2008.08.16 19:00 - Pondering Dreaming

Stim was the guardian that evening. He sent me (Pema) the chat log which I am posting here. I provided the title.

Adelene Dawner: 'lo Stim!
Avastu Maruti: hello my friend
Threedee Shepherd: Hi Stim
Stim Morane: Hello!
Stim Morane: So what's new with your PaB perspectives?
Threedee Shepherd: I have been pondering about dreaming
Stim Morane: about actual dreams?
Adams Rubble: whoops
Stim Morane: Hi Adams
Avastu Maruti: hello my friend
Adams Rubble: Hi Stim and eveyone :)
Threedee Shepherd: not particular dreams, instead about approaching dreams and Being in a PaB sense.
Stim Morane: Any ideas?
Adams Rubble: I have a very related issue
Threedee Shepherd: which is, Adams?
Adams Rubble: I have been wondering about the subconscious
Adams Rubble: how that relates to the I AM
Adams Rubble: Dreams seem to come out of the subconscious
Stim Morane: Hi Steve
Adams Rubble: Hi Steve
stevenaia Michinaga: hello
Avastu Maruti: hello my friend
Threedee Shepherd: Ok, dreams overlap that. Let me say first, with dreams, there is no one else there, although I know that makes assumptions about self. Second, if dreams are inward observation, they are possibly more like *naval gazing* than valued messages. I don't know
Adams Rubble: My dreams have helped me see identities and attachments
Stim Morane: PaB will probably always be a mystery to me. It seems to cover so many things, addressed in so many ways.
Stim Morane: I am more familiar with practice-based inquiry, or knowing that is beyond practice. But I'm open to these other lines of interest.
Threedee Shepherd: To set up a oversimplified dichotomy for discussion sake: Are dreams *unfettered* knowing, or detached, mental overanalysis
Adams Rubble: Well, I was working on identifying how thoughts come and go and some of my thoughts come from my subconscious
Stim Morane: There are many distinct cases, Threedee.
Adams Rubble: and some through dreams
Adelene Dawner: Only half an eye on this conversation, but, Mark, I emailed you earlier about assumptions - is this conversation breaking down assumptions, or just building new ones in a more subtle way?
Stim Morane: Yes, some dreams undoubtedly reveal various forms of pre-conscious processes, tensions, perplexities, etc.
Threedee Shepherd: In those terms, I am probing whether dreams are (mainly?) another kind of assumption needing to be broken down, or the result thereof
Stim Morane: They can be both, presumably
Adams Rubble: Then we ask, where are dreams coming from? Can we trust the source?
Stim Morane: What do you think?
Threedee Shepherd: exactly, Adams
Adelene Dawner: I see dreams as another channel for knowing, but not necessarily a particularly reliable one... and I don't see how we could really know what they are past that; any conclusion we make about dreams-in-general would almost have to be an assumption.
Adams Rubble: My dreams the last couple of months have been right on target. At least the ones I am remembering
Adams Rubble: But it has been a long time since this has happened for me
Adams Rubble: I am in a fertile dreaming period
Adams Rubble: and I wonder why
stevenaia Michinaga: do you journal your dreams?
Adams Rubble: I am blogging them right now
Stim Morane: that makes a difference
Threedee Shepherd: Avastu, do you consider dreams simply an aspect of the "now" moments of sleep.
Avastu Maruti: What assumptions do we make which leads to the belief that dreams are somehow different than the "waking state"?
Stim Morane: when I teach dream yoga, I am happy to say there is no difference.
Stim Morane: But in fact, there are some differences, which matter for some purposes and not for others.
Avastu Maruti: A scientist surely knows that both "pictures" happen in Consciousness
Stim Morane: Yes
Avastu Maruti: So how are they different?
Adams Rubble: not subconscious?
Threedee Shepherd: Avasutu, if for the moment I accept there is a waking state and a dreaming state that I can differently discern, then *impossible* things happen in dreams.
Stim Morane: is this a line we want to explore at length, the ways dreams are/aren't different from waking life? It's interesting, but there are many sides to it.
Adelene Dawner: We assume... and it seems a necessary assumption... that waking-state sensory input reflects an external reality... the sensory input recieved during dream states does not seem to, and assuming that it does is not necessary (or at least, doesn't seem necessary in most cases).
Avastu Maruti: Are they eyes windows?
Avastu Maruti: *the
Avastu Maruti: Are you trapped in a "head" looking through windows at an outside world?
Threedee Shepherd: Here is why I raised this:
Adelene Dawner: "relates to" might be better than "reflects", in my last statement.
Threedee Shepherd: In the 9-sec I am observing without judging/evaluating, and it's hard. So I am asking to consider dreams, I am wondering if dreaming captures an essence of the 9-sec state/experience?
