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E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c D.r.e.a.m.s
Volume #14 Issue #4
April 2007
ISSN# 1089 4284
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Electric Dreams:
http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
Cover: Cover by Laura Atkinson
http://dreamgate.hypermart.net/ed-covers/ed14-4cov.jpg
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C O N T E N T S
++ Editor's Notes
Richard Wilkerson
++ Global Dreaming News
Harry Bosma
++ Cover: by Laura Atkinson
++ Column: An Excerpt from the Lucid Dream Exchange
Hallucinations Begone!
Lucy Gillis
++ Article: Rhine Conference: Consciousness Today
Harry Bosma
++ Column: The View - World Dreams Peace Bridge
That's A Lot of Change.
Jean Campbell
++ Dream: "Buffy and the Spitting Alien"
Stan Kulikowski II
++ Column: "Changing" the Dream
DreamRePlay with David Jenkins, PhD
++ Article: Signs of Simulation, Symbols beyond Value:
Jean Baudrillard and Grassroots Dreamwork
in Cyberspace Richard Wilkerson
++ DREAM SECTION: From Kat Peters-Midland
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D E A D L I N E :
Send articles and news by April 28th for
the May issue
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Post Dreams and Comments on Dreams to:
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple
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 April 2007 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 seem to congregate that might interest you. One is
dreamchatters@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe by going here and registering
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dreamchatters/
.. and another is the IASD bulletin board. Please, no dreams interpreted
here, just discussion of dreaming and dreamwork topics.
http://www.asdreams.org/subidxdiscussionsbboard.htm
In this issue:
Global Dreaming News editor Harry Bosma, brings you dream news and events
from around the world, online and offline. If you have dream news you want
to get out, please send those to Harry for next month's publication at
ed-news@...
Are all the dreams the same level of simulation and imagination? Lucy
Gillis explores this and other issues of unhallucinated reality in
"Hallucinations Begone!", this month's selection from the Lucid Dream
Exchange.
Psi Dreamers - heads up! Harry Bosma reports from the Rhine Conference in
March 2007. The "Consciousness Today" theme brought together scientists and
psychics to push the edges of conscious thought, and ground psi in science.
Read the review and see the new directions developing for dreamers and
dreamworkers.
The World Dreams Peace Bridge continues to dream up world wide events. Can
we envision the changes as productive? Jean Campbell gathers together
meaningful events from the global community and communication networks to
forge night-dreams with dream-visions to give us all another look at change,
spare change, global change and personal change. Be sure to read "That's A
Lot of Change."
Speaking of change, one of the goals of personal dreamwork can be to have
more pleasant and fewer stressful dreams. David Jenkins, PhD shows you how
last night's dream is a steppingstone to your next dream. You replay the
dream on order to spell out what you really want to happen. You can have
allies, say what needed to be said; and even end the dream in a different
way. Read about this work in "'Changing' the Dream."
Have your ever looked at your dream journal and felt you could probably
write these dreams up in a better way? Take a look at Stan Kulikowski II's
dream text to get an idea of how this might happen. Read "Buffy and the
Spitting Alien."
Farwell, Jean Baudrillard! The famous French postmodern philosopher died
in March, and leaves us with thoughts about his body of work that involve
theories about drift of signs over time from pointing to the real to
becoming simulations of the real to becoming pure simulations without
anything but passing reference to reality, a reality Baudrillard felt we
have lost in the consumption of signs. Those of you who are Matrix movie
fans will recognize the name from the Neo's hollowed out book, Simulation
and Simulacra. What's this have to do with dreams? Well, both Jung and
Baudrillard saw the problem of signs, but they took different directions.
Both felt that meaning and value lay in the symbolic. Jung explored how
symbols help us to find our own meaning and value, while Baudrillard
explored how signs undermine this same meaning and value. Both are valuable,
and in memorial, I am reprinting an article on dreamwork and Baudrillard,
"Signs of Simulation: Symbols beyond Value Jean Baudrillard and Grassroots
Dreamwork in Cyberspace"
Finding worms in hair, falling off a bridge, watching a plane crash. it
could only be the dream section of the Electric Dreams! From Kat
Peters-Midland.
Get your own dream published on Electric Dreams by submitting at
http://dreamgate.com/forms/dream_flow.htm
Janet Garrett archives past issues so you can search out specific articles
and authors 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
Cover & dream by Laura Atkinson
http://dreamgate.hypermart.net/ed-covers/ed14-4cov.jpg
--------------------
For those of you who are new to dreamwork,
be sure to stop by one of the many resources:
http://dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
http://dreamgate.com/dream/library
http://dreamunit.net/news-en/
Electric Dreams in PDF:
Back online at a new archive
Archive Courtesy of
Nick Cumbo
and the Dream of Peace Network
http://www.dreamofpeace.net.au/electric-dreams/
--------------------
-Richard Wilkerson
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G L O B A L D R E A M I N G N E W S
April 2007
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Email all dream news to Harry Bosma at his special
ed-news@...
address.
Online:
- Dream Video Picks of the Month
- Dream Journals on the Net
Physical world:
- IASD News: Annual Conference and Radio Show
- New Mexico: Victoria Rabinowe
Books, movies, research:
- Deadline August 2007 for Dream Research Funding
- Call for dreams: "Dancing the Labyrinth"
- Grant: Can Our Dreams Make Us Well?
Reminders:
- Various calenders
- Strephon Says: Podcasts and blog
- Ritual DaFuMu for Peace
* * * ONLINE * * *
---
- Dream Video Picks of the Month
---
Creating and sharing videos is now easier than ever before. What are
dreamers putting online? This month we have a theme of dream machines.
Death of a Dream Machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTqjPKmBrZ4
Dexter's Lab - Dream Machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr_f1D37edc
Kidd Video - The Dream Machine - 1 of 3 (Ep. 14)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v4_EazSgKE
Have you found other dream videos, or created your own, let us know.
Richard Wilkerson
---
- Dream Journals on the Net
---
After the rise of logging dream descriptions online, some dreamers recently
started to also put drawings and other pictures online. You may find these
inspiring.
Late 2006 Robin Whitmore started his online dream diary. He makes his
drawings on paper with his eyes closed. After scanning the colors are
inverted. The DreamDiary is currently also on display as a year long
installation at the Dock, Carrick on Shannon, Ireland.
Check out:
http://robinwhitmoredreamdiary.blogspot.com/
* * * PHYSICAL WORLD * * *
---
- IASD News: Annual Conference and Radio Show
---
The 24th Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of
Dreams will be held 29 June to 3 July 2007 at Sonoma State University,
Rohnert Park, California
New this year are the pre-conference sessions : "If you would like intensive
training in skills or knowledge related to dreams, we are offering morning
and afternoon pre-conference workshops on Friday June 29, before the
conference begins. If you have already registered for the main conference
you may return to the registration site to add pre-conference sign-ups and
fees."
www.asdreams.org/2007/
IASD's "Dream Time" an Internet radio program is broadcasting each Wednesday
at 9am Pacific (Noon Eastern), the show airs with a rebroadcast 12 hours
later. Tune in to the following shows in April.
April 4: Spiritual and Cosmic Dream Connections - Bob Van de Castle PhD &
Rita Dwyer
April 11: Extraordinary and Psychic Dreams - Stanley Krippner PhD
April 18: Dreams and Healing - Wendy Pannier & Rita Dwyer
April: 25 Working with Your Own Dreams - your host Bob Hoss, MS
May 2: Working in Dream Groups - Jeremy Taylor, Bob Haden
www.health.voiceamerica.com
www.dreamscience.org
The IASD website: www.asdreams.org
---
- New Mexico: Victoria Rabinowe
---
* April 3, 2007: Trickster *
In honor of April Fools Day. Meddle with the notion of your dream. Allow
your dream images to shift their shape and to play their tricks
* April 10, 2007: Resurrection *
In Honor of Easter. A dream that left the world forever changed.
