Dreams , are they more then just imagination??

[Guest]

Imagine a swarm of flying birds.
(Well, do it, picture a swarm of birds!)

Now tell me how many birds did you see?
5? 15? 50?
You can probably say that the picture in your mind was pretty clear, but how many birds you were seeing was out of your control...
The big question is: Who determined how many birds you were seeing? It certainly wasn't you!

It might still be you, but unconsciously...
The unconscious mind is a powerfull thing, only how to reach it.....

 

[Siq]

I agree S-i-t-P, that the unconscience causes many things we may experience as supernatural or alien or any outside force.

Do realise that you've seen/heard/experienced very freaking many concepts, thoughts and ideas and stuff. You may not recall this consciently, but your unconscience keeps track of a lot of things, you may not even (consciently) realise to have seen/heard/experienced AND has developed your interpretation of it all.

So also a flock of birds is a concept that is not totally defined, cause a flock of birds CAN actually have many or few birds and that number is undefined. The concept is within you to be able to recognize a flock of birds. Same thing as the philosofical question of "Why can we recognize any chair as being a chair, even if we have seen that specific chair?". Some weird famous philosofer said that in our pre-life (or something like that) we have seen the BASIC concept of a chair, of any thing actually. I don't think so however ..

Nevertheless .. imagination is a curious thing, but to say that there some supernatural entity or force causing our projected imaginations .. nah, I don't think so. Unless we (rightfully) consider our self (our conscience and unconscience) supernatural, ie; we just don't comprehend ourselves

 

[timetravel]

Since a few months I've been dreaming again, cause I'd been using marihuana for a long time (bout three years) I'd cut off my REM-phase, and didn't have any dreams. Now I haven't been smoking it for four months (pats on own shoulder) and I started remembering my dreams again.

and yes its true that smoking weed pretty much stops the dreaming

i have also read that its basicly impossible to dream when you smoke pot daily. however, i have also tried to remember my dreams some time ago, and it worked! I smoke quite a lot of hash (pure) daily yet i was able to remember my dreams almost every day. It took me about a week of 'practising' (nothing else to do when im in bed anyway) and then i actually started remembering dreams as soon as i woke up.
So, my experience is that it is most certainly possible to dream and to remember them when you smoke hash. I dont know how its possible, but i have experienced it myself..

a friend of mine who smokes every single day has intense dreams every single day. the lucky fuckin' bastard was surprised when i told him not everybody remembers his dreams like he does. and he smokes much more than i do.

i mostly don't remember anything when i wake up. when i remember a dream, which occurs about 2 times a month, i relive it with enthusiasm the rest of the day... bah. i want more...

 

[timetravel]

Before the first day I had xtc (that is .. before last sunday) I once dreamed I had x. Not so really strange in fact, however .. this:

I don't know if I'm a lone soul in this, but I don't dream in color. Well, not that everything is black and white, or grayscale .. but I just don't recognize color as something distinct.

So except for the one time I used xtc in my dreams. I dreamed I was laying on my bed and it was rather dark (ok, I actually was lying in bed and it was dark, but this time it was a dream) and somehow got the hold of xtc .. so I took it. Next I saw things light up in COLOR. So I thought .. what the hell, mutlicolor! Sweet! It was but when I woke up that I realised I had never seen color in dreams before.

i also have always felt my dreams to be colorless. but i find it weird how i've come to this conclusion, as i have no visual image of colors of real memories anyway. mostly i "believe" to have seen blue in the sky or on water... and nothing more.

but only when i finally have a lucid dream will i be able to ask myself "in loco" if i'm seeing color, i guess...

btw i wanna get hold of some nicotine patches - i've read that wearing them at night promotes lucid dreaming, as it triggers a realization that the dream self is not used to - nicotine in tha brain! how it'll actually work for me is something i'm curious about, namely i don't smoke that much nicotine while awake, don't know if that'll matter to the case, i'll let you know if i can grab the dream wheel when i try it...

oh and still another thing has anybody tried melatonin ?

 

[timetravel]

I got it at home, but haven't watched it yet though.
But I'm gonna watch it tonight. Some friends of mine are really enthousiastic about it.

