Boards where participants can discuss
each paper and workshop in depth with authors and other participants, and
can post specific questions, etc. Links to relevant threads would appear
conveniently at the end of each posted presentation, updated daily to show
new threads of interest.
3. Scheduled Chats each week of the conference with presenters and/or other
experts on cutting edge topics.
4. Numerous PsiberDreaming Events where participants can test their skills
and explore different facets of paranormal dreaming, including dream
telepathy and remote viewing, precognition, and mutual dreaming. Judges will
evaluate how well dreamers tune into the designated targets, or how well
dreamers perform a specific dream task. And ASD will provide prizes to the
winners!
5. A PsiberDreaming Gallery of Dreams and Art. One section of this gallery
will feature the "best of the best", graphic images of dream art selected
from the submissions to past ASD conferences, formatted into a sequential
point and click cyber tour. A second section of the gallery will provide a
place where participants can display their own dream art (with accompanying
dream text or dream poetry), sharing them with other participants.
Event Dates and Costs:
The PsiberDreaming Conference runs from September 21, through October 5,
2003.
Online Participation Costs for both weeks (no one week rate):
General Public $38! (US Dollars)
ASD Members $33! (US Dollars)
Students with valid ID $23! (no additional ASD discount)
Note: we’ve deliberately set the price of attending this conference low to
open this conference to interested participants worldwide. Please take
advantage!
http://www.asdreams.org/psi2004/
------------------------ END NEWS ----------------------
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An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange
By Lucy Gillis
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LDE is pleased to present DreamSpeak: An Interview with a Lucid Dreamer. In
this three part series, Robert Waggoner interviews long time lucid dreamer
Beverly D'Urso. (Please note, as with all material in LDE, the author
retains copyright of his or her material. In this interview, the questions
are by Robert Waggoner and the responses are copyright of Beverly D'Urso.)
DREAMSPEAK
AN INTERVIEW WITH BEVERLY D'URSO: A LUCID DREAMER - PART ONE
(c) Beverly D'Urso
Questions by Robert Waggoner
Beverly D'Urso (formerly Beverly Kedzierski, and also Bev Heart) is an
incredible lucid dreamer. She served as Stephen LaBerge's main lucid dream
research subject in the early years of his research work, and helped provide
key insights into lucid dreaming. Interviewed by magazines, national and
local television, and other media, Beverly has promoted a greater
understanding of lucid dreaming and "lucid living." The LDE is pleased to
provide a multi-issue interview of this fascinating lucid dreamer.
ROBERT: Beverly, thanks for doing an interview with the LDE. Since you play
a pivotal part in the development of lucid dreaming, tell us how your
interest in dreaming began.
BEVERLY: I grew up in a small suburb of Chicago, the only child of a lower-
middle class family. I was very close to my parents. When I was about five
years old, my grandfather came to live with us. It was around this time that
I remember having a series of recurring nightmares.
I imagined gruesome witches living in the back of my dark and scary closet.
In my dreams, I'd be quietly playing or lying in bed. Without notice, the
witches would sneak out and come after me. I'd scream and run through the
house, making it to the back porch and sometimes down the back stairs, but
never any further. I'd fall on the cement at the bottom of the stairs,
spread eagle on my back, and just as they were about to devour me, I'd wake
up. In an icy sweat, breathing fast, I'd be terrified of going to sleep
again. For a few weeks, the witches would leave me alone, but, when I least
expected it, they'd be back. After years of this same recurring dream, I'd
find myself pleading, as I lie on the cement with the witches hovering over
me, "Please, spare me tonight. You can have me in tomorrow's night's dream!"
At that point, they'd stop their attack and I'd wake up. However, the dream
was still very upsetting, and I always hated going to sleep. I would lie in
bed and tell myself that the witches only came in my dreams, while I was
safe in bed. I tried to get myself to remember this the next time they
appeared.
ROBERT: So, recurring nightmares led you to realize that witches only came
in dreams. When did you consciously realize this in the dream state and
become lucid?
BEVERLY: One hot, sticky summer night, when I was seven, I was especially
afraid of going to sleep. I was sure the witches would appear in my dreams
that night. My mom was sleeping on the living room couch, which she often
did when it was so hot. The front door was opened to create a breeze. So,
still being awake about two in the morning, I grabbed an old, dark pink,
American Indian blanket. I put the blanket on the floor next to the couch to
be close to my mom, and I fell asleep.
Soon, I found myself back in my bedroom, unknowingly in a dream, and noticed
the closet door creaking open. I knew at once it was the witches, and I
began to run for my life. I barely made it through the kitchen. As I raced
across the porch and down the stairs, I tripped as usual and immediately
those horrifying witches caught up to me. The instant before I started to
plead with them, the thought flashed through my mind, "If I ask them to take
me in tomorrow night's dream, then this must be a dream!" Instantly, my fear
dissolved. I looked the witches straight in the eye and said, "What do you
want?" They gave me a disgusting look, but I knew I was safe in a dream, and
I continued, "Take me now. Let's get this over with!" I watched with
amazement, as they quickly disappeared into the night. I woke up on the
floor next to my mom feeling elated. I knew they were gone. I never had the
witch nightmare in this form again! I would later have new episodes with the
witches in my dreams and discover similar witch scenarios in my waking life.
ROBERT: Did that initial lucid dream realization change your outlook on
dreaming? How so?
BEVERLY: My dreams were really fun after that night. Remembering the feeling
of facing the witches, I learned to recognize when I was asleep and
dreaming. Safe in the dream, I would do things I'd never do when awake!
Being a very obedient student during the daytime, I would dream of being in
class jumping wildly and carefree all over the tops of the school desks.
Whatever I desired, was possible. Whatever I thought, would occur. I felt
ecstatic. I could face other fears, heal or nurture myself emotionally,
resolve conflicts or blocks, have adventures, help others, or just have fun.
I could fly, visit places, people, or time periods, and generally "do the
impossible!"
I made up ways to wake myself up from dreams, such as staring at bright
streetlights in the dream, whenever I wanted to end a dream. Oftentimes, I
would lay in bed imagining myself doing backward summersaults and float
right into my dream, without ever losing consciousness, as I fell asleep. I
figured out how to stay in a dream, if I felt I was waking up, how to change
the dream scene, and even how to repeat the same dream!
ROBERT: What other things did you learn to do in your early lucid dreaming?
BEVERLY: I learned to fly in my dreams, as well. Usually, I would be lucid.
I started out flying like a little bird, having to flap my wings to stay up.
This could take much effort. As I grew up, I discovered that I could fly
like superman, soaring effortlessly through the air, arms first. At some
point, I must have hit some telephone wires or some other barrier because I
fell. I soon realized that because it was my dream, I could fly right
through physical objects of any kind. I had fun flying through walls and
even deep into the earth. As I matured in my lucid dreaming skills, I could
eliminate flying by merely imagining that where I wanted to go was right
behind me. This soon got boring, and I went back to flying for the simple
pleasure it brought me. However, lately, I have been doing what I call
"surrender flying.'" I lean back, and I let an invisible force pull me
upwards from my heart area. This is a very ecstatic sensation, and it often
leads me to places of great peace and power, which remain with me even after
I wake up.
ROBERT: My earliest lucid awareness came when I was 10 or 11 years old, and
saw dinosaurs in the public library in my dream and announced that this must
be a dream. Besides the witches, what else helped you realize that you were
dreaming?
BEVERLY: Often, in dreams, I would often find myself in front of my
childhood home. At times, there were changes to the structure of the house.
Other times the house changed in impossible ways. Sometimes, people other
than my parents were living there. In the dream, I'd often get confused and
scared. However, the more I thought about it while awake, the more I
realized that I only saw the house this way when I was in a dream. So, I
told myself, the next time I'm in front of my childhood home, I will check
for these changes. If I see them, I will know that I am dreaming. From then
on, seeing my childhood home was often a clue for me to become lucid in my
dreams. Once I became lucid in this manner, I could pursue any other goals
that I might have for that night.
ROBERT: What I find amazing is that you were so young. Did your lucid
dreaming make you feel unusual, or did you feel special?
BEVERLY: My lucid dreaming experiences continued throughout my teenage
years. However, I never knew the term "lucid dreaming." I thought that
everyone dreamed this way every night. I guess I liked the experiences, so I
thought about them at night, in bed, before I went to sleep. I suspected
that I was dreaming whenever I would have problems in a dream, for example,
when all my teeth would start to fall out, when my contacts would grow or
multiply, or when I would find myself on shooting elevators or on bridges
that were too steep to drive on.
I often dreamed of my close friend from high school, named Denise, She died
in a car accident, when I was nineteen. At first, I'd see her, and we would
continue as we would have when she was still alive. One time, I remembered
that she had died. It scared me so much that I woke up. Afterwards, I
learned to stay in the dream and talk to her. It took me time to get
accustomed to hearing her voice, but I was finally able to ask her
questions, and, eventually, listen to her answers. I felt very relieved to
connect with her this way. It helped me
deal more easily with my father in my dreams after he died, in 1992. By
then, I was an expert!
ROBERT: What other types of lucid dream experiences surprised you back then?
BEVERLY: I would sometimes end a dream, think I woke up, yet find myself in
another dream. These are called "false awakenings." Sometimes, I would 'wake
up' ten or twenty times in a row, but usually the time it took me to realize
that I was still dreaming shortened exponentially. For example, I would
realize I was still dreaming when I left the house for the day in a dream.
The next time, in a similar dream, I would recognize I was still dreaming
earlier, when I was in the shower, and so on. Finally, I would still be in
bed, waking up, when I'd realize I was still in a dream. I have gotten
better at recognizing false awakenings through the years.
ROBERT: So how did it happen that you met Stephen LaBerge?
BEVERLY: In the late 1970s, I moved to California to finish my graduate work
in computer science at Stanford University. Soon after I arrived, I went to
see a dream expert to find out if I could learn to dream less often. I
thought that waking up too often with dreams was disturbing my sleep. The
expert asked me to describe some of my common dreams. When I did, she told
me that my dreams were called "lucid dreams." She said lucid dreaming was a
valuable skill that people were trying to learn. I was very surprised! I
only saw her once, but many years later she showed up at a presentation I
was giving on my lucid dreaming experiences. I decided that if I were going
to remember so many dreams anyway, at least many of them were lucid!
At the time, I was finishing a master's project with a Stanford Cognitive
Psychology professor. I told one of his other students that I was a lucid
dreamer. He said that I had to meet his friend Stephen LaBerge, who was
doing his dissertation on this exact subject.
After Stephen and I were introduced at an initial meeting, we discovered
that we both did similar things in our lucid dreams. He asked me to try some
things at home and report back to him. When he asked me to try spinning in a
dream and see what happened, I already knew the answer. My somersault dreams
were like spinning backwards. I used them to get into new dream scenes.
Steven also found that spinning in his dreams created new scenes, as well.
He attributed it to something in the inner ear that affected a certain part
of the brain.
ROBERT: Obviously you both shared similar interests in lucid awareness. Did
that lead to being a research subject?