* April 17, 2007: The Rules of the Game *
Dreams, like the world of games,
navigate through the territory of dark and light
in a checkered journey
where conscious versus unconscious in fundamental archetypal conflicts.
* April 24, 2007: The Wounded Healer *
"Maybe the purpose of the wound is to make us aware of the healing power
within us" -Adler
Visit the website:
http://victoriadreams.com
Victoria Rabinowe
Dreaming Arts Studio
1432 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe
505 988-1086
victoria@...
* * * BOOKS, MOVIES, RESEARCH * * *
---
- Deadline August 2007 for Dream Research Funding
---
2007 Call for Research Letters of Intent from DreamScience/IASD
The DreamScience Foundation in cooperation with IASD is again offering money
for qualified dream research.
Submission Areas: High quality research proposal Letters of Intent are
invited in areas related to dreams and dreaming, including but not limited
to: the neuroscience of dreaming, psychological studies of dreaming and
quantitative dream research in such fields as anthropology and cultural
studies.
The submission deadline is 15 August 2007. See the IASD / DreamScience
website for more information and email submission forms:
www.dreamscience.org/iasd
---
- Grant: Can Our Dreams Make Us Well?
---
Dream Power: Can Our Dreams Make Us Well?
by Mary Jo Davis-Grant
She dreamed her way from sick to healthy
Did you ever have a dream that left you feeling healthy and refreshed in the
morning? Well, Mary Jo Davis-Grant did: 500 of them, in fact, over a
seven-year illness. In this uplifting true story, Mary Jo analyzes 41 of
those dreams to answer the question: Can the images of our dreams affect our
health and even help cure illness? You'll be amazed at the possibilities for
safe, drug-free pain and stress relief described in this true story from a
daring educator and psychologist.
www.amazon.com/gp/product/1585010952/
---
- Call for dreams: "Dancing the Labyrinth"
---
I am weaving together a solo performance for the IASD conference in Sonoma
titled 'Dancing the Labyrinth.' I am collecting dreams about 'dance' and
'labyrinths' to use as inspiration in choreography and for poetic synthesis.
If you have had dreams around this theme-please send them over to
lana.nasser@...
* * * REMINDERS * * *
---
- Various calenders
---
Nicole Gratton (Canada):
http://www.nicole-gratton.com/calendrier_01.htm
Robert Moss (USA):
http://mossdreams.com/xcalendar.htm
Jeremy Taylor (California):
www.jeremytaylor.com/pages/schedule.html
---
- Strephon Says: Podcasts and blog
---
Strephon Kaplan-Williams is an international expert on dreams and dreamwork.
Now in retirement age Strephon gives his podcasts.
http://strephonsays.com
---
- 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 - to support peace.
For more information go to:
http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org/dafumumonthly.htm
To join the World Dreams Peace Bridge discussion group, just send an e-mail
to
worlddreams-subscribe@yahoogroups.com .
END NEWS ================================================
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Cover : Laura Atkinson
http://dreamgate.hypermart.net/ed-covers/ed14-4cov.jpg
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April 1, 2007
(A very exciting dream)
I dream that I am flying through the sky.I fly through the thunderclouds and
can actually feel and touch the water elements in the clouds. I see how they
change and electrify before a lightning strike. I fly above the cloud into
the blue sky above, and watch the clouds from above as the lightning
gathers. The clouds are a luminous grey (hard to imagine I know) and little
water crystals of yellow, pink, hot green morph in spirals as the cloud
begins to charge with electricity.
I dive back into the cloud and can feel the electricity start to raise the
hairs on my body, it tingles but does not harm me. EOD. Laura
http://dreamartist.wordpress.com/
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An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange
Hallucinations Begone!
(c) Lucy Gillis 2007
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"First you must realize that you are dreaming. . . This knowledge
automatically changes the dream state into another in which the critical
faculties are aroused and operating. . . You may "awaken" in your house for
example. If so, check your rooms against their normal arrangement. Anything
that does not normally belong there may be an hallucination, part of the
usual dreaming process. If you will such images to disappear, they will,
leaving you with the basic unhallucinated environment."
1. Jane Roberts
It had been a while since I used the technique to "will away hallucinations"
as suggested by Seth, channeled by author Jane Roberts. I can still remember
the first time, many years ago, when I had come across the suggestion in
Robert's book Seth, Dreams and Projection of Consciousness. I was intrigued
by the idea of the "unhallucinated environment."
What was that exactly? If you are in a dream state, and not projecting
out-of-body into a physical location, then what are you left with if you
will away hallucinations? Is it that empty "grey space" that so many
dreamers have experienced, or is it something more? Is it populated with
symbols and objects of other people's dreams? Or populated with other "real"
entities? Is that possible? According to Seth, it is:
"You may, then, encounter images that are subconsciously formed, quite valid
images, that belong in another dimension; or constructions created by others
in other systems. For any control at all, you must learn to distinguish one
from the other. Again, . . . you must first will it to disappear. If it is a
subconscious construction of your own, it will vanish."2
"The basic unhallucinated environment" became one more tantalizing idea that
made lucid dreaming all that more appealing - what was "out there" ("in
there"?) in the dream state to be discovered?
Over the years I played with the technique, always thrilled to notice when
objects or the entire dream scene vanished, but for some odd reason, I
didn't seem to remember to apply the technique very often.
Recently, however, during an ordinary lucid dream, I suddenly remembered to
will away my hallucinations to see what would happen:
I am at the cottage in Alberta. It's dark; the place is dimly lit. It is
very cluttered with furniture and other objects, like boxes and packages. It
is not messy though, everything is tidy, but crowded. I get up from where I
have been sitting and open a door to go into another room, presumably the
washroom. I look around and notice that this room too is very cluttered. I
then see a door that I had never noticed before. I wonder if it was meant to
be hidden, or if I had just never noticed it behind stacked boxes. As I am
about to go back out to the main living room area, I'm noticing more and
more that the place just doesn't look right. I must be dreaming!
I look for something to read, in order to reality-check, and I see a red LCD
display, like on a digital clock, on a shelf. I don't even have to look away
and then re-look to see the numbers change; they change quickly with every
blink of my eyes, proof that I am dreaming. I'm so happy to be lucid!
Then, reaching for the latch handle on the wooden door, I think that I
should try to meet S (as we had planned to do when we would each next get
lucid) but instead (probably due to all the clutter around me) I decide to
try Seth's advice and "will all hallucinations away". I want to see just how
much of the clutter is my own hallucinated imagery and I'm curious to see
what will be left, if anything. I'm very pleased that I've remembered to do
this; I usually don't remember this technique when lucid, even though I
think it is an excellent one.
I open the door and step out into a room that is quite large, almost like a
gymnasium in size. There are a lot of people around, but none are paying me
any attention. I speak loudly, addressing the dream. "Dream, I command all
hallucinations to disappear!" I say this again, phrasing it in a different
way, perhaps twice more, thinking that I should be more clear, or more
commanding. On the third "pronouncement" I think that it would also be
helpful if I spin, thinking that if I take my attention off the room and the
characters there, it will help me to get rid of my own subconscious dream
constructions. I spin counterclockwise, but it feels awkward. I am acutely
aware of the feeling of my toe pushing off the hardwood floor as I spin
around.
I know that I am still too "attached" to the dream. I can still feel my
consciousness tied up, entangled, in this dream scene; it's hard to explain
but it is a tangible feeling. I know that my level of lucidity is not high
or clear enough to produce instant good results, yet I want to keep trying
anyway. I stop spinning, and make my statement again, firmly, then I spin in
the other direction.
