You are reality.

We are often taught, that reality is this physical world, the physical Universe that we reside in. I will not argue, that reality is also, the world that surrounds us. However, what is important to note, as a human within the fabric of reality, we too posses our own personal reality.

It is the reality of the self, and it exists when we exist, and are conscious of ourselves as existing as our self. When you move through the fabric of time and space, and cascade across the chronological order of life and embark on the final destination of death, you will know in that time, that reality wasn't just the outside world, it was also you.

Our fight/flight survival drive that steers us to safety in the face of danger, protecting us from moments that could be us meeting an untimely fate, is a response to the preservation of your reality. This reality of self is very sacred in my opinion. That each person who possesses this state of self-realization is in their own right, an important part of the greater fabric.

What is interesting to note, as a reality system, we also have a wide variety of entertaining sub-realities that we exist in. I would like to introduce you to some of the worlds of which you create when you sleep at night.
We call these worlds dreams. But imagine if you will, that these dreams are not just some random cascading spasm of sub-conscious thought, but infact, they are also a part of who you are, and what you are. That like this reality, your dreams take on a psuedo-personal reality of your making.

What if I were to tell you, that you life would consist of conscious moments and in these conscious moments, you would accumulate through the years a summation of total conscious self between your birth, and your death.

That in a 70 year lifespan, you will have slept approximately 8 hours, within 25550 days, which if where lost to unconsciousness, and assuming you haven't deteriorated with a mind-destroying disease like dementia or Alzheimer, you would have only been consciously aware of 46.6 years of life, as the rest may be lost to unconscious sleeping.

As consciousness, what if there was a way by which you could add to this over all conscious pool that your are accumulating? If you knew of a way to prolong conscious experience, would you pursue it?

As a reality system, you also have an ability to become conscious when your body sleeps. You can, with practice add 1 hour, or two hours, some times psychological time can stretch to give you what feels like days of conscious experience in the often discarded world of dreams.

You are a dreamer, you dream realities. Wouldn't you want to be a conscious participant in that role? You create reality when you sleep, but don't take my word for it. Dream it. Add some years back to your conscious pool, and dream awake and aware of yourself as a dreamer.

reply to post by YouAreDreaming


Interesting thoughts. I like it.

Dreams are essentially a reflection of what you conciously focus on and the state of your mind. I'm not sure how you could 'use' them in a more productive way.

I find the best way to increase the duration of your life is to actively live it.

reply to post by SteveR


I agree, live life to the fullest, don't waste a drop.

In my own experiences, and perhaps some guilt, I've cheated a bit and learned to remain conscious when I sleep, which has opened a pandoras box of wonder and amazement. Sadly not something I can readily share with people in the same manner that I experience it, short of tell tale stores of amazing adventures in my mind generated universes... but fantastic testimonies of our natural ability to think, and project thought in a three-dimensional way that takes on a reality of its own.

I would add, dream your dreams to the fullest, who knows how long the grey-matter will last to produce such virtual reality. I've enjoyed 20 years of conscious dreaming, and all I can say is... each one adds to your experiences as a whole, there is never a subtraction.

If you like how you dream, that will be the measure of the worth you feel you derive from it. Just one more place where you can exist in a fully self-realized state of knowing and awareness.

reply to post by YouAreDreaming


Has this affected your tiredness levels overall? You still get a good night's sleep?

reply to post by SteveR


Actually, I find it can be quite energizing. For the sake of practicality, I tend to sleep for a bit first, before I embark on any techniques that I use for lucid dreaming. I find that the second sleep cycle produces far more results then trying to walk through the dream door so to speak when I first go to bed.

My theory is the body and mind do need sleep, perhaps the mind a little less then the body hence the time to go dream. Interrupt said cycle after 4-6 hours, go back to sleep, the body drifts off faster, the mind follows suit but I tend to launch off into what ever dream I fancy.

