MyBleam.com Dream Blog

Last night I dreamt that I met Bill Cosby in a restaurant (or some other gathering) with his wife. They were very elderly, but also very inspired, because we had just seen some sort of presentation about his career as a comedian and educational activist. I have a great deal of respect for Cosby, and I felt extremely honored to meet him. I said something about how ironic it was that of all the people he had inspired to greater things, he could count himself among them…

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: Bill Cosby ]

They were happy to talk to me, but somewhat embarrassed, and busy, so I didn’t get to say much. Still, I felt very happy to have that experience. His wife was a person I had never seen before (not the actress who played his wife on The Cosby Show). She was very elderly, but also very kind. It is odd that I should have dreamt this, because I haven’t even thought of Bill Cosby for weeks or months. I wonder what it might symbolize?

Well, I’ve been experimenting with the Mirror in the Cave technique over the last few nights with mixed success. Many times I would fall asleep about the time I would start descending the stairs or even earlier, as my mind would wander while in the woods. The best way I’ve found to combat this is to think of the dreamscape as reality, and distracting thoughts as impending sleep. So, I can then tell myself to *wake-up*, as this now implies an increased focus on the dream I intend…

Last night I had one of the more interesting experiences. I made it to the mirror, and soon after this, I seemed to be confronted with some sort of alien presence in the form of a bright white light. It(?) seemed to communicate to me that President Bush needs to focus on increasing family values in Iraq (thereby decreasing the emphasis on religiousity), perhaps be distributing “comfort kits”, that would contain books, clothes, and other such amenities of living. In this way, Iraqi family units would pull together and insurgent groups would have less influence in recruiting “martyrs”.

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: Alien Light? ]

This was a strange experience, and I think it needs to be classified as a dream, and perhaps a lucid because this particular idea regarding the situation in Iraq had never occurred to me before, and I was *aware* of that fact while I was thinking (receiving?) it. Whether or not the ‘alien’ was a personification of my subconscious, or something else, I’ll probably never know…

I’ve had a few dreams over the last couple nights that revolve around family, especially my sister, J, which is rather strange because I haven’t seen her for quite a while.  Perhaps there is unresolved conflict that surfaces in some conditions?  What might those be?

I also dreamt that one of my students complained that my class was too easy, and brought in the former department chair in front of everyone to make the argument.  This is rather unfortunate for my students, perhaps, because I am in the middle of writing the midterm they will take next week… 

Tonight I’m going to employ a guided dreaming technique. As I relax, I will…

(1) visualize myself exploring a wooded mountain pass; the more I see, the more relaxed I will get. At some point I will become extremely relaxed, and at that time I will…

(2) find a beautiful cavern that I will want to explore. The cavern will contain white, sparkling stalactites and stalagmites, and near the back will be a flight of carven steps leading down. I will then…

(3) descend this flight of 100 stairs, counting each step on the way down… At the bottom, I will…

(4) discover a mirror, silver, encrusted with gems and a spiritual power. This will be the Mirror of Self-Awareness, into which I can…

(5) see beyond my conscious perception of my own body and mind. Gazing into the mirror, I can…

(6) manipulate my own mental and physical manifestation of reality. With this power, I can…

(7) enter a lucid dreaming state, and travel the world, taking in all the sights that catch my fancy.

I’m hoping that this technique will help attain lucid states; the main obstacle will be maintaining the balance of wakefulness and relaxation without falling into an opaque sleep.

Last night I dreamt of camping in Oregon with my father… I only packed two shirts though, because I wanted to hurry up and go. The dream seemed to be as much about the planning and preparation as the actual camping itself…. We used to do a lot of camping when I was growing up, but never in Oregon. I also had a separate dream revolving around my old High School experiences. My subconscious seemed to have been mulling over past events. The dream dictionary mentioned that camping “may mean that more acceptance or tolerance would reduce current stress or anxiety”. This is certainly true in my case; also, it mentioned that Oregon “signifies spiritual abundance“. Interesting…

Last night I dreamt of (American) football twice. It could be because I’ve been following the football season a little (at least checking scores on-line every now and then), but I’m pretty sure there’s some symbolism here.