When I stop spinning, I am thrilled to see that the room has changed
dramatically. It has become smaller, all white, featureless, and nearly
empty, save for a few boxes and some living room furniture off to my right.
However, I am surprised to see three men, sitting casually on the living
room furniture, watching me. "You three again!" I spontaneously blurt out.
"You were left the last time too!"
My curiosity piqued, I approach the men and ask, "Who are you? Where do you
come from?"
Unfortunately, I don't know what their response, if any, was. Next thing I
knew, I was awake.
My first thought upon waking was one of triumph. I had remembered to will
away hallucinations and it had been successful, despite it not occurring as
soon as I had commanded. Though it took me a few tries, I was happy that I
had been aware of the reason - that I had been too consciously attached to
the dreaming process and I could actually "feel" what that was like, while
it was happening, even if I couldn't later describe it in any adequate or
even articulate way.
My next thought though, was one of disappointment. I didn't get answers to
my questions! Or if I had, I didn't consciously remember them.
As I scribbled down the dream in my journal, I was struck by how surprised I
had been in the dream to see those three men. I remembered how I immediately
blurted out "You three again!" In that moment I had recognized them, and I
knew, or my dreaming self knew, that the last time I had banished my
hallucinations, those three individuals had been left behind.
But that memory was one confined to the dream state. I had no waking memory
of previously willing away hallucinations in a dream and being left with
these three people. Or had I done it earlier in that dream, but did not
recall it when awake? It made me wonder how memory "worked" in the dream
state and why waking memory and dreaming memory were sometimes cut off from
each other.
The feeling of recognizing the men was difficult to describe too. It wasn't
a recognition based on physical appearances; their faces were not familiar
to me in any way at all. It was a recognition based on a different
sensation, a feeling that in some way had a thickness or density to it, as
though it was alive or in motion somehow. Very hard to describe, and I could
only borrow Seth's term "feeling-tone" to come close to labeling it.
But those three men. My waking memory did recall other dreams where three
strangers appeared together. Usually all male, but I knew that, on at least
one occasion, one was female. I didn't think that the female was a
different...character...(if I can use the term), but was a different guise
used by one of the three individuals.
Curiosity getting the better of me, I dug out old dream journals, and in
going through a few of them, discovered that I had had many dreams of "three
strangers" or "three men" over the last couple of years. Some dreams were
non-lucid, but mostly the triad showed up when I was aware I was dreaming.
They rarely spoke, when I was lucid. Usually they just observed me, or
listened to what I had to say. Oddly, they were more animate when I was
non-lucid, participating in my dream scenarios like actors playing their
roles. But when I became lucid, aware of my dreaming condition, they became
my silent audience, their attention then turned to me.
Now I had to wonder. Were these three recurring "characters" simply symbolic
of something? Aspects of my own dreaming psyche? Personified dream symbols?
Or were they something more? They did remain after I willed away my
hallucinations - were they somehow part of the "unhallucinated dream
environment"? And if so, what did that make them? Dream constructions
belonging to someone else? "Real" individuals able to travel through dream
worlds? Denizens of the afterlife? (Some may argue that by spinning I simply
created another dream scene, conjuring up more dream hallucinations or
subconscious imagery, but as I spun, I maintained the intent that
hallucinations vanish, with no specific anticipated outcome.)
Because they had remained after I banished hallucinations, because they had
a distinctive and somehow familiar "feeling-tone", and because of their
behaviour in previous dreams I began to wonder if the three men really could
be more than just inanimate dream symbols.
I remembered what Jane Roberts had said about the dream state changing when
one became lucid. I remembered also that Seth had talked about the
transitions from one state of consciousness to another:
"There are indeed others who can help you in such experiences, and who often
do while you are in the dream state, whether or not you know it. They can be
of great assistance as guides."3
Could my three men be dream guides? Do they show up in my dreams to assist
me with my "inner education"? Or are they old pals from another lifetime,
checking in on me to see how I'm doing? Will I ever know?
How I love all the questions that lucid dreaming evokes! Each one like a
stepping stone leading me deeper, onwards and inwards, into the dreaming
mind - my own dreaming mind. It is as though each question is a challenge,
or a reason, to get lucid again and again, to experience inner senses that
differ from waking perception, to meet and greet dream "characters" (who- or
what- ever they may be), to explore inner environments, - whether
hallucinated or not! And so very much more.
"Hallucinations begone!" Give it a try the next time you become lucid. You
may be quite surprised at what vanishes....and at what - or who - remains!
References
1., 2. Roberts, Jane, Seth, Dreams and Projection of Consciousness 3.
Roberts, Jane, The Early Sessions Book 6, Session 261
**************************************
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:
TheLucidDreamExchange-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
You can also check us out at www.dreaminglucid.com
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Rhine Conference: Consciousness Today
Harry Bosma
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Here's a selective report for psi dreamers. March 2007 the Rhine Research
Center organized a conference with the title "Consciousness Today: Where
Scientists and Psychics Meet at Myrtle Beach". The meeting of scientists and
psychics gave the conference an exciting edge, forcing researchers to keep
an open mind, and psychics to keep their feet on the ground.
The conference opened with a keynote by star psychic Joe McMoneagle. He
spoke about his experiences as a remote viewer with the Stargate project.
Joe shared a wide variety of insights into the workings of psi, and funny
anecdotes about working as a psychic in the context of intelligence
agencies. Joe once worked together with Stephan LaBerge to try remote
viewing from lucid dreams, but never really got to like remote viewing from
dreams.
Dale Graff presented the results of his personal dreaming project. Dale
incubated precognitive dreams for striking pictures on the front page of the
newspaper. He showed his sketches along with the found matching photos as
published by newspapers. Dale also speculated on how dream images work
towards displaying a photo from the future.
Stefan Kasian presented nine examples of dreamers who bought new homes with
the help of dreams. Stefan also shared some preliminary results on how such
dreamers score on scales for absorption and creativity. Obviously, the
purchase of real estate should make for a fruitful area to research psi, as
it involves so many very strong emotions. Stefan looks forward to hearing
more experiences from dreamers. For more information, see Stefan's member
page at the IASD website.
Other presentations among others told about the similarities between
sensitivity for subliminal messages and psi information (James Carpenter),
and similarities between "flow" experiences and psi abilities (Jean
Hamilton). The conference concluded with a keynote by Joseph Chilton Pearce
about the connection between the heart and the mind. One of the findings he
mentioned was that the heart knows about events before the brain or the mind
does. The main theme of his talk could perhaps be summarized with saying
that we should change our society to live more from the heart.
Harry Bosma
hbosma@...
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THE VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
April 2007
That's A Lot of Change
Jean Campbell
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A few days ago I had a dream. It was a fairly common dream, but with a
little twist. Here's the dream.
I am standing outdoors near a house. The house has concrete steps leading
up to a wood porch with a porch railing, all somewhat old and run down, but
comfortable. It is nearly dark, but there's enough light for me to see
something shining on the porch step. I bend to look and notice that it is a
gold coin, one of the new gold dollars that have been minted recently. Then
I look and see a couple more of these coins lying on the porch near the
steps. I begin picking them up. I had six of them in my hand when I woke
up, because I remember saying to the man I was with, "I've got six of them,"
and thinking to myself, "I used to pick up pennies. This must be
inflation!"
When I woke up though, the first thing I thought of was the last of a long
series of dreams I had several years ago about picking up coins...which
stopped when I realized I was saying to myself, "That's a lot of change."
That was when I learned that dreams of picking up coins are fairly common.
