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E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c D.r.e.a.m.s
Volume #12 Issue #11
November 2005
ISSN# 1089 4284
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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
Richard Wilkerson
++ Global Dreaming News
Harry Bosma
++ Column: An Excerpt From the Lucid Dream Exchange
Lucid Dreaming And Parallel Universes:
An Interview with Fred Alan Wolf by Lucy Gillis
++ Column: The View From the Bridge
Awakening To the World
Olivia Strand
++ Article: Programming A Positive Dream
Linda Lane Magallón
++ DREAM SECTION: Special Selection of Computer Dreams
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D E A D L I N E :
November 19st deadline for December 2005 submissions
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Post Dreams and Comments on Dreams to:
Send news, events, workshops, conferences& reviews to
Harry Bosma <ed-news@...>
Send Articles, news and other items to:
Richard Wilkerson: <rcwilk@...>
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Editor's Notes
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Welcome to the November 2005 issue of Electric Dreams, your portal to dreams and dreamwork online.
If you are new to dreams and dreamwork, there are a few e-lists where Electric Dreams people seems to congregate that might interest you. One is
Subscribe by going here and registering
.. and another is the IASD bulletin board hosted by Ed Kellogg, Ph.D.
Please, no dreams interpreted here, just discussion of dreaming and dreamwork topics.
I'm a little late in putting up all the new dream links, which is an annual tradition that I usually do on Halloween. Hopefully those will be up in a month or two. Keep sending in updates on your dream sites to the Global Dreaming News, let's keep the dream link community alive.
This month in Electric Dreams:
Editor and dreamer extraordinaire Lucy Gillis, offer ED readers an excerpt from her Lucid Dream Exchange. This month she interviews the author of The Dreaming Universe, Fred Alan Wolf. Wolf is a physicist, lecturer and one of the 'stars' of the quantum possibilities movie, What the Bleep do We Know? Be sure to read "Lucid Dreaming and Parallel Universes."
Linda Magallón, author of Mutual Dreaming, notes that we often over-work our dreams, not just with dreamwork, but during the night itself, making them process and go over and over stuff that occurs during waking. How about giving your dream-maker a break and letting your dream go on vacation? "Learn how in Programming A Positive Dream."
"What can one do when need all over the world feels so overwhelming, and our efforts and donations seem little more than drops of water rapidly evaporating into the air?" Join the World Dreams Peace Bridge! This month you will get the View from Olivia Strand, and her how Jean Campbell and many other world class dreamers are changing the world. Be sure to catch up on all the latest projects of peace and connection to people around the world.
The Dream Section Editor is on vacation this month. In place of the Dreams Section, I'm including part 1 of a collection of computer dreams from "Gem". Gem's dreams start in about 2000 when she got a job involving computer work. What is interesting is that prior to this job, she knew little about them. Prior to that I knew very little about computers and spent very little time on them.
Thanks to Janet Garrett , ED articles from past issues are online in an easy-to-access format. These articles contain a wide range of information for dreamers and dreamworkers. You can see her work progress and view hundreds of article on dreams at: http://www.improverse.com/ed-articles/index.htm
Harry Bosma searches around the world for news on dreams and dreaming, which you can read about in the Global Dreaming News. If you have any dream news, conferences, books, workshops, and especially any online meetings or events, be sure to send that information to Harry by the 15th of each month at ed-news@...
More on the Cover Artist: Hugh Duncan, below.
Be sure to read all of these dreams and more.
If you want to send in dreams, please enter them at http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple
or join the dream flow at dreamflow@yahoogroups.com
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For those of you who are new to dreamwork,
be sure to stop by one of the many resources:
Electric Dreams in PDF: (thanks to Nick Cumbo)
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From Planet Dream,
-Richard Wilkerson
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G L O B A L D R E A M I N G N E W S
November 2005
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If you have news you'd like to share, simply email Harry Bosma at his special ed-news@... address. Apologies if I forgot something this month. Due to computer problems I lost a few days of my email.
Online:
- Brilliant Dreams dream pills
- Dream Visions: interpretation services
- Announcing DrMarciaEmery.com
Physical world:
- Bay area: combined Jungian / body based
- New York City: Montague Ullman
- Berkeley: Tibetan dream yoga by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
- South Carolina: DreamsWork Certification program
Books, movies, research:
- Dream Decoders tv show
Recurring events:
- Ritual DaFuMu for Peace
- Auction at Dreambay.org
* * * ONLINE * * *
---
- Brilliant Dreams dream pills
---
Three thousand years ago, in Homer's epic poem Odyssey, the gods gave Ulysses an herb that restored memory to his crew and made him immune to the forgetfulness poisons of the witch Circe. In 2001, the FDA approved a drug based on that very same herb to treat memory loss and having the remarkable effect of enhancing dream vividness. Now, Brilliant Dreams is pleased to bring you this dream boosting extract as a supplement to enhance your dreams and improve dream recall
What is this profound, FDA approved natural extract? Galanthamine from the spider lily & snowdrop plants. The mythical god that gave Ulysses this herb? Mercury, also known as the Bringer of Dreams. Visit Brilliant Dreams to learn more.
Rick Hargett
President - Brilliant Dreams
---
- Dream Visions: interpretation services
---
www.MyDreamVisions.com is a culmination of many years of studying dreams and their rich benefits in personal and spiritual development. Dreams are loaded with important - sometimes critical - messages that are often misunderstood or simply ignored. I have created www.MyDreamVisions.com as a roadmap to understanding dreams and using them for personal and spiritual development, and life improvement. The site includes dream interpretation resources for improving dream intuition and recall, a dream dictionary, step-by-step interpretation instructions, sample dream interpretations, a dream directory, and a marketplace with helpful dream-related products. I also offer dream interpretation services (starting at $6) using spiritual psychology and intuitive methods.
All the best to you,
Nancy Wagaman, M.A.
Dream Visions
Dream Interpretation Services
---
- Announcing DrMarciaEmery.com
---
Announcing my new website - www.drmarciaemery.com .
You can learn more about how to cultivate your intuition as well as engage in dreamwork and sign up for my free monthly newsletter. I welcome comments through the website.
Marcia Emery, Ph.D.
Intuition: Counseling, Coaching, Speaking
Author of PowerHunch!, The Intuitive Healer and Intuition Workbook
* * * PHYSICAL WORLD * * *
---
- Bay area: combined Jungian / body based seminars
---
Rana Halprin is offering new seminars for therapists, interns, students and the general public. Her orientation unites a Jungian orientation with the internationally known body based Halprin Life Art/Method. In an increasingly wounded world, these groups are aimed to embody our own Sacred Ground & the language of body Wisdom, Dreams, and Creativity. A focus is to restore vitality, and free our self expression.
Art works as a spontaneous yearning for restoration and belonging. It bonds us as a universal dialog: it is nature's way of healing depression, anxiety, and trauma.
Thursdays beginning October 6 7-9pm
San Francisco Studio (401 Alabama st between 17th & Mariposa)
$35 per class, CEU's available for interns
415-721-5374
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- New York City: Montague Ullman
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Dreaming as a Natural Healing System
Montague Ullman, M.D., is one of the best-known names in the field of dreamwork. For three decades, Dr. Ullman has devoted himself to extending dreamwork beyond the consulting room, out into the community, where ordinary people can help each other understand their dreams.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
6:30 refreshments, 7 p.m. program
The Community Church (downstairs meeting room)
40 East 35th Street (between Madison and Park avenues), Manhattan
$25 suggested admission, pre-registration encouraged
phone (212) 741-2207
Co-sponsored by:
» Friends of the Institute for Noetic Sciences (fions.org)
» The International Association for the Study of Dreams (ASDreams.org)
More information at http://asdreams.org/2005ullman/
---
- South Carolina: DreamsWork Certification program
---
Institute for Dream Studies - A dynamic DreamsWork Certification program led by Justina Lasley, M.A. based in Charleston SC with at-distance learning. Classes begin in January 2006. Deadline for registration is November 14th. Visit www.Dreamswork.us for information.