Stim Morane: what have you found?
Threedee Shepherd: No I am not Avastu.
Avastu Maruti: Ok, my friend - didn't realize you wished to remain in the conceptual
Threedee Shepherd: I don't know. As Adelene says, contemplating dreaming seems to involve assumptions.
Threedee Shepherd: An assumptions that I have no way of *testing* or asking about
Adams Rubble: Yes, assumptions but it is our mind and our symbols and we can have a pretty good idea what it is telling us
Threedee Shepherd: Or fooling us about
Threedee Shepherd: Lots of my waking thoughts are rationalizations, why do I assume my dreaming thoughts are not?
Avastu Maruti: The very fact that the "dreamer" can think at all should make you ponder.
Adams Rubble: I guess I can only speak from personal; I have no way of generalizing
Threedee Shepherd: It does Avastu
Avastu Maruti: So how is that "character" in the dream any different than this "Mark" character?
Threedee Shepherd: At the moment of the dream, that character is mainly focused on its being, leass attached to the whole, it seems.
Threedee Shepherd: *less
Avastu Maruti: and this "Mark" character is now focused on Being?
Threedee Shepherd: awake, he has more actual inputs that are not solely Mark-generated.
Avastu Maruti: how do you know?
Threedee Shepherd: Awake, I can read a book written by another. My thoughts engage with the writer. Not so in sleep. Even if I engage with the book then, it is what I recall, filtered. (I know I am being loose with I and Self, that's perhaps another aspect of the coonversation for later).
Adelene Dawner: Please don't break Mark's brain, Avastu. He's pretty sturdy, but not quite at that level yet, and I'll be upset if he's damaged.
Avastu Maruti: so you SEE or are aware of what's happening in this "waking state"
Avastu Maruti: similarly, you SEE or are aware of what's happening in this "dreaming state"?
Threedee Shepherd: I am being-aware in the waking state
Avastu Maruti: the waking state comes and goes IN this being-awareness
Threedee Shepherd: I am not sure how to answer about the dreaming state.
Avastu Maruti: can you describe a dream?
Avastu Maruti: I won't break him, Adelene...
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Avastu Maruti: he might break "himself"
Threedee Shepherd: I can tell a story it seems to embed in memory
Avastu Maruti: yes - to tell the story you must have been aware of the happenings of the dream, yes?
Threedee Shepherd: Aware is a slippery word. I truly am not sure it has the same meaning in sleep and wakefulness.
Avastu Maruti: are you presently aware?
Avastu Maruti: are you reading these words?
Threedee Shepherd: yes
Avastu Maruti: you are seeing/knowing
Adams Rubble: It takes some effort to remember a dream
Threedee Shepherd: true, Adams
Adelene Dawner: It takes effort to remember last week, too. That's not proof of anything.
Avastu Maruti: this SEEing or presence of awareness is effortless
Threedee Shepherd: Avastu, I am seeing/knowing/being
Avastu Maruti: it's already happening
Avastu Maruti: yes
Avastu Maruti: does that stop?
Threedee Shepherd: yes, and the dream is happening. Do I simply stop there?
Avastu Maruti: simply SEE that the "dream state" and the "waking state" come and go IN what you are
Avastu Maruti: you are there to see them both come and go
Adams Rubble: yes
Avastu Maruti: so whatever the CONTENT of these states are, whatever searching or seeking goes on within, is dwelled upon
Threedee Shepherd: yes
Avastu Maruti: while the fact of BEING, the effortless seeing/knowing is missed
Threedee Shepherd: That gets to my point Avastu, during the drean I am not aware of dwelling upon it, so is dreaming effortless seeing/knowing BEING?/
Avastu Maruti: Dreaming is no different than THIS
Avastu Maruti: appearance arising in effortless KNOWING
Avastu Maruti: we make take the appearance and make all sorts of assumptions about it, talk about all sorts of distinctions, yet that seeing/knowing is ever-present, watching it all
Threedee Shepherd: to what end????
Avastu Maruti: to what end for what? I don't understand
Threedee Shepherd: Why BEING?
Avastu Maruti: BEING is asking the question!
Avastu Maruti: You ARE BEing, being itself
Threedee Shepherd: So, life/Being is tautology?
Avastu Maruti: Life/Being is EVERYTHING!
Threedee Shepherd: Then "why?" is not aq word in its vocabulary?
Threedee Shepherd: *a
Avastu Maruti: you're missing what I'm pointing out
Threedee Shepherd: please try again
Avastu Maruti: that Consciousness must be present before a question can even appear
Threedee Shepherd: of course
Adelene Dawner: it obviously is, since you just used it... but that's not the idea. ^.^
Threedee Shepherd: what is the idea?
