tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211583.post7559220259747781696..comments2024-02-10T08:13:07.736+00:00Comments on Round-The-World Barstool Blues: The dream landscapeFrooghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211583.post-20972704788867312692011-01-29T02:22:21.098+00:002011-01-29T02:22:21.098+00:00Oh please don't tell me the flying gets boring...Oh please don't tell me the flying gets boring! Love that part.<br /><br />You seem to have an incredibly high degree of lucidity, much higher than mine. I've on occasion steered some beautiful imaginary women into my dreams but something in the back of my mind tells me to stop about halfway through the fun. I suppose I'm thankful for that!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211583.post-35659902657364586012011-01-28T09:43:23.426+00:002011-01-28T09:43:23.426+00:00Lines, I haven't had guests in my bed for a lo...Lines, I haven't had guests in my bed for a long time now. And if I did, I think they'd be <i>freaked out</i> rather than "entertained" by my wearing my spelunking gear.<br /><br />Moving swiftly on.... I wonder if this topic is top-of-mind for all of us partly, at least, because <i><b>Inception</b></i> has generated such a lot of publicity in recent months.<br /><br />HF, I've always been a fairly lucid dreamer. Perhaps it's partly the robustness of my ego: I'm always very self-aware in dreams (and, however bizarre the scenarios may be, I'm always recognisably myself; I don't inhabit other characters in dreams... does anyone? I suspect it's not very common). Maybe it's also partly down to my being a storyteller: I'm very sensitively attuned to the artifice of dream narrative, I keep on 'noticing' how things are developing. So, I'm always strongly aware of my 'self' in dreams; and I'm almost always aware - at least dimly, in the back of the mind - that I'm dreaming.<br /><br />I try <i>not</i> to take conscious control of the dream's direction - because, as you say, the natural impulse is to want to fly (and that quickly gets scary and/or - strangely! - boring). Where I am aware of dream manipulation going on, it's at a very primal level - subconscious or barely conscious - a rather unfocused desire to make the dream more pleasant... often through adding some sexual titillation.<br /><br />However, I quite often find that the greedy promptings of my libido - <i>couldn't she be more attractive? couldn't she be attracted to me? couldn't we start making out?</i> - are swiftly undone by the 'true direction' of the dream. For example, I suddenly find that the girl I've just start kissing is not, after all, alone with me in my living room, but is standing in the middle of a crowded airport.... and her flight is being called.<br /><br />You don't have to be Sigmund to decipher <i>those dreams</i>!Frooghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211583.post-1739357306545171802011-01-26T03:59:34.677+00:002011-01-26T03:59:34.677+00:00The boundary between dream and reality is not only...The boundary between dream and reality is not only thin, but downright permeable. It's pretty easy to absorb those sleeping visions right into your life by osmosis if you don't pay the right kind of attention! As such--no, I don't deny the untethered bit.<br /><br />And I love Hopfrog's take. It is pretty amazing to be able to consciously navigate a space that wants exploring (which is the only incarnation of lucid dreaming in which I can consciously affect the outcome).<br /><br />Yes, I suppose a light bulb would be cheaper /more rational than a miner's helmet. But not nearly as fun to entertain guests with.<br /><br />The other alternative is learning to write in the dark...though that might add an entirely different sort of ambiguity to your dreams. Maybe not all bad--I'd wager that misinterpreting one's own illegible handwriting would probably be just as useful as the original content, when trying to map out the weird, sub-basement rooms of the psyche!lines are downhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05151831630386166583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211583.post-29070168938963329162011-01-26T03:43:11.017+00:002011-01-26T03:43:11.017+00:00Keeping a bedside journal is not only a great way ...Keeping a bedside journal is not only a great way to recollect dreams easier, its one of the recommended tools to use in order to become a lucid dreamer. Lucid dreaming, I'm sure you aware, is the ability to realize that you are dreaming, while you are in the dream. You can eventually get to the point where you have some limited control in your dreams as well.<br /><br /><br />I'm able to lucidly dream on occasion (maybe every few months) and for me its an incredibly exhilirating experience. Better than any amusement park ride. When I started to lucidly dream I had no control and was only able to experience it for what seemed like a few seconds. Over the years, the experiences have lasted longer and I've been able to attain limited control. It seems almost without fail, the first thing I want to do is fly. At some point thought, I always fall out of the lucid state and inevitably freak out about plummeting to my death.<br /><br />The other thing I always immediately think to do is to examine the objects in the dream and see how detailed they are. I always expect a 'fuzzy' image and am blown away everytime by all the detail in everyday objects. For example, examining the fine wood grain in a table. Of course, this is probably my mind manufacturing things from memory, but it still amazes me everytime.<br /><br />If you've never experienced lucid dreaming or just want to recollect some of your dreams better, start with that bedside journal. Get in the habit of trying to remember what you were just thinking everytime you wake up. Use that journal as a que to try and remember. The closer you are to the dream state, the easier the recall. It also helps you identify the dream state better, thus giving lucidity. Of course if you don't particularly like your dreams, ditch the advice. Sometimes the blue pill is the best choice.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211583.post-6836878261590078802011-01-26T02:10:00.747+00:002011-01-26T02:10:00.747+00:00Interesting examples, Lines... but I venture to sa...Interesting examples, Lines... but I venture to say you'd have to be pretty <i>untethered from reality</i> ever to suppose that events like those were part of your actual experience!!<br /><br />I think holding a torch, a pen, and a notebook would overtax my available quota of prehensile limbs. And I hope you're not suggesting that I should a miner's helmet in bed!<br /><br />I should just buy a new lightbulb. It's only been on the 'To Do' list for three months or so.Frooghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06738623732860210935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33211583.post-36452924799069663022011-01-26T01:52:58.509+00:002011-01-26T01:52:58.509+00:00One of the very real benefits of keeping a dream b...One of the very real benefits of keeping a dream book (and surely you must have a torch, for uses just such as this, Froog! Don't you have power outages in China?) is that it helps you monitor when an "experience" first entered your consciousness--especially helpful if you have recurring dreams about places or people (that don't exist) or relationships between places and people (who never mixed) that eventually become so familiar that the lines blur between "when" and "if" they happened.<br /><br />When I flip through the pages of mine, occasionally I'm surprised to read something that I've since adopted wholesale and retrospectively meshed into my reality. I'll have been reminiscing: Remember the time we were in the desert and Lucy found that abandoned freezer full of milk, and took a nap in it? Remember when the red dye on the old pot shards turned into blood, as a warning not to take them home? Remember when those hundreds of people came to the shores of the Salt Lake when you were camping there, circled round your fire and didn't say a word, then all walked into the water and disappeared? <br /><br /><i>No</i>, my dream book reminds me, <i>You don't.</i> <br /><br />Very useful indeed.lines are downhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05151831630386166583noreply@blogger.com