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Recurring dreams...
Hi guys..
this isnt really related to Buddhism so I'm posting it here.. Over the last few months or years I've been having dreams of myself painting pictures...
I used to paint long ago... but gave that up..
Its just that now I feel I must revive that hobby... The dreams are so vivid and rich, the feeling is so beautiful..
One question I love to ask anyone is, what do you dream? I ask this because dreams give a wonderful insight into the psyche of anyone... so... erm.. what do you guys dream of? Do you have recurring dreams? If so what do you see?
Besides seeing myself painting, I see recurring visions of me looking at the sky and seeing UFO's and also dreams in which i see different places, sometimes in real life I do see these places and they match with the dreams. One logical explanation is I travelled quite a bit when I was younger so that may be why I see different places...
this isnt really related to Buddhism so I'm posting it here.. Over the last few months or years I've been having dreams of myself painting pictures...
I used to paint long ago... but gave that up..
Its just that now I feel I must revive that hobby... The dreams are so vivid and rich, the feeling is so beautiful..
One question I love to ask anyone is, what do you dream? I ask this because dreams give a wonderful insight into the psyche of anyone... so... erm.. what do you guys dream of? Do you have recurring dreams? If so what do you see?
Besides seeing myself painting, I see recurring visions of me looking at the sky and seeing UFO's and also dreams in which i see different places, sometimes in real life I do see these places and they match with the dreams. One logical explanation is I travelled quite a bit when I was younger so that may be why I see different places...
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Comments
I hate those kind of dreams.
I hate the pooh-pooh too.
-bf
When I was younger (about 10) I used to have recurring nightmares that cats were after me. I'd dream that I'd open the curtains and the garden would be full of cats staring up at me. That was freaky as well !
Try next time focussing on a hare, instead... thy have a tendency to be very gentle, and more affectionate peaceful creatures....... because, remember:
"Absinthe makes the hare grow fonder"....:crazy:
have you never met someone in a dream who touched your soul? Have you never been to a place youve never seen, in a dream?...
I don't think all dreams are jumbled projections. I've dreamt of places and situations ive experienced at a later date..
And I've seen worlds, and realms, in my dreams.
Ive even seen heavens...
Hence, the pooping.
I think I read too many weird books right before bed.
-bf
At least, when I see a hell, I know what it is and I am terrified... With heavens, I'm terrified of being sucked into the illusion
Frizz, ditto!
Fede, ditto!
Hope,
I'm a clear, big dreamer and have always had recurring dreams.
When I was a child I had nightmares about a man creature I called "Wooill".
He had bright red, crazy hair and a huge (I mean MASSIVE) hooked nose.
He used to hold me down and tickle me to my great frustration. (Don't worry, it's not what you think, thank God.)(I still haven't found a replacement for that expression.)
My first dream of Wooill (which was the sound of the wind, btw) was when I was in my crib and he reached in and tickled me. The light source in all the dreams was always coming from somewhere outside of the room I was in (like, out in the hall), so it was dark and there was never any direct light, but lots of silhouettes.
I had a break in those dreams between the ages of about 6 and 10, roughly. When I had the last dream of him I had grown a lot in the interim and I fought him off (we were in a neighbour's house, as well), I was in my nightgown, and I wrestled him to the floor, put my bare foot on the front of his neck and put all my weight on the foot, moving it around, crushing his larynx, pharynx and trachea eventually killing him. I felt an incredible amount of empowerment and never dreamed of him again.
Another childhood recurring dream was standing in sea water up to my thighs and the ocean spread out before me everywhere I look. Suddenly an ocean liner (huge cruise ship) appears and standing on the top deck with a huge crowd of people celebrating with confetti and streamers, are my parents, waving good bye to me! LOL! So sad! LOL!
In the past 3 or 4 years or so the recurring theme in my dreams is packing up all my belongings in a panic because I'm late for my train/plane/bus etc. Sometimes I'm moving and faced with millions of tiny belongings and the impossible task of organizing and packing them all up with not enough time to do so. Sometimes I have to get back to Montreal, but I don't know how to get there. I have many variations of this dream. I've even dreamt of myself standing with all my bags neatly packed and ready to go but something else prevents me from actually making the trip. I decided once that if I could, perhaps, leave the baggage behind and just make the journey the sense of urgency would go away and I'd be able to just go. I did have a dream like that after I made the decision but the original theme came back anyway.