---
- Berkeley: Tibetan dream yoga by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
---
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will be teaching on Tibetan dream yoga in Berkeley, December 2, 3, and 4, 2005.
>From the brochure: "quintessential aspects of dream yoga, a simplified form of practice, and the relationship of dream yoga to death. Rinpoche will give instructions on how to prepare for sleep, how to enter and connect to the dream world, how to cultivate lucid dreaming, and how to utilize the lucid state for one's personal and spiritual transformation in the dream itself."
The cost is $160. ($20 if attending Friday evening only). For further information, laurashek96@... or 510 849-2373
I have attended his workshops before and they are quite interesting.
Judy Tart
* * * BOOKS, MOVIES, RESEARCH * * *
---
- Dream Decoders tv show
---
The show we have all been dreaming about - DREAM DECODERS - will air at 8pm on the Discovery Health Network on November 1, 8 and 15 . In this enlightening three-part series, three of the world's top dream analysts who are our "Dream Decoders" - Dr. Marcia Emery, Dr. Alan Siegel and Dr. Veronica Tonay - help participants and viewers understand the messages of their dreams to foster greater emotional and psychological health. DREAM DECODERS promises to be one of the most controversial, entertaining, and enlightening hours of television that our waking minds could experience.leaving us with something stimulating to think, and dream about. If you have questions or comments about the show, please email Discovery Health Channel's viewer relations department at viewer_relations@... .
Marcia Emery, Ph.D.
Intuition: Counseling, Coaching, Speaking
Author of PowerHunch!, The Intuitive Healer and Intuition Workbook
* * * RECURRING EVENTS * * *
---
- Ritual DaFuMu for Peace
---
The World Dreams Peace Bridge, on the 15th of each month, is holding a
monthly DaFuMu (a collective dream of good fortune:
http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org/dafumu.htm) to support peace.
In joining a DaFuMu each month we will be seeking the mandala of peace
within the universal mind: learning what it is to be peaceful at a personal
level, how to act in a peaceful manner within the world, and accessing and
supporting the general mandala of peace available to all people. So, please
join in on the 15th of each month. Before sleeping set your intention to
dream towards the mandala of peace.
If you feel that your dream has touched upon a symbol that can be used
within the mandala of peace we are creating, or on a particular relation of
peace, please let us know. Just send your comment, picture or dream to
http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org/dafumumonthly.htm. To join the World
Dreams Peace Bridge discussion group, just send an e-mail to
---
- Auction at dreambay.org
---
The IASD online auction has its own website - Dreambay.org! Every month it
has new items to bid on, and opportunities to donate your books, services
etc to support the IASD!
If you have any questions or would like to donate an item to the auction,
you may contact Kat Peters-Midland at IASDauction@... .
If you have news you'd like to share, simply email Harry Bosma at his special ed-news@... address.
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end news
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NOT BUDDHA’S BRIDE
Cover Artist: Hugh Duncan
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I am 58 years old, married for 34 years to an amazing and amazingly tolerant woman. We live in a 117 year old, converted apple storage barn among the Elk Mountains in Buncombe Co., North Carolina. I have been a Vajrayanna Buddhist since 1994 and a student of Shamanism since 1996 or 1997. In July 1997 during a Shamanic journey I spontaneously re-entered the oldest dream I can remember. Feeling this to be a clear sign from the spirits I started keeping a journal and paying attention to my dreams. A year later we got our first computer and I started making digital collages.
On 10/02/05 I incubated a dream seeking inspiration for a picture for Electric Dreams. This is what came forth ...
NOT BUDDHA’S BRIDE
My wife tells me that L. S. sometimes signs her letters, “Princess Buddha” because L.S. thinks she is “married to the Buddha”. I say there is no point in my explaining the meaning of the phrase to L. S. because “she’d just think I meant something physical”. My wife responds, “That’s our girl!”
For me getting from the dream to the finished image is largely an intuitive process. In this case I found an old photograph of a child looking very stiff. formal and apprehensive, as though she were involved in a ceremony which she did not fully understand. I felt this reflected the confusion and angst of a woman who thinks that she could be "married to the Buddha". I rendered the child's head as a Double Dorge and the background just exploded from that image, perhaps provoked by the Dorge/lightening association.
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An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange
By Lucy Gillis
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Lucid Dreaming And Parallel Universes:
An Interview with Fred Alan Wolf by Lucy Gillis
Responses (C) Fred Alan Wolf, 2005
Physicist, lecturer, author, and "What the Bleep" celebrity, Fred Alan Wolf is also a long time lucid dreamer. He kindly agreed to speak with me in July
2005 about his lucid dreams and his theories about lucid dreaming and parallel universes:
"It happens from time to time, usually when I'm not expecting it, often after a sleepless period of tossing and turning. The first time it happened was in the fall of 1973. I was a visiting professor at Birkbeck College at the University of London. I had retired about 10:00 p.m. after returning from my office at Birkbeck. At 2:00 a.m. I was awake, my mind was filled with physics equations -- something to do with parallel universes, other worlds nearly exactly like our own, but somehow different.
"Quantum mechanics opens the door to such ideas, and I had been fortunate enough to be at Birkbeck where John Hasted and David Bohm were cochairing the physics department. Hasted was beginning to investigate parallel universe theory to explain some weird paranormal effects that he'd observed in his lab. Bohm had been working since the early fifties at the roots of quantum physics, like a patient gardener. Both men must have had their influence on me that night.
"I went to the dining table in my apartment so that I wouldn't disturb my sleeping housemate, Nancy. After feverishly writing down a series of seemingly indecipherable hieroglyphics on my paper pad I felt a deep sense of satisfaction and grew drowsy. I went immediately to bed and fell asleep.
"Now when I say I "fell asleep," I mean more than you may think. I felt myself falling down a deep and dark well or tunnel. Yet every so often I would stop falling and find myself involved in a scene, as if I were an actor suddenly appearing on a stage. These scenes just appeared and I was enmeshed in them. I was not just an observer I was actually "there." Quickly the scene would change and I would find myself in yet another scene, entirely different from the one I had just left. These scene changes happen so rapidly that I felt I was descending from one layer of the universe to another, slipping through time and space just as a small pebble slips through the woven mesh of a fabric. As I descended I became more and more aware that I was dreaming. It was dawning on me that I was both snuggled cozily in bed and slipping through space-time in a dream of uncanny proportions. It was as if my awareness were split in two. To my great surprise I was conscious that I was asleep. What a contradiction! How can you be asleep and conscious at the same time?
"Next I found myself awakening, but I was shocked to discover that I had not actually awakened at all: I was dreaming that I was awakening and I knew it!
No sooner had I realized that I was still dreaming than I would awaken once more from the dream to dream that I was awakening once again. It was like ascending through a set of Chinese boxes: as soon as I was out of one box I found that I was inside another, still larger box. I soon realized that I was in control of my dream. I could awaken for real or I could descend to any universe layer I wished and experience my dream consciously. I then decided to explore and instantly found myself in the strangest room that I had ever been in.
"The room was shaped like a large cylinder and appeared to have a dirt floor. When I looked up, I saw a clear blue sky shining through what seemed to be an open roof. I found myself standing next to the room's outer wall and began to feel its texture. I was amazed to notice that I could feel the wall and that it felt neither cold nor warm to my touch but instead had a somewhat rough texture, like coarse woven fabric or basket weave. Then something quite strange happened to me.
"I noticed that I was rising or floating upward in the room and immediately felt a sense of panic. This anxiety halted my rise and I descended to the floor once more. I "remembered" myself sleeping comfortably back in my earthly abode and breathed a sigh of relief. With my relaxing I immediately began to rise again toward the open roof. Again I felt fear and began to descend. With this new knowledge I experimented with rising and sinking and noticed that all I had to do to descend was feel fear. To rise all I had to do was relax. I was just getting used to my new environment and had ascended fairly close to the blue skylight when I sensed the presence of another person in the room.
