Supernatural Mind Trap
Cinorjer
Veteran
Yesterday morning I woke up from having a vivid dream of finding a bunch of money in a dumpster. We're talking serious money, paper money in large denominations that kept appearing as I rummaged through the trash.
And wouldn't you know it, by some strange, unbelievable coincidence... absolutely nothing happened yesterday that involved money. I didn't find a quarter on the sidewalk, no rich uncle died and left me an inheritance, and my lottery numbers didn't come up.
Ah, but if by a coincidence it did? My mind, and everyone I told the story to, would insist the dream was a magical portent that predicted I was going to acquire money soon. This would be evidence for or "proof" that psychic powers exist. But thinking that would be wrong. I've dreamed of money many times in my life, and no pattern has ever developed between the dreams and reality. The fact that I didn't find unexpected money yesterday is never seen to disprove the belief that dreams foretell the future. My mind simply ignores failures.
Our minds are hardwired to look for relationships. It's part of the intelligence that allows us to make sense of the universe and invent new things and ideas. It's also a mind trap that causes glitches in our thinking. Someone said the gods are useless and he got hit by lightning. The gods must have been displeased, and that's certainly proof that Odin lives up in the sky. I had a creepy feeling and the urge to call a cousin of mine, and found out he got hit by a car and is in a coma just that morning. So psychic powers exist. And so it goes.
Seeing connections where none exist because our minds are bad at comprehending coincidence is something that seems to be near impossible to get rid of. So have there been any strange coincidences in your life that your mind insists must be something more? How about times where if coincidence had appeared, it would have been spooky and proof that the supernatural existed?
Comments
What does it mean? I'll tell you what it means: it means that even though we are engulfed by the daily garbage of crappy 'suffering' Life has in store for us, there are untold hidden riches to be found. We simply have to know where to look, and use what we find, wisely.
THAT'S what it means.
I had a dream that a girl I knew had a daughter, when she didn't, and 2 days later she told me she was pregnant. Spooky!
I used to have those dreams back when I did drugs. They were about finding suitcases full of drugs.
I think you can see where I'm going with this, lol.
Dreams are funny things. I dreamt that an old friend called out of the blue and the next day he called. Hadn't heard from him in years. I've had dreams that seemed like they were glimpses into the future but turned out to be wish fulfillment while others actually turned out.
We can't place all the blame on wishful dreaming though because that doesn't take nightmares into account.
Don't even get me started on lucid dreaming.
The word "supernatural" never made a lick of sense to me, even as a child. I could see using the term for things which can only happen when we are dreaming but if anything at all happens, I think it happens naturally. I don't think there is anything which is beyond nature.
If a demon from someone else's vision started haunting me in real life, I would figure there's a natural reason for it even if I couldn't fathom one.
"Supernatural"... Like, "even more natural"? Maybe "extra natural"? It's like when people talk about other universes... Drives me nuts. how can there be more than one "all that is, was or ever will be"?
I guess the term "supernatural" does in itself cause debates. If something exists, then it's by definition natural? And if it doesn't exist, it's nonexistent or a false statement, not a super or un-natural anything?
Let's say supernatural is the description we give a category of phenomena that is believed to exist in spite of breaking well known and proven fundamental laws of the universe. Not saying that automatically means our supernatural events can't happen, only that there is no scientific evidence and it would mean we vastly misunderstand how the universe operates.
For instance, for ghosts to exist in the way we commonly understand them to appear, they would have to be composed of something that reflects or emits photons. That's the only possible way they could be seen with our eyes or via a camera. So they have mass. But the ghost also is supposed to be able to walk through solid walls and doors, so this material has the properties only shared by neutrinos and some other subatomic particles. And this ghost has a form, so what is holding it together? Whatever it's made of, it has some sort of internal cohesion. And so it goes. A ghost is impossible as science understands the fundamental laws of the universe.
Yet people claim to have seen ghosts, watched them walk through doors, float around and disappear. So it's supernatural.
Science is just the art of establishing what is predictable and what is not and we all know how fluidic that gospel is.
I like to think of "supernatural" as something that is natural, that has yet to be explained by science OR hogwash. Could go either way depending.
Why would anyone assume it was a portent? The more likely assumption would be that you've been concerned about your finances.