BEVERLY: Stephen invited me to participate in some experiments at the
Stanford Sleep Laboratory. I ended up sleeping at the lab and doing
experiments about once a month for many years. I also did many experiments
for publicity, such as television or magazine specials. I succeeded every
time I was in the lab, except one time early on when the technical equipment
failed.
Before I came along, Stephen had used himself as the subject to show that
one could be definitely in the sleeping state and signal the beginning of a
predetermined task from a dream. He wondered how what we dream in our mind
affects our physical body. For example, if we dream that we breathe slowly,
does our physical breathing slow down? Although we can not, for example,
cause our hearts to stop beating in a dream, in general, the activity of our
dream bodies can be recognized as happening in our physical bodies, as well.
ROBERT: So how did the research begin with you as the subject?
BEVERLY: In the lab, I would signal from a dream, and my signals would be
picked up by EEG machines in the lab via electrodes on my body. During this
process, my brain waves, and other body functions, were also being
monitored. They showed that I was unequivocally in the sleep state,
particularly REM sleep, while I was signaling.
The first time Stephen signaled in the lab, he squeezed his arm muscles in
Morse code for his initials. When I tried squeezing my arm muscles in an
experiment, the signal was not strong enough to register, so we decided on
using a new signal. We used eye movements, because eye movement is not as
inhibited as other body movements during sleep. I would move my dream eyes
back and forth in the dream and the left-right movements, from my physical
eyes in bed, connected to electrodes, would appear in the lab on the
polygraph machine. I used a double left-right left-right movement to show
that I knew I was dreaming. I would use a similar movement to signal that I
was about to begin a task in a dream. I eventually decided to use to series
of these, or four left- right signals, to say that I was waking up, or about
to wake myself up.
ROBERT: What other lucid dream research did you do in those early years?
BEVERLY: After I demonstrated that I could have lucid dreams at will, every
time I was in the laboratory, I did many other experiments that used the
signals. After signaling that I knew I was dreaming and in a dream, I would
signal that I was about to begin a predetermined task. One time, we decided
I would sing a song, which should have activated a certain area of my brain,
which was also being monitored by electrodes. It did. Another time, I did a
more mathematical task of counting from one to ten, which should have
activated a different area of my brain, just as it would while awake. The
experiments showed that the same parts of the brain were activated while
dreaming a task, as when doing it while awake.
ROBERT: Did you ever have problems as a lucid dreamer on these research
nights?
BEVERLY: One time, I was in the lab doing an experiment for *Smithsonian
Magazine*. My task was to get lucid, and then clap my dream hands to
determine if an electrode on my physical ear would register the dream sound.
In the dream, I signaled lucidity, but I couldn't clap my hands. A buoyancy
compensatory had unexpectedly expanded around me, and I couldn't get both
hands to meet. I had recently learned to scuba dive. A buoyancy compensatory
is a device used for floating that expands around the center of the body.
The part that the reporters didn't realize was that just as I was going to
sleep, Stephen had whispered to me that maybe I could solve the ancient Zen
koan of "the sound of one hand clapping." I believe that the reason my
subconscious couldn't get my hands to clap was because then I wouldn't be
making the sound of "one" hand clapping.
During another lab experiment, my eye movements were being monitored, as
usual. In a lucid dream, before I moved my eyes, I explained what I was
going to do to the dream character that represented my friend Tim. He said,
"Oh, you mean you move your eyes back and forth like this?" He then moved
his eyes in this manner. After I signaled and woke up, we noticed that there
were two eye signals recorded. Tim's eyes moving in the dream must have
affected my physical eyes. This made me wonder if all dream characters are
really aspects of the dreamer as well.
ROBERT: It seems that the lucid dream research focused mostly on
physiological correlations between dream experience and waking experience,
rather than, say, the psychological meaning of dream characters, etc. Is
that the case?
BEVERLY: We did many more experiments in the lab through the years. I tried
estimating time in a dream and while wake. The estimates turned out to be
very similar. We believed that time sometimes seems different in dreams
because dreams often work the way movies do. When scenes end in movies,
often new activity from a later period begins immediately. In other
experiments, I followed patterns with my dream eyes. For example, in a
dream, I would watch my finger make an infinity sign about two feet wide in
front of my face, and we'd compare it to my physical eyes following this
same pattern while awake. Oddly enough, I would often do these experiments
after working all day on my Ph.D., and performing all evening with my
professional belly dance troupe. Talk about working 24 hours a day!
In another ground-breaking experiment, I was in the Stanford Sleep Lab,
hooked up to electrodes and vaginal probes. My goal was to have sex in a
dream and experience an orgasm. I dreamed that I flew across Stanford campus
and saw a group of tourists walking down below. I swooped down and tapped
one dream guy, wearing a blue suit, on the shoulder. He responded right
there on the walkway. We make love, and I signaled the onset of sex, the
orgasm, and when I was about to wake up. We later published this experiment
in the *Journal of Psychophysiology* as the first recorded female orgasm in
a dream.
ROBERT: Did dream lab work affect your normal lucid dreaming?
BEVERLY: During this time period, while at home in my bedroom, I found
myself in a dream. Dream scientists asked me to go to sleep in a chair. They
wanted to study me. By falling asleep in a dream chair, I actually woke up,
and I wrote down the dream. I went back to sleep, and I found myself in the
same dream chair with the dream scientists. I asked them what they observed
while they saw me sleeping, while I had actually woke up and recorded the
dream. They said I was almost paralyzed, except that my eyes were moving
quickly back and forth, left and right. Was my waking life a dream to these
dream scientists? I began to use the process of falling asleep in a dream as
a way to wake up.
ROBERT: So what about your lucid dreams in the lab? Were they affected by
the laboratory setting?
BEVERLY: In the laboratory, I learned to wait until early morning hours to
even try to have a lucid dream. After eight hours of sleep, it would be
easier for me to become lucid. We found this to be true for most people. For
example, I would say, "I will do the experiment at 7:30 a.m." I picked this
time because it was before the office personnel would come in and begin to
make noises.
Picking a time, also made it easier for the media people. Instead of
watching my brain waves all night, they could rest, and know exactly when to
watch me perform live. I normally woke up after most REM periods, about
every hour and a half. When I would wake up between six and seven a.m., I
would then focus on my lucid dreaming task. This process is how we came up
with the technique called "MILD," or Mnemonic induction of lucid dreams.
In my laboratory dreams, I would often find myself in a lab setting, similar
to the one in which I was sleeping. In my dreams, I would often joke with
the dream characters who represented the lab technicians or the media
people. Sometimes, I would fly over their heads for fun. I would always
remember to signal at the point when I knew I was dreaming, and at the
beginning and ending of any of my tasks.
Robert: Was it odd having news media attention about lucid dreaming?"
Beverly: Once, I was asked to do a lucid dreaming experiment at the lab for
the television show 20/20. While being hooked up to electrodes used to
verify my sleeping brain waves, I sat next to Hugh Downs, the host of the
show. I had known him from television since I was a child. He wanted to try
his luck at becoming lucid in his dreams that night. I became lucid easily
that night, finding myself in a bed that looked like the one in the lab
where I had fallen asleep. I got the idea to head towards Oakland, and maybe
make it to a scheduled Grateful Dead concert. I got half way there, when I
remembered that I was being filmed for a national television show. One of my
goals was to bring Hugh Downs flying. I turned around midair and quickly
flew back to the Stanford Sleep Lab. I looked for what I thought would be
the wall of Hugh's room. I nudged him on the side and said, "Hugh, wake up!
I have come to take you flying." He seemed very sleepy, so I took his hand,
and I gently pulled him out of bed. We got to the coliseum just as the
Grateful Dead were playing on stage. Because we were like ghosts, it was
easy to merely float right over the band, in fact, directly over the lead
guitar player, Jerry Garcia's, head. We had the best location in the place,
and the music sounded especially clear and vibrant. The next morning, I
asked Hugh if he remembered any dreams. Unfortunately, he didn't, but he
seemed very pleased when I told him mine. The reporters interviewed me, but
as far as I know the segment was never shown.
ROBERT: Sexual desires seem fairly common in my lucid dreams and in most
other lucid dreamers'. What this the case in your experience as well?
BEVERLY: In my lucid dreams, I have had sex with dream characters who
represent men, women, old people, young people, strangers, relatives, as
well as people of various races and classes. I have been the woman, the man,
half woman/half man, both split from waist, and with both a penis and a
vagina. I have been a man with a man, a woman with a woman, an old man with
young girls, with groups and alone. I have made love physically with myself
in all combinations. I can barely think of some sexual situation that I have
not experienced. These dreams are all very enjoyable and everyone is always
totally accepting.
I would sometimes give myself challenges while not in the lab, as well. In
one very powerful lucid dream, I felt very sure of myself and decided to
have sex with the next dream person who came down the street. I did so,
right in the middle of the road, with no inhibitions. I gave myself a
suggestion to remain lucid afterwards and it worked. However, I now found
myself alone, in front of a campfire. I took this as another challenge and
stepped right into the center of the roaring fire. I was having fun and
decided to try eating the flames. Interestingly enough, they tasted salty.
Next, I appeared with nothing physical around me, so I decided that I would
fly up and merge with the sun. I sped upwards like superman, accelerating
rapidly until, about half way there, I heard a great sound. It was very
intense, and yet blissful. I felt extremely lucid for the next several days
in both my waking and sleeping states.
ROBERT: Any final thoughts about experiments or experiences in the lab with
Stephen LaBerge?
BEVERLY: During one lucid dreaming experiment at the lab, Stephen LaBerge
asked me to try healing my stiff neck in a dream by rubbing my hands and
directing the energy to my neck. I tried this in a dream, and I found sparks
coming from my hands. The sparks set my hair on fire, and I spend the dream
trying to put the fire out. Even I wasn't always completely lucid!
In another lab experiment for a television special, I had to sing the song,
"Row, row, row your boat.... life is but a dream." The week that the show
was to air, they used a clip of me singing this song with electrodes all
over my face, wearing my blue robe, for a commercial. It was shown several
times a day that week. A few times, when I turned on the television, the
commercial was playing and I saw myself saying, "Life is but a dream!" It
was a very strange experience indeed! I decided it must be some kind of
message from the universe, and I better pay attention. I was formulating the
ideas that would eventually become what I now call, "lucid living!"
ROBERT: Beverly, because you have so many great lucid dream experiences, we
plan to continue this interview for the next LDE - and maybe even the one
after that! Would you care to leave us with one of your favorite lucid
dreams from this period?
BEVERLY: This next dream serves as a good description of how our thoughts
can create reality. I was in a lucid dream and I met a lovely fairy teacher
who told me that she would give me the gift of seeing my thoughts manifest
instantly in front of me. I found myself driving on a road around a large
lake. I thought how nice it would be to be in a boat on the water.
Instantly, I was sitting in a boat looking up at the road I had just been
on. I was amazed. I must have imagined being in town next. In front of me on
a dusty road, I saw a mysterious man walking towards me. He put his hand in
his pocket. I thought, "What if he pulls a knife on me?" Sure enough, I
noticed the blade. I was terrified, but just as quickly I tried to picture
him merely scratching his leg. I was relieved when he did. Still, I was
afraid that I would think more negative thoughts, and I wanted this all to
stop. Yet, I didn't know how to do so. Finally, I decided to think of my
bedroom and myself asleep. Sure enough, I woke up, and I felt that I had
learned a great deal about how our mental states can affect our experiences.