"Looking down I saw below me the "caretaker," a kindly but blurry-looking old fellow. My vision, I discovered, was as nearsighted as it was normally on earth. The "caretaker" announced himself to me and jovially said,
"Hello. You must be new here. Come on down and I'll show you around."
"Now, when I say he announced himself to me, I don't mean that he spoke. I just heard him in my mind. I couldn't describe his voice. I wasn't even sure if he was a "he." It was a kind of instant thought communication. I thought and he heard my thought. He thought and I heard his communication. I heard no sound, but I sensed his words as clearly as if he had actually spoken.
And he sensed my words in the same apparent manner.
"Next we walked side by side out of the room through a nondescript doorway.
I found myself walking with him silently and had the feeling that I was in a quiet, beautiful countryside of rolling hills. This is how the surrounding scenery appeared to me. I say I "felt" this was the case because my feelings and my visual sensing of the surroundings were somehow the same. What I felt matched what I saw and vice versa. This is difficult to describe in words.
"We continue to walk around and I sensed a great relaxation and peace. The sky was blue and cloudless. There was no sun anywhere. The grass was greener than any grass I had ever seen. I soon noticed that there was a low brick wall, perhaps three feet high, weaving through the hills and greenery. Soon I "heard" voices and saw a large group of people just ahead of us. I realized that the silent "caretaker" was leading me to the people who were sitting comfortably on the low wall and the grassy areas it enclosed.
"My entrance into the group stirred no response. I was just another person there. I felt as if I had come to a picnic and yet I noticed that there was no food in sight. And still no one was paying me the slightest bit of attention.
"I then began to look around at the faces of my new associates. I must point out how unusual all this was to me, because at any moment I could "remember"
myself sleeping in bed at home in Shepherds Bush, London W.6. "I" was where "I" was and "I" was home at the same time. This experience of remembering was exactly the same as when you think back to a past experience, the only difference being that in waking consciousness you can't "return" to your memory. In my altered, or lucid, dream state I not only remembered my sleeping self, I knew I could return anytime I wished to.
"The reason I was thinking about going home was the bizarre physiognomy I was suddenly gifted with. I merely had to look at the face, any face, and I "saw." More than seeing, I knew. The facts of the personality were an open book to me. I merely looked at a face and it would undergo a series of transformations, each change revealing a new fact. I couldn't look too closely because, frankly, I was frightened by what I saw. On every face was great sadness and pain. The faces were normal when looked at quickly, but when examined for any length of time they became grotesque masks with great striations of contorted pain lines, hideous peelings of unfolding skin layers, and throbbing nerve threads all pulsating on raw skin.
"Suddenly I realized where I was and announced to myself, i.e., thought to myself, I was on the astral plane of suicides. These people had committed suicide on earth and were waiting to reincarnate - to return to earth and be reborn. But there was a slight problem. In order for them to return they had to be acceptable to all the "normal" nonsuicidal souls they will share a body with. That is why they were here: to await humanity's decision.
"Each of us is a universe of souls, not just a single soul journeying from here to Timbuktu. As the Buddha taught, we are all questions of compromise.
Each of us is a universe of past lives, and some of us living now owe a debt of gratitude to the others for allowing us to live again. These suicides were the astral-level component, the parallel-universe level of reality, of past failures in life. We all have in us the lives of past failures, murderers, rapists, saints and sinners.
"This realization appeared to me as a thought, but I had made a mistake. I had thought to myself, not realizing that my thoughts were open books to my fellow "travelers." And even worse, what in all hell was I doing there in the first place?
"Just then I noticed "her." She was sitting on the wall facing me and, gulp, she was looking directly at me and smiling. I heard her reply, "Oh, you know where you are? Who are you? Where do you come from?" She approached me in an overly friendly manner. I boasted, "Yes, I know where I am and I can return home any time I want to."
""You can, can you?" She asked with great interest as she came close to me.
I was getting frightened. This was my first trip and I didn't know what danger I might be in by my just being there. Then I looked at her eyes. I don't quite know how to describe what I saw, but her eyes began to spin.
They appeared to me as rotating pinwheels of spiraling colors. She was now too close for comfort. I knew then that I had to leave and I exercised the "leaving ritual," the only one I knew would get me out of there fast. I yelled bloody murder.
"I awoke in bed next to Nancy, and this time for real. It must have been past four in the morning and Nancy wasn't too happy to have me just pop up in bed talking a blue streak. I not only was wide awake, I was fully conscious and quite lucid and gregarious. Loudly I said to her, "Nancy, wake up. I must describe this dream to you now before I forget it." Nancy, hardly believing her eyes or ears, was rudely being shaken from a deep sleep of her own. And dazed but understanding, she listened to the story of my voyage.
"It is very important to realize that this "dream" was not just an ordinary dream. I was fully conscious not only during it but in the transition from the astral plane to my bed. My yelling was soundless in the astral realm but gradually became real sound in the physical plane of the bedroom. There was no need for coffee. There was no sleepiness, nor did the dream fade from memory as I became more awake (as most ordinary dreams do). It was simply a matter of recalling actual events in the same manner as you would recall events of the morning over afternoon lunch.
"I hadn't been asleep and I wasn't simply lying in bed and daydreaming."
(c) Fred Alan Wolf, Starwave, 1984
Lucy: Before we start I want to thank for doing this interview today. I know you're very busy and in much demand.
Dr. Wolf: You're very welcome.
Lucy: Let's begin with some lucid dreaming questions and then we'll move on to more theoretical topics. I know that you've had many lucid dreams. Do you actively try to induce lucid dreams, or do you just allow them to occur spontaneously?
Dr. Wolf: I just allow them to happen whenever they happen.
Lucy: Do they occur often or is there a pattern to their occurrence?
Dr. Wolf: There is a pattern. They seem to happen usually at a time after I've slept a little while and then have woken up because of something that I've needed to think about and then went back to sleep. I'm kind of refreshed enough to do what I think requires a little more effort of mind, and I think that's what's required in lucidity.
Lucy: Being a scientist, do you like to perform experiments in your lucid dreams?
Dr. Wolf: I try to. But I find that there is a strange kind of complementarity principle that seems to be involved in the kinds of data-taking that you can do. When I attempt to find numbers or specifics - for example, I was in one dream and I wanted to know where I was. I didn't have any indication. I thought well, let me find out where I am, what country I'm in, what date it is, what time it is...I couldn't do any of those. The answers I was getting back in the dream were very ambiguous. For example, when I tried to read a newspaper in the dream, the letters were blurry.
Lucy: Do you have a particular favorite lucid dream?
Dr. Wolf: I've had many, so it's hard for me to pick out what's my favorite.
Each one has been significant from one point or another, so I don't have any particular favorite. They all are different. Some are very emotional, some are very sad, some are very enlightening, some are mind boggling.
Lucy: In your book The Dreaming Universe you have a chapter entitled "Lucid
Dreams: The Borderland Between Parallel Realities". Would you talk a bit about your theories of lucid dreaming and how they relate to parallel universes?
Dr. Wolf: The question that I was working on at the time - and this was some years ago, it is more than ten years ago; my thoughts may have changed by now -- was how can we grasp how a person feels or reaches a feeling - an experience - which says "I am I", "I am me", "I am this", "I am myself" and has that experience of what they refer to as "I"? That was the question that was the seed from which The Dreaming Universe book really grew.
Because that was the question, the whole development of the book was finding ways of looking at the answer and what I was getting to, was in the lucid dream state - if I remember correctly - was the notion that our brains are able to act like receiving instruments and are able to pick up and perceive not only just the reality that we think we're in - so called "this world" - but other alternative realities at the same time. In other words, in a kind of schizophrenic state.