I usually have great recall and I never have nightmares anymore. My dreams are more anxiety based, but not unbearable panic. There's always some sense of warmth and security in them and I enjoy them very much and love to go over them when I wake up. Sometimes I wake up soaked in sweat but I think that has more to do with the first stages of perimanopause than anything else! LOL
As you can see, I'm a very psychologically simple person.
Needless to say, I woke up SOBBING!!!!!! Since, I have written these down. There is a letter to each of the six nieces and nephews. I will wait until they are a little older to give it to them. Boy, was i freaked out!!!!
I was almost afraid to drive to the grocery store the next day!!
"Quotations sourced to the book known as Zhuangzi:
* Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man."
BSF,
Thank you so much for posting this. I LOVE it.
Brigid
OMG. That's heavy. I can so see why you woke up sobbing. I'm almost sobbing! Wow. Oh, wow. I'm speechless...Heavy. (I sound like a hippie.) You must have been freaked OUT. I'm all shivery. Can't stop thinking about it. That's powerful. I hope you never have that dream or any other dream like that ever again.
Love,
Brigid
Then I woke up.
I am still trying to find just where my pillow went..
thanks for the really vivid descriptive answer.. I really enjoyed reading that..
..tell me.. do you ever see other worlds or places?..
Hope..
Dear Sharpiegirl
Thank you for sharing that experience.. was really deep and beautiful...
your nephews and neices are lucky to have you watching over them.. I wish I had a guardian Angel like
you..
Hope..
Hope.."
I don't know. I guess the answer would be no because I'm never aware that I'm anywhere other than earth.
Brigid
Very short, but fightening.
I'm outside, it's a nice day and I see a blinding flash of light on the horizon, maybe two. Then mushroom clouds.
I wake up.
But the threat is still there.
::
::
I've had the same dream two or three times as well.
:-/
Not pleasant
Hi Hope,
Great thread. I've worked with my dreams for decades now, and I've had some intense emotional and spiritual growth as a result of the work I've done with dreams.
I have found that there is no real difference between the waking and dream states, other than the symbols used for communication -- that the separation is merely an illusion. In the waking state, the more awareness you have, the more you can change. The same is true of the dream state. The more awareness achieved within the dream state, the more we can change within our dreams and within ourselves.
The symbols used in nightmares can be so wonderful for working through intense fears lodged in the subconscious. When I was going through an intense growth period during the mid-'80s, I had a lot of nightmares that symbolically had to do with killing off parts of myself, i.e. old attitudes, ideas, behaviors, belief patterns, etc. It was very liberating to identify what was being communicated within the dream in order to clear out and move on in life.
I love the dreams where I'm conscious of the fact that I'm dreaming and can, therefore, control what I do and where I go in the dream. I even worked through some karma that way! I remember wanting to take a particular action and then reminding myself that I should put myself in the other person's shoes first, in order to know how to treat them. Just like in the waking state.
I have also had premonition dreams as you described, but not too often. Most of them are very pleasant, but once in a while I will dream about something challenging that's coming up in the near future. For instance, several years ago I had a recurring nightmare that I was living in an apartment, only to wake up in a cold sweat but still living in my house. Little did I know that within the next year or so, I would have to move when my landlord evicted our entire neighborhood (he owned all 104 rental homes and panicked over mold discovered in some of them) in an emergency-type situation, so that I ended up in an apartment. Very terrifying and challenging time, and I think that's why I kept dreaming about it a year or so beforehand.
Sometimes I even have funny dreams, where I come up with some of the best comic material! Probably my most "fun" dream was when I dreamed that I was in someone's novel. Very cool experience! It was a mystery murder story about a female environmental investigator who had been investigating the abuses of some large corporation and was murdered in the process. The feds were searching for her body, and somehow I knew where parts of her body (she had been dismembered, not sure why) were buried -- yet I didn't know how the story was going to unfold! But I had the best time just hanging out and observing the story!! I woke up feeling like I had just been to the movies.
Also, just last month I had someone I know visit me within my dream. I knew that he was into astral projection (and I am too), but I had no idea he could just visit me within my dream like that. I've always connected with people while they were awake, not asleep, so that was new to me. But what an amazing experience! It was as though only a small portion of my dream was that very real interaction, just like when someone deceased visits you within your dream. You know that the visit was real, as opposed to interacting with them symbolically.