********************************
The Lucid Dream Exchange is a quarterly newsletter featuring lucid dreams
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Evolution of the Dream
(From "How To Fly")
© 2004 Linda Lane Magallon
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http://members.aol.com/caseyflyer/flying/dreams.html
(Dream Flights)
If paleoecological studies identify an ancestral threat that occurred with
high frequency in the ancestral environment and posed a significant
selective pressure on ancestral humans...then we should find that the same
theme is frequently simulated...during dreaming.
Antti Revonsuo
Flying dreams have been found across the world wide and down through
recorded history. There are even cave paintings that seem to illustrate the
vision of human flight. Of all dreams, flying has one of the best claims to
be called "universal," although I doubt that an alien from Alpha Centuri
would agree. With our species-specific myopia, we apply such terms with an
appalling lack of concern for other corporeal life. It's not clear if the
rest of the creatures on this planet have flying dreams. But I'd be willing
to bet that birds do. After all, it's their day residue!
But not ours. So why flying dreams? Why not, say, a plethora of dreams about
being consumed by fire or burrowing through the soil or any one of a zillion
other possibilities? Is there something in our human heritage that reveals
the hidden sources of such common dreams? Yes, I believe there is. But even
though I'm a researcher of mutual dreams, I don't think we need to
hypothesize a "collective unconscious" to explain the phenomenon. This is
not a dip in the shallow sea of psychological complexes or a Rorschach
rumination. This type of dream is forged in the chain that links us to our
basic building blocks. I'm talking about human DNA.
The Aquatic Ape
There is a theory that sometime in the distant past, our ancestors lived in
an era of warm, shallow seas. The ice melted, the water rose, creating
islands surrounded by ocean. We lived by the ocean; we were formed by the
ocean.
There are several living examples of mammals that have returned to the sea:
dolphins, porpoises and whales, to name a few. Others live at the water's
edge, becoming sleek and building up a layer of fat in order to better
adjust to the water temperature and to become buoyant. Now, obviously, we
never became mermaids, but, according to this theory, we did shift in that
direction.
Like other sea-edge creatures, we straightened out and elongated. We lost
most hair, except on our heads, the part we poke out of the water in order
to breathe. Two of our limbs, the legs, stretched to touch the bottom while
the other two helped us retain our balance in the waves. While we waded and
paddled through the surf, seeking crustaceans, fish and more, we probably
kept our children close to us. So our infants are comparatively chubbier
than other primates. Maybe we even birthed our infants in the water. Even
today babies are able to swim, not merely before they're able to walk, but
even before they can crawl. Babies have a swimming reflex, and
breath-holding and diving reflexes as well. All of us have the ability to
close nasal passages and throat and to hold our breaths, a skill needed for
deep diving. We weep salt tears and copulate face to face. The seaside
habitat may also have helped us develop the soft palate, along with our
unique throat, vocal tract and resonant nasal structure, enabling us to
enunciate words. And sing.
As we stretched to become Homo Erectus, we had to learn to walk on only two
feet. This is fine when we are in the water. But we pay the price when we
step onto land. Standing erect means shifting weight from four limbs to two.
Large amounts of weight on small amounts of body places stress on knee and
hip joints plus lower back. Our upright stance places more gravitational
pressure on heart, abdomen and lungs, which have to work harder than before
to pump blood and move food and oxygen around the body. Muscles must
compensate for our upright posture, creating tension and tension headaches.
We literally feel more than we ever did before, more weight, more pressure,
more gravity, especially when we become sedentary creatures.
Reefs surrounding tropical islands can keep out the more dangerous ocean
predators. Stretching out on our backs in the warm sun, bobbing in the
water, is an experience of euphoria, very similar to the warm floating
sensation of the womb. But we weren't in the womb, we had movable limbs. We
could paddle. We could tread water. We could dive, flying through the water,
until the air in our lungs naturally allowed us to ascend like bubbles to
the top. To our nirvana of sweet, salty air. Upward was life. But the trip
to and from was ecstatic, too. Even better, the buoyancy means we wouldn't
have to worry about falling. We were supported, surrounded. Gravity didn't
hold it's usual sway. Pain, pressure, stress was replaced by relaxation. We
felt good. Floating in the sea, we enjoyed the lull of the waves as our
bodies swayed in the surf.
Thus, our instincts to hide or flee were developing concurrently with our
ability to float and fly. Our fear of falling was more than a fear of
gravity; it was a thwarting of natural support provided by the medium of
water.
So, in our dreams, we hover in free fall. We enjoy ourselves soaring and
diving in an ecstatic echo of the ancient past. We're shocked when we fall.
We wonder what happened to that warm, floating sensation that's supposed to
buoy us up.
Nice story, isn't it? Unfortunately, recent findings have revealed that it's
largely untrue. A good portion doesn't "hold water," but some of it does.
Water still played a crucial role in our evolution, as we will see. But
first, let's look at its sister theory: the one on very dry land.
Flight or Fight on the Savanna
The most publicized explanation of evolution has life moving ever upward,
from the bottom of the sea, out of the ocean, slithering, stalking, gliding,
soaring towards the sky. Our mammalian ancestors were humble ground
dwellers. At first. But there's a strong indication that, like many of our
primate cousins, we took to the trees. And then the climate changed, the
trees gave way to grasslands. We had to come down out of the trees and
forage for food.
Standing, walking on two feet, is more precarious that four feet. But being
out of balance has its advantages if we direct the course of our natural
propensity to fall. If we fall headlong, then break the fall with one leg,
then another, we move ourselves forward, faster and faster. We run!
The headlong stride is helped by growing longer limbs. Longer legs makes us
better runners than short, squat legs. There's less time spent on the
ground. The forward momentum helps counter gravity's pull. Arms in good
proportion to the length of our legs means that, if we stumble, we can
cartwheel or tumble on the ground, then rise and keep going.
Running, running, running, looking desperately for safety up a tree trunk,
but finding none on the savanna. Now, that's scary! And so, eons later, we
run in our dreams, pursued by frightening critter or human monster, hoping
to get airborne, but failing to find an altitude high enough to avoid
grasping hands or toothy jaws. Another instinct has been honed to a fever
pitch.
Flight or fight doesn't mean literal flying, it means fleeing, getting away
as quickly as we can. It's an instinctual preparation of the body for an
active motor response to threat. Heart action increases, blood pressure
rises, respiratory rate goes up.
Being chased is by far the most typical theme in the recurring dreams of
both children and adults today. Flying dreams often begin when a dreamer is
being attacked and discovers, with astonishment, that it is possible to
escape by flying away. How could we have flown in our ancestral environment?
Well, hopefully we could still leap up into some of the dwindling number of
trees. And when we stopped running, and our blood pressure fell, we might
feel a "floating" sensation.
But the best bet for "flying" is the result of running. When we leave the
scary scenario far behind, running becomes, not escape, but enjoyment. Even
today, runners can get a "high" by using forward momentum to defy gravity
with every flowing interim between steps. So, flee during the day, fly at
night.
Ah, the runners of the plains! Makes for another good tale of the origins of
our upright stance. Again, not well supported by fossil evidence.
Falling From the Tree Tops
Recent palaeoanthropological discoveries paint a different picture of early
apes. Trees actually were part of the picture. In terms of predators, they
were a comparatively safe place to spend the night. However, at the top of
the forest, we'd be at the mercy of gravity. A momentary lack of vigilance,
a single slip, could mean certain death. Hyper-awareness of our location in
space would have become, not a conscious act, but a necessary instinct,
adjusting our attitude automatically. Baby could rock-a-bye, curled up in a
fetal position, in a nest of twigs and leaves, on a tree bough swaying in
the wind. But baby would fall when venturing over the edge. Even today, the
greatest cause of infant death among our cousin chimpanzees is falling from
the treetops.
Our powerful urge-to-life became so deeply embedded in our bodies that the
least sensation of falling can rouse us from the sleep state. Fear of
plummeting earthward haunts our dreams more than a million years after we
were forced to trade arboreal existence for life on the ground. Thus,
falling dreams are simulations of an ancient concern, with real
consequences. They are easily activated, frequently repeated scripts
designed by natural selection to be released in specific conditions. They
are biological defense mechanisms the evolved in an environment where the
threat of falling recurred over and over again for hundreds of thousands of
years.
This very long evolutionary history left a lasting mark on our dream
production system. The system will make an attempt to describe current
concerns using basic materials imported from our ancestral environment. The
script will be reenacted whether or not we have actually encountered
situations comparable to our ancient threats. We don't have to literally
fall from a tree or cliff to have a falling dream. We just have to feel like
we are.
Getting Smart in the Swamp
DNA evidence shows that, some 80,000 years ago, the path of humans took some
of them out of Africa, across the Red Sea and into what is now Yemen. Their
migration continued along the edge of the Indian Ocean to Australia and
beyond. Before boats and rafts assisted in that trek, passage was by wading
and swimming through shallow water from one nearby land mass to another. How
could this be? Aren't we just land creatures? Perhaps not.
About 4 million years ago, water flooded the area where our ancestors lived,
probably isolating them on several volcanic islands. The old sources of food
in the trees and on the ground were soon depleted. We had to learn to
survive at the water's edge. Most apes aren't very fond of water; some are
clearly afraid of it. But food is a tremendous motivator. Since the main
food source was in the water, that was where we had to go.
The earliest hominids were semi-aquatic wading apes, foraging in an
environment that included forest, meadow, marshland and possibly the
seaside. We were aquarboreal. All apes can stand and walk upright at least
some of the time. As tree-dwellers we had already developed hands that can
easily grasp limbs and leaves. We could stand on the ground and pick fruit
and insects off the lower branches. To wade in water, using hands to gather
food, we needed to stand squarely on two feet. Our famous cousin, "Lucy,"
had extra wide feet (an attribute that frogs and salamanders share).
The riverside swamps and seaside marshes have predators just as dangerous as
the grasslands and the forests, but they tend to be of the sneakier type:
spiders, snakes, crocodiles. We'd have to be very alert to spot them
(crocodiles are quite capable of stealth). Since predators roamed freely, we
still had plenty of need to run in panic and leap for the trees. But if our
infants fall from the tree tops over waterways, they won't sink, if they're
pudgy enough. They can float. This might have been just enough time to grab
them before the predators attacked.
For all the dangers and fears, our change in diet turned out to be a
blessing in disguise. The food we were gathering (fish and seafood) are
linked with brain growth. As we got smarter, we could outwit predators
better. Become the hunter instead of the hunted. During arboreal life, we
had developed a hyper-awareness of position in three-dimensional space. This
served us well when we entered the water. We waded, then swam, then learned
to dive. Tree, land or waterways, we're built to move. It's healthy for us.
Our children still remember this imperative. They have a lot of spirit and
energy to keep in motion.
Eventually, we grew into a new creature with a huge neocortex. Such an
advancement results in the development of advanced tool use, intricate
social behaviors and a complex spoken language. Finally, we had the ability
to *talk* about our dreams. Especially those intensely powerful dreams that
have us moving swiftly, fleeing for our lives.