Avastu Maruti: So all that appears is dependent on Consciousness for it's reality
Threedee Shepherd: agreed
Avastu Maruti: yet YOU see Consciousness come and go in it's various "forms" - "waking" and "dreaming"
Avastu Maruti: YOU are prior TO
Adelene Dawner: hm.
Threedee Shepherd: yes
Adelene Dawner wants to see what Avastu will say to this...
Avastu Maruti: So WHO is there, as an absolute and separate BEING, to even ask?
Adelene Dawner: Maybe the answer to 'why' isn't 'out there'. Maybe it's something *we* have to decide, or figure out... 'why' is part of *us*, after all.
Avastu Maruti: "we", "us", "ME" - all conceptual distinctions in mind
Avastu Maruti: Being is One
Avastu Maruti: Oneness
Avastu Maruti: there is no "why"?
Avastu Maruti: (not intended as a question)
Avastu Maruti: THIS is it
Avastu Maruti: THIS HERE NOW
Avastu Maruti: whatever THIS happens to be
Adelene Dawner: Why is it blue? Because it's blue.
Avastu Maruti: it's all perfectly arising
Avastu Maruti: blue is only a word - what does it really mean?
Avastu Maruti: it only has value because we agree to it's meaning
Avastu Maruti: can the word "fire" burn?
Avastu Maruti: can you drink the word "water"?
Avastu Maruti: what is the actuality?
Adams Rubble: Hello Kristen
Kristen Lefevre: hi
Avastu Maruti: hello my friend
Stim Morane: Hi Kristen
Kristen Lefevre: avastu!
Avastu Maruti: we may finally see that all words can never actually describe reality
Avastu Maruti: we lose our grip - we lose all that we have held on to so tightly
Avastu Maruti: we're ejected into not-knowing
Avastu Maruti: true ignorance
Threedee Shepherd: Avastu, you and I have no disagreement about words and reality.
Threedee Shepherd: I am trying to know about being my living, given that some ways of being seem more useful than others.
Avastu Maruti: Useful to who?
Avastu Maruti: that core assumption, that "ME", is the sticking point
Avastu Maruti: once that is fully investigated and seen for the illusion it is, then to what can anything apply?
Adams Rubble: I wonder if Threedee is wondering about which ways of seeing are more useful?
Threedee Shepherd: There are corporeal bodies in my reality, I would not go oout and randomly murder any of them.
Avastu Maruti: of course not
Avastu Maruti: you have no choice in the matter anyway
Threedee Shepherd: Adams, more--which ways of being?
Threedee Shepherd: NO, No Avastu, I am an agent!
Avastu Maruti: Who is an agent?
Avastu Maruti: Only a "you" can suffer.
Threedee Shepherd: If only an I can suffer, what can joy?
Avastu Maruti: nothing
Avastu Maruti: no suffering or happiness
Avastu Maruti: Pure Joy is realizing that YOU are NOT!
Avastu Maruti: and THAT is already the case!
Avastu Maruti: then there is not an "I" that is joyful, Joy IS!
Avastu Maruti: Love IS
Threedee Shepherd: Ok, we have used up the group and can continue this in future :) Adams, have you heard anything in all this related to non-conscious?
Avastu Maruti: Peace... IS
Adams Rubble: non-conscious?
Adams Rubble: you mean subconscious?
Threedee Shepherd: yes, I use non-conscious to distinguish with the word that carried Freud as its baggage.
Adams Rubble: Ah. I heard what I needed to hear
Adams Rubble: That dreams are another form of seeing which we observe
Adams Rubble: if that is paraphrased correctly
Threedee Shepherd: can you say more about that, I am sorry we seem to have sidetracked your part in this conversation
Avastu Maruti apologizes to Adams
Adams Rubble: I am repeating something Avastu said way back
Adams Rubble: Why apologize Avastu?
Avastu Maruti: for monopolizing?
Adams Rubble: Oh no, you told me what I needed to hear; I thank you
Adams Rubble: hold on
Stim Morane: I regret that I must leave at this point. Would one of you send me the remainder of the chat log?
Threedee Shepherd: Please, does anyohne else have something you might add at this point in the conversation?
Adams Rubble: What I learned is that it doesn't seem to matter where the dreams are coming from
Threedee Shepherd: hmm
Adams Rubble: I can live with that :)
Caledonia Heron is Offline
Avastu Maruti: and how is that "different" than the "waking state"?
Adams Rubble: I don't care anymore Avastu
Adams Rubble: :)
Avastu Maruti: hahaha
Avastu Maruti: in not-caring, true Caring can BE
Avastu Maruti: without the seed of selfishness
Adams Rubble: If you will all excuse me, I am going to shut off the computer and go to sleep and watch any dreams that might come my way :)
Adams Rubble: good night all :)
Avastu Maruti: good bye my friend