Usually, most of my dreams involve adventures and learning along those lines. I have travelled to other worlds, but not very often. Most of what I experienced had to do with the connection and interaction with other worlds. However, I would love to hear more of your adventures to other worlds. Sounds fascinating!
:cheer:
Thank you for sharing that post.
You're welcome! I'd still be interested in hearing about your travels to other worlds during your dreams.
They are places.. some beautiful, some terrible. Maybe they are all here on earth and not other worlds.
Actually I usually see beautiful places... forests.. old houses..
The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep
By Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Sleeping, Dreaming and Dying: An Exploration of Consciousness with the Dalai Lama
Edited and narrated by Francisco Varela
Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light
By Chogyal Namkhai Norbu
Edited and introduction by Michael Katz
Dreaming in the Lotus: Buddhist Dream Narrative, Imagery and Practice
By Serinity Young
Meditation, Transformation and Dream Yoga
Venerable Gyatrul Rinpoche
Enjoy.
Love,
Brigid
Love,
Brigid
Dream Yoga:
http://www.natural-connection.com/resource/yoga_journal/dream_yoga.html
January/February 2006
Tibetan Medicine
By Chris O’Brien
Think of Tibetan medicine, and you may imagine yourself lying in the middle of a healing Mandala while chanting, orange-robed monks blow incense across your loin-clothed body. But that’s not an accurate image. A modern session with a Tibetan medicine practitioner would be much like talking to a physician, finding out what ails you and getting recommendations for treatment. Like many other Eastern healing systems, Tibetan medicine is a historically valid and recognized institution and a complete medical practice that is still widely used today.
Originating on the high Himalayan plateau‹some say about 2,300 years ago, concurrent with the recorded beginnings of Tibetan culture‹Tibetan medicine can roughly be described as an amalgamation of modern Tibetan philosophy and neighboring medical practices, including the traditions of Ayurvedic, Persian and Chinese medicines. Though Tibetan society today is a peaceful, benevolent culture, it wasn’t always so. By the sixth century, the Tibetans had unified into a formidable empire, and by the seventh century, they were the dominating military force in Asia, consequently adapting and absorbing knowledge and practices from the cultures of the region, including those of India, China, Mongolia, Turkey and Persia. (As a quick aside, this time of dominance was a turning point for Tibet, which then abandoned the military quest in favor of the acquisition of spiritual and cultural growth, evolving into what we today know as Tibetan culture, religion and medicine.)
Tibetan medicine, like many Eastern and alternative medicines, differs primarily from Western medicine in that it focuses on the individual, both in diagnosis and treatment, versus the practice of prescribing one-dose-fits-all remedies that’s common in allopathic medicine.
“Tibetan medicine is essentially very holistic,” says Phil Weber, M.D., practitioner at the Shambhala Clinic (a.k.a Boulder Family Practice Tibetan Medicine Clinic). “It’s based on trying to understand the whole mind-body situation as well as the concept that the basis of healing is connected to your own intrinsic health and healing ability.”
The idea is that there exists a natural balance between the mind, body and spirit, and that a disruption of this balance long precedes but ultimately leads to the physical manifestation of illness.
“Tibetan medicine acknowledges that health and illness result both from the relationship between the mind and the body and people's connectedness to the natural world and sense of spirituality,” says Eliot Tokar, a Tibetan medicine practitioner in New York. Therefore, part of the treatment is to deal with current symptoms. But beyond that, and what makes Tibetan medicine unique, is the focus on remedying the core imbalance that was the original stimulus for the current illness and symptoms.
How it works
Tibetan medicine uses three main tools, called Nyipa sum, to measure and adjust this natural balance. Often referred to in English as the vital energies, these three systems, rLung, mKhris-pa and Bad-kan, incorporate the five elements‹earth, wind, fire, water, space‹and very roughly correspond to the Ayurvedic doshas vata, pitta and kapha, respectively.
“A disturbance in one or a combination of these three principle systems results in illness,” says Tokar. “The disturbance can come from diet, behavior or environmental factors whose qualities, based on their constituent elements, act to disturb the qualities of any of the three energies.”
For example, too much stress can affect vital energies, as can a junk-food diet, smoking, prescription drugs, exposure to toxins and so forth. “The manner in which these factors can result in illness will be more or less complex depending on the acute or chronic nature of the problem,” Tokar says. “All illnesses must be seen as individual and based on the situation of the particular patient's background.”