With a plentiful food source there was more time for leisure. Time to lay on
our backs and look skyward, at the birds soaring through the air. The sky
was freedom; it had few, if any predators to threaten our existence. When we
closed our eyes, we could retain the image, the memory of the birds in
flight.
Still, it was not an idyllic world. In addition to predators, there was
illness and injury. Like other animals, we seek out plants that numb pain
(and often give us a high, besides). Floating sensations from mind-bending
chemicals imbibed during the day can attach to our memories of flight and
build flying dreams at night.
Evolutionary Dreams
In evolutionary terms, therefore, flying has its origins in two main
instincts: escape from predators and escape from pain. In those strange
dreams that reprise our frights, our fights and our flights. In those
euphoric dreams that are lifted by a medicinal high. In either case, the
best scenario replaces an extremely bad sensation with a good one. We're
motivated to go beyond the panic and agony, all the way to a peak
experience. In other words, there's a reward at the end of hurt and fear. In
time, we learn we can get the same high sensation without using plants. And
without having to go through the pain and strain.
In our dreams we float in ecstasy or run until we fly. Flying helps us flee,
but not from ourselves. Dream flying is bred from an urge to keep the body
from harm, to take it along for the ride. Thus flying is the unification of
mind, spirit *and* body. Now that's freedom!
http://members.aol.com/caseyflyer/flying/dreams.html (Dream Flights)
* Hutchinson, Michael. The Book of Floating. New York: William Morrow and
Co., 1984.
* Kuliukas, Algis. River Apes. www.riverapes.com (3/04).
* Mavromatis, Andreas. Hypnogogia: The Unique State of Consciousness Between
Wakefulness and Sleep. New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1987.
* Morgan, Elaine. The Aquatic Ape: A Theory of Human Evolution. New York:
Stein and Day, 1982.
* The Real Eve. Discovery Communications, 2002.
* Revonsuo, Antti. "Did Ancestral Humans Dream For Their Lives?," Sleep and
Dreaming: Scientific Advances and Reconsiderations, Pace-Schott, Edward F.,
Mark Solms, Mark Blagrove and Stevan Harnad (Eds.) Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press, 2003, 275-293.
* Revonsuo, Antti. The Reinterpretation of Dreams: An Evolutionary
Hypothesis of the Function of Dream.
http://goodelyfe.healingwell.com/dreams/Dr%20ar.htm (3/04).
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Lucid Living On The World Dreams Peace Bridge
The World Dreams Peace Bridge
A View from the Bridge
Jean Campbell
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If any of you have ever dreamed, as I have, and at the same time been aware
that in the dream you were both awake and walking through a glass door,
feeling your molecules and the molecules of the door form and reform, then
you already have an idea of the magic potential of lucid living.
In the dream, we can do many things impossible to us in ordinary waking
life; yet the lucid dreamer recognizes the connection between the dream and
waking life in a very particular way. If I can be awake in the dream, aware
that I’m dreaming, can I not be aware in waking life that this might be a
dream? And if this is a dream, might not the impossible be possible here as
well?
I have no particular desire to walk through walls in waking life, but I have
a very real desire to live in peace. I desire a world in which children are
free to dream, rather than living in fear that the next gunshot might kill
them or their father or mother. I desire a world in which conflict, though
it certainly will continue to exist, might be resolved by peaceful means;
and I desire a world in which the incessant greed of a few does not lead the
many to lose sight of the fact that our dreams promise endless abundance.
Because of these desires of mine, in October 2001, not long after the
terrorist destruction of the World Trade Centers in New York, I invited a
group of friends from around the world to join me on The World Dreams Peace
Bridge, in what has proven to be a grand experiment in what I define as
lucid living.
Now, the group of dreamers who make up the Peace Bridge, some of whom are
here in this room, have many different backgrounds. They come from sixteen
different countries around the globe; they are of different faiths; they are
as young as twenty-one and as old as seventy-five. But they share one thing
in common, a belief in the power of the dream. And out of this belief has
come a hope—that by utilizing the power of the dream we might, in some way,
begin to attain the second goal all of the dreamers on the bridge share: a
world filled with peace and abundance.
The World Dreams Peace Bridge has an active discussion group of around
sixty-five people. Unlike some online discussion groups, where months go by
without a post, on the Peace Bridge there are always a dozen or more posts
each day. It is probably of interest to note that the majority of dreamers
in this discussion group, whether they be from Australia, Japan, the United
States, Germany or Holland, are fairly practiced lucid dreamers. I believe
this fact, this shared experience of lucidity, is the glue which holds the
group together. Many members of the group have other types of psi dreams:
precognitive dreams, telepathic dreams, shared dreams, giving them a common
belief about the flexible nature of time and space. But the experience of
lucidity may be the commonality which gives birth to the hope that global
change is possible.
The Peace Bridge is a freewheeling place, in which dreams, ideas,
creativity, and longing for community are all expressed. There are no rules,
past that of kindness and respect for one another, yet out of this multitude
of voices have evolved several clear and distinct ways to promote and foster
lucid living. All of this has been, to me, a rather magical result of the
fact that three years ago I sent an e-mail to some people asking if they
wouldn’t like to join me in an attempt to dream up some peace. It is these
tools for lucid living, which have grown spontaneously out of the Peace
Bridge, that I would like to share with you today, along with examples of
where use of these tools might lead us.
Honoring the Dream
Peace Bridge member, Sandy Ginsberg, who is also a member of ASD, has
written for ASD’s magazine _Dream Time_ about honoring the dream. She was
doing this before she ever joined the Peace Bridge, but her work inspired
both some of the early art exchanges on the Bridge, and ultimately an entire
dream art gallery on the Peace Bridge web site. Here is what she says in an
article published on the World Dreams site:
“We run the risk of postponing the gift from the dream when we fail to take
action. By honoring the dream creatively, we allow the dream’s message an
opportunity to be delivered to us. By honoring the dream, I am referring to
the conscious effort to manifest a part of the dream in the waking world.
This creative act can take form as visual art, earthwork, food preparation,
music, interaction with another or an activity or journey that is calling to
you.”
In the context of a group of dreamers, communicating with one another
online, this idea of honoring the dream has taken on new dimensions. Here is
just one example:
On July 26, 2002, Jeremy Seligson from South Korea had a dream about a peace
train. “Our long black locomotive travels across the country to Washington,
D.C.,” he said in his dream report to the group. “A large white banner
around the smokestack reads, ‘PEACE TRAIN.’ This makes me joyful.”
What we soon discovered was that other members of the Peace bridge began to
dream about trains too, and before long there was a discussion about
creating Peace Trains around the world. Of course, the result has been not
just an honoring of Jeremy’s dream, but an honoring of the dream all of us
have for peace on Earth. The first of the Peace Trains was created by
children in South Korea, but since then trains have been created in
Australia, in Israel, in Turkey, in the United States and several other
countries in the world. In Australia, Peace Bridge members Nick Cumbo and
Victoria Quinton have facilitated Peace Train workshops, and Nick has
designed a web site,
www.PeaceTraining.org.
One teacher from the United States plans to take the Lorikeet Peace Train,
which began in Australia and traveled to schools in Washington state and
Virginia, to Trinidad this summer. And most recently we received the first
of the pictures drawn by children in Iraq for the Iraq Peace Train.
As Jeremy writes in his “Call for Peace Trains”:
“Whereas our planet is in jeopardy—children live in poverty; violence is
everywhere; the air is filthy; and ice caps are melting—we call upon
ordinary people of the world to join us in a cry for peace by reaching out
with your hands and building a carriage for a Peace Train, or even an entire
train.
“A Peace Train is an art form—with an engine, carriages and caboose….”
You can view some of the Peace Train art created by children around the
world at Jeremy Seligson’s presentation during this conference. And you are
welcome to join us in the creation of trains as they begin to link people to
one another the world over.
Setting the Intent
The second approach to lucid living discovered by the members of the World
Dreams Peace Bridge is known among dreamers as setting the intent for the
dream. When we speak of lucid living though, we are also speaking of setting
an intention or focus for waking life.
From the beginning of the Peace Bridge, people often asked for dreamers to
dream on a particular date for a particular purpose, which might be for an
individual healing or for the children of Afghanistan, or any number of
other things. Not infrequently, dreamers would share similar dreams themes
or dream about one another during these times.
Finally last year in April, Kathy Turner from Australia asked, “Is there a
name for this type of focused, intense peace dreaming we are doing?” And a
conversation began about this on the discussion list.
Before long, the group came up with a name; one which like the group is
multilingual. It’s a combination of Japanese, Chinese and English that we
call DaFuMu Dreaming, or Big Dream of Good Fortune. So if you would like to
do a little world dreaming with someone, just ask them to DaFuMu.
I’d like to give you just one example among the many available, of how this
type of dreaming interacts with waking life to create greater shared
lucidity.
On November 20,2003, I woke before five a.m. and went directly to my
computer. Because the World Dreams Peace Bridge spans the world, someone is
always awake. I found a message from Ilkin Sungu in Istanbul saying that
bombs were exploding again. Earlier that day, four terrorist bombs had
exploded in populated areas of the city. Immediately I sent a request to the
Peace Bridge and other online dream groups like the ASD Dream Activism
group, for DaFuMu Dreaming for the people of Istanbul.
There were several dreams reported to the Bridge the next day, but I am
going to start with one of my own, because it involves all of us here in
ASD.
When the dream begins, I am sitting in the dining room of a big house where
ASD is having a workshop. Yvonne Baez from Mexico and I are sitting
cross-legged on the floor, facing one another. I am explaining to her about
permeable and impermeable boundaries in dreams. Then later all of the people
in the house lie down on the floor to go to sleep.
We are awakened not long after that by Alan Siegel and Bob Hoss coming in
the front door. Soon everyone is awake and up again.
In the next scene in the dream, I am flying in a helicopter that Bob is
piloting. We are flying across a bay spanned by the Bosporous Bridge.
I look to my right. Ahead of us is a convoy of helicopters. I am worried
that they are US helicopters getting ready to bomb someone. Then I look to
my left and see a winged figure backwinging to alight on the land below. At
first I think it is an eagle, the US eagle, and I’m afraid again. But then I
realize that it is an angel. Bob smiles.
There were many other shared images which came from this night of DaFuMu
dreaming, but the one which most closely connected with mine came from a
dream sent by Yvonne Baez, who was present in my dream. Yvonne wrote that
she forgot to set her intention for the DaFuMu dreaming before she fell
asleep, but two hours later something woke her up. “I felt Jean’s presence
right in front of me,” she said “and immediately began to send peace and
love around the world.”
Yvonne also sent a dream in which she is in a swimming pool with a friend
who is having a crisis of faith. Suddenly, in the dream, Yvonne says, the
clouds start taking on the shapes of big angels all around. “I tell my
friend, ‘Look up to the sky! There are many angels above us,’” Yvonne told
us. “She looks up, but sees nothing.”
In her message thanking the group for the DaFuMu dreaming, Ilkin wrote that
on that night each year Turkey celebrates the feast of Qudar: “It is
believed in Islam that tonight is the sacred night on which God sends all
his angels to the world to listen to the prayers and forgive sins,” Ilkin
said.
