MyBleam.com Dream Blog

With so much travel over the last week or so, I’ve hardly had any time for sleep, much less dreaming.  However, I can say that after being sleep deprived, I’ve had a chance to catch up, and over the last two or three nights I’ve been ‘oversleeping’, to as much as 10 - 12 hours.  It is needed.  I feel rested and well.  Also, it seems that my dreams are a bit more intense during these extended periods of sleep as well.  I’ll post about them in a couple days…

A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to practice exteriorizing astral substance, using Denning & Phillips’ method, described as ‘The Watcher’. Essentially, the idea is to stimulate chakra activity, then sense astral substance leaving your solar plexus to materialize into some neutral shape (e.g., a sphere) in front of you. Then, impress upon it a goal and a set time of return. At the time of return, reintegrate the astral substance, and allow the new impressions to come to mind as a type of free association. I do this exercise from time to time to gain experience interacting with the world at a number of different levels of reality and consciousness…

I visited the Tor House on the California Central Coast for the first time a few days ago, and I thought it would be interesting to send the watcher there beforehand to test the accuracy of its impressions. The Tor house was built by poet Robinson Jeffers in the early part of the 20th century using the stones he found on the beach, the stones he carried from the beach, the stones he masoned fittingly himself; it also includes “Hawk Tower”, and is a fascinating place; I think I want a tower too! Some very useful information is given at this website about the house and the poet…

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: Tor House ]

Anyway, the night before I sent the watcher to the Tor House, and upon re-integration, I did see some things that I didn’t expect to see, but did confirm during my visit–especially the plethora of woodworking. However, I do think that I need quite a bit more practice at this technique, because my perception from the Watcher’s experience were not clear enough to record in enough detail to warrant accurate testing.

If anyone has suggestions for different places (or people) I should send the Watcher to observe, I am open to suggestions…

I dreamt that I was in negotiations with the manager/owner of a bookstore in order to purchase it as a new business venture. This part reflects reality to some extent (we decided against purchasing the bookstore), but in the dream we saw a burglar attempting to steal merchandise, and then he tried to raise the price…

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: Used Bookstore ]

I dreamt about books / bookstore the night before as well, symbolized as a pet (my old dog Nat) to take care of. Perhaps additional meaning is related to the value I place on research and knowledge. I always seem to be seeking additional perspectives through different works written by authors, respected and obscure; ancient and modern. Only recently have I begun to realize the extent to which I have been under-appreciating more experiential approaches…

Here is an interesting product…

The Upstate Dream Institute offers herbal an supplement “Dream Boost” designed as “an all natural herbal sleep and dream enhancer”. Please note: I have not tried this product, nor do I endorse it. However, I am interested in hearing about the effects of anyone who might have tried using it, or other similar products…

Aside from the intensity of dreams, is there reason to believe that that *content* of the dreams and lucid dreams would be fundamentally different? What has been learned that would not have been otherwise? What about side effects and other health concerns?

Perhaps a larger, more fundamental question is: Do products such as these actually defeat the purpose of the quest for self-knowledge if wisdom is really obtained in the ‘journey’ rather than the ‘destination’? Should we worry about being the “Barry Bonds of Dreaming”???

I’m very interested in hearing others’ opinions on these matters (sometimes I do have a rather philosophical bent)…

Last night I dreamt of a time when I was living with my parents, and hooligans were putting graffiti on our mailbox and sidewalk outside of the house. I wanted to go after them, but couldn’t for some reason. Time also seemed to be warped in this dream, because I was also older, with furniture that we have now, and I wanted to replace. I couldn’t because I felt threatened by these hooligans; and also threatened by what would become of me if I did something *bad* to them. Strange…

A few years ago I read ‘The Celestine Prophecy’, by J. Redfield. As a work of fiction, the book is rather terrible, but the roadmap of 9 (or more?) insights on the way to enlightenment that it presents is quite intriguing. I’m now starting to use the experiential guide–The first insight focuses on ‘coincidences’ that are indicative of spiritual forces that lead lives to productive ends. This is related by synchronicity in Jungian psychology… Anyway, it is interesting to think about the different ways life seems to fall together to lead us in unexpectedly productive directions.