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: Football ]

I wasn’t really a player in the game, but I was a kind of omniscient coach/player/observer. I’ve always thought of football as an extremely beautiful and complex system of intersecting strategies at the level of the individual player, and several aggregations of player groups. For instance, a team’s linemen have a collective strategy, as do the individual linemen in order to successfully make or defeat a block. …as do linebacker groups and individual linebackers, etc. …and of course, each player has his own individual strengths and weaknesses on a number of different interacting dimensions…

In one dream, I knew I was dreaming of space travel, but the *real world* was a football game, and my team was about to lose. …but in an earlier dream, we were playing the best in the league, and about to go ahead 7-0. I’m pretty sure these dreams speak to my efforts towards personal goals, and my interaction with the rest of society….

Last night I dreamt of the California wildfires, and my parents’ house. Somehow, J was responsible for the fire, and had also disabled the alarm system in the room I was staying in. It wasn’t an unpleasant dream though, because my old pet Natasha was there, enjoying the rubs I was giving to her. When J came in the room, she didn’t want to be around her. I was rather annoyed though, because I would have to replace a lot of the bindings on the books in my room due to smoke damage.

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: California Wildfires ]

Given the fires in CA and droughts in the Southeast, increased hurricane destruction and radical climate change in general, I am reminded of lyrics from Neurosis‘ album “Enemy of the Sun”:

We are facing a dangerous period ahead
If we do not change and
Start correcting some of these wrongdoings now
We are all going to suffer
Either the things that we make will overtake us
Or Nature will take over

Earthquakes, floods, rain
Severe droughts, severe winters
Lightning destruction, great wind destruction

These things will warn us that
We are not following the law of the Great Spirit

Last night I dreamt of the kings and queens, the power of royalty in a very abstract sense… All of the royal families of this part of the world seemed to be involved in a game of football (perhaps played on a chessboard??). Somehow, the game was being officiated by a Shakespearian scholar…. I was counseled not to leave the country because the economy was falling apart. All of the royalty feared the populist movements that was on the horizon…

This dream could be related to an article I read last night regarding the global economic dependence on oil. It stated that when oil supplies & production starts to flatline in a few years, transportation costs will skyrocket causing a fundamental shift in the way economies do business–suburban and countryside real estate will be devalued, and a new Great Depression will commence, accompanied by a new World War, with China the belligerent, as a new economy motivated to grow, and Europe, Japan and the United States as the “allies” motivated to defend their existing economic structure and interests. Russia would be the “wild card” sitting on the side with oil reserves of its own. Strange… Perhaps the world really will come to an end in 2012 as the Mayans predicted?

Last night I dreamt of swimming…as an army cadet. I was also listening to music, which may have been adjusted for mind-control purposes. I know that I wanted to analyze it in more detail.

Strange…It’s not often that I dream of swimming, but I take that as a good sign, as it often indicates “submersion in one’s spiritual search”, which makes sense, given all of the yoga and meditation that I’ve been doing recently. I’m not quite sure why I would be in the army; my father always said that I’d “make a terrible marine”, because I always ask questions when I’m told to do something. The ‘mind control’ music may be related to the fact that I’ve listened to Binaural Beat music in the past, and know quite a bit about it. I’ll have to post on that as a technique later on…

Last night I dreamt that I was teaching a general (intro) psychology class online. I was teaching Freudian theory, but I realized that I needed to do a better job of understanding it myself… Some thought that I needed to be in therapy. I felt insecure, and rather imposed upon by others.

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: Freud with patient & Female nude (Picasso)]
This is definitely related to the fact that I’m currently debating as to whether or not to include Freud’s famous case study of “Dora” as required reading for a class I’ll be teaching in a couple months. It is still used in professional training to illustrate the phenomenon of “transference” (which is generally accepted as a legitimate effect by the modern psychiatric community). Generally, I think it would be a great opportunity to a) expose students to the *raw data* of Freudian thought, and b) give them some great grist for comparing and contrasting with other approaches to psychology (e.g., How would a behaviorist understand Dora’s problems?). The study also has the advantage of being a great piece of writing…On the other hand, feminist circles have good reason to point to the study of Dora as an example of misogyny at work: Freud was quite insensitive (at least by today’s psychiatric standards) towards Dora’s problems regarding the sexual advances of her father’s friend, the nature of eroticism, and other related issues. On the other hand, I have a great deal of respect for the originality and revolutionary nature of Freudian thought (and he actually did do much to promote the advancement of women in the psychiatric profession), but I fear that the intricacies of the analysis may be lost on beginners: Lacking knowledge of the history of psychology (current treatments at the time included electroshock therapy), more simplistic perspectives of the work might do little more than generate anti-Freudian emotional reactions.

