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Tide Pool
Seph
Veteran
Our dreaming mind has access to certain imaginative abilities not fully realized by our waking minds.
It can 'take' us places as seemingly real and memorable as our actual experiences.
Recently, while in a deep state of meditation, I had tapped into this ability.
To my back was a smooth sandstone cliff. It passed onto my left and angled away around a point. There was no rubble or scree, and at the base of the cliff the red stone turned into a shallowly submerged floor of wave-rippled sandstone. It was ocean water and salty. When I slipped into the shallow water it was as deep as my chest and warmed by the noon hour sun.
The only waves on the surface was caused by myself. The water was otherwise smooth and still. I could see, further out (200-300 feet?) some sort of nature stone breaker and could faintly hear the ocean lapping against it. I suppose it was where the sandstone floor abruptly rose and dropped off into the ocean. I'm not sure. I didn't give it much thought. I was more focused on the feel of the rippled sandstone floor on my bare feet and the colour of the clear water over the red stone. Slightly greenish it was - or maybe it wan an optical illusion.
It was comfortable and unbelievably refreshing. I was calm and at peace. I also know that, not only did I create this location, but that I was in complete control of it. I didn't 'happen upon it' and gain control - I chose it.
But real?! When I looked at the sun I would squint. I could feel the water, its temperature; I could smell its freshness and warmth; I could feel the air and breeze; the goosebumps across my bare shoulders and upper back when I came too far out of the water.
It was all real yet totally within my imagination.
I was not asleep. It was early morning, about 6:30 am, and still dark out. It was cold that morning. Somewhere around -30 degrees (C) with the windchill... and I was on the bus, going to work, meditating.
I chose when I left the large sandstone tide-pool. I was awake on the bus, deep in mediation, and acutely aware.
~
We are not our memories.
We can't be our experiences.
Because we remember and experience our dreams.
I was never at that tranquil tide-pool; but I have the experience and memory of it.
It can 'take' us places as seemingly real and memorable as our actual experiences.
Recently, while in a deep state of meditation, I had tapped into this ability.
To my back was a smooth sandstone cliff. It passed onto my left and angled away around a point. There was no rubble or scree, and at the base of the cliff the red stone turned into a shallowly submerged floor of wave-rippled sandstone. It was ocean water and salty. When I slipped into the shallow water it was as deep as my chest and warmed by the noon hour sun.
The only waves on the surface was caused by myself. The water was otherwise smooth and still. I could see, further out (200-300 feet?) some sort of nature stone breaker and could faintly hear the ocean lapping against it. I suppose it was where the sandstone floor abruptly rose and dropped off into the ocean. I'm not sure. I didn't give it much thought. I was more focused on the feel of the rippled sandstone floor on my bare feet and the colour of the clear water over the red stone. Slightly greenish it was - or maybe it wan an optical illusion.
It was comfortable and unbelievably refreshing. I was calm and at peace. I also know that, not only did I create this location, but that I was in complete control of it. I didn't 'happen upon it' and gain control - I chose it.
But real?! When I looked at the sun I would squint. I could feel the water, its temperature; I could smell its freshness and warmth; I could feel the air and breeze; the goosebumps across my bare shoulders and upper back when I came too far out of the water.
It was all real yet totally within my imagination.
I was not asleep. It was early morning, about 6:30 am, and still dark out. It was cold that morning. Somewhere around -30 degrees (C) with the windchill... and I was on the bus, going to work, meditating.
I chose when I left the large sandstone tide-pool. I was awake on the bus, deep in mediation, and acutely aware.
~
We are not our memories.
We can't be our experiences.
Because we remember and experience our dreams.
I was never at that tranquil tide-pool; but I have the experience and memory of it.
1
Comments
It reminds me of Phoebe's instructions to Monica (in an episode of 'Friends') about going to her 'happy place'..... Most of us can access a moment in our past when everything was just....'so'.....
The imagery you have evoked and illustrated is magical, serene and blissful...
The Mind is an extraordinary thing.... I remember illustrating this very point to a group of workshop participants, as I asked them to close their eyes, and I described a scene to them in which, at one point, they had to taste a lemon. All of them described their mouths filling with water at the mere suggestion of the lemon's flavour.
All except one, who, disliking lemons, chose chocolate. :rolleyes:
Of course, the experiment didn't work with her....
You may have tapped into a form of lucid dreaming. Very relaxed, conscious but the mind creating.
Fun, go meet the Buddha or go find some Bodhisattvas, tell them Lobster says 'hi'. Ask them any questions you might be pondering . . .
Sadly even in my dreams I lose control and what happens: I always wake up in a sweat but gratefully in my nice comfy bed thinking - WTF are you trying to prove here! Get real. That was a great trick Mara - bring on the next delusion!