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Dream Symbols While You’re Awake



Garrett has some cool thoughts on the idea of interpreting waking reality in the same way that you’d try to decode the meaning of dreams. He asks some great questions at the end:

Is this a type of maddness that I’m moving into, or is it, like the Tarot, a way to use the symbols around me to provoke the underlying subconcious motivations that I would otherwise have difficulty accessing without a prompt?

Am I just lying to myself? Or could this be a way of infusing the world with a sense of the sacred that has been stripped away by all the cynical Simpsons-nihilism that has been spreading the mantra “everything is fucking stupid.”

What do you guys think of all this? Ran had some comments in a previous post that were something similar to this:

Also, Gurdjieff’s practice is about being in a meditative state all the time, as you’re doing your normal daily stuff. The best technique I’ve discovered for that is to pretend I’m inside a video game. It really puts me “in the moment.”

Both of these seem to be pointing to the same question of how do you make the most of the moment while you’re living in it, and how do you see the secrets that are swirling around you. For me, I’ve often had the feeling of “being in a movie” but I do have to wonder, if like Garrett asked, these types of techniques don’t actually lead you away from reality (through abstraction, etc), rather than affirming and sacralizing your place in it as it happens.







11 Reader Responses

  1. prunesquallori Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 4:02 pm

    The Qabalah aims for this as well; the exoteric justification is that the infinite mind that engendered the sacred texts and the Book of the World could not have failed to consider every possible reading and connotation.

    Among Shiite mystics, we are urged to see everywhere the face of God. Meister Eckhart says (along with many other similar passages), “We must learn to break through things and to grasp God in them, allowing him to take form in us powefully and essentially.” Franz Bardon, a hermeticist, advises the student to view all phenomena in terms of the elements. (Akasha, fire, and water form the trinity; air and earth are secondary or tertiary principles.)

    Someone might see in all this a pathological memetic strand that tends to engender schizophrenia in its victims. I don’t know how to answer, but note that the posited One could not have failed to forsee that interpretation of the Story as well, and according to some gnostics (ooh, and maybe Lull), could not have failed to actualize it.

  2. Tim Boucher Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 4:12 pm

    Oh that reminds me of a Robert Anton Wilson bit on this…

  3. alistair Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 4:30 pm

    imagine sitting inside a giant ball and the inside of the ball is coated in mirror so that everywhere you look you see yourself. i don`t know where that idea came from but i`ve always used it in practice regarding the transference of feelings onto people,places and things. we are always looking at an aspect of ourselves in all that we percieve. the dsm iv calls it schizophrenia. the above applies to them too. :-)

  4. alistair Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 4:30 pm

    what`s with the little yellow faces?

  5. N.M Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 4:39 pm

    I just try to pick up on syncronicities and deja vu experiences. These usually come around when I am in a day-dreaming/meditative/alfa state.

    When syncronicities occur more frequently, (they sometimes fire off in multiple burts within a day) I usually tend to analyse them as omens of future tense or comfirmation of what I am day-dreaming/thinking about is of significant value.

    My latest occurence was last week when I had a job as 911 dispatcher lined up when I recieved a interview letter. That same day a dateline special on 911 dispachers aired and our local media was rife with a current event of the same nature all the while that being numerogically a strong day for me.

    So yup, that is how I pick up on things…

  6. rev max Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 5:26 pm

    I just try to pick up on syncronicities and deja vu experiences. These usually come around when I am in a day-dreaming/meditative/alfa state.

    IIRC didn’t Jung say something about synchronicity as a clue that you were barking up the right tree?

    FWIW tcoincidinks, signs and symbols enter my life all the time and I treat them as I would dream images or divinations

    The main thing I learned from overexposure to LSD as a young person is that (sorry, all caps follow) YOUR NORMAL EVERYDAY WAKING CONSCIOUSNESS IS JUST A DIFFUSED AND ELONGATED VERSION OF AN LSD TRIP

    In other words, when your tripping on LSD all of the hallucinations and funny thoughts come so fast & thick that their presence is obvious to you - the whole experience is very compact and dense

    But when you review and think about such experiences it becomes clear that is the main diff between LSD and the normal state is that LSD is just a more concentrated version of the normal state