At the time I was corresponding with Tam Mossman, probably best known as the
editor of the Jane Roberts/Seth books for Prentice Hall. He said he'd had a
series of these dreams of picking up coins just before he decided to leave
Prentice Hall and begin publishing a magazine about intuition. He said he
had been collecting coin dreams from others as well.
But here's the twist. The marvel of being in an ongoing dream group, and
one that spans the world, is that as soon as I posted the above dream to The
World Dreams Peace Bridge, I began receiving information about the number
six and its meaning as a symbol, from other members of the Peace Bridge.
This was information I never would have taken the time to look up on my own,
so (as with all dream groups) the input from others was valuable and
appreciated.
From Joy in California came this message, "Oh yes! Not only is 6 gold coins
a lot of change, it's BIG change, and GOOD change!"
The 6 of Pentacles or Disks in the tarot comes to mind, traditionally
showing six coins surrounding a prosperous person with a scale, giving alms:
As one book says (The Sacred Tarot Unveiled by Allyson
Walsh): "...recognizes that giving is as important as receiving - this is
the practice of prosperity consciousness, letting energy flow back and
forth."
Alexandra Genetti in her very globally-oriented Wheel of Change Tarot shows
six coins, six cowrie shells and six paper bills, symolizing the symbolic
nature of money and how it can become distanced from our actual material
needs. In the accompanying book she points out how trade and specialization
have brought wonderful diversity yet disconnected us from the direct
relationship to our sustenance we knew in ancient times: "This is a very
large change," she says.
She emphasizes being aware of the wide-reaching environmental and economic
effects of how we use our money; her Six of Disks "may herald a time of
simple increase and good material fortune. Along with this fortune comes the
challenge to divide the needs from the wants in your life.... The balance
you achieve will help you bring a larger balance in the totality of the
world."
Knowing this IS your focus, Jean, I'd take your 6 gold coins as a very good
sign!
From Kathy Turner in Australia came this message related to the wish for FU
or good fortune that Peace Bridge members have given to each other ever
since it was introduced by May Tung to the group many years ago:
Dear all - I wish you much much happiness and much FUUUUUUUUUUUUU (6 gold
coins of FUUUUUU) at this time.
A late happy wish for Mawlid al-Nabiy (March 31st);
A late happy wish for Saka New Year (April 2)
A partly late happy wish for Passover (April 3 - 10);
An ontime happy wish for Easter (April 8).
Kathy
And from Janet in the UK:
After reading Joy's tarot connection to Jean's dream I decided to head for
my tarot book. (The Way of the Tarot, by Karen Hamaker-Zondag - a Jungian
approach using the Rider-Waite deck.)
Here's some of what it says about the number six: "Six is the pivot of it's
divisors (1 + 2 + 3 = 6 = 1 x 2 x 3), and also the pivot or center of the
first five even numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. If we link this with the fact that
we encounter three two times in six, and three is connected with the ingress
of psychic energy into the realm of time and space, then it seems that six
with its pivotal action has a cyclic function. Cycles bring us back to
points where we have been before, but where we can make a fresh start with
new trends and new cycles. In the meantime, something old, the previous
round, is completed. Thus in six something has been completed, but at the
same time there is movement due to a duality or stress-field (2 x 3). Here
is a remarkable association of rest and tension, in which the completion of
a cycle preponderates, but
the impulse to enter a new stage is also present."
As Janet pointed out, what Hamaker-Zondag says about the number six seems to
echo the change that is going on in the lives of many people on the Bridge,
"And," Janet adds," it certainly resonates with my own life, where I am
definitely feeling as if I have come to an end of a cycle and need to enter
a new stage - I'm just not sure what that stage is yet."
After writing this, Janet noted, "I haven't looked at the tarot for a long
while, and only dabbled with it
for a brief time, but decided this afternoon to pick just one card to see
what turned up. So I shuffled the pack thoroughly, cut it, and turned over .
. . the six of cups!
From what I have heard, the energy of the six is running rampant this
spring. There seem to be major changes coming to a lot of people, not just
the people of the Peace Bridge. But there was another interesting result
from the appearance of the six coins in my dream and the discussion that
followed. Several people, for whom the work with numbers in dreams was a
new idea, have now begun to look at their dream numbers. Two is a favorite,
but who knows what might develop?
Lots of change, indeed!
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Dream: Buffy and the Spitting Alien
Stan Kulikowski II
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DATE: 16 mar 2007 08:22
DREAM: buffy and the spitting alien
=( yesterday was a thursday. i took my mother to her eye doctor to check
how her glaucoma medicine is doing. he changed her prescription to a
different pair of drops. in the evening my friend ron from massachusetts
called. we have not spoken in about six months i suspect. lana married lex
on _smallville_ even though she discovered clark's secret. i got to bed
around midnight, fell to sleep, but woke about 04:00 and could not get back
to sleep until around 07:00. lately my sleep has been better than this. )=
the high school is deserted now, the students have fled so the screaming and
running part is done. buffy the vampire slayer comes carefully into the
large empty garage in back of the building for maintenance of the school
buses. she is careful now because she does not know in what direction
attack is likely to come.
on the back wall of the garage buffy sees a student partially encased in a
dried mucous that is charcoal gray. with some effort she manages to pull
the girl off the wall. she comes free with a noticeable pop, the mucous
coming away like a coin around her. the dried stuff is stiff but brittle,
so buffy is able to break away the part covering the girl's mouth and nose
so she can breathe easier. slowly, carefully, buffy starts clearing away
the other chunks that are binding her. the girl is trembling but too out of
breath to run away until she catches up.
when buffy has the last dried chunks removed from her hair and has brushed
away the crumbly pieces from her blouse, they barely get a chance to turn
around when the alien comes in the door from the outside. it is the typical
kind of creature from outer space seen in comic books: green skin, bald head
with pointy ears and large lidless eyes. it is wearing a tight satin
costume with ornamental ribbing marking its shoulders and elbows.
buffy and the student flee to the far door on the other side of the garage.
just as they scurry through the doorway, the alien makes a sound in its
throat and hacks up a sizable mass of phlegm which is spits across the
garage at them. buffy pulls the student out of the line of fire so the
mucous splats against the door as she yanks it closed. when wet, the mucous
is blue green color that quickly turns the dark gray color as it hardens.
the next room has work benches and stools which the two dash around.
buffy lets the student run into the hallway but she stays back, picking up
tall waste can to use as a shield. she intends to slow the oncoming monster
so the girl can make her get away out of the school. the other door to the
garage was somewhat sealed by the glob of mucous the alien had spit, so it
takes a little while for the creature to gain entrance in here.
buffy manages to catch next two projectiles which the alien spits at her
across the room with the trash can, but has to throw it down when it becomes
too thickly covered. she does not want her hands to get trapped holding the
object when it hardens. by this time they have approached each other close
enough that buffy can upturn one of the work benches for cover as she ducks
under the next salvo of adhesive.
she is finally close enough to swing her fist and only connects with the
cheekbone of the alien from a glancing angle, but never the less the bones
of its face crack beneath the skin. the creature is rather fragile, not
meant for hand to hand combat in this earth gravity. the alien quickly
turns a dial on its wrist and dissolves in a ripple of colored lights as it
teleports away somewhere. the immediate threat seems over.
my father comes into the hotel room and asks "are you awake yet?" i open my
eyes to see that it is still dark outside and the clock on the bedside table
says 04:30. "we only have a half hour to drive to get home, so we should
leave soon." he always likes to drive very early in the morning so the rest
of us in the family must get up before dawn even though none of us are
morning people like he is.
as he leaves the room, i sit up in the bed and think that i can write up
this dream about buffy the vampire slayer before we have to go. beside the
bed i have an old underwood typewriter. i could go out to the car to get my
laptop computer, but it seems easier if i just type up the
dream on paper. i can transfer it to computer files later. i would
probably lose too much of the dream if i go outside in the cold to get the
laptop.