When I announced my intention to write this paper to members of the Peace
Bridge, Kathy Turner again spoke about DaFuMu dreaming to the group. Her
words summarize far better than mine what DaFuMu dreaming is really all
about.
“I think the DaFuMu is a real tool of lucid living,” Kathy wrote. “A DaFuMu
enters by conscious intention into the collective consciousness, and seeks
to shift the possibilities held there. It seems to me it is a practical
application of the ideas inherent in Jung’s collective unconscious and the
Eastern idea of universal awareness. But what is revolutionary, and perhaps
even evolutionary, is that rather than merely seeking to experience the
collective Unconscious (as in the traditional Jungian view of dreams) or
seeking to align our consciousness with universal consciousness (as in the
Eastern view), the DaFuMu actually uses the conscious intent to shift the
possibilities held within the collective consciousness. Now clearly the
shift cannot be dramatic and won’t deliver “what we want,” as I feel the
field we are reaching is one of possibilities rather than actualities. But
it will shift possibilities, and that opens up something new.
“Unlike the traditional means of shifting possibilities (e.g. prayers to
God—understood by me as another name for this field of collective
consciousness) the DaFuMu actually uses one of the Prime Means by which the
collective consciousness is more or less directly available to us. I suspect
that makes our conscious intent more powerful in effect. To me, all this
means the DaFuMu is a revolutionary tool of Lucid Living.”
“Second,” Kathy goes on, “the DaFuMu also creates the possibility of new
ways for the individual dreamer of relating to the world. I have not
forgotten the DaFuMu dreams from before the Iraq invasion. I’ve read them
over many times to see what it is about them I find so interesting. What I
notice is that almost every dream is either an experience of peace or
displays ways to find peace. Now that means we were able to lay down in our
minds the possibility of a new pattern, that of peaceful relating, or to
confirm that pattern within us, giving it more strength.”
There were several responses on the Bridge to what Kathy had to say about
DaFuMu dreaming, but I think one of the most insightful came from Ralf, who
said, “I dream peaceful solutions more often since I am on the Bridge.” But
additionally he made this comment: “We don’t know much for now of how the
thing works, but information may be an important part of the psychodynamic
(in the sense of energy). So it may be that new thoughts, ideas, solutions
may have a unique power. This is an important factor in homeopathy too. The
system changes when the right information is applied.”
Ralf is not only a nurse, but a healing practitioner who uses homeopathy. He
has also studied and practiced lucid dreaming techniques.
An interesting note to this discussion of DaFuMu dreaming came from Pam, who
teaches college students in Washington, D.C. “I am always behind with
e-mails, so frequently I don’t have conscious awareness of when we are doing
group DaFuMus, but when I check my journal I almost always dream of friendly
groups and have vivid recall during those days.”
Cultivating Community
Those of you who are familiar with some of my earlier work with dreams know
that I have spent quite a lot of time researching group dreaming, or mutual
and shared dreams in the group setting. It has not been surprising to me to
see the number of mutual dreams which arise from the dreamers on the World
Dreams Peace Bridge, since I believe that groups of people often share
dreams spontaneously.
However, there is an element of what happens on the Bridge which I think is
very pertinent to lucid living, and that is the conscious attempt to
cultivate community. Rather than being a six-week class or an eight-week
experiment, the World Dreams Peace Bridge is an ongoing activity, week after
week and month after month, for members from all over the world. As we say
in our logo: “There can never be too many people dreaming of Peace.” The
result of this type of ongoing dreaming, combined with ongoing discussion of
dreams, ideas, thoughts, and reflections on daily life has been that not
only have dreams been shared but profound changes have occurred for many of
us, particularly in the realm of understanding people from other cultures.
Let me tell you about an incident of shared dreaming which relates directly
to this ASD conference.
When the bombing of Iraq first began, despite the protest of millions around
the world, we people from the Peace Bridge held DaFuMu dreaming for the
children of Iraq. It is sobering to know that over seventy percent of the
population of that small country is under the age of eighteen.
The first night of the DaFuMu, I dreamed of a young Iraqi girl, maybe five
or six years old, running to greet me with her arms outstretched and a big
smile on her face. Her image has stayed in my mind and heart.
Then starting in March of this year, almost a year to the day from when
bombs began dropping on Baghdad, I began dreaming about this ASD conference.
Night after night I was dreaming about working in the kitchen to provide
food for all the people at the conference. I was often accompanied by this
same little Iraqi girl. In fact, these dreams prompted my final decision to
come to this conference, even though I could ill afford it, because they
spoke to me about the importance, at the world level of what we are doing
here.
Now you understand this was not DaFuMu dreaming, only my own compulsive
personal dreams. Nonetheless, two other members of the Peace Bridge shared
my kitchen dreams, Rita Dwyer and Jody Grundy. Both of these wonderful
ladies suggested that I take a break from the work, go out and sit in the
yard and have a cup of tea.
This is the type of community I feel is built with endeavors like the World
Dreams Peace Bridge: loving, caring, sharing and compassionate—a real
example of lucid living.
There are also deeper and even more important issues that I feel are
addressed within the context of the Peace Bridge community, when I think
about lucid living. Many times, I feel that our dreams, even our lucid
dreams, and our work with them, is quite insular. What I mean is that we
tend to believe that even the language of dreaming is the language of my
native tongue, whether it be English or German, Dutch or Japanese. We
believe that the culture represented by dreams is mine, my own familiar
world.
To some extent this attitude is perfect as a background for people to learn
about lucid dreaming and lucid living. But if we are truly considering
living lucidly in the world, as citizens of the world, then it may be
necessary to confront the other: that is to confront the deepest, most
culturally ingrained beliefs and feelings about otherness and separation.
Particularly in a time of war, it may be necessary to confront the question
of just who is the enemy.
Naturally, if people share their lives with one another daily, as we do on
the World Dreams Peace Bridge, there is ample opportunity for this type of
confrontation, and often with remarkable results.
A most recent example of what can result from this sharing, as it’s done on
the Bridge, arose from a post from Jeremy Seligson entitled: “My Mother Died
in Hiroshima.” In this e-mail, he detailed the cause of his mother’s death,
which happened when Jeremy was five, as proceeding from the fact that his
father was at the time Manager of Budget for the Atomic Energy Commission
and the family lived at the US Nuclear Testing Facility in Oak Ridge,
Tennessee. Breast cancer, from which Jeremy’s mother died, was found to be
the most common cause of death from cancer to result from the type of
nuclear bomb tested at Oak Ridge, and also dropped on the Japanese city of
Hiroshima at the end of World War II.
The response to Jeremy’s post was enormous within a group with active
members from China, from Japan, from Germany, Australia and the United
States. In fact, the issue touched us all, in terms of histories in the
cultures in which we grew up. I will not tell the entire story here, since
it was used as the April, 2004, “View From The Bridge”, which is published
as a monthly column in Richard Wilkerson’s E-Zine, Electric Dreams and as a
monthly update on the World Dreams Peace bridge web site. (You can read it
there at either www.dreamgate.com or www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org )
But I would like to share one or two of the results of discussion around
Jeremy’s post. As people began to realize the implications of what Jeremy
was saying, May Tung wrote from San Francisco: “Don’t forget the Chinese
when we talk about Hiroshima. I grew up in World War II, remember the fear
and hatred we had for the Japanese. Through my family was fortunate enough
to move to the safe region, the Japanese were pushing closer and closer.
That kind of fear and panic, feeling your back is against the wall with no
more ground to retreat…. We CELEBRATED when the bombs were dropped and Japan
surrendered.”
When Kotaro wrote a response from Japan, he mentioned how as a young man he
had often thought about what he would have done if he had been asked to
fight for his country during World War II. “There is no ‘if’ in the
history,” he wrote, “but I think I would be certainly one of them if I was
born in those years. I would try to be a good soldier for Hirohito and God
blessed country. This imagination always terrified me.”
“Dearest Kotaro,” May wrote back. “Here we are, a Japanese and a Chinese,
with genuine affection for each other. As a matter of fact, dear friend, you
alone have made more basic difference in my feelings toward the Japanese
than any other single factor. I have felt close to you, respected you, since
the beginning.” She added to this: “How do we promote peace? By posts like
these on the Bridge. Right, everybody? Non of our hands are totally without
blood.”
In answer, not long after this Ralf had a dream which he told the group. In
this dream, Ralf is an agent whose job is to kill Hitler, who is speaking in
front of a group of people. After much difficulty, Ralf is finally able to
kill Hitler. Not long after that in the dream, just as if a computer had
been rebooted, Hitler appeared again, doing exactly what he’d been doing
before.
In his commentary on the dream, Ralf wrote: “I see that we need to fight for
democracy itself all over the world, even in the so-called ‘democratic
countries’ like the US and Germany. We need to fight for democracy and peace
in our personal relations and we need to fight for a peaceful way of living
together globally and locally. We can’t wait for any administration to do
that…. We need to modify the operating system. Any killing of dictators
seems to be no use in the long run. Global Windows XP needs an update,
urgently.”
As we have found on the Bridge, the Internet provides a kind of
communication particularly suited to lucid living. There is something about
the immediacy of the Internet communication and something about the
isolation of that communication to just our written words, that seems to
focus our connectedness. A plea for support, whether it be from Jody with
her son's friends in the army; or Anna with her son, or Stephen with his
father's death is met immediately with a flow of love from around the world.
And as time is no longer a definer of communication, the love flows
literally "around the clock". In turn the support generates its own
momentum in waking life. As Anna said after a DaFuMu dreaming for her and
her son, "I feel so humbled in the face of this. If that (support) is there
for the asking, then it follows so naturally that my heart opens and desires
to pour out too!"
The Internet also enables an easy linking with other peace groups around
the globe. Just an email message is sufficient for us to become aware of the
strength and vitality of another desire for peace. Chayim, a resident of
Israel, entered our group seeking to spread knowledge of his Hands Across
Jordan project to help peace in the Middle East. We are now working with
Chayim, cheering him on in his own peace activity.
Just as with dreaming, even lucid dreaming, the particular quality of
focus and immediacy the Internet provides, is no substitute for the far more
messy, rich waking life connections. We all meet in a cyberspace and
dreamtime, yet there is a pull to waking life connection. Some of us have
translated that into waking life meetings. There is growing awareness of
the joy of "hearing" a voice on the phone or meeting someone who exists only
in written form. Recently Stephen is welcomed Chayim from Israel, to his
home in Virginia, in the US. Chayim has mentioned flying members of the
Bridge to Israel for the Hands Across the Jordan date in November. Such
world connections, made at the level of the individual, create the
groundwork for peace.
Taking Action on the Dream
What Ralf says about the need to reboot the Global XP may sound amusing, but
certainly one of the things that dreamers on the Peace Bridge have
discovered about lucid living is the need to take action on our dreams. That
means listening to our dreams, whether they are lucid or non lucid,
listening to the advice and suggestions of the wise dreamer, and carrying
these actions forward into the waking world with some sense that dreams do
come true, can come true, that the reality of the dream with all its vast
improbabilities can become the reality of the waking world.