    Same capacity for self-delusion, same insights, same boredom, same everything

    LSD just exagerrates normal life, thats all. SO when you return to normal life you realize that they stuff you could suddenly see on LSD is also present normally too, you just don’t pay attention to it. Tripping makes it obvious that we really are “tripping” in the normal state too

    In light of which ordinary waking reality does have dreamlike qualities, signs and symbols, if we choose to acknowledge them

    /rant

  7. Tim Boucher Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 5:40 pm

    Alistair, the little yellow faces are automatic when you type in an emoticon, such as a colon followed by a close parentheses : ) becomes :)

    Yeah thats a good call about synchronicities meaning you’re on the right track. The easiest way to interpret them is simply as a “LOOK AT ME!” sign. Notice whatever it is that’s happening.

    I’ve never heard anybody describe the relationship between LSD and normal consciousness like that. I’ve never actually done LSD, but it makes a lot of sense. It reminds me of how Andrew Weil is always talking about how all these drugs do is mimic and trigger internal states that already exist. The drugs don’t bring them to you from outside cause you already have them regardless.

  8. N.M Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 5:57 pm

    Andrew Weil is always talking about how all these drugs do is mimic and trigger internal states that already exist.

    In my experience LSD hightens the state that you are in. If you are in a good mood - good things happen. If you are closed-minded about the experience and or feeling skeptical then a bad trip happens.

    I just realised that this has the same effect on faith and or magick!

  9. Fell Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 5:59 pm

    I would say that perceived synchronicities are either a) the mind’s way of tracking an abstract symbol that may mean something to you — not necessarily to anyone else — and if you’re capable, you may be able to decode it or follow it to its natural outcome. Or b) it could be outside forces with no means of utilising the abstraction we know as language to communicate, thus supplanting the seemingly arranged chaos that is the everyday world into observable patterns in order to share something (up to you to figure it out) with you. And if it does happen to be b), then it may get interesting as all entities are part of the ineffable One and who’s to say what level of intelligence is trying to communicate.

    Or you could it be numerous other things, I guess…

  10. alistair Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 7:41 pm

    about the emoticons; i thought i was going insane but now that you say it`s automatic i will refrain in the future.
    about drugs mimicking pre-existing internal state, i coundn`t agree more. that`s the part about nlp that turns my crank . we are drug factories. i`ll choose a mix of testosterone and adrenaline with a chaser of phenyl-ethyle-amine just before soccer (beats redbull hands down) and after i`ll take some dopamine with seratonin and just hint more p.e.a. to calm the fuck down for sleep.
    it makes me wonder how narrow minded western thinking is in this regard when we can easily raise and lower our heart rate, blood pressure and skin lividity, muscle, nerve and brain chemistry and most other bodily functions by simple visualisation and breathing exercizes.
    richard bandler, my nlp teacher, explored these processes in his lecture series for nlp practitioners. he talked about how an indian mystic wanted him to spend two years wearing a bedsheet begging with him in the streets before he told him the secrets that we have been discussing here. richard told him to get stuffed.
    i suppose i shouldn`t be surprised how bankrupt we are here when all we do is adhere to the machinery of consumerism. we are becoming part of the machine. it doesn`t matter that we`ve forgotten our divinity. in fact it makes it easier to go to work like a good little robot.

  11. rev max Says:
    August 29th, 2005 at 8:09 pm

    richard bandler, my nlp teacher, explored these processes in his lecture series for nlp practitioners.

    Oddly enough I just read an interview with William Bannet of WHitehouse (english noise group) he claims that Bandler’s tape “the ecstasy twins” was one of his favorite things ever. ANywho I don’t know much if anything about NLP so i ordered “using your brain for a change” offa ebay, looking forward to checking it out

    an indian mystic wanted him to spend two years wearing a bedsheet begging with him in the streets before he told him the secrets that we have been discussing here. richard told him to get stuffed.

    In Brazilian candomble it is standard procedure to initiate someone and then have them participate in the life of the group and help out with ceremonies etc. for SEVEN YEARS before actually teaching them anything helpful

    The idea as i understand it is to make sure the person possesses a good character and is not going to abuse the power of the teachings!

    LOL talk about deferred gratification



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