there are several folders of loose paper beside the bed. i have a little
trouble getting heavy old typewriter balanced on my lap as i sit up. i put
the first page of empty white paper in the roller and balance the edges
before i clamp it down. i try to type the title 'buffy and the spitting
alien' but only random mixed characters come out on the paper. moving my
fingers in the pronounced up and down movements needed to push the levers
onto the paper seems really awkward and difficult after years of the smaller
motions of computer keyboards. more unreadable characters come out in more
attempts to write the title line. oh yes, this is a vintage qwerty keyboard
and i have long ago taught myself dvorak touch typing as the only sensible
interface. i need to switch back to my old hunt and peck skills with
antique technology like this.
i pull out the illegible page i have made and seek another new page to type
upon, but every paper i pull out of the folders has stuff printed on it
already. apparently i have ruined the last blank sheet. i start looking
for pages that have larger open areas so i can fit my dream story into
whatever space is available. i find a page that has a color image of a
vegas stripper down one side. that one would probably do as stationary in a
pinch, but i keep thumbing through the other sheets looking for a wider
area. i doubt much of the dream would fit into the column of white beside
her.
the door to the hotel room opens again. this time a young woman with very
black hair comes in and sits on the bed behind me. "can't get your dreams
down?" she asks me. i am clearly having trouble fumbling with all the many
papers in the folders. she leans her chin upon my shoulder. "perhaps you
are not meant for that dream."
i know that she has a boyfriend but they are having difficulties. i doubt
that they are well matched, but i do not want to cause any further problems
between them. i stop fiddling with the papers and she leans further around
me so her face comes around just in front of me. she is clearly pressing
her breasts into my arm and she smiles at me with obvious invitation.
"there might be more to life than just dreaming."
she murmurs in my ear stretching up so her cheek brushes lightly against
mine. in spite of myself, i feel an erection creep up under the sheets
across my lap. she notices this too and chuckles a little deep in her
throat as she kisses me squarely on the lips with just the tip of her tongue
teasing me to enter her. i guess it is time for her boyfriend to be
forgotten. the heavy underwood typewriter falls off the bed with a heavy
clunk as i give in to her charms, letting myself dissolve away in the heady
rush of pleasure.
we do not get any further before a local politician comes in the door.
"i got the grant." he exclaims with heartfelt relief. outside the door i
can see a stretch limousine in the parking lot. "it helps if you have your
family to think about during the negotiations."
i am pleased that he has scored this lucrative contract for his career, but
i can not help but wish his timing were about an hour or two later.
the young woman with the dark hair and deep inviting eyes laughs a little
and looks demurely away as we separate.
=( awake at 08:05. buffy in this dream was sarah michelle gellar just like
the television series. the spitting alien was rather like mister mystxplck
without the leprechaun hat from the superman comics of the 1950s. i did
learn to type on an ancient underwood typewriter when i was in high school
before i got an olympia portable for college. i have taught myself dvorak
typing about a dozen years ago but usually have no trouble when i must use
qwerty keyboards. my father died more than a decade ago. he did always get
us up hours before the break of dawn when we traveled by car anywhere
because he was best in the morning. i have no associations with the
delightful dark haired girl nor the annoying politician at the end of this,
other than i find beautiful women delightful and have little patience with
politicians of any stripe.
this seems like a dream without much depth, starting with a television
adventure, then morphing to unreliable technology with a memory from teenage
years, then into a flirtation with sexual energy foiled by commonplace
politics. the timeline is contorted with buffy being the most recent
feature followed by the antique typewriter from distant adolescence before
the sexual drive expresses itself. my current typing skills did interface
unsuccessfully with the older device, just as buffy struggled with the
alien, and the politician interrupted the pleasures of the dark haired girl.
seems conflict everywhere and i suppose that writing about dreaming about
writing about dreaming has some twisted second order logic to it also. )=
--
stankuli@...
. i swear it happened just like this:
=== a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss,
| | and the gates of love they budged an inch
--- but nothing much has happened since.
-- l cohen (1992) _closing time_
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"Changing" the Dream
DreamRePlay
(Copyright 2007) David Jenkins, PhD
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One of the goals of my work is to help you have more pleasant and fewer
stressful dreams. Although last night's dream cannot be changed, it is a
steppingstone to your next dream. You can imagine variations on the current
dream and this re-working influences future dreams. You replay the dream on
order to spell out what you really want to happen. You can have allies, say
what needed to be said; and even end the dream in a different way.
Action changes the dream
The key to DreamReplay is action. Action is very different from
understanding. For instance, saying "The horse is a symbol of your
instinctual energy," may help you understand the dream but it doesn't alter
its outcome
Instead, I would rather ask "Where do you want to go, what do you want to
do, now that you are riding the horse?"
Action-an action of the imagination- changes the dream. And influences the
next dream. If you cannot or do not imagine something different, you and
your dreams are guaranteed to stay the same.
Most often, you take the action that continues the dream in the direction
you wish to go: "Now that you have said goodbye to your mother, what do you
want to do next?" Often the dream leaves you stuck with unwanted feelings
and then the action required is to express yourself. For example, someone
might embarrass you in a dream and make you feel bad. You would work out
what you really want to say to that person. Speaking this to the imaginary
person is taking action.
Dream action is governed by the dream situation
You are not completely free to imagine any action to resolve the problem in
the dream. You are governed, even controlled, by the particular dream
situation.
Think of the dream as a rowboat in a strongly flowing river. You have some
choices about what to do, but you have to flowt downstream-there is no way
of changing that. You could ignore what is happening to the boat and drift
wherever the river takes you. Or you could use the oars or learn about the
currents and the winds in order to steer the boat as best you can. In the
same way, you have some choices within the general direction that your dream
is taking you, but you must work within the reality of the dream.
It can be tempting to take an easy action when you are in a difficult
situation. For example, suppose you dreamed you were walking through the
park and saw your boyfriend necking with your best friend. If asked what
you'd like to have happen next, you might want Superman to come out of the
sky, beat them up, and swoop you away. That might be very satisfying but it
wouldn't really affect the dream since you've basically abandoned the world
of your dream to people who are "doing you wrong." It would be better to
articulate clearly to your dream-girlfriend and your dream-boyfriend what
you are feeling. (Afterwards, Superman can whisk you away). Even in a
difficult situation, it is important for you to take charge rather than exit
the situation. After all, it's your dream.
Forget your best behavior
Dream life is, in many ways, much more rough-and-tumble than waking life.
The people who visit us in our dreams are often neither subtle nor polite
and the problems faced are most often not intellectual problems. You have to
work at the level of the dream characters. If someone is about to kill you
with an axe, you could imagine talking to him nicely. If that works,
congratulations. But you will usually find that your action must equal the
energy of the dream. In this example, talking is not the same as getting
help, hiding, or protecting yourself. If your dream-husband is insisting
that you have to visit his relatives and you are sure you do not want to,
the key question is: What kind of "No" will this dream-husband understand?
You may have to express yourself far more strongly than your waking-life
husband would require.
Conclusion
You don't change a dream just by talking about it. You have to ask yourself
what would make a significant change to the dream.
In next week's column, we'll discuss how to talk to dream characters - they
are easier than waking life characters in that you will always know what is
true and more demanding of your skills since they are harder to train.
DIAL-IN DREAM GROUPS
Whether you live far away or close by, a phone group allows you to get
a sense of dream work in a very convenient way. With this new work, I
hope to communicate the pleasure and the excitement of dream work to many
people.
email david at
davidj@... for information.
