Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Hypnagogia: Evidence of Collective Consciousness and Past Lives?
Amida
Explorer
I experience what's called "Hypnagogia" everynight, as I'm fading into sleep, and even "Daytime Parahypnagogia" while awake, provided it's quiet.
During the hypnagogic state one experiences hallucinations, which arise as images and scenes flashing in the mind, or sounds. Most typically, one enters this state between wakefulness and sleep.
I am CONVINCED this is evidence of at least a collective consciousness, and perhaps past lives. I hear people speaking in different languages, see alien beings, hear music I've never heard, and see things, I've never seen, in perfect detail. Sometimes I pull myself back to alert consciousness after seeing something in great detail; then I get up, search on the internet and find what I saw really exists in the detail in which I saw it in the hypnagogic state. This fascinates me.
One can even throw questions out into this hypnagogic state. One night I asked this state, "What is the theory of everything?" I heard: "Drive a board through your head." Another night, I asked, "What is the nature of consciousness?" I saw an old man sitting on a hill, eating a fruit, and he said, "Let me eat my fruit." Was kinda like a Zen Master in my head. Weird but amazing stuff here...
Anyone else here experience hypnagogia and has it convinced you of a collective consciousness or past lives?
During the hypnagogic state one experiences hallucinations, which arise as images and scenes flashing in the mind, or sounds. Most typically, one enters this state between wakefulness and sleep.
I am CONVINCED this is evidence of at least a collective consciousness, and perhaps past lives. I hear people speaking in different languages, see alien beings, hear music I've never heard, and see things, I've never seen, in perfect detail. Sometimes I pull myself back to alert consciousness after seeing something in great detail; then I get up, search on the internet and find what I saw really exists in the detail in which I saw it in the hypnagogic state. This fascinates me.
One can even throw questions out into this hypnagogic state. One night I asked this state, "What is the theory of everything?" I heard: "Drive a board through your head." Another night, I asked, "What is the nature of consciousness?" I saw an old man sitting on a hill, eating a fruit, and he said, "Let me eat my fruit." Was kinda like a Zen Master in my head. Weird but amazing stuff here...
Anyone else here experience hypnagogia and has it convinced you of a collective consciousness or past lives?
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
..."can agree with the Buddha on many things, but I think this whole "rebirth/karma" thing could be pure fiction."
yet here you are, CONVINCED that your experience is 'perhaps evidence of past lives...'
So.......
??
:wtf:
I said "could" be pure fiction. And here I said "perhaps" hypnagogia is evidence of past lives; Meaning, on rebirth and past lives I'm unsure. Maybe past lives and rebirth are true, but maybe they're not.
In relation to hypnagogia, I am convinced it's evidence of a collective consciousness, but not convinced it's evidence of past lives.
Yes, I think precognition arises from this collective state, as well. I experience hypnagogia/paradaytime hypnagogia more than most, and have quite a few experiences with precognition. I'm willing to bet those who experience hypangogia the most are the most precognitive.
I think its not easy to overcome the subtile Hindu things *smile*, actually I don't thinks its a matter of advanced but for sure an idea. So of course it is an advanced idea.
But maybe you could break it down into simply words that there would be no doubt.
I see things in vivid detail I've never seen, then later search those things out, online, to find they exist just as seen in hypnagogia. There is no way that could be merely dreaming.
I dream and experience hypnagogia everynight. There is a HUGE difference. When it comes to details and being realistic, the hypnagogic states blows dreams out of the water.
"One need not be a chamber to be haunted; One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing Material place." - Emily Dickinson
I know what it is. I've experience it many times over the years.
This is why the mind is indistinguishable from real life. The mind both creates what you see as real life and what you see as a dream. You are the "creator" of both worlds. Your awareness, your mind, is the one processing it all and bringing it all into existence.
Perhaps relevant.
And maybe what I said earlier made little sense.
So,
tl;dr: Your mind processes both the "real world" and your "dream world." Both of these realities are created/processed in your mind. That is why both worlds may seem so real. They are real - to you.
I'm inclined to to be agnostic about the whole thing. I can't remember anything that "happens" in my hypnagogic states. I am familiar with the sensations of figuring things out while in a state of hypnagogia. I do believe in a collective unconscious, psychic ability, and so on-- a lot of people do. I just don't know that hypnagogia is evidence of that.
I agree it's all mind, but I'd say the hypnagogia is a mixture of the individual mind (brain of the person), and the "Big Mind" of the collective consciousness. Sometimes, I'd swear in this state I can see through the eyes of others.
Again, I'm not lying or exaggerating when I say, in the hypnagogic state, I've seen things that exist, in detail, before I've witnessed them exist with my natural eyes.
And I didn't say it was supernatural. I don't really believe there is such thing as natural vs. supernatural.