A bit oftopic, but I made a lot of my friends watch what the bleep do we know...
But that's just a propaganda movie... watch The Elegant Universe Very good movie about the string theory :thumbsup:


Maybe dreaming gives your mind enough room to move the things stored into the Hippocampus to the Cortex. So it's like a trick, make you think that you experience these things while in the mean time your brian can process these things...
So it doesn't neccisarily have to be in your dream, as long as you dream and process those things...

http://www.thesecret.tv with some people of what the bleep and some more. very excellent. i've indeed been feeling that i've been applying the secret since i've seen this. know those strange coincidences? we control them ourselves. mind power... i've seen this only but am going to order the dvd soon to see it again and then again, to... master the secret

 

[tryptonaut]

It might still be you, but unconsciously...
The unconscious mind is a powerfull thing, only how to reach it.....

But is my unconscious mind really part of "me"? I mean the image of the birds certainly didn't come from outside, but they did come from some part of my brain that I have no control of. Now can that part be considered to be "part of me" if it acts like another entity? It's located in my body, but it's not under the control of my ego.

I've seen a documentary once on the human mind where they conducted experiments on decisions. They found that with most decisions (the participants had to press buttons) the impulse to the finger was sent before the conscious part of the brain became active. Still the participants always said they had made a conscious decision before they pressed the button.
The scientists believed to have shown that we don't have freedom of will because our unconscious decides for us and then gives us the feeling we had a choice...

 

[timetravel]

It might still be you, but unconsciously...
The unconscious mind is a powerfull thing, only how to reach it.....

But is my unconscious mind really part of "me"? I mean the image of the birds certainly didn't come from outside, but they did come from some part of my brain that I have no control of. Now can that part be considered to be "part of me" if it acts like another entity? It's located in my body, but it's not under the control of my ego.

I've seen a documentary once on the human mind where they conducted experiments on decisions. They found that with most decisions (the participants had to press buttons) the impulse to the finger was sent before the conscious part of the brain became active. Still the participants always said they had made a conscious decision before they pressed the button.
The scientists believed to have shown that we don't have freedom of will because our unconscious decides for us and then gives us the feeling we had a choice...

Even if that is true, I don't think that's a disappointment, as I don't think it means much to feeling real and feeling in control. We have the priviledge of being conscious (as far as I've researched on the topic we're likely to have subjective consciousness derived from the need of empathy when things started to get more complex after the discovery of the utensile and hence weapons, which made social change become a daily anxiety instead of soft changes re: the new dominant male in the hill coming out of a punch fight from year to year of so) but cherishing this priviledge of being conscious and able to empathise with nature as a whole, and assuming nevertheless that behaviour happens before consciousness, doesn't put me down at all. Even then, I suspect those tests to be valid for that situation, but what happens if you meditate over the decision? Will the ultimate decision be taken before prior conscious knowledge of it? It's an interesting question but either way I *feel* I can do anything I want except everything I'm for whatever reason impeded to do. Ranging from ethical considerations to physical impossibility, etc. But it's okay. Life is beautiful

 

[timetravel]

But is my unconscious mind really part of "me"? I mean the image of the birds certainly didn't come from outside, but they did come from some part of my brain that I have no control of. Now can that part be considered to be "part of me" if it acts like another entity? It's located in my body, but it's not under the control of my ego.

At some degree you have more control if you draw the birds on paper. The photographic quality will depend on your talent

By the way, existencial question... if I close my eyes to visualize something, I can conceptualize the 3D, with plenty of detail, but in terms of actual imagery, there is actually nothing on the screen, I just kinda pretend there is and feel the 3D, can even "imagine" myself moving across the set, but no actual "visuals". Is this how it is or am I different? Lol... Coz if any of you can close your eyes and go VR, fuck you (gently) coz I envy you

 

[ProStoner]