So the idea was "What's the difference between my experience of the "out there world" and the so-called lucid dream?" Now, the outstanding experience of a lucid dream is that I am aware that I have an I. Whereas, in an ordinary dream I have no such awareness. As the dream unfolds I don't seem to have any control over how it unfolds and I certainly don't have any recognition of myself as experiencing myself as in a dream. But in a lucid dream I know I'm dreaming, I KNOW I'm in a dream, and I KNOW the world is a world which is a parallel reality to the world that I normally experience when I'm awake. So, the notion of parallel realities just sort of appeared kind of naturally.
And then I began to work on a model of how the self or "the I" arises. I was working on an idea that was originally put out by another physicist, David Albert, who is a professor at Columbia University right now - very brilliant guy - and he had written a paper on what is called "Quantum Automata", little machines that are capable of, in a way, recognizing themselves and of having experiences as a result of recognizing themselves that are different from their experiences if they weren't recognizing themselves. That process is truly based on the existence of alternate realities in which the self can reflect, so to speak, on itself from another point of view, from another reality. So that idea kind of said, "Well maybe lucid dreams are like that."
So then I went even further and asked "What other idea fits together with that?" Well, the theory of holograms is another idea which comes into the picture. There is something called "Holographic Reality" and the notion here is that a hologram is made up of overlaps of alternate realities, much like a regular hologram is made up from overlaps of different wave motions; light waves; in the case of an optical hologram or sound waves if it is a sonar hologram by which radar works and that sort of thing.
So I came to the questions: What would make the hologram? How would the observer relate in that hologram? And what are the different ways that could happen?
One thought that occurred to me was that in a hologram - an optical hologram
- there are two kinds of images that form. One of them is called a real image and the other is called a virtual image. A virtual image is what you see when you hold up a magnifying glass (like Sherlock Holmes) and look at a small splinter in your finger, for example. It's not a real image, because the light is not really coming from the image. You see the magnified finger in a certain position through the lens but if you go and put your hand around where that magnified finger appears there is nothing there so it is called a imaginary image.
On the other hand, there are so-called "real" images, and real images are images from light that comes to a focus, like for example when you watch a motion picture the lens of the projector focuses the light streaming through the film strip and it hits upon a screen and makes a real image on the screen. The image is actually there on the screen, it's not anywhere else, so it is a real image. So I thought, well, maybe in a regular dream, the images that arise are more like virtual images. And in a lucid dream they're more like real images, and that's why they have a feeling of reality much as we see the "out there" world. It's only a metaphor, and an analogy, but I thought that it might be applicable.
Lucy: Have you had any lucid dreams in which you felt you had made contact with a parallel universe or with a parallel self?
Dr. Wolf: That's a good question. Certainly in one of those, the one where I went to this world where I believed I was seeing people who had committed suicide, that certainly was a parallel world, it wasn't the world I was in right now.
But as far as others, I can't tell. I've had dreams where I have actually awakened in a body that wasn't my own. And that was very strange, and I knew that I was "hitching a ride" so to speak. I don't know if you've ever had that kind of experience, but I've had that one, and I couldn't tell if this was a purely imaginal, or parallel world, or whether I was in some other part of the world. I just don't know.
Lucy: This body that you found yourself in, were you able to manipulate it or were you just being carried along with it?
Dr. Wolf: I believe I was manipulating it, that I had taken it over, because I was having an experience, and just like you have an experience right now, for example when you get up to do something, you rarely ever think to yourself "Am I doing this to my body?" You don't think like that. So because you don't carry that thought with you, you just go on and do stuff, you don't even bring into question, "Is this my will acting or am I being a zombie?" - you don't think like that, you just do it. And the same thing happened in the lucid dream when I was in somebody else's body. I realized it wasn't my body, because there were certain differences that I could experience, but I didn't have the feeling that I was being carried along by another being subject to his will or that I was any different than I would normally be in my own body, it just appeared to me to be a different body.
Lucy: As a scientist on the cutting edge of quantum theory and consciousness research, do you foresee a merging of these two fields in any practical way in the near future? In other words, do you think it possible that scientists will one day abandon their particle accelerators and instead use consciousness (perhaps through lucid dreaming or other altered states) to explore reality at the quantum level?
Dr. Wolf: They're already exploring consciousness - it's a whole new field and it's become respectable, mainly because of the efforts of some very classic scientists - people like Christof Koch and the discoverer of DNA, Francis Crick. Crick and Koch have been investigating what might be called the question of how science should deal with such questions as dreams and consciousness. They take a very materialist point of view, but it's very necessary that at least some scientific activity is going on in the field, because it's been totally ignored up until very recently.
I think it leads to some very interesting questions and it leads to some possible solutions that can be replicated in the laboratory, and that's always difficult, but I don't think it's going to be the end of the particle accelerators.
Lucy: In Parallel Universes you wrote:
". . . the possibility exists that parallel universes may be extremely close to us, perhaps only atomic dimensions away but perhaps in a higher dimension of space - an extension into what physicists call superspace."
Do you think this idea is compatible with string theory? Do you think there could be a connection between the lucid dream state and one or more of the 10 dimensions of space predicted by string theory?
Dr. Wolf: It's compatible with an extension of string theory called M-Theory or membrane theory or brane theory. It's compatible with that picture. The latest developments - I haven't been keeping up on that, so I'm only speaking from like a couple of years ago - these branes (membranes) are parallel realities that are smaller than atomic dimensions away, and so the idea that there are alternate realities in string theory, I think, is a very realistic attempt to try to make relativity and quantum physics more compatible with each other, which they're not at the moment - there has been some work to make them compatible, but they've not reached what I would call a level of complete compatibility - so there is certainly that effort.
In a book I wrote in 1984 called Parallel Universes, I had actually pointed out that parallel universes might be less than atomic dimensions away and might be the place to begin to conceive of how quantum physics and relativity, in particular Einstein's General Theory of relativity, which means the effects of gravity, might be brought into a consistent picture.
Now it's almost 20 years since I wrote that and maybe now it's starting to take place.
Lucy: Do you think that within the lucid dream state it would be possible to conduct any kind of experiment to determine the existence of parallel realities? Or is that a little bit too much like science fiction?
Dr. Wolf: No, it's not science fiction. The people that I would tend to ask these question of, or the people who I think could lead us into some approach to this would be people like Stephen LaBerge, who is like the father figure of lucid dreaming, or Jayne Gackenbach, who's also written extensively about lucid dreaming.
These are some of the leaders of the field who I think would be the ones who could lead us into maybe some kind of experimental verification. It really is a difficult subject, to look at what lucidity is telling us about reality. It's very difficult. If one could induce lucidity to such an extent that two people could be in the same dream, kind of like the movie Dreamscape where you could enter into another person's dream in a lucid way, while that may seem like science fiction, it's possible, I think, to at least entertain some speculative thoughts as to how to go about doing that.
You would probably need to have two people who are fairly adept at following I guess what LaBerge had originally proposed - Oneironaut training programs.
You would need some oneironauts training programs, so maybe two people who were trained oneironauts could see if they could link up.
There have been studies made, very interesting studies made by Stanley Krippner and a couple of other of his associates, Montague Ullman, and Alan Vaughan. They had begun dong research about telepathic communication in the dreamstate, and they had shown, I think rather conclusively, that there was a telepathic communication "channel" that existed and it could be opened between a dreamer and somebody who is not dreaming. So, if you can open any kind of communication between separate minds via this kind of channel, it doesn't seem too far of a stretch to think about opening up a channel between lucid dreamers.
And if a channel could be opened, why can't a very full lucid communication take place? Much the same way that if we can open up a channel and we can see three-dimensional images on a virtual reality simulator - a computer screen, or whatever - and that can be communicated why can't we do that between brains? Now whether that is really possible or not I have no idea, but it seems possible - an area that somebody could begin thinking about and maybe even get some financial support to do.
