Damn! I knew I shouldn't have initiated this thread. There have been some great responses that pretty much demand a counter-response, and I'm going to "foul out" on posts soon as a result, with 30+ hours still left in the "posting week." :-)
But respond I will (interspersed below), and when I do "foul out," I promise to keep track of other great responses and address them next week. Unless some more interesting thread has come up before then. :-) --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Richard M" <compost...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Richard M" <compost1uk@> wrote: > > > > > > Interesting. I think it points up a curious "tension" in > > > this thread between, on the one hand, the idea of cultivating > > > dreams because they might have the potential to point to > > > something, or to intimate something "profound" (though like > > > looking for a black cat through a very dark glass darkly!). > > > And on the other, trying to take control over dreams and > > > direct them. I would have thought trying to practise > > > the latter technique might bollocks up any hope of benefit > > > from the former? i.e. It is the innocence of the state of > > > dreaming that *may* allow it to open a door to something? > > > Perhaps. > > > > An excellent point, and since I initiated the > > thread, I'll reply. > > > > The dichotomy you mention between the idea of > > innocently "interpreting" dreams and the idea > > of waking up in them and controlling them via > > the techniques of Dream Yoga or Lucid Dreaming > > is based on a dichotomy between these approaches' > > core beliefs about what dreams ARE. > > > > The Western "interpret dreams" approach is largely > > based on the idea that dreams have no real exis- > > tence. They are mental constructs only, something > > that happens in the brain and may or may not have > > something to do with the release of stress. > > Oh yes, that's true of course. But the West has more to offer than > just that I think. > > You could say there are three "Western" views (and no doubt more): > > (i) Dreams are just "noise" in the brain. Perhaps performing some > function that helps the neurons get through their daily drudge. > This is not just a modern idea from our scientific age. Take this > on Romeo & Juliet: > > "Mercutio treats the subject of dreams, like the subject of love, > with witty skepticism, as he describes them both as "fantasy." Ah, Mercutio...one of my favorite characters. It's too bad in a way that Shakespeare kills off the most inter- esting character in the play in the third act. In most productions that means that the 4th and 5th acts kinda drag. The only director I've seen who found a way around this was Bernardo Bertolucci in his film production. He decided to make Mercutio a brooding closeted gay rather than the lively, carefree jester that most directors make him. Same speeches, same insights, but you don't miss him as much when he gets croaked. > Unlike > Romeo, Mercutio does not believe that dreams can foretell future > events. Instead, painting vivid pictures of the dreamscape people > inhabit as they sleep, Mercutio suggests that the fairy Queen Mab > brings dreams to humans as a result of men's worldly desires and > anxieties. To him, lawyers dream of collecting fees and lovers dream > of lusty encounters; the fairies merely grant carnal wishes as they > gallop by." > > (ii) Dreams are something we can analyse for meaning because they > reveal something about our subconscious, our deeper self. > Manufacturers of leather couches have benefited greatly from this > idea. > > http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/wpr0052l.jpg Hilarious cartoon. And great line about the couches. :-) > (iii) The great tradition that I guess we get from the ancient > Greeks, the Eqyptians and what-not, that dreams can reveal the > future and perhaps give us wisdom too. As per Romeo above. A > very long and deep tradition in the West! And it's this tradition > that I had in mind in my post. > > For example it is alleged (but is it true?) that the physicist Niels > Bohr developed the model of the atom based on a dream of sitting on > the sun with all the planets hissing around on tiny cords. Wow! And > there are of course vast numbers of stories just like that. Some > here: > > http://www.dr-dream.com/hist.htm > > Personally, given the choice of gaining control of my dreams to > wander around alternate, "parallel", dimensions, or instead being > given the skill to listen to and appreciate my dreams for what > they might *reveal* to me, I think I would choose the latter. < snip the rest, because the point I want to trip on is above > While I agree with your breakdown of different ways that the Western knowledge traditions view dreams, I still think that there is a more fundamental dichotomy underlying one's preference for "apprec- iating dreams" vs. "gettin' active in them" via lucid dreaming. That is the difference between *where* a seeker chooses to look for what he seeks, and *why* he is seeking that particular thing. One of the ways I tend to see this difference is the dichotomy between the scholar and the mystic. Scholars tend to look for knowledge in books, or in "symbol sets." They tend to look at the world as a collection of these symbol sets, and gain their satisfaction from trying to "figure them out," or "decode" them or "understand" them. And the *goal* of this analysis of symbols is *knowledge itself*. That is seen as a sufficiently inspiring goal for seeking, in much the same way that the realization of enlightenment is seen by many here as a suffic- iently inspiring goal for seeking it. Mystics tend to seek elsewhere for their thrills, and for different reasons. They are not content with reading about other people's realizations, or with finding a way to "understand" them. They want to have their *own* realizations. And, on the whole, they want those realizations to not be purely intel- lectual; they want them to have a "payoff" in their daily lives -- for themselves, and for others. The genesis of this whole thread on dreaming was in Edg asking whether others here can read in dreams. My reply was that it would never *occur* to me to read in dreams. The reason for this is that I do not search for knowledge in books; I search for it in my own daily life, and for validation of that know- ledge's "payoff" in how well I seem to be able to live that daily life. For me, the search for "knowledge" is NOT a sufficiently- inspiring goal. *So what* if I read all the books in the Theosophical and New Age and Religious libraries in the world and convince myself that I've "understood" things? What *value* does that have for me? More important, what value does that have for anyone else, or for the world? Lucid dreaming had a value for me in that (subjectively), by becoming better at handling my interactions with other sentient beings and with challenging situations in the dream plane, I found myself becoming better at handling them in the waking plane. I found a "payoff" there. Although I can completely understand those whose "payoff" is found in "knowledge itself," and the certainty that they "understand" things or have sussed them out, like Jessica Rabbit "I'm just not drawn that way." I need some kind of practical, pragmatic "payoff" -- in my own life, and in how that life affects other people. For a time, I found that "payoff" in lucid dreaming. I personally doubt that I would ever have found a similar payoff by analyzing my dreams as symbols or as harbingers of the future, or by considering them mere "brain noise." They were for me, in effect, a kind of "virtual world" in which I could try out various types of interaction with other sentient beings and with challenging situations, to see which approach seemed to "work better." I could then take that *direct experience* (as opposed to intellectual understanding) and try to apply it to my daily life. There have been mystics in both the East and the West. And there have been people who tend to seek the things that they seek in books and in analysis of symbols in both the East and the West. And there have been those who seek the things that they seek in *action*, not in thought. For me, the rubber meets the road in the realm of action, not intellectual knowledge. I do not personally see the value of "understanding" or "knowing," or even of being "enlightened" if the person who has done this still acts like a jerk most of the time. And sadly, one tends to see *exactly* this phenomenon among scholars. The more they have convinced themselves that they "know," the more they tend to act like jerks. On the other hand, among the mystics I have seen who measure their "attainment" in terms of how effective their daily actions are and how positively those actions touch the lives of people around them, I tend to see a lesser degree of jerkitude. Your mileage may vary. Sorry to have rambled like this, but your excellent exposition of the different Western views of dreams made me realize *why* I am attracted to none of them. And why, instead, I am attracted to "learning by doing," as opposed to merely learning.