More updates on this to follow…

Last night I documented several different dreams.  In one of them I mistakenly downloaded a computer virus from one of my email accounts, but I didn’t know it until my thumb-drive caught on fire!  Obviously I had made some one upset with my grading practices… 

In other news, I’m visiting Kaua’i, seeing lots of new and interesting sights.  I’m sure this will be reflected in dream content before too long…

In a separate dream, I visited some of my graduate school friends and they mentioned that I had fallen far behind the times by separating myself from the academic world.  I had a lot of catching up to do!  I am actually interested in continuing my work in academic circles, and will increase my focus on this aspect of *being* as soon as our time here on the ‘Garden Isle’ is concluded…

Last night I dreamt that aliens were wanting to take over the world.  …and were doing so in a very military fashion.  I recall that I was involved somehow in the resistance.  This may be related to the capacity I seemed to be in as described in the previous dream…

One thing that stood out was that this dream was one that seemed to have a ’soundtrack’, in that I could hear music in my head as if it were actually being played.  Naturally, the music of this particular dream was none-too-pleasant.  It was ‘Mouth for War’, by the thrash metal band Pantera, and a song I haven’t heard in years.

I tend to listen to much more pleasant sounds these days…

I dreamt last night that I joined the Air Force in San Francisco. The country was at war, and for some reason I had to select a plan to serve military duty. …so I selected the Air Force Reserve where I could continue research into psychology with military applications.

I do think that psychology has a great deal of interesting applications in foreign policy; understanding ourSelves is the first step to understanding others, including political phenomena I believe…

Last night I dreamt that I had met the CEO and founder of facebook.com, Mark Zukerberg.  I saw him across our street, and after recognizing him, decided to go over for a chat.  We talked about various aspects of life, and philosophy, him not aware that I knew who he was.  I learned that he was considering moving into our neighborhood, and during our conversation decided that he would.  I was pleased to make his acquaintance.

Definitely an interesting dream–I’m sure this relates to my various motivations for success in several different domains…

Lately I’ve been working with *the brainwave generator*, a very user-friendly and robust program that allows you to manipulate binaural beat frequencies. (It is one of the resources given in the links page of this site.) The trial download is free, and although you don’t get access to the full library without payment, you can customize for yourself quite easily and it is fully functional in this respect.

Binaural beats utilize the frequency following effect to manipulate brainwaves (commonly referred to delta, theta, alpha and beta) to the frequency corresponding to the ‘beats’ of the tone you’re listening to. By doing so, you can increase (or decrease) relaxation, sleep, or attention and even more esoteric phenomena related to consciousness (e.g., oobe). A good faq is given here, and there’s a lot of other information available elsewhere, so I won’t belabor the issue…

Some personal experimentation will be desired, but there are lots of resources available that correlate specific brainwave frequencies with various states of consciousness. This list provides quite a few diverse and interesting potential effects…

I used to experiment with this program quite a bit, but recently took it up for one simple purpose: to increase states of meditation and relaxation when desired. I’ve found that a 2-minute oscillating beat between 1.5 and 4 hz, with a secondary tone at 10 hz is *extremely* effective…

It has been a long time since I’ve posted last, due mostly to the fact that I’ve been pre-occupied with houseguests. However, they have now departed, and I’m able to better re-focus my efforts on various aspects of self-awareness. Yay!

Last night I dreamt of pirates–that I was aboard a ship in the Caribbean (?) or perhaps the far north of Scandinavia with a group of violent, dirty and loud thugs, criminals, heroes and villains. However, I’m not sure if I was a member of the crew, passenger or observer. I do know that there was a small group of people who were peaceful and clean, only looking for safe passage to some destination that was far, far away. Perhaps I was one of those… In any case, one of them stole a dead octopus that was killed by one of the crew with the goal of depositing it in the Captain’s bunk as a prank. Instead, he threw it at one of the passengers he met on a narrow stair. The small girl shrieked, startled, and chased after him. Later, they confided that they needed all the passengers to keep their heads to try to make sure the pirate crew does not doom the journey home…

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: Dirty Pirate ]

Because water often has spiritual connotations, perhaps this dream could represent the dangers of the journey towards enlightenment?