As soon as the bombs began dropping on Baghdad, many of us were impelled by
our dreams to reach out in some way to the people of Iraq, particularly the
children of Iraq, to demonstrate a dream of solidarity and peace.
Ever the wise woman of the group, May Tung counseled this:
“We are not a large group,” she said, “but we can do something small and
personal. We can provide toys and art supplies for the traumatized children
of Iraq.” And that is how the Aid for Traumatized Children Project was
begun.
For the first nine months of its existence, the group within the Peace
Bridge who chose to participate in this project collected funds while
looking for some way to send packages and to make contact with therapists
and others who were working with children in war-torn Iraq. Even though we
were turned back time and again by UNICEF and other organizations, who told
us that our project was too small, too insignificant, we began to establish
a network of contacts within that country—again thanks to the Internet,
which allows for e-mail to travel even though there may be bombing in the
next town or the next block.
Finally, in January of this year, through the help of Nobel Prize nominee
Kathy Kelly and her organization, Voices in the Wilderness, we were able to
make contact with the Season Arts School in Baghdad, and the group of
university graduate students who were running a program for children
designed to deal with the trauma of war. In January, the first of our
packages were purchased in Istanbul, including musical instruments like a
guitar and an aud, drums, jumping ropes and soft, cuddly toys.
Ilkin Sungu from Turkey, a country which forms a natural bridge between
Europe and the Middle East, ahs been our point person on this project,
devoting endless hours to shopping, shipping and writing e-mails to our
friends in Iraq and elsewhere.
I wish you could see the expressions on the faces of the children who have
been touched by the generosity of the people on the Bridge—and their
friends, for of course we have sent letters and e-mails to other people we
know, asking them to contribute. We have made four shipments now, and plan
more. Through the magic again of the Internet, we were able to receive
photographs of the children receiving the toys from the Peace Bridge. These
photos can be seen on the World Dreams web site. We are still carrying on
this dream-inspired action of lucid living, and you are welcome to
contribute if you’d like.
We discovered in the process of the Aid for Traumatized Children Project
that much of what we were doing with this project was very similar to what
we were already doing on the Peace Bridge: making connections, one person at
a time, one moment at a time, with other dreamers around the world, and
especially reaching out to the children. A most inspiring result of this
work came to us not long ago from the children in Baghdad, photographs of
the first drawings, for the first cars on the Iraq Children’s Peace Train.
These are truly some incredible drawings. And they are part of the display
of Peace Train art, which Jeremy is showing in his presentation here at the
conference. And so we have come full circle, in a way, have we not?
The primary goal of lucid living is to awaken the dreamer to the fact that
waking life and dreaming life may be one and the same, that we can erase the
barriers between the two. If waking life informs the dream, then so
certainly does the dream inform waking life. The dreams of children in Iraq,
translated into art, into drawings for a Peace Train, send us all a powerful
message, a message about our common humanity and our common need for peace.
Can we become lucid in our waking lives? I believe so.
Before ending today, I would like to thank all of the Peace bridge dreamers
for their contribution to this paper, whether they were quoted or not,
because they are the people who make this work possible. And I would like to
thank Rosemary Guiley, who devoted half of the Dream Activism chapter in her
new book, The Dreamer’s Way, to the work of the Peace Bridge. Thank you all
for listening too, and if you would like to become a peace dreamer, there
are directions for joining the discussion group at
www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org
Thank you.
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Spectral Waves: The Quest for the Holy Grail
Spectral Moon, White Spectral Wizard Year
© Ron Adams 2004
******************************************************************
The Waves is a newsletter reporting on the explorations underway at the Sea
Life forum. We take a community approach to dreaming, running monthly
dreaming projects to learn more about our world, and the evolutionary path
before ourselves and our planet.
The Quest for the Holy Grail:
http://sealife.dreamofpeace.net/viewtopic.php?t=1433
During the Spectral Moon, we were joined with Dream Alliance on The Quest
for the Holy Grail. John, a member of a group Dream Alliance was led to
Dreampeace through a dream, calling for guidance on other groups whom his
group could hook up with, in promoting world peace through dreaming. Last
year, we joined Dream Alliance in a magical adventure to Mt. Shasta.
http://dreamofpeace.net/thewaves/04mtshasta/
This year, John suggested we share in 'The Quest for the Holy Grail':
"The Quest for the Holy Grail seems very timely. As the Mayan Calendar winds
down to 2012, humanity is facing a choice. We can either pursue the
one-sided, male-dominated, authoritarian war paradigm or we can choose to
bring balance to this approach by adding the Sacred Feminine principles to
our lives. The Holy Grail has been thought to be the cup or chalice used by
Christ, but Christ used allegory and metaphor extensively in his teaching.
The Holy Grail is now being considered by many to represent the Divine
Feminine. "The Quest for the Holy Grail" can be seen as the opportunity for
us to re-claim the Sacred Feminine within us all.
This Sacred Feminine may manifest as the Goddess in Her many forms, or as
Mother Nature, or in any form that promotes the togetherness of the
Universal Network of Being. Our dream group here in Arizona has seen her as
Mary, Kwan Yin, Isis, Brighid, as well as in messages from whales and
dolphins and woodland creatures who have come to us in dreams.
The Grail has been associated with Avalon, the misty Isle, and with the
Druids. Any dreams with these images could be looked into for contact with
the Grail. Ask for messages from the Divine Feminine. Share them with us, as
we will share what we get with you. May we find and share in the Holy Grail
together.”
We used this link to improve our understanding of the project:
http://www.lilithsophia.com/
The Quest for the Holy Grail included many dreams on the feminine, healing,
creativity, intuition, and even the 13 Moon Peace Calendar. There were many
great dreams about this Quest. We discovered we were dreaming of each other
and finding out some suprising things about the 13 Moon Peace calendar
colours, the colours of the Tibetian Flag, dreaming about other dimensions,
and Goddesses like Isis. There was a strong connection with Compassion and
our Creativity as human beings on Earth.
Sunwolf kicked it off with a partial dream recall:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
HALF EMPTY OR HALF FULL
I went to bed reading parts of "Chalice of Ecstasy" by Charles Stanfield
Jones 1918 piece on 'Parsival' legend that Richard Wagner set to music, an
opera on the Holy Grail.
"Religious ecstasy takes place in the highest centres of the human
organism."
"In ritual therefore, we seek continually to unite the mind to some pure
idea by an act of will."
The piece said we do this continuously, to find some sort of religious
ecstasy.
In my dream, which was very detailed, I was working with some poweful woman
with raven black hair, on Sea Life. She was having me reorganize some files.
It made perfect sense in the dream. I woke up, not remembering who she was
or what we were reorganizing. It felt like tweaking what we had, making it
fit into a bigger picture. I do remember thinking to myself I couldn't wait
to tell Explora.
Anyway suffice to say it led to a very nice Full Moon ritual tonight. I got
to explore some of the concepts of the dream, without even remembering the
details of the dream. Very interesting. I just let my subconscious fill in
the blanks. My ritual was basically about invoking my striving for genius
and higher ideals, by filling the sacred cup, continuously. It gave me a
whole new insight into the old adage "Is the cup half empty or half full?"
Doesn't matter, drink what is there and fill it again!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
This set off a trend of the members of this Moon’s quest dreaming together.
During the course of posting Sunwolf put up a picture of a Jaguar avatar,
and this triggered a chain of events for John (Dreamster) and later Sandy
(GreenEyes).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FREE THE TIGER (JOHN)
Sunwolf,
It is remarkable that you are posting the picture of the large cat with your
name. That is one of the signs I was looking for. I had this dream in April:
I was in a large field with my dream group. A breeze came up and I lifted my
arms to a horizontal position and began flying. As I flew above our group
our members waved at me. I came in for a landing and noticed a large
building nearby that resembles our meeting hall. We all walked over and
entered the hall. Inside there was a rope extended the length of the room,
dividing it in two. Over the rope hung oriental rugs, which made the whole
thing look like a huge Tibetan Prayer Flag. One of our dreamers climbed up
on top of the rugs to sit on the rope. He said to us "There's a message up
here". (We often ask for messages in our dreams). "What does it say?" we all
asked. "It says, Free the Tiger", he answered. This has set off a whole
series of dreams related to freeing the tiger within us....in order to serve
the Goddess.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Then there was the T-shirt connection with both Nick and John. The first
night John dreamed he was wearing a T-shirt that read "Let Christ live
through you". Perhaps a symbol of the Cosmic Christ, John felt. Nick’s dream
had a t-shirt that read "REAL Beauty Standing Up". John felt that perhaps
the t-shirt messages were for the males in the group from ‘the Divine
Feminine’.
Nick later dreamed of a journey to 2012, he shared with the feminine power
within, and the importance of him creating a set of oracle cards based
around the maiden/mother/wisewoman trilogy in order to honour and support
this aspect of Self.
John also reported that another Dream Alliance team member had a dream ‘he
was receiving an award for an esoteric mathematical formula that he came up
with. The equation was several pages long, and very complex. On the last
page this huge equation came down to 6 over 3, which reduced to one half. I
believe it symbolized that we all represent one half of the answer. Waking
life is one half, dreaming is one half, Male is one half, female is one
half, light is one half, dark is one half, matter is one half, spirit is one
half.’
John (Dreamster) had a healing dream for a friend:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
“A friend of ours, the mother of our daughter's best friend, went into
seizures yesterday. She had recently had a stroke. She helped me edit one of
my books and is helping with a new book on lucid dreaming. We went to visit
her at the hospital and she said to me that she really wanted to know what
all of this suffering was about. She asked me to talk to Quan Yin about it.
I promised I would.
Last night I set my dream intent to ask for healing for our friend. In my
dream, I was at the beach. I saw a grand old mansion on the beachfront and
the gate was open. I walked in and saw an old woman sitting in a wading
pool. I intuitively knew she was a recluse, she had been a very beautiful
young woman and now didn't want anyone to see her. I approached slowly and
she turned around and made a funny face at me, but I knew it was alright for
me to join her. We sat in the pool and an old man joined us. He had a
watering can and started to sprinkle water over me as he sang a song in a
language I didn't know.
The water felt wonderful, and somehow it didn't leave me wet. The dream
ended. I drew a tarot card for the dream and again got the King of Cups
(upright). I feel that in asking for help for my friend, an older woman, I
received some kind of blessing myself. I believe the Goddess appeared to me
as the crone, and the watering can was the chalice or grail. I can't wait to
tell our friend about the dream.“
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunwolf’s Many Dolphins Dream (where he and GreenEyes had a synchronicity
with the image of playing the Guitar:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MANY DOLPHINS DREAM
First dream me and four guys were camping out, trying to escape some gangs.
Lars gets a cell phone call that some kids are setting fire to his parents
house. Suddenly there are guys surrounding our camp. They grab this main
dude we were hiding because they think he stabbed someone in their gang.
This gang leader pulls out a list of occult groups, and I read it, rather
long, I’d say about 20 names, TOPY, and Marriage House, all occult groups I
recognize. He says they are going to feed me to the Earth.