DREAM GROUPS
The Saturday drop-in group ($20) is from 10 am to noon at 2315 Prince
Street in Berkeley. The nearest major cross street is Ashby and
Telegraph. Please let me know if you are coming.
web:
http://dreamoftheweek.com
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Signs of Simulation, Symbols beyond Value Jean Baudrillard and Grassroots
Dreamwork in Cyberspace.
Richard Catlett Wilkerson
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This article was originally published as
Wilkerson, Richard Catlett (1998 June). Signs of Simulation, Symbols beyond
Value Jean Baudrillard and Grassroots Dreamwork in Cyberspace. Electric
Dreams 5(6).
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/articles_rcw/baudrillard-dream.htm
" We used to live in the imaginary world of the mirror, of the divided self
and of the stage, of otherness and alienation. Today we live in the
imaginary world of the screen, of the interface and the reduplication of
contiguity and networks. All our machines are screens. We too have become
screens, and the interactivity of men has become the interactivity of
screens." Jean Baudrillard, Xerox & Infinity.
Jean Baudrillard is a cultural theorist who, like Carl Jung, became
concerned about Western Culture's abandonment of the symbolic and over-
involvement with the sign. Unlike Jung who responded by developing an
individual psychology for exploration of the *symbolic* in the personal
realm, Baudrillard took on a McLuhanian like media probe and analysis of the
*sign* in contemporary culture. His startling results take us into a
hyperreal world where models of reality dominate and reality itself has
given way to simulations of the real, and eventually to simulations of
simulations that have no anchor, nor interest, in the real whatsoever.
o Can Cultural Analysis be Applied to Dreamwork?
The extension of humanity into computer mediated communications, as well as
the general rise of technology & media has brought out the ever increasing
importance of the technological interface and extension of our species. Not
only will we extend the practices of dreamwork into new area, but we will
continue to observe the effects and transformations in dream imagery that
these organic-digital combinations produce.
Although the dream resists direct commodification & digitalization, (just
try to sell a dream, or even get someone to listen to your dream with
interest), the transition from symbol to sign is an essential turning point
according to Baudrillard in our culture becoming sign dependent. There is
some marketing around dreams and dreamwork, but it is a very insignificant
part of the economy of the sign, money or politics. Even Freud remarked with
sadness late in this life that psychoanalysis had abandoned dreams and had
added nothing to his original theory in over 40 years, an this was for the
sake of the capital that could be made from developing long term
transferencial therapies (I included the capital reasoning here). James
Hillman might have developed a way to see commodification in dreamwork. He
has warned against turning dreams into objects for use in the dayworld, but
this would be a very metaphorical use of commodification. Generally
speaking, dreams resist being quantified, and in doing so may offer us an
alternative to being swept up in the endless march of mass media, consumer
advertisements and what Marx called primitive accumulation that dominates
capitalist societies that focus on the exchange and use value of objects
rather than their deeper meanings.
Perhaps more interestingly we might look at our dreams for clues to our own
cycles of consumption. A kind of Marxian Dreamwork that exposes the places
in our life we have turned into objects and been turned into objects, were
we are the repressed workers and where we repress the worker. For
Baudrillard, himself once a Marxist theorist, the world has moved past both
Capitalism and Marxism into a Fractal economy where all meanings and options
have fully extended & played themselves out and now just circulate the
pieces around by means of a code that no one controls. The use we make of
the dream relates to capitalism as much as the exchange value might. In this
sense, the symbolic goes beyond the uses we can make of the dream, and any
dreamwork that favors the dream over the function we make of it needs to
gather this sense to continue. Still, we need to begin somewhere.
o How Far Have You Personally Moved into the Hyperreal?
Baudrillard offers us an image of the 4 revolutions that he sees having
occurred in the shift from real to hyperreal. These 4 Orders can be applied
to the dream world as well as waking cultural horizons. By reading our
dreams for the dominate order, we may be led to insights about our
relationship with the signs and symbols that make up our world and inner
world. When are we more like a feudal caste society were any variance in the
interpretation of an event is considered a transgression? When are we so
involved in the simulatory experience of the dream that its relationship to
the rest of the world is no longer important? When is our desire shifted and
manipulated by the objects in our environment and where do we rebel and
consider creative, subversive alternatives?
o Sign Revolutions: A Sound Byte
The fixed and referential symbols of the Feudal/caste societies were shaken
by the Renaissance theatrics which put their meaning(s) into question. Just
what signs were suppose to refer to anymore was up to debate. The industrial
revolution made possible the serial replication of these signs,
exterminating any reference, producing an explosion of referents.. In the
post-industrial era, metaphysical models of the code create a world of
simulation without any reference to the real, an order of simulation that
has no interest in the real whatsoever. Finally, in the fractal order, the
simulations implode into a viral proliferation infinity extended and
exhausted in all directions. All distinctions and differences are
interwoven, cross-bred and played out to an extreme.
o Levels of Image
Level 0. Aboriginal symbolic exchange cultures. The image is a reflection of
basic reality. Note dream imagery in aboriginal cultures where the image is
like almost a sacrament. Even in our de-sacralized society, dreams are often
vaguely see as reflecting reality. Jung was interested in returning the
dream image to this level, though he often wanted to bring it up into the
dayworld for our personal use. In aboriginal culture, the dream can
completely undermine the exchange value system, shifting the flow of gifts
and counter-gifts, marriages, taboos and status.
Level 1. The image masks and perverts reality. Here is more a level of
Freudian dreamwork level, with the dream functioning to both express the
basic reality of desires in a disguised form just enough to let off steam,
but not enough to wake the dreamer.
Level 2. The image masks the absence of a basic reality. The dream masks the
fact that it is a dream and that there are things we don't want to dream
about. "...Power is no longer present except to conceal that there is none."
(181 S&S). In dreamwork, we teach people who are haunted by specters of
power - shadows, bears, wolves, muggers, monsters - that these figures are
involved in scenarios of empty power and can be confronted.
Level 3. The image bears no relation to any reality whatsoever, it is its
own simulacrum. Here we have moved into lucid and proactive dreaming where
the dreamer doesn't care that there is any connection with reality, the
event itself has become the reality of concern.
o Portrait of a Dreamworker:
When she was young, her dream interpretations carefully reflected the life
and reality of the dreamer, almost like she was a landscape artist. Later,
her own versions of reality began to appear in her interpretations. Some saw
this as her distortion of reality phase, others as drawing the world through
her own reality. The interpretations often seemed to mask and pervert the
reality of the dreamer. Then a desperation began to emerge, and her
interpretations masked the absence of reality, as if to protect herself and
others from a flaw at the center of the universe. Finally, her
interpretations bore no relation to any reality whatever and reproductions
of images that had no original began to proliferate.
o Dreamwork and Levels of the Sign
A way we might use these ideas in dreamwork is in recognizing the different
levels of power scenarios that play themselves out in dreaming. Baudrillard
speaks about the orders of appearance of simulation: pre-simulation
feudal/caste societies, counterfeit pre-production societies, production
societies and re-productive simulation society.
ORDER: FORM - LAW - SEMIOTICS - PROCESS
0 Feudal/caste societies - signs and their meanings are pre-determined
1 Natural - Counterfeit - Arbitrariness - Corrupt Symbol
2 Market - Production - Seriality -Icon
3 Structural - Simulation - Codification - Linguistic Sign
4 Fractal - Proliferation - Viral metonymy - Index
o The Feudal/Caste Society
Ever have a dream that felt like you were at the Round Table? Or how about
another type of cast of class society where everyone's roles were set and
fixed? Typically we like to romanticize the symbolism of such a dream.
Perhaps we might see our dream knight as an indication of our relationship
to the Higher Self, pre-figured as the king or head lf the society. Our
knight and his or her behavior becomes a symbolic singular indication of our
ego's relationship to wholeness. Baudrillard's work may offer an alternative
view.