I actually documented parts of three dreams last night, though the pirate one was the most interesting/extensive so that is the one I included here. It has been a while since I’ve been able to remember 3 dreams, perhaps because of the houseguests, but I also listened to binaural beat tracks last night for the first time. That may have something to do with it as well. They do have some very interesting effects… I’ll be creating a technique post regarding binaural beats sometime over the next few days…

I’ve been perusing through a Fire in the Heart, a documentary by Kyriacos Markides of Cyprot mystic Daskalos. It is interesting, though obviously reminiscent of Carlos Canteneda’s Don Juan series. Below, I splice together what I believe to be a very powerful passage from Daskalos’ teaching (pp. 211ff):

‘I would like to hear more on what it means to experience the second death and what type of awareness one has there.’

‘You may reach a point during the second death,’ Daskalos explained,’ whereby emotion, and a very mase emotion at that, is no longer the dominant force within you but thought.’

‘How can we distinguish that from intellectuality?” I asked. ‘When you say ‘thought’, do you mean the absence of the sentiment of love?’

‘Love is not a sentiment. It is the very nature of the Absolute. We must distinguish love from Love. We mush distinguish the candle, the burning wood from the sun. The world of ordinary human sentiments, even those considered most noble, appear from a higher level of awareness as nothing more than burning wood providing us with very dim luminosity. You cannot compare a bonfire with the sun.’

…

‘What am I driving at now?’ Daskalos asked. ‘Today’s sentiment, which is nothing more than the satisfaction of an overdeveloped egotism, must be replaced with a true expression of love. With this you are sacrifising nothing. Rather, you have much to gain. … Yes, sentiment as it is expressed today has absolutely no value. Water and earth that are mixed in a way that generates noxious smells have no value. Purify them and realize that both water and earth are good and benign. Use a higher agent, that of fire, to bring about their separation and purification. Become yourself Mind, purified Mind.’

‘You mean thought?’

No, not thought. Mind. To provide a rough analogy, let us assume that mind is the light that hits an object. Then an image of that object is placed on our eye and becomes an irritation upon the optical nerve that transfers the image to your brain and then you say ‘I see this object.’ This, let us say, is ordinary thought. Then a sentiment develops. Do I like it or do I not? Do I want it or do I not? In this situation you have the ‘I’ which observes and the object out there being observed by the ‘I’. And then you judge accordingly. But what I am talking about is something else. I am not waiting for the light as an outside condition to offer me this or that situation that I can observe, I the observer as something outside the thing I observe. No. I dress myself with Mind Itself because I discover that me as ‘I’ has mind as its very essence, which is the essence of the Absolute Itself. It is a different condition than using Mind as an external reality to myself that I utilize to construct noetic images in order to observe objects outside of myself. Rather, I fuse my consciousness with the object outside myself and become one with it. And when I become that I do not need to understand it. I know it. I become it.’

He offers a meditation technique (pp. 102ff):

“Be calm and tranquil. remove from your mind everything that preoccupies your present personality. Begin by repeating for awhile the word Love. Do that many times and with a tempo that is most suitable to you. Love…, Love…, Love… Feel and loosen every muscle in your body. Prevent any other thoughts from entering your mind. By repeating the word Love you are invoking complete coordination with the Love of the Absolute. You now reach a state of complete peace and serenity. Nothing occupies your thoughts any more. You reach a point now of real peace and tranquility.

“Now begin to visualize yourself glowing within al all-white irradiance and begin to feel that you are within every particle and every cell of your material existence. You can feel completely the confinement of your form and shape. You reach a point now that you feel yourself breathing from every cell and every particle of your material existence. You are breathing from each particle and from each cell. Energize this particular form of breathing. Fill yourself with living etheric energy from every cell and every particle of your body.

“With each breath you become whiter and whiter. Visualize it. Your are becoming whiter and whiter. Feel it. Each time you exhale you breathe out every impurity that tends to stain your whiteness.