Next dream we are at a friends house. We are going to put The Book of the
Law to music. I sing a little bit of it and Dave says that’s nice, but we
have to lay down some rhythm tracks first. Dave asks GreenEyes if she has
her bass guitar and she says it is at home. Someone says there is a toy
ukulele and GreenEyes says its worth a try, better than nothing.
I go for a walk. It’s a beautiful spring day in Boulder. I walk from North
Boulder to the ocean, which in the dream is only a few blocks away. At the
ocean I remember the scene and I say this outloud. This little girl DC
overhears me and says “Oh, this has been here for a very long time.”
The Ocean water level is very low, the oceans are dying. These creatures
looked like long whitish-yellow bones that have dried in the Sun, and then I
noticed that they were slowly moving, they were alive. I couldn’t help but
notice they felt like whales, their heads looked a little like dolphins. I
asked the little girl what they were called. She replied “Many Dolphins.”
Like that was the whole name.
Before I could ask her to explain herself, the solid concrete I was standing
on in front of the metal rail turned to mud and I started to slip. I cried
out: “I don’t want to go now.” The dolphin/worm was edging towards me,
opening a gapping mouth. The little girl handed me her dolly blanket. I
wrapped it on the metal railing above us and pulled myself up. When I was
standing again, I woke up.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sage mentioned to use to pay attention to the colors in our dreams, which
led to GreenEyes having an interesting dream connecting the colors of the
Dreamspell with the Tibetan Flag, especially the Colour Green:
“I can only remember one dream. The dream would start and I would wake up,
then I would go right back into the dream as soon as I went back to sleep.
Over and over.
I was being shown the colors blue, red, yellow and white against a flowing
dark background. Sometimes they were shaped like the 13 moon avatars, but
mostly I saw bars of each color about 2 fingers wide, one color at a time. I
was supposed to repeat the colors. I kept trying to stick green in there
somewhere and I would hear, No. Just these colors. Finally I said, Okay!
Just primary colors!
I didn't have the dream any more after I said that. I can still see it in my
mind. I've been thinking about my artist supplies. I think I need to get
them out and be creative. I really can do anything with just those primary
colors.”
----------------------------------------------------------------------
And GreenEyes had another dream along these lines, which continued the
Tibetan flag dream. A dream of celebration of life and peace:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
All of Sea Life was at a colorful lovely peace festival. Beautiful blue sky.
We were going to hang prayer flags. The colored prayer flags had each of our
latest dreams of peace printed on them, but it was printed in Tibetan. Nick
wanted us to read them as we attached them to a braided hair rope (?) to
hang them. My dh had printed out a stack of them in English. They looked
like printed emails. I was handing them out as fast as I could.
At the same time I was whining about the Holy Grail assignment. Sunwolf
stepped up with a dark-haired girl and said, Stop! You know what you think.
Just write it down for Pete's sake! I blinked at him a few times, realized
he was right and went back to handing out people's dreams. Nick was saying,
Hurry up! We're using up too much time! All of us were smiling and trying to
hurry.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GreenEyes dream sums up the whole quest: the Search for the Holy Grail is a
search for COMPASSION:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
“My time leading up to bedtime and sleep last night was hectic and noisy. A
television was still on as I drifted to sleep. I was a bit annoyed that I
wouldn't have a few quiet seconds to set intentions. I thought, What
intentions would I set?.... the holy grail?....the white tiger?....find
spirit guide?.......the women of the tiger dream with their blowing black
hair was the last thing I remember thinking about...
I dreamed a lot of things, but I can only remember small pieces. Each bit
happened very quickly, just a few seconds each. I'm going to put them here,
because they feel somehow important.
I am looking down from the sky at a man figure outlined in white on a
brilliant green hillside......
I am with someone dressed in dark green. I am wearing old leather, brown and
soft. My hair is long and curly blond. We are scrambling through a cave with
boulders everywhere. We are trying to figure out a way to climb up to the
top of the cavern to get some little crystal tubes hanging there...like
stalactites. We urgently need them for flutes. I am determined! We are
hurrying and dirty and the little tubes kept getting further away......
Hip-length glossy black hair swinging back and forth in front of me, like
someone walking. I want to touch the hair and see if it is as soft as it
looks. As I reach out my hand, I think it might be a man......
I am being shown letters, one at a time, to form a word. I am supposed to
guess the next letter. Like a gameshow or something. The first letter is a
C. I thought, Cup! I guessed the next letter would be a U. An indistinct
figure of a woman sitting on a boulder shook her head at me and gave me
another chance. I was like, Whuht? I know she's going to tell me It's a cup!
and I tried to buy a vowel or something foggy.....She laughed and I could
see her right hand come down clearly in front of the rock, like into light
while the rest of her was in shadow. The rock seemed to be made of brown
velvet. The edge of her long sleeve had wine-colored crochet on it, about as
wide as my thumb. The pale hand started to pull the red-lettered card (with
fancy brown design all around the sides) out further--in order to see the
next letters. The next letter was an O. Everything started to tilt and I
realized I was falling! I heard a woman's voice say, Wait! Everything
blurred as she pulled out the rest of the card and I felt/heard rather than
saw the word COMPASSION”
----------------------------------------------------------------------
It seems like the quest never ends, in fact even though the moon is over,
Dreamster and his group are still dreaming of the Quest for the Holy Grail.
It was definitely a fun journey to share with everyone in the group.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Stay tuned next month for the results of our ‘Journey to the Galactic Center
’. We welcome new dreamers to join us in our adventures.
Email Ron:
sunwolf@...
The Waves:
http://www.dreamofpeace.net/thewaves/
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
_
Talking with dead people, flying spirits, flashing Virgin Mary eyes, dying
whale in a bathtub, and dating a serial killer…What do they have in common?
They are in the Electric Dreams Dream Section. Be sure to read all of these
dreams and more. If you want to send in dreams, enter them at
dreamflow@....
Date: 5/20/04
From: Anonymous
Dream title: none
Dream: I keep on having dreams about my grandmother that had passed away in
August of 2003. My dream about her is that we (the family) are at her
funeral and she gets up out the casket and she walks around (this dream
happens often). Can you please help me what does this mean does it mean that
she isn’t resting or what?
Date: 5/30/04
From: Anonymous
Dream title: Thirsty
Dream: I was dreaming that I was very thirsty and I kept on asking for
water.
Date: 05/31/04
From: momof2
Dream title: Spirits
Dream: My dream took place on the military base in Iwakuni, Japan. There
were a bunch of people in this house which had a wooden screen door. These
people and I were just walking around when the screen door opened up and in
came a dust cloud with these things I can only describe as spirits (maybe 2
ft long with a gray outlining of their body and what was supposed to be
their eyes and mouth) flew in and started attacking us. They would fly
through individuals, killing them. These humans would disintegrate into
powder. I ran out the door and could feel that one of these spirits had seen
me and was after me. I ran for a little bit and then picked up something in
my hand, not knowing what it was, threw it at the spirit and it turned and
disappeared. At this time I saw this older woman staring at me. She then
turned and walked off before I could talk to her. I went in search for her.
In my mind she knew something I didn't. All around this base in Japan I saw
these dust clouds and knew that people were being attacked. I kept thinking
that it might be a terrorist attack and some country had released these
things on us. I also couldn't understand why everyone was so calm about
these attacks. They were going on about life as normal and only freaked out
when attacked. After some time I went in to a local market and found this
woman I had been searching for. This woman asked me if I was able to see
these things. I said yes and she told me I was the only one that could and
that people were searching for me. She asked me if I knew what I had thrown
at that spirit. I said no and she showed me 3 lima beans. She was eating
them thinking that if one flew threw her they wouldn't be able to kill her
since what I had thrown was those and it scared them away. She gave me those
3 lima beans and I put them in my pocket. I also noticed that inside the
store, people were frantic trying to buy these beans thinking it would
protect them. As soon as they would walk out the door they were completely
calm again. I went in search for this guy I used to work with. He's a
Christian and I kept thinking that I needed to find him to see if he knew
something about these things that I didn't. There were 3 buildings in a row,
4 stories high, and about a mile apart. I ran to the first one to find only
another branch of the military living there and started running to the 2nd
building. At this point I woke up completely disturbed. If anyone has any
insight to this dream I would greatly appreciate it! I'm searching for some
dream interpretation.
Date: 6/1/04
From: Anonymous
Dream title: Shoes
Dream: I was at some type of gathering like a party, and my boyfriend's
daughter was there. She had been molested and was in a lot of pain. The
thing is that in my mind I thought that my boyfriend had done it to her. It
was so weird that his ex-wife was there also. I was caring for his daughter
and I went to help her take a bath and the whole time I helped her, the
thought that he had done this was in my mind. It seemed so real like if it
was really happening and I was not dreaming. The whole time the party was
going on and I thought to myself, how can everyone be so normal about this,
as if it did not happen?
Date: 6/1/04
From: Confused
Dream title: none
Dream: I stand outside my old boyfriend’s house. I want to meet him but his
mother tells me that he isn’t home yet. So I wait with a friend. The scene
just mysteriously changes to being inside an institution. And I pick
something up off the floor and then he walks past me. I catch up to him and
greet him. I then go back to my friend, because I am so excited. The boy I
like walked into this main room with a huge dome to wait for me. Then I go
to where he is, sit on his lap, and give him a kiss.
Date: 6/4/04
From: “C”
Dream title: Nightshift
Dream: I had one of the most intense and scary dreams I have ever had in my
life last-night. As soon as I woke I thought it must have been morning but I
had only been asleep for less than 90 minutes, I felt exhilarated yet scared
all the same, I tried to write down what I had dreamt this is what I wrote
(I haven t a clue what any of it means??!):-
Come out of the edge of darkness, I am at work my first nightshift. Working
okay. In bed trying to watch a Brazilian football match, look over to a work
colleague he said something (?) look back no Brazilian football match where
s the football, there s a shrug of shoulders. Step out, anymore work I am
thinking? Mental head never seen before, looked like an electrician
electricians everywhere, telegraph poles everywhere underground?? Person
says wasted tonight, this is mental what has he done another says in answer
all sorts, I feel scared of these new faces I’m thinking what’s going to
happen? I walk past a work colleague who I know and I say hello. He doesn’t
acknowledge me, he becomes distracted he sprints to a bloke, he’s fallen off
he says. I thought you had fallen off he shouts he goes to help, other
colleagues I have not seen before approach. I looked at the injured he looks
ok but very high. I broke my leg this time he says, grinning manically,
almost proud. He’s in a room, he shakes his ankle. It is broken and he is
shaking it. I shriek and sprint away scared. I sprint past people they ask
me what’s up he’s broke his leg I say. Not another one they say, totally
without emotion, as if it was as a matter of fact. I legged it a bit
further. I glance in to a room: loads of other people have broken arms,
legs, and worse, amputations in progress.
In my place of work dark underground I start taking the boxes in, they keep
piling up outside, more and more, I work faster and faster try to keep up, I
am, I enjoy it annoyed of the work but its there and I keep up. Something
outside I am holding a torch, something is coming in my direction, I am on
the edge of darkness I sprint away in a total daze, very light headed, I don
t know what s going on. I come around it is the early hours, see an old
friend he’s like my guardian angel I feel safe. I see a fete (bouncy castle
and stalls that sell marmalade) and a hotel everybody I see I know but I do
not know their names. I go in to the hotel looking for a short cut to get
underground around and around, over and over to get underground faster I
feel intense that I need get there.