In these caste/feudal societies the representational systems; the codes, the
symbols, the signs carry clearly marked, commonly held and limited numbers
of meanings. One knows immediately another's caste or rank by the garments
one wares. The status is clearly indicated and there is little hope of
changing one's class. Anyone who tries to change the meaning of a sign is
risking punishment for the transgression. Signified and signifier are fixed.
Transgressors of this reality, dragons, heretics and infidels, must be
hunted down and slain. All unstable reference must be punished and free
interpretation is prohibited. In our dreamland we may find concerns about
taboos and transgressions. Concerns about one reality dominate. Dreams in
this style may indicate a part of personality that runs a very rigid yet
meaningful game.
o The Counterfeit Renaissance
There is a period of time before production society sets in and after the
feudal/caste society which we often refer to in the West as the Renaissance.
Now the signs begin to loosen and what they signify are more arbitrary. Does
the bible mean this, or that? Protestant movements demand that each man must
make his own interpretation of the bible. But why stop there? Everyone
begins to have his or her own interpretation of everything. The particular
meaning of a sign is freed, and an abstract code analogous to money is born.
Theater is born and there is destruction between a thing and what it
represents. Psychology can begin as we can now question who we really are.
Nature becomes important because it is lost. In the Renaissance we find
stucco floral outpourings everywhere, in fountains, in buildings in
paintings, in clothes, in books and on weapons. Stucco was the first
plastic. The sign is stripped of its original meaning, but still refers
dimly to a time when it did mean something. Too late. The natural world
unfolds in every form, but it is all on stage. It is the theater of
appearance and disappearance and changing forms. I am reminded of the movie
"Interview with a Vampire" where the vampire's stage a show, a parody of
their life which unfolds endless "real" scenarios against the background of
vampirism, but unable to refer to anything outside of the play itself. Their
reference to the real world was cut by their condition. So too this early
production society feeds on the real but is really cut off from it.
In dreams, we often encounter these worlds as well. Sometimes they are
joyously filled with creative and theatrical energy, oddly meaningful and
yet free from meaning. Strange forms evolve, masks and mistakes in identity
trick us and make us laugh. Reversals and getting back to where we once were
becomes more difficult. We find ourselves marrying people we don't know,
making alliances with strangers and creating art forms we never imagined. On
the darker side, this world can be uncomfortably unstable. Pets turn into
insects, chairs are haunted with ghosts, hospitals become prisons. Mom just
ain't what she used to be. Reality refuses to stabilize. This is the first
order of simulation, the corrupt symbol that no longer refers to what it
used to refer to. At one level this validates the living symbol that evolves
and wants to grow out of its old form. But what Baudrillard is suggesting is
that these images that have outgrown their original reference will never be
able to find a happy home to live. Desire has become grandiose and swirls
upward in Baroque productions of a Heaven in process, cupids arrow spiraling
ever upward and outward.
o Modern Production Society
Here the sign produces neutral values can be exchanged in an objective
world. Just like the free worker who is now free to make what he or she
wants, but there is little meaning in the work. There is a nostalgia for
ancient meaning, but it is all appearance. The Marlboro Cowboy is a
billboard commodity used to sell cigarettes. The real meaning of the sign
easily exchanged.
There is an expansion here of the production of goods, science and
technology. There is an explosion of transportation, products to buy, and
services as commodities. There is an explosion of science and technology, of
national boundaries, of different social spheres, topics to discuss, money
and value. In the Modern society there is a constant proliferation of
commodities.
In dreams we find modern images in the factory, the conveyor belt, the
assembly line. But this is also the world of the Sorcerer's Apprentice.
Duplication proliferates. Dreams of serial duplication, hordes of animals
without a queen or leader, clones and eternal returns may appear. The
simulation begun in the previous stage now accelerates and a great deal of
energy is put into covering up the loss of reality. I recall a Gaham Wilson
cartoon where a group of scientists were in discussion in a large astrolab,
above unnoticed, a piece of space had torn and several angels were trying to
quickly pull it back together. Dreams where maps and territory are confused
speak to this level. Baudrillard sites Borges' story where the makers of a
map had it laid out so perfectly that it covered the real territory, except
in places where there were tattered corners. The busy activity of hiding the
fact that reality has disappeared may take simple and less harmless forms
like going to Disneyland, or stronger forms like Auschwitz where death is
produced and reproduced.
Since the surface of things is now suspect and devoid of meaning, one Barbie
doll as meaningful as another, the Modern turn was to Depth. If the Real can
no longer be found on the surface, then in it must be found beneath the
surface. Once the unconscious is revealed, then what you really feel, what
you really meant, is re-discovered. Look for dreams where you feel that what
is "really" going on, where is it "really" happening is somewhere else. We
can say that psychoanalytically the self is in projection in this Order. It
is in the group that won't let your in, in the party that is just over when
you arrive, in the gift and prize given to someone else. Just not quite
"here". Detective dreams, an inability to find your way home, all lost and
found dreams are of this order. As are all equivalences, such as dreams of
balance, or weighing and measuring. What is it worth? If there is even a
hope of answering this questions, we are still in the Modern Order of Signs.
o Post-Modern Hyperrality
"The real is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, and memory banks,
models of control-- and it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times
from these. It no longer needs to be rational, because it no longer measures
itself against an ideal." from Simulacra and Simulation
Had the truth been that we remained in a production reality, Marxism may
have continued to be a viable theory in the world. But Baudrillard sees that
what Marx called the "nonessential" sectors of capital to be what the global
process of capital is founded upon. Fashion, media, publicity, information &
communication networks, cybernetic control systems, computerization,
cyberspatiality, digitalization and genetic code proliferation. The
organizing principle is no longer production but re-production. In this
society of simulations where it is more interesting to be involved with a
simulation of reality than reality itself, a new social order establishes
itself. With the collapse or implosion between image/simulation and reality,
the ground for the real disappears. People write in to Robert Young, an
actor who played Dr. Welby, for medical advice and Raymond Burr who played
the lawyer Perry Mason& Ironside for legal advice. Now doctors and lawyers
are expected to act like Dr. Welby and Perry Mason. The models are the pivot
point of reference rather that reality itself. Simulations now determine
reality.
The continual solicitations to buy, to consume, to work, vote, give
opinions, and participate in social life consume meaning and value as
distinctions become meaningless.
Simulations have devoured reality, and models have taken over. The
production of reality in the Modern phase resulted in saturation and
explosion. Now we have implosion. Reality and meaning melt into a nebulous
mass of self-reproducing simulation. Simulations have taken over for
reality, and now generate nothing but more simulations.
The boundaries between entertainment and news collapse. The news becomes
spectacle, entertainment. Politics and entertainment implode. Polls turn the
elections into image contexts, a war of signs.
We still consume, even more feverishly. But now we buy status and presence
instead of objects. Here in San Francisco, my neighborhood has filled with
four-wheel drive wagons. We used to call them jeeps. I doubt most of these
all-terrain vehicles have even been anywhere off the road beside perhaps a
sidewalk. There are hills here, but never any snow nor weather that would
warrant a 4-wheel drive. It is very cool to be part of this urban safari. In
hyperreality what is produced and consumed are signs. The pressure on the
individual is to be socialized. Production is irrelevant and secondary.
In a surreal mode, we find pleasure in finding the unnatural in the natural.
Eruptions of moments of surreality break into the course of everyday life.
In the hyperral, the real and imaginary collapse together everywhere. Any
moment might be a media event and we have a kind of sixth sense for this. We
scan for fakery, montage and overlay. Absolut Vodka ala the latest artist,
Absolut Mc Glynn, Absolut Philip, Absolut Goodman....