By the way, existencial question... if I close my eyes to visualize something, I can conceptualize the 3D, with plenty of detail, but in terms of actual imagery, there is actually nothing on the screen, I just kinda pretend there is and feel the 3D, can even "imagine" myself moving across the set, but no actual "visuals". Is this how it is or am I different? Lol... Coz if any of you can close your eyes and go VR, fuck you (gently) coz I envy you

well I can't say I can always pull this off
but I can say that I actually walked thru an picture in my mind
though this could also be the edge between awake en dreaming..
cause at that moment I barely realize anything that happens outside my body
but mostly I snap out of it and realize I was walking around in some place I just made up
but conscious images like a VR havnt really had those
I did once form these dots..(from when u look in the sun to long..) into a little man with a shovel.. and he was digging a hole... he just came out from these dots took shape and started digging
really weird

btw what if our unconscious mind is 1mind.. that of all people.. like a collective mind... which we cannot control because it controls us.. all of us
it could explain quite a lot stuff
(I just thought of this so there are prolly a lot of flaws in it, but I'm gonna think about this more) just found it an interesting theorie

 

[TheeLord!]

Does anyone of you guys knowWaking Life?
Its a really interesting philosophical animation movie about lucid dreaming, like reality is one big dream.

Yes, I do and fully agree.
Very well done and interesting one.

 

[Siq]

Well, the golbal conscience theory .. or maybe global UNconscience might be a better name.

This theory is also described, or at least an example of it, in the movie Waking Life. That case is about a test in which a crossword-puzzle is made by a group of people. They people scored 20% higher on avergae on a crossword-puzzle that was allready made by many other people than on a puzzle that was new a unsolved by anyone yet, offcourse they did were on the same difficulty level (depending on how that can be measured exactly ..). This is said to prove the global conscience theory for the knowledge that is 'shared' about the subject was wide-spread and there 'the answers were allready there, for anyone to grasp them'.

Then again (although I know of no specific case or expiriment) there must also be theories about, a reasons for, the fact that our conscience is 'home-build', ie: created by ourself and all our experience. I think that my (dutch) interpertation of a flock of (dutch) birds may differ a lot from some guy living in New Guinea or something, who may define a flock of birds as a huge colourfull swarm of feathery thingies, whilst mine is this black flock of few crows. So I say that the total envirement and subjective experience defines and creates our personal concept of a flock of birds or any other concept. Therefor I cannot say that the assumed entity is the same one, creating my vision of the flock and this New Giunean guy's and everybody else's. So even this unconscient "I-dunno-thingy" that makes me able to picture birds is part of me, eventhough I cannot recognise my conscience in it.

Global conscience .. I say it could be. But until I'm certain, I'll doubt about both ends.

My personal goal would be to first realise my unconscience and try to prognose and influence it's behavior. How? I dunno .. I'll just doubt everything.

 

[Forkbender]

But there could also be many levels of consciousness, slowly regressing into something one could call the collective unconscious. The theory of the collective unconscious was popularized by CG Jung, while it stems from western esoteric traditions, and slowly there are surfacing proofs for it (Siq mentioned the crossword example, another one is that birds learn to open certain cans of milk in one part of the world and then it is learned in another part of the world without communication -> see the work of biologist Rupert Sheldrake for example). The many levels would make it possible for different cultures/species to get different stuff from the collective unconscious, while still being connected on a deeper level.

 

[Guest]

Well I believe I´ve experienced a somewhat conscious connection to the global unconsciousness on DMT. It was like I felt connected with every plant, flower, humanbeing and had access to all the knowledge in the world. Only I couldn´t take any of this with me from out of the trip like waking up from a dream but not remembering any of it.

Ok I can remember the feeling (it felt really secure and I felt at home).
But It's not that I really could take some of that wisedom with me.

 

[alice]

But there could also be many levels of consciousness, slowly regressing into something one could call the collective unconscious.

There was this article by this bio-chemist I read not long ago, and he was talking about how when a member of our species is born, it has a billion years of memory to draw on. And this is where we inherit our instincts.