Lucy: You've just described my dream job! (If you'll pardon the pun.) I see we're almost out of time. Any last thoughts you'd like to add?
Dr. Wolf: No, I haven't really been thinking about dreaming very much lately, I've been into this whole question of dealing with consciousness per se, but not consciousness pertinent to the dreamstate. But I'm always interested, and if there is any research that comes out in the next year or so that you know of, please keep me informed.
Lucy: Absolutely! Thanks for taking the time to talk with us at LDE. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the "What the Bleep" conference in Vancouver, BC next month.
Dr. Wolf: Well thank you for calling, I appreciate it.
For more on Fred Alan Wolf, his books, and lecture schedule, go to www.fredalanwolf.com
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The Lucid Dream Exchange is a quarterly newsletter featuring lucid dreams and lucid dream related articles and interviews. To subscribe to The Lucid Dream Exchange send a blank email to:
You can also check us out at www.dreaminglucid.com
Lucid Dreaming and Parallel Universes - An Interview with Fred Alan Wolf
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Programming A Positive Dream
From "Humor in Dreams" Workshop
© 2005 Linda Lane Magallón
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Have you ever had the experience of waking from a dream with a peculiar feeling or bad taste in your mouth? The "yucky" dream, the "oh, no, not again" dream, or the "ouch!" dream? These occurrences often come from the night's process of leftovers from the previous day, and some of them can be pretty moldy. My question to you is, "Is that something you want to wake up with every morning?" Dreams allow us to gather all the daytime garbage, stick it into our sleeping minds and dwell on it the whole night long. In the process, all sorts of strange and disturbing conceptions can be produced. So, how can you help your dream psyche convert that sort of experience into something more positive?
The answer is...you can give your dreams a break, a vacation from eating their basic diet of day residue. And you do that the night before. You give yourself some space before you go to sleep to unwind from all the chaos of the past day and detach from all those things you have to do for tomorrow. You do not, I repeat, do *not* flip on the eleven o'clock news before you go to sleep. Unless you have some overriding emotional experience to mediate, that's virtually guaranteed to give you all sorts of crazy dreams. I can't tell you how many times I've had late night talk show dreams. Granted, it is an improvement over the news. But it's still a demonstration that what you bring to bed is likely to impact your dreams. Are you taking teddy bears or snakes to sleep with you?
Yes, you can influence your dreams by what you're thinking and whatever you see before you close your eyes. But let's get down to the gut level. Dreams are full of feeling tones and emotions. How about, instead of waking up with "yuck" and "oh, no" and "ouch," you awoke with something else?
First one: Ahhhh! This is the ecstasy, the integration, the expansion of awareness. Let's shake out the cares of the day. Relax. We're going to have one terrific night's sleep, oh boy, are we, and we are going to wake to ecstasy. Ready? Ahhhh!
Well, that was pretty lousy. That was awful. I'm sorry, but it's not going to do the trick. That teenie effort is not going to override all the rest of the emotions of the day. You've got to put your whole being into this. You've heard of primal screaming? Well, we're going to do primal "Ahing." One, two, three. "Ahhhh!" One more time. "Ahhhh!" Well, that's a little better.
If you're not into "Ahs," how about "A-ha!"? This is the act of discovery, the lasting synthesis, the stroke of inspiration, the fusion of two frames into one. "A-ha!" One, two, three. "A-ha!" Well, gee, that might wake you up. While you're asleep, you might become lucid! One, two, three. "A-ha!" And you just might just wake up next morning with a brilliant genius of an idea.
But of course, there's "Ha, ha." This is the collision of incompatible frames that cross each other's path, that results in irony and laughter. Hmm, let's see. "Ha, ha, ha!" What is this? Forced laughter? What can you do to be natural...make faces in the mirror? If you can't get to laughter and spontaneity at the end of the day, if you are dragging your feet and whatever else around the bedroom, then think back to a laughter point in your past. Or look around. Do you have comics by your bed? Think about that. What do you have? What is on your bedstand? Just the clock. Tick-tock, tick-tock. That says tomorrow-I-have-to-be-ready-to-do-everything-I-have-to-do-oh-boy-I'm-going-to-be-thinking-about-it-all-night.
This last one is my own personal favorite. "WOW!" This is the action of recognition and delight; opening up into further exploration and knowledge. It's the mystery, still yet to be defined. Our dreams are mysteries. We can analyze them, We can interpret them and we can divide them into mincemeat pie, take them apart like puzzle pieces and put them together again. But they're still going to be mysteries. Thank goodness, it's the bit of curiosity that takes us further into the exploration of the self. We can follow it into the next dream...into the next day. "WOW!" One, two, three. "WOW!" One, two, three. "WOW!"
So, how are you feeling right now?
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THE VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
Awakening To the World
November 2005
Olivia Strand
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It almost seems as if the world is spinning faster at this time, and one can easily feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of hurricanes and earthquakes, wars and famine, and now the spreading avian flu, with confirmed cases in Turkey and Romania as the first European countries to be affected, and concerns that it might mutate and affect humans on a large scale.
What can one do when need all over the world feels so overwhelming, and our efforts and donations seem little more than drops of water rapidly evaporating into the air?
Amid the flurry of activity and peace outreach work that engage many of the members of the Bridge another conversation takes place, an ongoing one, but one that does not usually make it into the monthly View. And yet it feels increasingly important. It manifests as thoughts about peace in our own lives, and the need to walk our talk as we go about our daily tasks, and also as inquiries into what, if anything, do peace marches and rallies accomplish? Really?
Jean sent us this message:
“In order for me to give my answer, I first need to give a little background. During the 1970s, I was trained in conflict resolution and community organizing by a school, Upland Institute, that was then part of the University of Pennsylvania. I also participated heavily in anti-war activities against the Vietnam War.
”One result of this training was that when I had a dream on the morning of September 11, 2001, about being in the control tower of a major airport while air traffic control people were dealing with an emergency, I had to ask myself what I was doing in the "control tower," just standing there watching.
”That, for me, was the first question I needed to answer. Why, if I had the means to control a situation, was I just standing around watching?
”My answer to THIS question (as, I fear, the answer from most anti-war activists) was that I had become complacent. I had long ago given up on the idea that marches and rallies really changed anything, but then had succumbed to the notion that the world was running just fine.
”So then we get to the question of last month's March on Washington. I've already said that a main reason for me to go was to see the other members of the Bridge who were there. But I realized, while I was at the March, that there was another big reason for me to be there. By now, in the face of the world situation (and I am talking here not just about war, but about economics and world disaster...like the current disaster in Pakistan and other parts of southern Asia from Earthquake), what I am seeing is that people are waking up, as if from a long sleep.
”Now my first response to the U.S. war machine moving into Afghanistan and then into Iraq was not to march. It was to call upon my dreaming friends to dream up some peace. And I still believe that one of the most powerful weapons around is the mind of just one dreamer.
”But this time, when I went to Washington, I was awed by the variety of people I saw. All different races, all different ethnicities, all different ages and backgrounds. And THAT I think is the importance of the march...not just in Washington, but everywhere. Once again coalitions are being built, and people are talking to one another about what might be done to turn things around. That was the excitement of the March on Washington, that and the fact that people who previously had thought of themselves alone in the struggle could look on the faces of a million other people who shared a belief with them. I think that the March had little to do with convincing politicians.
”Like you say, there has been almost no commentary on the March in the public press, not exactly a surprise given the fact that 98% of the media is owned by five large corporate entities, including General Electric, which is currently selling arms in both sides of the conflict.
”So then the question might become: How is the word spreading, if the media is not reporting the news? It's happening through people like us. And the pace of people listening is being accelerated as the price of oil goes up :))
”One major difference I've seen between the activists of the new millennium as compared with activists of the seventies is that, during the Vietnam War, anti-war protest arose from the universities. The people who protested were college students. Today, the anti-war sentiment seems to arise from groups of people less frequently thought of as intellectuals: groups of moms, groups of disaffected military people, ethnic and community groups of all kinds.”