This girl fancies you say my old friend all these strangers saying hi, they
knew me!!! I don t think I knew them (?) maybe. I am at work no you’re not
you’re in **** (a place name, a local town about 5 miles from where I live).
I sprinted, went in to the hotel made even more of a scene this time
hurdling tables and chairs guests where did they come from?! I am not at
work I go down, the gate is locked I can t get in, there s a basket outside
the gate. I ask my friend what the time is he says a time to me, I don t
know what time but I should be at work and here I am in **** (local town
same one as above), I must get back.
Go down a hill as everybody leaves not thinking straight, people look at me
mysteriously suddenly all is quiet I m all alone in a housing estate rows
and rows of houses I must get away from this place scared intense go one way
then next fake to go in the opposite direction who am I running from- more
intense still must get away railway crossing across road everything s clear
I can visualize everything, wide rail ways more than one track three I can
see a train as I approach it is coming from the right a smoking locomotive,
I can t slow down I am approaching the crossing from above, I swerve to the
right hoping to miss it, my feet hit the first tracks before the train I get
an electrical buzzing sensation wow I thought...I am stood on the track I
jump off the track look to my right and see a stranger on railway track
coming towards me . Am I trapped?????!!!!
Date: 6/4/04
From: Pam
Dream title: Whale watching
Dream: We were on the beach and whale watching. I witnessed an
undecipherable mammal, which could it be a whale or a dolphin. It sprung out
of the waters as another one, this time, the baby whale, also followed.
Date: 6/5/04
From: Anonymous
Dream title: Mother and father who are already dead
Dream: I was talking to my father first who died in 1992. I also dream that
my mother is talking to me too (who died in 2001). They are trying to tell
me numbers but I cannot remember the numbers. What does this mean?
Date: 6/6/04
From: Scary
Dream title: The shiny nan
Dream: My nan died on September 8. On my birthday, I had a dream about her.
She was in a old trailer and I was looking in on her and she was smiling at
me. She was shining, while I was looking in on her. I started to cry and she
looked at me and she looked like she wanted to hurt me. I know that she
wouldn't do that. She started to chase me to my uncle’s house that wasn’t
far from the old trailer. I started to fly and she turned in to a crow. I
would like it if I can find out what it's suppose to mean.
Date: 6-3-04
From: Anonymous
Dream title: Mice and devil
Dream: The devil put mice in my pocket .
Date: 6/5/04
From: anonymous
Dream title: none
Dream: I constantly dream my husband is sleeping with other women. My
husband is very flirty towards other women and I have found condoms in his
wallet as well as phone #'s.
Date: 6/9/04
From: Ianoah
Dream title: People from the past
Dream: I have reoccurring dreams of people from my past doing ordinary daily
tasks with me. The people are from all parts of my past. For example, my
third grade teacher, a girl I went to high school with (that I never have
spoken with before), a guy I worked with eight years ago and I are all
riding in an elevator together and laughing about the color of the carpeting
in the hallway of a bank that I visited halfway across the US a year and a
half ago. The dreams seem pointless, are never confrontational or dealing
with important or even current events. They also never involve people or
events from my current life. The only common denominator is that they bring
together people from various parts of my past that in all probability have
never nor will ever know each other. These dreams have been happening every
few months for many years. They don't really trouble me, I just find them
intriguing if not perplexing. Where are they coming from? And for what
reason?
Date: 6/9/04
From: Reema
Dream title: The neighbor
Dream: My neighbor gets inside my refrigerator and tries to break its back.
It’s as if she wants to look for spells or put a spell on it. She has a lot
of ice from the back of the refrigerator. My kid’s nanny watches her with
surprise when I come in. The neighbor sees me and she immediately leaves the
refrigerator and tries to explain ...then I woke up from my dream afraid
Date: 6/11/04
From: hennayume
Dream title: Desperate to find a place to live
Dream: Three different dreams simultaneously: I am housekeeping in a very
nice house. I keep thinking I will be able to find money or something to
sustain living there, but I don’t know how to get it. I need a lot I recall.
After a few days I become delusional and believe it to be my house. I love
the carpet it is very plush. All I remember is a big huge room that is never
lit brightly enough and the rest of the rooms being so dark I don’t go into
them. I never really feel too at home there and it feels more like a total
drug haze. I like being there and feel very high but then I am coming down
and I am severely depressed toward the end of my stay there and I realize I
won’t be able to stay. I remember when they came home, everything became a
total blur. I remember before they came home I was walking on that carpet I
liked, but it was dimmer and harder to focus on. I wished at that moment
that it was as i had seen it earlier and that I was still that happy.
In the second dream, I am driving looking for this house that will be very
cheap to live at. It is very far away in a place I have never been to. I
remember the names of the cities and they are real cities I have driven
through before but nothing like what it looked like in this dream. I
remember getting out of my car and there was this drama at a house. I wanted
to rent out the shack or something in its backyard. It was a dark brown
house and the property sloped down so the house was lower then street level.
There were kids involved and it got kind of weird. But I never really found
a place. For one, it was too hard to find and the house I did find had too
much problems going on in it.
The third dream is I am trying to go down a driveway of my old friend’s
house from childhood. Everything is so completely changed I can’t go down
the driveway and everything is all wrong.
Date: 6/12/04
From: Anonymous
Dream title: Is this trying to tell me something?
Dream: I had a dream that my friend and I were running up a lot of
staircases and each set of stairs lead to a different cellar. When we got to
the top cellar we saw a person/thing dressed in black and started walking
towards us so we jumped off the top floor into my aunt’s backyard near a
close line. My friend disappeared and I walked over to the BBQ area and my
cousin told me to read a letter. I read half of it but then I woke up. When
I was awake something told me to go back to sleep because there was a very
important message in the letter. So I went back to sleep and read a bit more
but then woke up again. I kept on going back to sleep and waking up. When I
went back to sleep, I returned to the exact same dream and the same part of
it. Could you please help me out this dream feel very significant to me and
I feel like I must find out what it means.
Date: 6/12/04
From: Susz
Dream title: Anthrax
Dream: There were classes going on about skin anthrax. my cats and I had
gotten it at a beach. It caused the inside part of my arms to itch and have
a rash. A girl was near-by she had medicine for it in a spray bottle. She
seemed drunk or something and was bragging about the medicine. I was talking
to her and I managed to get the bottle from her and she didn't even notice.
It was herbs and water in a spray bottle. I yelled to everyone around in the
class to come over here and look at it, we were at a beach area.
Date: 6/13/04
From: geepers89
Dream title: Eyes of the Virgin Mary
Dream: I was standing next to my husband. We were looking face to face at
the Virgin Mary. One of her eyes was brown and the other was blue. They
would then alternate, one blue, the other brown, one brown the other blue,
flashing back and fourth. The Virgin Mary looked scary, perhaps even dead. I
turned to my husband and said, "Remember when I told you that I had this
dream?" "I told you about this dream!" I started sobbing. He said, "No, I
don't remember." But I knew he was lying. I have no idea what this would
mean.
Date: 6/14/2004
From: Barbudo
Dream title: My Brother the Orca
Dream: I had a realistic dream of a white tile bathroom with a tub half full
of water. There was a small Orca or Killer whale (black & white) in the tub
thrashing and flopping around. My younger brother came into the bathroom and
as he approached the whale, he vaporized and became the whale. I realized
that the whale was dying as ink (Like a squid's ink) was coming from his
tail and out his mouth in periodic spurts. The whale thrashed when ejecting
the dark liquid. With each fit, he weakened. Eventually, he pushed over a
flap at one end of the tub and slid into a small tiled room or cave hidden
behind the end of the tub. I could see him flipping and knew he would die
soon. I awoke.
Date: 6/14/2004
From: Danielle
Dream title: none
Dream: I keep seeing a young man I met at this trade school 2 yrs ago He is
wearing a tux & holding a rose with a smile. What does this mean?
Date: 6-15-04
From: Me
Dream title: Sex with a stranger
Dream: This dream was about me having sex with a total stranger, after
having sex he said he had to find out if I was any good. And then he
disappeared just like that.
Date: 6/15/04
From: xxashiebabie
Dream title: Fight
Dream: I had a dream last night that a younger girl that I hate was walking
through my high school. She was walking towards me and when she saw me
coming she started walking in the opposite direction real fast. So I
followed her and kept provoking her by stepping on her shoes and pushing
her. She didn’t do anything so I grabbed her by her hair and starting
hitting her in the middle of the hallways. Everyone was still walking like
nothing was happening. The thing was that when I was hitting her in the face
it wasn’t hurting her and the punches just would go like I wanted them to.
Plus she wouldn’t even fight me back, so I let her go and I woke up.
Date: 6/15/04
From: sunflower1359
Dream title: Dream of cat
Dream: There is cat and he is trying to be friends with me, but I don't want
it. I am not acting like that I like this cat. Finally I am getting angry
and hit the cat and after I did that the angry cat bit me and scratched all
my hand and my arms.
What that mean is any one know?
Date: 6/15/04
From: anonymous
Dream title: none
Dream: The dream I’ve have that sticks in my mind is my teeth. It seems so
real; I can feel it and almost taste it. Most of the time, it starts with me
becoming aware that I’m in a dream and I start to touch my teeth with my
tongue. One feels loose, and then they all start falling out. They start to
break in half then into small pieces, and then I start spitting them out. At
the same time, my mouth will fill up with more small pieces of teeth. It
happens so fast that I start gagging and can’t close my mouth. I then try to
get them out with my hands but it’s happening too fast that I wake up. In
the last 10 years, I have this kind of dream about 4 maybe 6 times a year.
Date: 6/16/04
From: Kel
Dream title: Frustration
Dream: I keep dreaming that I need to be someplace at a certain time and
everything is ok then close to the time that the event will start I can't
seem to find stuff to finish getting ready and am always late. Although, I
wake up before I ever make it there. The dream is just frustrating looking
for objects and I am just exhausted and stressed when I finally wake up. I
keep having this dream over and over again but it is just different
situations that I need to be someplace.
Date: 6/16/04
From: anonymous
Dream title: Helpless
Dream: I have been dreaming lately of a dark figure over my bed I can hear
him breathe and it’s like he is holding me down. I am awake but I can’t move
my body only my head. I try and scream but nothing will come out. It feels
like it is attacking me and afterwards I cannot move and feel like all my
energy is gone. I’m terrified. This has actually happened to me more than 5
times wherever I go I got a rose quartz and it has not happened since.
Date: 6/16/04
From: Rach
Dream title: Serial killer dream
Dream: I've been having reoccurring dreams about serial killers but this is
the one I dream most often: I am on a date and I never see the guys face,
anyways, we are having a good time and all of a sudden he turns to me and
says, very casually "by the way I'm a serial killer" and I ask him if he's
going to kill me he says "no" and we just continue on with our date. It
doesn't even bother me that he's a serial killer. So we go back to his house
and he starts telling all the different ways that he kills people and he
sho
(Message over 64k, truncated.)
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