A kind of non-deliberate parody clings to everything. No one believes it is
real, nor cares. Do you have political concerns about the integrety of the
politicians? Get with it, its cool that Newt brings his laptop to congress!
In dreamwork, we cover the full spectrum. Some people use dreamwork to patch
up the holes in their reality - or gaps in their illusion of reality -
places where meaning and value have dropped out of their lives. Much of
therapy is about patching up holes in the ego. Deeper work is statistically
rare. Dreamwork can go the other extreme as well and be a vehicle for
promoting a particular singular reality. Here, the interpretations will
always be the same, and the interpretive process determines reality. Just as
vexing can be the dream as god approach, where the dream reality is
determining all the reality and dreamwork becomes a kind of religion, the
dream an object of worship.
o An Alternative to Signs - The Improverse
While Baudrillard exposes very well the simulated reality we are moving so
rapidly into, his alternatives are somewhat lacking and under theorized. The
gist is to enact scenes that return us to the symbolic and burn the sign.
But his suggestion of becoming more real than real, more the worker than the
worker, more the consumer than the consumer, seem to have little or no
effect on culture and quickly play out to exhaustion in avante-gaude art
scenes. Big History may truly have ended and in our postmodern world all we
can do is play with the pieces. While this may cause sadness for dictators,
nationalists, classicists and others desiring massive changes, for most of
us exploring dreamwork in cyberspace it offers the opportunity for play and
experimentation.
A personal alternative is the Improverse, the intrusion of a symbolic
exchange into sign value and exchange. In the improverse, reality is created
out of the interaction of two or more singularites (dream, person, mood,
sound in the distance..) intruding into the exchange value and signs. One
might say that reality is co-determined by the participants on a local
level. Avens once said about the dream, we give it meaning, then it reveals
to us its significance. If we can hear it. Listening is as important as
signing in this universe. Having an ear for the other and being able to play
off of the song that comes from neither but from the relationship is much
like the old technique of impovisational music. In blues and folk rock jams,
the musician is called upon to listen while playing. Improvisations lead to
a temporary reality or song/jam world that includes all that are listening,
musicians and non-musicians alike. Thus the subjective-objective world is
crossed. On a Social-Political level, subversive activities often erupt in
the same manner. On a larger scale we can see the effects in such events as
the tearing down of the Berlin Wall coming directly from grassroots cultural
exchange programs. On a more local level, Bikers, sick of Auto dominated
streets began erupting into spontaneous Critical Mass bike-a-thons in the
Bay Area in the late 1990's during rush hour traffic. In dreamwork we
approach the dream without a sense of knowing, but of interest - we try a
note. This boy in my dream is my own undeveloped boy. We listen and maybe we
hear yes, maybe we hear no - but usually a whole intuition appears that
leads us on. The improverse comes into being.
References and More on Jean Baudrillard: www.dreamgate.com/pomo/
-----------------------------------------------------------
TERMS:
Hyperreal: A phenomenon where one can no longer tell the difference between
real and reproductions of the real. Reproductions even become more real than
real and experiences of hyperreal more satisfying than experiences of the
real.
Image: Sometimes a visual presentation, but not always. In a larger way,
more as an understanding, as in "Let me give you an image of what happened
the other day."
Sign: Something that usually points to something else. It can be a part of
language or an event as well as a traffic sign or dream image. The sign has
parts, the signifier - like the word "couch", the signified or concept it is
referring to like the idea of couch and the referent, a concrete object like
my couch in my living room. In Postmodern theory, there is more and more
emphasis on the material signifier and less on the concept to which it
refers. The actual object in the real world, the referent, often seems to
disappear altogether.
Simulacra: In Plato a false copy. But in modern thought were the distinction
between appearance and reality are challenged the simulacrum has more value
as a critical idea and becomes a copy without an original. The idea here
being reproduction without interest in first causes or reference.
Simulation: The process by which something real replaces the thing being
represented. Language does this in being able to transform something
specific and concrete into something abstract and universal. This brings up
notions of map and territory. For Baudrillard, the transformed "map" may be
more real than the original territory. I might enjoy a film on sky-diving
more than actually doing it. Baudrillard sees history as sliding from
attention to the land to the map leading to the disappearance of meaning.
"simulation is . . . the generation by models of a real without origin or
reality: a hyperreal" (Baudrillard, 1983: 2).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Finding worms in hair, falling off a bridge, watching a plane crash. it
could only be the dream section of the Electric Dreams!
Dream title: Baby
Dream date: march 21, 2007
Dreamer name: anonymous
Dream text: I had a new born child and I was holding it; I was so happy.
One day I let an old friend baby sit for me and she stole the baby from me.
I never saw my baby again and I just kept crying and crying and crying. I
called the police and told them what happened and then I woke up.
Dream comments: I might be pregnant but from my boyfriend
Dream title: Dying
Dream date: none given
Dreamer name: anonymous
Dream text: I'm in a car accident and fall off a bridge. I'm falling and I
see my self crying and falling and dying. When I hit the bottom of the
bridge, I see a coffin, but I don't see myself. I don't know who it is in
the coffin. I just see myself just crying.
Dream comments: I've been having this dream dying for about 7 years; I think
it's me in the coffin.
Dream title: Weird
Dream date: march 20, 2007
Dreamer name: anonymous
Dream text: I was in a huge castle-like home. I had twice the number of
brothers and sisters that I have in waking life. This home that we moved in
seemed so weird. There were so many people in the house running around
because my parents had something going on, like a meeting with their
company. One of my sisters and I were fighting about which room we would
choose to live in because each room was better than the other. Somehow my
sister got the better room (like she always gets the better life then I do)
with manipulation. I got the smallest room. My parents were still working
with everyone downstairs in some big meeting. Another sister and I went
exploring the home. One place seemed like we shouldn't be near it. Then my
cell phone rang I put it on speaker phone so my sister could hear it
silence...deep breathing on the other line.
Dream comments: weird dream!
Dream title: Airplane crash
Dream date: 3/19/07
Dreamer name: yaakbaby
Dream text: I was standing in my office with some co-workers and all of a
sudden a huge jetliner crashed nose first right outside the window. It
didn't even break our windows. We watched people gathering up parts.
Suddenly I said "Look at the basket of heads! They're all smiling".
Dream comments: I dream about airplane crashes a lot and I am not afraid of
flying at all.
Dream title: Worms in hair
Dream date: 3/23/07
Dreamer name: mirasaza
Dream text: I was in the bathroom; it was dirty and I needed to clean it
because guests were coming over. I picked up a black vent brush, like the
one I use everyday, and brushed it through my hair a few times. I noticed
some difficulty, like my hair didn't feel right or look right when I brushed
it. I looked at the brush and there were big long worms in it. I freaked
out, and ran my fingers through my hair, and started pulling out worms, lots
of worms. My hair was dry to start, but by the end of my dream I was bent
over a tub with sopping wet hair pulling out long worms and clumps of tiny
worms too.
Dream comments: I've never had this dream before.
Dream title: OMG! Doggie Conundrums!
Dream date: 28/09/2006
Dreamer name: PJ
Dream text: I dreamt that we had bought ourselves a pet dog, a
Labrador-Border Collie mix. After getting home, it decided it was feeling
horny and tried to "Make Whoopee" with my youngest child, and then after
pulling the dog from him, it tried to do the same with my youngest daughter.
My partner pulled the dog off my daughter and began to masturbate, which
sprayed all over the lounge walls and the kids. It smelled so bad it, that
I ran outside and I became violently sick.
Dream comments: This is one of the rudest and strangest dreams I have ever
had.
------------------ END DREAM SECTION ------------------
-------------------- END ISSUE -----------------
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