Jody sent her pictures from the Washington Peace March to Liz, who has put them up for all of us to see:
“I loved the pictures, Jody,” said Valley, “it was a great experience getting to participate in that action in D.C. I think I am still trying to come down from it all. So wonderful to get to see Jody and Jeremy and Jean, what a treat!
“It made me feel so grateful to be a part of this community and the wonderful caring people that dream and debate and dialogue with one another while exploring ways to care for each other and create peace together.
“I just want to comment,” Valley continued, “about the idea of what the demonstrations are actually accomplishing, like the one in Washington D.C.
“First of all it was hardly just a demonstration and march, there were many people there doing peace education on a variety of topics, there was political action taking place after the march, and people came to lobby, their senators and congressional representative, who had never done such a thing before. People are waking up to the fact that they have been lied to, and they aren't going to sit by complacently while they are told more and more lies. This activism that is going on now is at the heart of the main stream, and people are risking their status quo lifestyles to stand up for what they believe is right.
“Ultimately what may come out of this is not just an end to the Iraq war, but an actual peace movement where people begin to rethink the way they live and the choices they make, and how those choices impact others. When more people become self responsible in this way, then more peace will become a reality.”
Jody, too, had some interesting news to share with us:
“Just today Paul Hackett announced that he will in fact run for the US Senate contest in Ohio in 2006 against a very strong Republican. He will have a formal announcement on October 24, 2005. But the decision reported in the press today is firm and I am very happy about it. He is a strong man and has much integrity. As I am not a soldier and will never be able to take up arms nor go to war, I respect soldiers who have integrity and will speak out about a wrong war even at risk to themselves, career and family by doing so.”
On the following day, Sunday the 16th of October, CNN Presents aired a programme, “Voices from the Homefront”, in which they interviewed not only Major Hackett, but Jody too! Cameo George, who is the producer of the CNN Presents Special on the changing attitudes on the war, also showed up in Jody’s DaFuMu dream.
Jody also shared with us from her dream journal, the entries she made on the day of the DaFuMu dreaming:
“It is quite fascinating that Paul Hackett and I have a woven fate of late. Had lunch with Paul last week as he was still deciding to run for Senate. Saturday (Oct 15, day of this dream) he came out: Yes! Tonight the CNN special, great press for Paul.
”On Tuesday after we had lunch I encountered his campaign manager D Woodward
on 4th street moving into an apt, right across the street from my office! Much synchronicity. Like meeting Paul at the airport as I was en route to the March in DC. Many lines of fate. Seizing the moment is the needed thing.
”One piece at a time, but all the pieces matter. Peace, one step at a time. But all the steps make a journey and define a path.
“The bridgeway path.”
DaFuMu dreaming – Awakening To the World
All the peace outreach work carried out by members of the Bridge in past few months – we haven’t forgotten about Cindy Sheehan’s vigil outside President Bush’s ranch, nor the fact that Valley and the Crawford Peace House played a big part in co-ordinating that – inspired the theme for the October DaFuMu dreaming: Awakening To the World.
I, myself, had an interesting experience as I had my perhaps first properly lucid dream – I awakened to the dream, which, and perhaps depending on one’s spiritual outlook, seems a rather potent metaphor. And not only that, but Ilkin, with whom I have shared dream experiences in the past, had a dream that had many similarities to mine. Dreaming with others in this way feels very important, too, because it illustrates all our interconnectedness – if we can only wake up to it!
Both Jean and Jody shared dreams, as well, with us all and with one another, and Jody commented about the link between hers and Jean’s dreams:
“When I told her my dream on the phone, I described where I was as alongside an area that felt like a promenade or cliff near the edge of the sea, though I couldn't actually see the ocean. That's part of what resonated so strongly with Jean's own dream.”
And about her own dream:
“This is about the 3rd or 4th spider dream I've had in recent months since my son went to war. I know it's about the war and the CNN program and much coming to a head. My attitudes are evolving about this evil web, the spider, as sometimes I have killed it and often there are young, new spiders. Sometimes, like in this dream, I face the spider (which is also destiny) calmly, but take action at smaller levels.
“The section of my dream about the sorting: I realized with all the intrigues and lies and wrongdoing being exposed and indictments possibly about to be made of Karl Rove and Scooter Libbey, as well as others, that I feel the curtains may refer to that which has screened the truth from us about the run up to the war and the false basis on which the decision was made and all the tragedy that follows. I've been reading and studying to understand and "crack the code" of deception. I feel a strong commitment to doing this and then to speaking out about this deception and doing all in my power to help bring the war to a close and the perpetrators to justice.”
In the week following the DaFuMu, the fact that we really seem very close, only a mouse-click away even while we live on different continents, was beautifully illustrated when Kotaro in Japan and Ilkin in Turkey reported about the many earth tremors these two regions are experiencing right now, and received instant feedback from other members of the group. Although most of us have never met, the care and affection between members feel very genuine, and it really does feel as if the world, even while appearing to spin out of control at times, also seems much smaller, and the events that once took place in distant lands now happen in our friends’ living rooms!
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** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS
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The Dream Section Editor is on vacation this month. In place of the Dreams Section, I'm including part 1 of a collection of computer dreams from "Gem".
Gem: Began recording dreams in 1993. First computer dream occurred in 2000. After I had a job that involved a lot of computer work for nearly two years. Prior to that I knew very little about computers and spent very little time on them.
As of February 25, 2005, I have a total of 133 computer-element dreams (identified).
78 of those occurred over the first 54 months (1.4 per month average.)
56 of those occurred over the last 8 months – since July, 2004 (7 per month average.)