There are other points of particular interest that I observe, such as the transition from when our physical senses invert in a unique way to perceive the dream. This inversion of the senses can be trapped in a half-awake/half-asleep state when I can now think not in words, but say in full scale music, or visualize an object in perfect 3D and rotate it, unfold it, morph it.

Or just push past that state and go into the dream, as the emerging visual and audio effects are really just the inversion of the physical senses as they become mimicked by what ever mechanism dreams are.

And after a dream, I generally wake up feeling very refreshed, and energized, usually very happy because I never had a bad dream when I knew I was dreaming it. Remember, dreams are thoughts, and more importantly, your thoughts, just projected in a way that creates the details of the dream.

From an entertaining perspective, I have re-created worlds like Star Wars, or Quake, or what ever movie or video game inspired the dream, and just had fun with it on many occasions, the potential for fun is quite unlimited.

The list goes on.

reply to post by YouAreDreaming


I am glad this hasn't affected your health.

How did this start? Did you stumble upon a certain technique?

reply to post by SteveR


We dream every night, I can't see how it impacts our health. The difference for myself is, in some cases, instead of dreaming in a sub-conscious state, I do it in a conscious state. Either or, I am still dreaming weather I am aware of it or not.

When I was around 15, I started having some spontaneous dreams where I would wake up and realize I was dreaming. The intense fun nature of them inspired me to learn how to do it regularly, and I would become quite adept at it in my teen years.

I am less frequent now due to change of lifestyle and lack of sleep due to work, but I still manage to do it if I have the time to sleep, so once a week or so. I've been up and down with it, extra time to sleep does help.

And there are techniques which I use that take advantage of our natural sleeping cycle and simply provide a focus state to allow the transfer of waking consciousness into the dream state, instead of turning it into a sub-conscious sleep.

I can go into more detail if you are interested in some techniques.

[edit on 19-9-2008 by YouAreDreaming]

reply to post by YouAreDreaming


Well, the theory is you need to be unconcious for properly restive sleep. However, you may have proved that wrong.

I'd be very interesting in hearing your techniques. It must of been thrilling at first. Did you eventually get bored with it?

Beliefs are the wheels that make the Holographic dream matrix go.

reply to post by YouAreDreaming


like a personal jesus? taht was by someone it think. depeche mode? or the cure? not the cult. silly beans!

Originally posted by Epsillion70
Beliefs are the wheels that make the Holographic dream matrix go.

Can you elaborate?
Thanks

Simply put:
What one believes in with mindful intent one will then perceive and experience in a decision that will manifest of what ever one of the multiverse, multidimensional realities and its parameters that they currently have a belief in.

reply to post by SteveR


reply to post by SteveR


I did get bored with it, but that is aside the point, I did it every day for hours on end for over 10 years, and after a while ran out of ideas for what to dream next, so dreamers block... lol.

Anyways, the process is very simple it is really just a matter of attention focusing. Let's be honest, everything we do require our focus and our attention.

The techniques that I use have always used our natural dreaming patterns and just harness's what normally occurs when we sleep with the addition of maintaining a wakeful consciousness.

During sleep, we go through the transition of waking consciousness to sleeping unconsciousness, and in that transition, our visual and auditory sense of perception does shift, I say this because when you experience visions and auditory sound effects, it means you are close to entering the dreamstate.

What I do, is create a focus on say a door, where I throw a rock at it over and over again, eventually the rock starts to sound real as it hits the door... when it gets good and solid and the door becomes very visual, and auditory, I open the door and walk through into the dream...

The other is using a rope or ladder where I imagine myself walking up the rope or ladder as I fall asleep and eventually I start to feel the rungs and the sensation of moving upward, I forget about my body and keep moving up into that focus and the dream state just comes naturally.

It's all about using a focus attention to shape the normally random auditory and visual states during initial sleep into something controlled by you.

Takes practice, but with practice, and the sleeping first and then waking up and trying later makes it easier... the end result hopefully is a lucid or conscious dream.

Happy times.

Thank you YAD. I will give it a try.