As for hypnogogia? The last time I fell asleep in a car, in the hypnogic state through completely closed eyes I saw a red car suddenly come in front of our car and suddenly slow and it was startling enough that I woke up. I was completely asleep and completely dreaming, but when I opened my eyes, a red car suddenly pulled in front of the car I was in and suddenly hit its brake lights and slowed and the driver of the car I was in slammed on our brakes to keep us from rear ending it. Shrug. Hypnogogia is an interesting phenomenon but it is no big deal. Hopefully if someone tells you to put a board through your head in yor hypnagogic state you won't heed that advice...
I'm not sure how many people actually experience this state, and to what degree, but I find it hard to believe one who experiences it, as I do, would say it's no big deal.
Again, I dream vividly almost everynight, and the hypnagogic state is *very* different than dreams. I see scenes, images, and music, as if I am seeing these things through the eyes/ears of other people, things in detail, which I've never seen.
For example, a few months ago, I was still conscious but heading into unconsciousness (hypnagogic) and I saw long green grass blowing with the wind, as if truly seeing it. It was near a lake. A woman with a hat on came walking up, holding the top of the hat against her head, so the wind didn't blow it off; right behind her was a man wearing sun glasses and carrying a camera in one hand, and a camera tripod in the other.
I opened my eyes in marvel that I could see something in such perfect detail. This was nothing like a dream. Whose eyes was I seeing through? Was I seeing through the eyes of someone else, or was it from a past life? I don't know, but it was NOT a dream, and nothing like a dream.
(This is assuming there is only one Earthly plane)
That's a good point. From the view in which I seen these people, it was as if I was seeing them near the lake, here where I live, through the eyes of an animal. I know that sounds funny, but the view seemed low to the ground. I'm even laughing at myself for saying that, but these experiences are so marvelous, that I wonder what they are, exactly.
As I said before though... I also see alien lifeforms, hear other languages, see men with long beards and wearing robes, as if in old times, etc, etc, etc... If this is just product of the human mind, then, no doubt, mind not limited to the confines of the brain could bring about universes, etc.
Likewise...
Astral travel is not a big deal (even when the people on the other end of the visit phone you up from 1000 miles away to report that you strangely seemed to have been standing there in front of them.)
Past lives are not a big deal (even when you meet the ones you knew well in the former life and end up laughing, crying, loving or fighting over the same old common karmic issues from the last lifetime).
The near death experience is not a big deal (even though you end up fondly reminiscing about nearly dying for the rest of your life because you miss being out there).
Traveling to foreign places one has never been before and seeing scenes in one's head in broad daylight from a lifetime long past lived in that very place along with the words that go with it in a strange difficult-to-pronounce language is not a big deal (even if subsequently you research the historical archives and find out that those people did indeed once exist as you saw them).
The out-of-body dead hanging out at their funerals and wanting messages delivered to their loved ones is not a big deal...
nor is the without-a-physical body consciousness of an entity before it is conceived as a child on this plane as any big deal.
All of these things are simply phenomena, observable phenomena; the observable been there, done that, got the t-shirt every day phenomena of our every day world.
You said that you experience hypnagogia every night, right? So why would it ever be a big deal?
Do you regard sunshine and rain and gravity that you experience in the course of your every day life as a big deal or are they simply also just part of the experience and the observable phenomena of living here?
I would say that they are all just part of the observable phenomena of living here....
and that the real question....
the burning question....
the million dollar question...
the question of life, the universe, and everything...
is what one came here to learn, create, become, and release.
Everything is Mind-wrought.
I myself most often call it what the dead call it, and what I called it when I myself died: "the other side." (I was not Buddhist when I died in my former life)
Although the proper Buddhist term for it is the bardo, quite often people seem to be rather intimidated by the mysterious connotations of the rather dark-sounding "bardo," and so I do not use it much unless speaking with known Buddhists.
The bardo is no big dark intimidating mystery when you remember having died in a former life, and it's not a big mystery when you get close to dying in this one either; it's a familiar phenomenon.
Perhaps a 'previous life' may not have occurred in what conventional thought would see as the past but in the future or perhaps even the present. Maybe we 'rewind' or 'fast forward' time as we shift from one lifetime to another.
This is pure speculation on my part and I only bring it up in an attempt to release my thinking from the constraints of what I consider to be the illusionary concept of time.
Maybe Timothy Leary and Eileen Caddy were just hypnagogic jerks.
(Nil nis bonum de mortuis dicere.)
Harry Houdini didn't have the science behind "inattentional blindness" to understand that the mind sees what it wants (or doesn't want) out of the incalculable stream of data that provides the brain (conscious and subconscious) with every image we encounter in dreams - or near death experiences for that matter. The brain just can't not take it in - the mind just can't not record and play it back. Fact. Harry just had a hunch that "spiritualism" (for lack of a better description)was all bunk - trickery - similar to his "feats" of magic. Yet, Harry was honest in his respect for the sincerity of those who believed.