I like that. It's like there's this whole telepathic thing going on that we're all a part of, whether we're conscious of it or not. That would explain why there are all these seemingly spontaneous worldwide innovative leaps in science and the arts, you know, like the same results popping up everywhere independent of each other. Some guy on a computer figures something out, and then almost simultaneously a bunch of other people all over the world figure out the same thing. They did this study where they isolated a group of people over time, you know, and monitored their abilities at crossword puzzles in relation to the general population, and they secretly gave them a day-old crossword, one that had already been answered by thousands of other people, and their scores went up dramatically. Like 20%. So it's like once the answers are out there, people can pick up on them. Like we're all telepathically sharing our experiences.

in the film _Waking Life_ directed by Richard Linklater

:wink:

alice

for more quotes from waking life or more info on collective consciousness or dreams ands lots of other interesting stuff go to

http://fusionanomaly.net/wakinglife.html

isn't this the crasiest link?
anyway...

 

[ProStoner]

lol alice.. I was reading ur story .. and I believe u copied a part of the script from waking life into it lol
or u remember it from the movie really well
cause u describe it in the exact same words hehe
anyways to put back in the dream part in this topic
maybe... maybe when u sleep... ur dreams are processing ur experiences and uploading them to your unconsciousness
I mean its a (fact) that we proces stuff we did the day in our dreams or so..
but what we are actually doing is .. uploading all our data in to the global being..
updating our whole existence.. not just for yourself

 

[tryptonaut]

Well I believe I´ve experienced a somewhat conscious connection to the global unconsciousness on DMT. It was like I felt connected with every plant, flower, humanbeing and had access to all the knowledge in the world.

When I'm on a high dose of shrooms I often start to feel "transparent" (that's the only way I can describe it). It feels like everyone can see what I'm thinking, like my thoughts and memories are being dissolved in a big web of "everyone". It also feels like I can actually feel the presence of people even through walls (like in the next apartment) and I get glimpses of their minds (like if they are happy or sad). Both of that could be pure imagination of course, but it feels freaking real...

What I think could be very true is that in our minds we have ancient memories that were transported into us through our DNA. Don't you ever see things when you're tripping that you know were not inspired by your knowledge or memories, but which then turn out to occur often in human history? Or images that made a major impression on you when you first saw them, but you don't know why?
For example one of the images that really gripped me when I first saw them as a child was an Egyptian depiction of a falcon-headed god. I have seen lots of other interesting pictures of creatures and gods, but this special one gripped me like a Deja-Vu, like something I can make a connection to. I know it could just be nothing, but I like the thought that it means something more

 

[Guest]

What I think could be very true is that in our minds we have ancient memories that were transported into us through our DNA. Don't you ever see things when you're tripping that you know were not inspired by your knowledge or memories, but which then turn out to occur often in human history?

I also believe this could be very true, because DNA stores data and most of that data is information about how the body is formed, but I do believe that it probably also does store ancient knowledge.

 

[alice]

yes the whole dialogue is from the film waking life of course i really love that film
rayer:

alice

 

[ProStoner]

What I think could be very true is that in our minds we have ancient memories that were transported into us through our DNA. Don't you ever see things when you're tripping that you know were not inspired by your knowledge or memories, but which then turn out to occur often in human history?

I also believe this could be very true, because DNA stores data and most of that data is information about how the body is formed, but I do believe that it probably also does store ancient knowledge.

well I believe I once even read something about this.. a few years ago in a science magazine..
about the "junk"DNA
scientists believed it to be just genetical junk.. worthless..
untill they started looking into it really well.
and found that there were 100thousands of codes or whatever in there
about us.. and also our history... that in this part the codes for ... a tail .. stuff like that
in that junk DNA . they though was everything humandkinds history has come across... its all in there..
but I can't remember everything so clearly about it anymore
but it was something like that

 

[Guest]

well I believe I once even read something about this.. a few years ago in a science magazine..
about the "junk"DNA
scientists believed it to be just genetical junk.. worthless..
untill they started looking into it really well.
and found that there were 100thousands of codes or whatever in there
about us.. and also our history... that in this part the codes for ... a tail .. stuff like that
in that junk DNA . they though was everything humandkinds history has come across... its all in there..
but I can't remember everything so clearly about it anymore
but it was something like that

Hahaha, it figures
Always those assumptions....