Actually, not in this case. Least ways, no more than usual. I just have weird dreams, it seems. I have been watching shows and videos lately where people with metal detectors are digging coins and such out of the ground, and thinking about pulling my old metal detector out of the basement and seeing if it still works. Maybe that morphed into pulling money out of a dumpster. Who knows? To me, it's just a dream. But I was raised by people who believed in dreams being portents, as do a whole lot of people out there. It's common over time and culture. In the Bible, we have Kings who kept special advisors who did nothing but tell him what his dreams meant. Wasn't that what got Daniel out of prison, finally?
If you believe in the Bible, then yes, of course dreams mean something.... If not - then they don't.
One way to approach it is to see that we are just a nexus point between universes where the potential of dreams or ghosts or whatever in one universe having a connection to the other is always up to the receptivity of the dreamer.
Dreams are just as real as your waking consciousness. I smell, taste , touch, see, hear and think in my dreams. What's the difference?
Try to read next time but don't be surprised if it turns lucid.
@ourself I have read pages in books in my dreams before. Scarily they are books that don't "exist"
I rarely have lucid dreams these days, and they only last a short time. Maybe I'm sleeping better haha.
How amazing are dreams? Life is a true miracle. Now if only I could understand it haha.
Do you lucid dream?
It's been a little while but I havnt bothered trying anymore. I used to do it quite frequently.
I have always had freaky dreams and I usually remember a couple a night. The memory fades after half a day unless it made me reflect more than usual.
I'm not sure what they mean but they are interesting.
You're not the first person to ponder the difference between dream and reality. Il's say an important difference is, dreams don't operate under the universal law of karma. Actions don't have consequences. You can kill someone in your dream, or have sex with someone, or jump off a cliff, and except for a few fading memories when you awaken, there are no consequences. Try any of those actions in reality and karma is there to remind you that what you do matters very much.
That reminds me... Just a friendly tip.
If you're ever not sure if you're dreaming and want to see if you can fly, jump up from the ground and not off a cliff, lol.
Incidentally, that's a good rule of thumb for any younger readers experimenting with hallucinogens too.
What's that helpful advice from Malcome in the Middle? "Remember this: no matter what they say, the voices in your head are not your friends!"
Actually only a very few who hear voices hear unfriendly destructive ones and get diagnosed. I have heard that most her indifferent voices and some hear very positive ones.
1 in every 10000 hear voices. That is pretty many in a crowd.
Just saying.
@Victorious, of those diagnosed with a psychotic illness the overwhelming majority of voices are persecutory. There are some people who have voices who have not been diagnosed as having a psychotic disorder. Perhaps they have more benevolent voices.
Between 1/100 and 1/1000 of all people have psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. Of those over half have auditory hallucinations and the majority of those who do have voices the majority of them are persecutory.
Does the dream world have it's own karma? Or can I go around killing everything with absolutely no ramifications?
Hmmmm maybe.
Great point
If you have an intent to kill in the waking world, even if you don't follow through, it still has created it's own karma. If you have an intent to kill, before you sleep, to be enacted later in a dream, then the karma of that intent has been birthed even before you sleep.
Only if ones intent to kill arises, lives and fades within the dream would you consider it to be karma free. If the intent to kill that arises within a dream, continues into the waking world, then that is also karma bound.
All the time 'strange' coincidences.
However my mind does not insist it is anything less. I would suggest most of us oppose or fight our way through existence. We try to change the unfolding. When in harmony with the Tao, the Way, Synchronicity, the Super Natural, The Buddha Nature, what then?
Then codependent origination harmonises. Strange that.
Binzuru says hi . . . :wave: .
. . . not that anyone believes he is still around or anything . . . that would just be . . . weird . . .
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pindola_Bharadvaja
That is correct. But of natural reasons those with benevolent voices seldom get diagnosed. I got this from a physician. My sister.
. So maybe she was pulling my leg. I'll ask her again.
You're assuming people have control over their dreams? Certainly the waking world intrudes at times. Certainly if you decide to do something terrible that brings a buttload of guilt or fear, one karmic result might be nightmares that make your nights miserable. Is that what you mean?
Interesting article here: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/july/voices-culture-luhrmann-071614.html
What do we know, in the end, about the working of our psyche?
Do premonitions exist? Is this waking reality more real than our sleeping reality? Are there supernatural beings out there watching over us.
As almost everyone else, at some early point in my life, I was attracted to astrology, dream interpretation, paranormal happenings.
My father attended a Catholic school run by Jesuit priests who had had a good dose of exorcisms, shamanic healing, belief in saints and angels.