In short, these three vital energies must be in balance for health and healing to occur. And Tibetan medicine practitioners are trained to discern the current state of your vital energies and make recommendations for treatment and rebalancing.
Typically, a practitioner will do an intake, which includes assessing your overall physical and psychological demeanor, as well as an interview to find out as much as possible about your current and past medical conditions, as well as any factors that might be contributing to illness. The practitioner will also usually do a traditional urinalysis, a pre-clinical observation technique used to help decipher your state of balance or imbalance. Finally, they will check your pulses‹not the pulse an allopathic physician would check, but rather energetic pulses similar to those used in Chinese medicine.
From the information gathered, a practitioner can then make an accurate diagnosis and prescription. Most Tibetan practitioners, under typical conditions, employ a hierarchy of treatments, beginning with the gentlest and least invasive. So, for example, dietary and lifestyle modifications would first be recommended, followed by herbal remedies and finally physical remedies including moxibustion, baths and physical therapy. The ultimate treatment is twofold, including remedies for addressing the obvious symptoms of illness as well as the underlying imbalance of vital energies.
Traditional practices do have protocol for fixing broken bones and even treating cancer, but in the West, allopathic medicine is a more effective solution for serious cases such as these. In fact, most Tibetan practitioners don’t have a problem recommending or working with Western doctors and practices.
“Sometimes the best results come from using both at the same time,” says Weber. “And sometimes Western medicine is so skillful that it can handle a serious illness very quickly where it might take much longer to heal with a Chinese, Ayurvedic or Tibetan system.” Weber points out the benefits of using both Western and Eastern practices by sighting a self-directed study where his clinic found that post-surgical patients who received acupuncture were in better physical and psychological shape more quickly, and left the hospital two to three days sooner than usual. This is an example of balancing the energies to allow the body, mind and spirit to work with the medical procedure and heal quickly. “Often people wind up unknowingly or subconsciously fighting their treatment,” says Weber. “And that struggle could lead to further illness or perpetuate the current problem.”
Again, the main feature of Tibetan medicine is that it is practiced on an individualized level and not on a disease-model basis. Therefore, actual treatment for the same illness will vary from person to person.
Finding a practitioner is usually best through word of mouth. Training in this practice comes through family lineage (if you’re Tibetan), apprenticeship or by attending a Tibetan medical college. However, no official certification program exists in the West. For chronic conditions such as allergies and anxiety, you should expect some tangible results within three to six visits. On average, a visit costs $40 to $80, and most practitioners are willing to discuss price if there’s a hardship.
Resources, local and beyond
If you’re interested in finding out more, check out some of these links:
* http://www.tibetmed.org/history.htm History of Tibetan medicine
* http://www.tibetan-medicine.org/tibetanmedicine.asp Overview, FAQs, products
* http://www.jcrows.com/tibmed.html Introduction and description
* http://www.tibetanmedicine.com Eliot Tokar’s site with lots of info
http://www.nexuspub.com/journeys/tibetan_medicine.htm
It's been fascinating reading some of your experiences of dreams. i',ve also experienced some pretty intense dreams starting with recurring nightmares when i was a kid. Since then i've had a pretty interesting dream life.
I was just wondering if anyone here has had, or can at will induce, lucid dreaming - where you know when you are in a dream and can then control it.
That apparently gave him food for thought and forced him to look upon it in a different way.... But it was just my take on it with him, then.
Yes, I used to be able to lucidly dream when I was a teenager, around 15. I was only able to do it a few times and it took concentration while in the dream to make things come about but it was fun. I don't remember what made me try. I think it came on spontaneously. And if I remember correctly I felt that I wasn't fully asleep, I was just falling asleep when I started to dream but I still had part of the "awake" me to draw upon and while dreaming I was able to say to myself "You're dreaming" and I knew that all I had to do was visualize what I wanted in the dream and it would appear. I visualized The Rolling Stones in my living room. LOL!
I haven't done it since then but I think I'll try to find my way back. I'll let you know.
Brigid
Seriously?? You have had dreams that have made you poop in your bed??
And what the heck is Absinthe, Frizzer??
Last night I dreamt that my dad was still alive, just in some other country that I could not go to. It made me really sad when I woke up.