DREAMS
04/04/2000)
Something about computers. I had asked someone something about our computer work and they didn't tell me the truth. I don't know if it was on purpose or not. But it caused me a lot of extra work. I had 3 huge stacks of patient charts on my desk to do something with as a result. I was trying to find a better way to fix it rather than doing all those charts. I was talking to someone about it. (80 words)
04/12/2000)
I was working on my website, moving things around; just like I was doing a few hours before I went to bed. (22 words)
04/15/2000)
All of my dreams last night were about working on my website. (12 words)
04/16/2000)
Several dreams about working on my website again. Also had a dream about Dr. W and a cleaning lady from work. He was upset with her work and she told him that she didn't think he liked her. He denied it. I was thinking about the fact that I don't think I will ever live up to his expectations in waking life. (62 words)
04/29/2000)
Working at computer, opening, reviewing and closing many letters written to colleges. Each letter went to the same mailing list- different topics. (22 words)
06/22/2000)
Dream about reading old email. (5 words)
07/11/2000)
Racing Around the House
Racing around the house. "Glad you're willing to try it in here." Small hand held computer and screens. I was driving over a lot of stuff on the floor so it was very bumpy and rough. There was a man there who thought I did very well. (51 words)
01/06/2001)
You're in Trouble Now I was a student at a school and I had done something I shouldn't have -- or was at least involved in it with someone else. At least part of it was graffiti. I don't remember what the graffiti was. We ran away but got caught. After getting caught, someone else and I had the opportunity to run again. The person who did the graffiti told us to run without him. One part of this that is confusing is that the people I was running with changed several times. I don't know who it was initially. At one point it was " The Golden Girls." AT one point it was girls I went to high school with. At one point it was only Brenda E. At the end it was my family, Mom, Dad, Ben, Bonnie, and Brad. I have had the last part of this dream before. When I was running with Brenda I was getting very frustrated with her because she wasn't hiding or keeping up very well. There was a third person running with us. I don't know who. They were way behind. I thought they would catch up with us. We snuck around a red brick school. I was afraid someone would see as through the windows. I told Brenda to keep down and come around the walls. There were several red brick walls. They were a wavy shape lengthwise. Then we snuck around another red brick building. We finally dodged inside a little dry cleaner/seamstress shop. There were three huge basket-like things hanging from the ceiling and moving back and forth on purpose and rhythmically. We each jumped up and clung to the end of one to keep from being seen by the employees. When we had a chance we ducked into the next room. We were crouched on the floor behind a circular rack of clothes and fabric. Brenda wasn't hiding well and I feared we would be seen. One thing in the rack was sheer brown piece of fabric. I could see the old woman through the fabric. I was afraid she would see us. I moved the rod in a circular motion very slightly trying to keep us hidden but she spotted us anyway. I lied and told her that we just needed to duck in from the cold. They took pity on us. At this point the scene changed to me being with my family but still in the same place. The young woman was doing makeovers on us to help keep us from being "found." She made Kim look like a movie star, as she requested. She asked me how I would like my hair done. I told her I like my style so she started spraying it seriously with hair spray. I felt like I was choking on the spray and told her to quit. I was thinking about what movie start I wanted to be made up as but didn't think of anyone so she didn't do anything else to me except to give me a bag of ice and told me to hold it on my face to reduce the puffiness. I held it on my eyes. In the next scene my family and I are walking downtown Phoenix. I am watching the people very carefully to make sure none of them are the people who are after us. All I remember seeing is people in business suits carrying briefcases. It is now becoming nighttime and the streets are deserted. We see the horse-drawn carriage nearby sitting by Steak-N-Shake. It is empty but I tell the others that we must stay away from there or we are more likely to get caught. In the next scene we are in a building looking at displays. They are Christmas displays mostly. One had a lot of stuffed animals. I also saw a bed and pushed on the mattress and said how nice it would be to be in my own bed. Mari was with us now. We were purchasing things. I remember sweatshirts specifically. We were being careful to use cash so we wouldn't be leaving a trail. Brian handed me some receipts and told me to make sure I used them. I started filling one out and realized I had written SVSDC, disclosing information on it. I tore it up, showed it to Ben, threw it away and then paid cash for the sweatshirts. There were people there who were looking for us but they didn't give us away for some reason. The last room we went into had a lot of computers and electronics. I sat down at a desk to check my email. Barb said something about the amount of email or something. I then saw a Karaoke machine and asked Dad to come record a song with me. He was a short, dark-haired, Italian man [unlike his waking life.] Ben joined us. I didn't want him there, but let him stay. We were going to sing "We wish you a Merry Christmas" but we didn't know the version that was playing. Then a familiar version began playing so we started to sing. I was thinking that this was good, as I would be able to listen to and better decide if I am a good singer. The guy running the electronic place said he needed to close up. We said we would help because we are very familiar with the things there. We said Mom is very familiar with the type of typewriter so she could take care of it. At one point I saw her sitting on the floor with the case, cleaning it, as part of closing up. I was looking under all the desks for money. Whenever I found change I put it in my pocket. I found four quarters in a pile and under one desk. (975 words)
03/03/2001)
I was in my apartment with my two sons. It wasn't the same apartment that I actually live in and I only have one son. We were sitting at a counter, on stools, and getting ready to eat some ice cream. Someone had given us a gift of gourmet ice creams. They were special shapes and flavors. My younger son, not Matt, was using a spoon and digging into the middle of lots of them to try each one without choosing one and finishing it. I scolded him and told him not to do that. Three of the ice creams were flat and round, like tostados. One was pink. One was blue. There was third as well. They had sprinkles or something like that on them also. Some of them were bars that stood on their side and had two sticks in them. There was a man and a woman to the right behind Matt. I don't remember what they were doing there. As we finished the ice cream I started cleaning up and there was a large, African American woman sitting on a table to my left. She had her back to me and was on the phone. She was wearing cultural clothing. I realized that she was about to sit in some ice cream so I nudged her to sit up a bit so I could wipe it up before she sat in it. I was thinking about moving my computer downstairs. I thought it would be a nice change of scenery and I would get more sunlight. (260 words)
03/05/2001)
I was living in an apartment in the city. I was setting up my computer in a chair. I was trying to kind of stack it so it would stay in place against the back of the chair and I was going to use it that way. I was trying to figure out a way to set it so I could easily access the "A" drive. I was also changing my clothes at the same time. I went out to go to a nearby store to get something related to the computer but I don't remember what. It was raining. I think the place that I went into was kind of like a mall but it was fairly narrow and it was like I was walking through one store and then another to get to each store. When I got to the store I was looking for I went to the counter and was discussing my needs with a young man there. An older man came out. I realized it was Mike M. I didn't acknowledge that it was him nor did he acknowledge that it was I. He came up to the counter and joined in the discussion. I realized that my clothes were lying around and I quickly grabbed them up, embarrassed for him to see that, especially since my bra was lying there to. I embarrassingly said "Sorry, I was changing my clothes while I was working." I'm sure he knew it was me because he has seen a picture of me. I haven't seen a picture of him so I don't know how I knew it was him. We finished our discussion and I rushed out of the store, back through the other stores, and out into the rain. (293 words)
04/23/2001)
This was the most magnificent dream. It was like watching a beautiful movie unfold and yet I was the main character. The somatic feelings were such that I didn't want to awaken. I didn't want to ever leave my bed. I felt warm and tingly all over. I felt so much love that I thought my heart would burst. I felt peace and safety like I have never felt before. I was living in another time and another culture. Yet I cannot identify either. It was a time of honor and simplicity, yet the home I lived in was very comfortable by today's standards. It almost had a feeling and look of what I imagine to be old Mexico or Spain, yet my family and I were Caucasian. I wish more than ever that I were an artist so I could sit immediately at my easel and paint the images in my mind so as to never lose them. The dream started nearly a year before I was to be married. The parents of both my betrothed and myself were very involved in the commitment. Throughout the dream I did not spend anytime with my betrothed. I saw him only on occasion with his father, as they came to "check on me." They wanted to be sure that nothing would interfere with the marriage. My father had hired a bodyguard for me. His name was Victor. One day Victor and I were sitting at the kitchen table, each at a different side of the table, yet sitting next to each other. We were discussing life and some of the disparities in our two lives. I felt his pain as he shared with me how unaccepted he is in so many areas because of his heritage. I believe he was of Spanish decent. Victor was a tall man with bronze-colored skin. His hair was jet black and smooth as silk. His chiseled features and dark eyes were always noticed when he entered a room. But I don't know if it was his appearance that got him noticed or the feel of his presence. He told me that he must be careful guarding me, as he must guard himself too. People living in my area would be happy to kill him rather than watch him roam our streets, even acting as my bodyguard. I felt so much pain and sorrow at this. Yet, he would not give up his position as my bodyguard. I rose from my chair and hugged him, cradling his head to my chest and caressing his hair. I kissed him lightly on the head. He looked up at me and I kissed him lightly on the lips. I quickly apologized. From the look in his eyes I could not tell what he was thinking. He told me not to apologize. A few months later I was at my bridal shower. All of my girlfriends