“Offer your gratitude to the Holy Spirit which builds and maintains your material body. Wish good health to reign within your bodies. With for calmness and tranquility within your present personality. Wish for good judgment, wisdom; wish for the right use of the divine gift of thought. That will be all This exercise can fill you with energy every time you feel drained.

There are several more complex exercises described in the book as well, which I shall have to discuss at a later time…

I usually keep content directly related to dream-events, but I cannot help adding my take on the Bonds’ scandal and the state of baseball. I used to follow baseball very closely with significant emotional investment…and it turned out to be an extremely poor one. Perhaps this is even relevant to baseball-related dreams…

Generally, the Bonds case (and related events such as those surrounding Mark McGuire and others) is part of what will be known as another ‘era’ of the game–like the ‘deadball’ era of the teens, the ‘rabbit ball era’ of the 20’s, the war-time era, the era of pitching dominance in the 60s, etc., but this is also a scandal of Black Sox proportions–one that isn’t ever erased, but significantly tarnishes the reputation of the game. …and there is plenty of blame to go around, including the baseball execs, and the fans themselves, so I really have no pity for anyone about this. It was common knowledge that steroids were a wide-spread problem in professional sports from at least the late 80s onward. Sadly, probably the first game-wide significant steroid-impacted event was the World Series victory of the ‘89 Oakland A’s with the ‘juiced’ Jose Canseco leading the way.

By the late 90s baseball knew what was going on, but did nothing because the homeruns were bringing in the fans and the money. Their steroid policy was a joke and still is. As far as I’m concerned, baseball’s policies regarding drug testing aren’t that far removed from those of Vince McMahon, and the motivations are similar. In fact, at least Vince McMahon has a case when he says that the Wrestling dollars are driven not by physiques, but by personalities: Hulk Hogan was one of the least technically skilled wrestlers and was still wrestling’s major draw even in this decade when he can hardly move around the ring, but he was the best at shouting down a camera. We certainly know that Bonds’ personality doesn’t win him any friends or fans–they are only drawn by his asterisked homeruns.

And those fans of Bonds are to blame too, and many others as well for holding the homerun as the ultimate goal of the batter, even the game. This under-appreciation for the subtleties of the game has been rampant from the Ruthian era, and motivates these sorts of events, not to mention the fact that it diminishes the overall quality of play. I would much rather watch a well played game from the deadball era than a bunch of steroid sluggers swinging for the fences in every at bat. …but homeruns make for better, and easier headlines (be they in the NY Times or the Evening News or Sportscenter) than a squeeze play, and any beer-guzzling idiot in the stands can fully appreciate them.

There is plenty of blame to go around, and as for the tainted records, they should stay (they have to, as you can’t rewind history, erase homeruns, take runs away from teams, change the scores of games in the past, etc). Like the 1919 Black Sox loss, it will stay in the books as a well-deserved mark of shame.

Whether or not the owners, league, media, management, coaches, players or fans learn anything from this is another matter.

In any case, I’m marking this as the end of an era for me, as I can no longer call myself a fan of the game as it is played today–or really, as it has been over at least the last 15 years or so.

I have other updates that I will be giving over the next few days, but in the meantime I wanted to share this site that offers free mp3 downloads of music and chants of the Vedas. They give an almost hypnotic effect when listening. Very effective and authentic.

Last night (or this morning, actually. More on this in the next post…), I dreamt of playing baseball. I may have been in HS, playing in P.E. class, and was having a lot of fun. This is unusual, because I normally abhorred P.E., especially during this period of my life. In any case, I was the batter, and I was swinging a huge 38in/38oz aluminum bat that I used to have. I was hitting homeruns!

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: Baseball ]

I looked up a few key terms in the dream dictionary, and it appears that this dream generally seems to be related to the attainment of goals. For instance, a bat (one of the foci of the dream) “relates to the condition and quality of one’s progression”. Similarly, a homerun can indicate attainment. Perhaps this is all related to the fact that I was up into the wee hours making very good progress on a program that simulates segregation in social situations…