I had what I believe was the my first lucid dream in quite a while. Instead of waking within the dream, I entered the dream from a waking state, using a technique similar to some discussed by Steven LaBerge in his works. I’m pretty sure the *key* was my intention to dream this particular dream, and the mental focus and concentration that I was able to maintain…

As I was starting to relax towards sleep, I imagined myself descending a long, pleasant flight of stairs. Down, down. I noticed the lighting, the intricate nature of the handrails, and walls, and the steps themselves; a rather gothic image. I was descending into the Earth…down, down. I had planned that when I had descended deep enough/become relaxed enough, I would come upon a Golden Door. Upon reaching the door, I would open it with the mantra *Aum*. The more I chanted, the wider it would open. When it opened wide enough, I could pass, and enter a tunnel. The tunnel would descend down, down. It was very dark. Yet, I would proceed…

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: The Golden Door & Subterranean Library]
By the time I came upon a light, that was the Library, I believe I was dreaming, because some elements of the image were within my control, while others were not. I wanted to visit a library that would contain information about all of the world’s cultures. It was well-lit, and huge. The stacks seemed to go up for several stories, and I could not see the end of any of the aisles. I could not understand the organization, so I spoke to a library employee who did not really want to talk to me (he kept brushing me off), and asked about where the History section was…that was of the United States…that was of the 21st Century (I kept having to clarify). I was then lead to a section containing tens of thousands of books or more. I was surprised to see how large that section was, even though I knew I shouldn’t be…The interesting thing is that I *could not read* any of the books! They all seemed to contain a series of very strange symbols that I did not recognize, and seemed to be rearranging themselves, swimming on the page. This was very frustrating to me, and more than this, I found it extraordinarily difficult to concentrate on the image of the page, or even to select a book to pull off the shelf. When I did attempt to look at a page, I could only focus for a few seconds before my attention was pulled away; even when I did see the page, it seemed to waiver, distort, teeter on the edge of my perception, and finally fall away, and I could gain no meaning at all from it. At some point in my struggles to read/understand/see the text, I became exhausted and must have fallen into an unconscious sleep, because I knew no more until I awoke and remembered the dream…

This was truly a fascinating experience, and I’m definitely going to attempt this dream again. I would like to try to talk more with the library ‘employees’, and inquire about the best way to try to read the books, and learn from them…

Last night I dreamt that China had sent men to the moon, and, of course, left documentation of their achievement. This documentation was a plaque of some sort, metal, in Chinese. I was on the moon, somehow, and I could read it with some difficulty. It stated that China was dissociating itself from the rest of the human world, especially the Americans who had left their earlier “mark”. It was a formal, arrogant, yet meaningful declaration.

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: Luna ]

Now if I can only learn the language in my waking state…

Last night I dreamt of the Tour de France. I, and my former college roommate, J (who is a Frenchman), were participants. Not long after the race began, we discovered that all other riders except us and one other were disqualified, so as long as we finished the race, we would place in the top 3! I ended up placing 3rd, and J 2nd. I also could somehow see the TV coverage of the race, where they had artistically rendered many aspects of our lives, including my studies, notes and journals. That was rather odd. In any case, when we got to the podium, the winner and J made speeches, but they ‘didn’t have time’ for me. I supposed it was because I wasn’t enough of a Francophile for their taste. I wasn’t really upset; I was just happy to have the experience…

[Creative commons photo credit at flikr: Tour de France ]

The dream dictionary states that France can represent the “inner strength” to fight for one’s rights/freedom. Also, a bicycle can denote “mental, physical, or spiritual balance”. So, I suppose I would interpret this dream as a positive commentary on my current efforts towards self-awareness…

Last night, or this morning, rather, I dreamt of the omnipotent being “Q” from the Star Trek mythos. He was giving K advice and help with her business. However, he came to our house at 11:30pm. He got in K’s face, and said, “ARE YOU READY? This is TELEVISION you know!” I was really furious with him for invading our privacy. I told him in no uncertain terms that I did not want anything more to do with him. I told K that I was separating myself from him, and that she was free to continue working with him, but I no longer wanted anything more to do with him. Then, when I got on the computer, I noticed that I had been unsubscribed from a number of different websites that I had been using…

Beginning tonight, I’m going to start meditating on the Sri Yantra. There are many different versions of this famous yantra; one of them is reproduced here:

Yantra literally means “instrument”, and a wide variety of them have been used for millennia in a number of different traditions to enhance concentration and control over thought and emotion. There are many sites that discuss yantras; one excellent page is to be found here. Depending on the effectiveness of the meditations for me, I may have to add a yantra section to my electronic resources links page. Wish me luck!