The Dream of Life

"Mystery of the Universe" - by Rassouli

Things have been going pretty well these past few days in the relationship domain, so I'm going to take a break from blabbing about that, and instead talk about a most profound thought I had yesterday.

I've been reading Dreams of Awakening - finished it today, actually - and while I was reading about the various types of "weird" experiences associated with lucid dreaming (OBEs, prophetic dreams, false awakenings, sleep paralysis, etc.) I came across a paragraph in which the author says he doesn't believe OBEs take place in another physical dimension, but rather a mental one - which, he adds, "may seem to be separate from us," but "is in fact still within the realm of the larger universal mind that both encompasses and lies beyond the subjective limitations of our personal mind."

While this is kind of a profound thought to contemplate, it did get me thinking about a theory Charlie Morley touched upon in an earlier chapter of the book: that the waking state is simply another layer to the dreaming mind. If what research claims is true - that the brain doesn't differentiate between waking experiences and lucid dream experiences - then who's to say what we know as reality or waking life isn't a form of dream projected by our consciousness?

This is a pretty huge topic, but it definitely got me thinking. For a long while, I've always had a sense that there was something "dream-like" about life. It's rich with symbolism, and it always has a way of teaching and showing you things about yourself. Dreams of Awakening has completely altered the way I'm viewing reality, and I haven't even really starting the process of beginning to lucid dream yet. Of course, I go straight to thinking of the bigger picture - what in the world creates this "dream," and what's the point?

But then I realized: how do dreams serve us? For those who heed and express interest in their dreams, they give us glimpses of our unconscious, our psychology, and the shadow aspects that we've come to hide away. In other words, they show us who we truly are - they help us understand ourselves. Perhaps the "Dream of Life" (or reality) is exactly the same thing - but for the universal consciousness/god-consciousness. Think about it: if everything in our dreams is built from us and our consciousness - from objects to trees to dream characters - is it so crazy to wonder whether the same applies to waking life? That's what oneness teaches, right? We are one with everything and everyone in the world, just like we are one with everything and everyone in our dreams, because it's our consciousness that creates our dreams. 

We only see a small part of reality with our eyes. One tenth, according to Dreams of Awakening. The rest comes from our brains. So if we were blind, how "real" would reality actually be? We might be able to touch and taste and smell and hear, but would such senses be able to define "reality" well enough for us? What would our sense of "reality" be reduced to?

Interestingly enough, this question of "reality" plays on a previous notion I was toying with half a year ago: we being projections of our own unique consciousness. But this time, I'm gravitating toward one singular oneness - not the infinite "god selves," because even though the latter is still technically part of a "oneness system," it still emphasizes distinction and individuality, which I'm not so sure is true anymore. I think more than anything, the idea of having a unique "god self" is a bit ego-centric. It feeds the ego, who likes to think it's in control, and that it will continue to exist beyond death. Of course, I'm not saying we're just projections. After all, the idea here is that similarly to dream characters, we are projections and manifestations of the dreamer: universal/god-consciousness.

There are a lot of unanswered questions here, but somehow, I feel like I'm on the right track. I think a mix of mindfulness, meditation, and lucid dreaming will further assist me in understanding my perception of reality. I'm going to have a lot of thoughts about this... I just hope my fingers can keep up. 

Before I can really start getting into lucid dreaming, I need to figure out what's going on with my sleep cycle, and get to a point of being able to remember my dreams regularly again. My mom suggested that perhaps drinking my green tea in the afternoon is keeping me awake at night, and is therefore screwing with my normal sleep cycle. I'm not sure if this is entirely the case, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to start drinking my tea earlier to see whether things change. After all, I came across these symptoms on Coffee & Health:

The most marked effects of caffeine on sleep, even at levels equivalent to those of a single cup of coffee, have been well documented. They consist principally of prolonged sleep latency, shorter total sleep time, increases in light sleep and shortening of deep sleep time, as well as more frequent awakenings. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep is less affected. These effects depend not only on the amount of caffeine ingested at bedtime, but also on the amount of caffeine ingested over the whole day. 

I suffer from all of these effects. Plus, up until recently, I've always had my tea (some variation of green or white or oolong) with a square of dark chocolate, which, I've read, contains a lot of caffeine as well. You would think that a cup of tea and a square of chocolate doesn't seem like a lot of caffeine, but... maybe it's a lot more than we realize.

Guess I'll just have to wait and see. I just hope it helps, because I'd really like to get back into dreaming... and remembering those dreams.