Buddhism holds that we are primordially deluded.
No, it's no big deal - past lives - out of body dead - astral projection. Not really. Sincerely, fascinatingly, mystifyingly, interesting, but no big deal.
(Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit.)
The brain is vastly complex and if the world around us is full of illusions, then slipping in and out of dreams is even more of an illusion. But, you could be correct, there is no way anybody can say that you are wrong 100% and have all of the facts and details to why because it is something unanswerable, interesting, but I cannot see how you would be able to know what is going on there for sure. Also, attaching to this experience will bring suffering in some shape or form, but I myself do like dreaming as mine are almost always vivid and seem to last the entire time I am asleep (which they do not of course). And to note, I am aware the phenomena you speak of is not simply dreaming.
@charirama
I've thought this too.
All possiblities may exist, eternally, in a timeless non-linear state, and can be entered according to one's karma. Kinda like the matrix, which can be entered at any seeming place or time, but all those possiblities are eternally there.
Sometimes, I think what is happening in this life will always be exactly what it is, and my life could be played out again and again and again provided karma sends a stream of consciousness through this perceived experience. If Samsara is infinite, then this exact life will be played out over and over and over. This would put a great importance on how we live it, as we may shape this eternal segment of the matrix.
Again I am just saying I am not convinced, though I am keeping an open mind.
Newtonian/Darwinian/Christian constructs may be challenged by hypnagogia, but if you analyze the phenomenon as the interactions of an electromagnetic pan-dimensional self in a pan-dimensional universe governed by the laws of electromagnetism and quantum mechanics, with "karma" defined as any specific electromagnetic pattern, there is no conflict. The "law of karma" is the universal law of "like attracts like." An electromagnetic pattern will resonate and attract similar electromagnetic patterns in the cosmos. It is the law of inductive coupling through harmonic resonance.
From the Buddhist perspective, a Buddhist acknowledges that one's known universe does indeed exist within mind/consciousness, and so practices to perfect and to dissolve attachments in order to perfect and release the higher mind to the cosmos/the light/the enlightenment (liberation).
The beginning Buddhist sits and meditates, for the benefit of self and all sentient beings.
With more practice, every day moving and mantra meditation is added, living one's normal daily life in a meditative, focused, intentioned, mindful manner, for the benefit of self and all sentient beings.
With more practice, in addition to these practices,one builds a meditation space on the bardo (other side/hypnagogia/astral plane/dreamtime) whatever you call it), in order to meditate there too (while the body sleeps) for the benefit of self and all sentient beings.
So eventually with practice, both one's days and nights are spent in a continual state of meditative practice, and on the bardo one seeks communion/advice/wisdom from those bodhisattvas (saints,angels,leaders.teachers,god(s) of one's particular tradition) with whom one resonates, affiliates, and meditates for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Eventually the practice becomes daily 24/7 ordinary waking world and also bardo(other side/higher realms) meditation, with trying to hang onto that practice when confronted by increasingly difficult situations and extremely wounded beings, for the benefit of all sentient beings. People who maintain their practice in spite of others torturing and killing them are declared "saints" by many religions at this level.
At such time that practice is ultimately perfected, one eventually transcends all realms (worlds/planes of existence) demonstrating liberation for the benefit of all sentient beings, as a Bodhisattva or a Buddha (or a Christ/saint/prophet/etc. depending on one's tradition)
So you see, if you were a Buddhist, you would regard the whole bardo/astral thing as no big deal and simply part of the every day phenomena of living and of mind. The big question and big focus of your life would be on your practice and on what you came here (to this life) to learn and to release, for your benefit and the benefit of all sentient beings.
It is a common phenomenon that people end up dealing with the bardo/the other side/astral plane, they...
die horrifically with major unfinished business they can't ever forget and carry that to the next life as children, or they have a strong connection with someone who has crossed over (supposedly 1 out of every 5 people reports some consciousness of dead relatives after they have crossed over), or they have a near death experience (traumatic injury/torture/abuse, illness, poisoning, drug use (prescription or otherwise), or they have an out of body experience (traumatic injury/torture/abuse, illness, poisoning, drug use (prescription or otherwise), or they engage in meditative or contemplative practices (repetitive activities, music, sexual connection, exhaustion, hypnosis, self-hypnosis, hypnagogia, blood sugar & autointoxication anomalies, contemplation of the natural world, etc.)...
it happens all the time that people have dealings with and/or consciousness of the bardo.
The thing about the universe is that like attracts like...
and so on the bardo, without structure, without clear intent, without good focus and sound practice, one can inadvertently attract all manner of things and/or become totally enamored with and entangled by one's own thoughts manifested in solid forms, potentially dangerously distancing oneself from one's body (causing genuine harm to bodily function) and/or totally diverting oneself away from working on those karmic issues one came here to deal with and release.