But as years rolled by, I sort of dismissed all that stuff as utter superstition and cut off contact with the part of the universe that could not be explained by our logic and rational thinking. In fact, what had initially attracted me to Buddhism was the Buddha's seemingly pragmatic stance.
And though I'm basically a Theravadin or Zen at heart, life has constantly pushed me into Tibetan circles with their boddhisattvas, and dakinis, and protectors.
At first, it felt to me like replacing the Catholic pantheon for a new, Tibetan pantheon.
But then I thought maybe, just maybe... why hush the magical element in my life? What if this parallel universe was constantly tugging for my attention? What if every time something I couldn't explain took place there was something to it?
When I was seventeen, I was admitted to prepare for my certificate of Proficiency in English, but we couldn't afford the fee.
One night around that time, I dreamt a ghastly nightmare full of images of blood.
Later that day, going for a walk, there was a trail of blood drops on the pavement and the sight of blood reminded me of my nightmare.
My brother cut himself badly, and here we were with more blood.
My mother decided to play lotto, to the number which in lotto jargon means "Blood."
She won the lotto for the first time in her life. The exact amount of money we needed for my Proficiency course.
I have many examples of unaccountable coincidences and signals of the universe, as I do of blatant misreadings into signs too, of course.
My main lesson in this department is that these hunches come naturally and can be better understood on hindsight. It's a process which totally fails when contrived.
But also that even in the staunchest skepticism, we have to leave some room for the magical element to take root and manifest in our lives.
Cinorjer's response
You're assuming people have control over their dreams? Certainly the waking world intrudes at times. Certainly if you decide to do something terrible that brings a buttload of guilt or fear, one karmic result might be nightmares that make your nights miserable. Is that what you mean?
@Cinorjer
Either you need to re read my post or I am not getting your assumptions about it.
No where do to I say that anyone actually has control over there dreams although there are many lucid dreamers here who claim to. Having control or not over a dream is not the point.
If one states that their intent to kill in an upcoming dream is karma free, forgetting that their karmic initiating intent to kill is already being manifested in the waking world, then they are missing the point that they have already started the karmic ball rolling.
It comes down to "If you are ceasing from evil, doing only good and purifying the heart/mind" then you will reap the karmic results of that.
If you are not "ceasing from evil, doing only good and purifying the heart/ mind then you will reap those results.
For me there is mind that we know and mind we don't know. Perhaps in the mind we don't know there are qualities that might be seen as supernatural.
I'd have to agree @how
For more than one reason though you may not agree with the second, lol. I hope I treat all the beings in my dreams as I would anyone else. In a way, I think these beings could be as real as the gods. Any intentional harm done in a dream could possibly have karmic consequences.
How mad is this - I disappear and reappear with mom becoming a dragon! That really happened in my life - but not as you may be thinking - it's a metaphorical expression of my experience!
You have to trust the ground of your being, and that requires persistence, determination, trust, and awareness. All of these qualities can and do drift toward laziness, giving up, distrust and unawareness but when they are focussed, like in meditation - just sitting - it all comes together again in recollection.
Beautiful!
Ah, I think I see. I'm not sure people are creating karma or acting on karma in their dreams from your examples. In your example, if a person decides to kill someone, then dreams that they did so, that person is still not dead. You still need to act upon your decision, and perhaps dreaming it will cause you to change your mind. Perhaps not. But dreaming of killing someone is not the same as actually doing it. If you make a waking decision to do something, you still need to act on that decision for karma to be generated.
@how, In a dream you don't have the same volition as real life. It's night and day. Karma deals with volition.
@Cinorjer
All intent initiates karma.
Killing someone does generate powerful karma.
If you create an intent to kill someone, that intent alone, even if not acted upon, creates karma. There is no doubt that stopping yourself from killing someone is preferable than following through with it but it is mistake to believe that bare intent itself does not create karma.
@Jeffrey said:
Yes Jeffery
That is why I said "** Only if ones intent to kill arises, lives and fades within the dream would you consider it to be karma free."**
But if that intent to kill is created before one sleeps, whether one dreams about it or not, karma has already been created.
@DhammaDragon
But as years rolled by, I sort of dismissed all that stuff as utter superstition and cut off contact with the part of the universe that could not be explained by our logic and rational thinking. In fact, what had initially attracted me to Buddhism was the Buddha's seemingly pragmatic stance.
I agree with that, although I'm also realising our rational mind is pretty basic.
The mind that controls your heartbeat, bone growth, hormone secretion, spiritual insight etc is the one I should be listening to.