and women relatives were there. My father was also there. [None of these people were my family in waking life.] I had such a warm and loving relationship with my father. I was sitting on an ottoman in front of him, with my arms stretched behind me embracing his gray and balding head as he leaned forward to cradle me in his arms and rest his chin on my shoulder. The women were playing a game. Each had a card made of colored construction paper and folded in half. The inside of each card was white with colored markings on it. Each one represented a man I had dated. One woman would read characteristics and then each of the other would mark their card if that man had those characteristics. The characteristics they read were both good and bad. I quickly made an additional card representing my father. I said I wanted to see how many of them compared to my father. Victor came and sat at the edge of the room in a rocking chair. His quiet, calm, strong presence permeated the air in the room. As always, this left me feeling unsettled, as I felt it deep in my soul. I secretly wanted to make a card for Victor. Later that evening there was a party for all of our family and friends, male and female. We were laughing and dancing. I asked Victor to dance with me. Just as I asked, the music changed to a ballad. Victor quickly agreed to dance with me. I felt the butterflies in my stomach as Victor took my hand and wrapped his arm gently around my waist, pulling me close, but not too. Our dancing in rhythm was effortless, as though we had been life-long dance partners. I could feel that we both wanted nothing more than to be closer and to gaze into each other's eyes. We dared not say anything for fear the other would say they did not feel the same thing. We dared not, for fear others would notice. I finally gave in ever so slightly at one point, when I rested my head on his chest as we continued to dance. Weeks later my family and friends were outdoors playing in the swimming pool. They had placed a cover over the pool so you could walk and run on it with only a few inches of water on top. They also had something spraying water into the air and people were running about in the spraying water and atop the pool. Even my father was joining in the fun. I was standing near the back by a stone wall, under a tree, with Victor. He was so enjoying watching the fun, envious because he had never experienced a family such as this. I was trying to encourage him to join us. For the first time, in the shadows of the tree, he made his feelings for me known. He ever so gently touched my breast, as if by accident, but I knew it was not an accident. I asked him if he did not want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with him. I could see the affirmation in his eyes. Yet, I was betrothed to another and Victor was employed by my father to be my bodyguard. He dared not say the words. A short time later my betrothed and his father and two other men drove into the courtyard. They were in a car that reminded me of something a mobster would drive. They exchanged words with my father, warning that nothing should interfere with the wedding, which was scheduled for the next day. I was standing at a laptop computer, sitting on a pedestal. I was playing some kind of games that tested your mind. A woman, related to my betrothed came up and started poking fun and trying to make me miss the answers. I realized at that point that I could not go through with this marriage. I walked up an iron, circular staircase with another woman. I don't know if it was a sister or a friend. The staircase led to a veranda. My mother was already there, laying on an upholstered chaise lounge. She immediately called for my father to join us. When my father arrived he said he was going to call off the wedding because he had just learned that my betrothed had been unfaithful to me. I was overjoyed. I sat by my mother on the chaise lounge. She had covered herself with a beautiful red silk shawl. As I gently leaned on my mother's side, I cautiously told them of my feelings for Victor and that I believed he felt the same, but was unwilling to say so because of his position. My father was overjoyed at the prospect of a union between Victor and myself. I say my mother's support and approval in her eyes. He called for Victor. After a brief conversation, he asked Victor if he would like to take my hand in marriage. Before Victor had a chance to respond, he said that it would bring him great joy to witness such a union. Victor said, he too, would be honored and overjoyed. My father said the wedding would go ahead as planned, with one exception. The groom would be Victor. Once alone with Victor we were able to finally express our feelings for each other, and our joy at our upcoming marriage. We recognized the beauty of our first night together being on our wedding night. (1408 words)
05/19/2001)
Downloading software and trying to send an IM to Dad. Maybe I sent it to Mom and he answered. He was going to tell me how to finish downloading my software. It turned out not to be a problem but I realized I didn't get back to him after that, so I sent another IM. This one I sent to Mom. I'm at Mom and Dad's at the old house. She is sitting in the kitchen at her computer and I walked by and the computer screen is facing me and I comment about how dirty her computer screen is and that it needs to be cleaned. I wiped it with my fingers but then I went and got some paper towels and Windex and cleaned it for her. I don't know if I said this or if I just thought it -- I think I said it. "This is one thing I will definitely clean when I see it needs to be cleaned." Then I'm back at my computer at home and realized I hadn't continued my IM conversation with Mom. I type in something about "sorry, I had to go get some milk or something but I'm back now." I'm in my car, again, and headed home. There's a computer keyboard and monitor in front of me where the steering wheel is. I'm driving and having a really hard time seeing the road. I thought to myself "How do I normally see around or over this thing?" I can't see the road so I'm trying to look around it. I'm raising myself off the seat so I can look around the monitor and see the road. I think, "Maybe if I raise the seat higher. but I don't usually. so what's different?" There's a car pulling a huge trailer across this one-lane wood bridge and I don't see it in time and so I drive off the road and around the bridge and back onto the road. The road then turns into an unusual looking railroad track. Then I think "Oh, great now I'm driving on a railroad track." I'm driving on a railroad track and up a mountain. I'm thinking "This is so weird and the worst part is that it is not a dream because I know I'm not dreaming." I keep going and then I can see the vehicle that I'm driving going up the mountain but it has like four other vehicles or trailers attached to it that it is pulling. It runs into the train and starts pushing the train up the mountain. I'm talking to this man, I'm complaining about the whole incident with the train and the bridge. I have this toy-size car and trailers that I was driving. I show him what happened driving up the mountain. I tell him it was entirely his fault because I had called his company to come to the house/farm and do something and he didn't do it. I'm demonstrating backing all this down the mountain and back to my property or something. Football players and one of the players crossed the endzone and as he got there he jumped in the air, turned around and caught the football. Somehow I think that was me. As I was having it I was thinking "Oh, I'm not asleep yet, I need to make sure I record it. But I'm so sleepy I don't want to reach for the recorder to record it." Hypnagogic image -- Someone holding a baby in front of a person wearing glasses and the baby reaches kind of pokes at the glasses. I was at Aunt P and Aunt H's house and I was watering their garden and flowerbeds. I had told them each that I was going to do that and to do it I was just going to let the hose run at a trickle and just let it soak them because they needed it so badly. I also had a fan out in the yard blowing on the yard or the garden where I was watering also. I was training to become some kind of a pilot or something. Anthony Edwards was my instructor and I only had about 5 lessons. The last one is the one I remember most. In that one we were going to learn how to get height and how to go back down by pulling the handle bars or steering wheels toward you to go up and away from you to go down. And before my lesson I got in a simulator and I practiced and at first I was terrible. I would go up really fast and down really fast. It was really awful. I practiced enough to get the nuance that by the time it was time for my lesson I did really well. After that I found out that I passed and that I was a certified pilot and that I was one of the best in my class. I was talking to some of my classmates and their families about this because the husbands and children were there too. (848 words)
(06/07/2001)
Hypnagogic imagery: Talking to Pam about Sophie not being at group lately and not hearing from her. I was telling Pam how unusual that was. She had told me she wasn't going to be at one meeting but I haven't heard from her since. I was thinking about telling Pam about this in an email. I was thinking that maybe Sophie was doing this because the last time she missed I didn't write her to tell her we missed her or anything. It's just very odd that she would not show up and not contact me. (95 words)
07/01/2001)
Mom and Barb wanted me to have my annual check-up at a hospital other than SVH's. I went to satisfy them but was very upset the whole time. At one point they wanted me to partially undress and have the rest of my exam in this area where passers-by could see me. I got very angry at this point and decided to leave. I was hurrying around looking for my winter coat and handbag. They were saying things like I was overreacting and being silly. I just grabbed my things and left -- very angry. As I left I saw, through a window accessible to all, a pregnant woman being examined. I went back to SVH's. I parked my car in a lot four blocks away. I was with someone but I don't know whom. There were several cement walls about waist high. It seemed to be in a bad part of town. The environment was not at all like SVH North Campus -- not the surrounding area or the building itself. I went to the elevators to go to an office but I'm not sure where I was headed. One of the elevators I have seen/been in before in other dreams. It was a six-sided self-standing elevator -- that is, not encased in a wall. The outside was all gold and very ornamental. I wanted to go to the 2nd floor. The elevator closed without me so I grabbed something on the outside and let it carry me up one floor like that. Meanwhile, other people were waiting on the first floor for the standard elevator. I'm not sure if I got where I was going. I was walking around and noticed there were a lot of people around. It now felt more like we were in a hotel lobby. I realized there was some kind of trade show or something going on. I decided to go check it out. While I was walking in I realized all of the vendors were just setting up. I was going to look for the Westwood Inc. booth and thought that I should call someone and see if Marcia could come and work the booth. As I was walking around I saw booths for people like Carole F, only they had a different name now. I realized they had merged with another comp
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