People here can say such things are no big deal, but if they proved, without question, that the ground of reality is consciousness, that there is a collective consciousness, and rebirth is an undeniable fact, the entire world would take it as a BIG deal. I hear Buddhist monks talking about science all the time, and they would be basking in being proven right. Lol...
People can say these things are not big deals, but I don't buy it.
There really is no such thing as "proving" the existence of phenomena to people who have not directly observed such phenomena.
I can understand, however, that if you were raised with someone insisting that you must "believe" in things that conflicted with your own experience of reality, you might have a very real interest indeed in proving your case to such people. If such is your background, it makes perfect sense why your experiences with meditation and hypnagogia would be a very big deal to you indeed, because it would make your case.
I am sure that you will be able to make your case one way or another to whomever you wish, but there is just no way to conduct double-blind, repeatable, verifiable, experiments "to prove without question" that "the ground of reality is consciousness, that there is a collective consciousness, and that rebirth is an undeniable fact.."
and that even if there were some ethical realistic means of doing so...
the political and economic powers in this world would work overtime to discredit any such proof because it is contrary to their political and economic interests.
(If Christianity is your background, notice that rebirth was a tenet of Judaism at the time of Jesus of Nazareth, and that it was eradicated by Constantine in favor of merchandizing Jesus of Nazareth as the new Roman god heading the new Imperial Roman state religion, organized in the manner of the Roman legions maintaining civic order in the Roman imperial rebellious slave state, no longer according to the model of the Judeo-Christian family household. The history of the Roman Imperial State Religion persecuting the Jewish faith in the name of Empire is a long sad one.)
But as you were looking for a mathematical model that might make sense to you... please know that Arabic numbers themselves come from the sacred geometry of Persia which in turn came from the Tantric Buddhists from India. It goes like so:
0 the symbol for the totality, the endless circle, the universe, the sum of all, the whole of infinity... and also the emptiness of no-self and no-form
1 the vertical line, the splitting of the totality, which thereby creates duality.... light and dark, life and death, yin and yang... also the "I" the self, the form
2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9.... the endless splitting of forms into more and more forms of I and you and they apart and apart and distanced, progressing geometrically in layers.... 10's, 100's, 1000's, etc...
forms split into into more forms....
Do Buddhists care about adding up and balancing how many forms are here, there, and everywhere in the cosmos in an attempt to mathematically balance or "prove" anything to anybody?
No. Buddhists only care about getting back to the totality, the sum of all, the whole of infinity... the emptiness of self and of form, Nirvana, liberation...
back to the
0
Likewise, with a human being.... how many lifetimes, how many layers? Thousands!
They are like tree rings on a tree, each self...what is the purpose? Growth!
What is the purpose of growth? The re-unification with the totality, the emptiness of self and form.... the liberation, the Nirvana,....back to the 0.
I wish you the best of luck exploring your issues. Please do be careful exploring your issues on the bardo. Whatever you resonate out there, you will attract, the energy you put out into the universe you eventually get back from the universe, and out on the bardo it's pretty immediate. For some people that's heaven, for others that's hell. Do be careful. Best of luck
with metta
Aura
Thanks for your thoughts. I hear what you're saying. Personally, I see nothing wrong with science, as it's a form of discovery. One should just be careful not to get lost in it. Inquiry is a good thing, in my opinion, provided one doesn't get lost in it.
The Buddha didn't blindly accept rebirth. He diligently sought out whether or not it was true, and saw for himself that it was. The only way most people accept something, or place faith in it, is if it makes sense, or they have some kind of experience which reveals it's a reality. Anything short of that is gullible stupidity, in my opinion.
I'd like to start another thread on rebirth, as I have a puzzling question, but I'm afraid it may be met with rude comments...
Likewise, with a human being.... how many wounds, how many layers of wounds? Thousands!
A human being is like a tree continuing growth over, around, through where it has been injured and pruned by nature, chance, and the intent and ideas of others. What is the purpose of continuing in spite of the wounds? Growth!
What is the purpose of growth? The re-unification with the totality, the emptiness of self and form.... the liberation, the Nirvana,....back to the 0.
The tree eventually dies, having put the sum total of its consciousness, all of its life, growth, and genetic information, its gift to the future of life itself back to the 0...
into that round seed that blows in the wind...
Science, like gravity, is not affected by rudeness.
What is your question?
@amida found your hypnogogic post from 2011 in 2016 while searching in the Internet.
YES!
Welcome to the Forum.
amida has not visited the site since 2013 (you flagged his name. There is a minor possibility he might respond....)
Threads over a year old are generally closed.
Please see here.
Thanks.