Dreams: Telepathy, Memories or Imagination?

My meditations in recent weeks have led me to ponder the nature of dreams.

Some seem to be triggered by telepathic communication, and may consist of a combination of images from the sender and receiver. In this scenario, dreams are the symbolic representations of telepathic messages as interpreted by the receiver.

Then there's the other kind...

Recurring dreams and nightmares may have telepathic sources, but seem to be more akin to special or traumatic memories, either from this life or past lives. As in the other type of dream, these dreams may be modified to suit the symbology of the dreamer.

In both cases, telepathy and memory, the data is subject to distortion due to loss (forgetting -- apparently temporary and not permanent) and interpretation.

Finally, perhaps we can ascribe dreams to creativity and imagination, products of self-examination of memories as part of a psychological process of organization. However, even if we do, we must acknowledge that such things draw from some source or another.

Calling dreams "figments of imagination" does not exclude the possibility that they may nonetheless originate from "unusual" sources. After all, the data must have come from somewhere.

These are some of my impressions based on recent meditations -- and are thus obviously subject to being spectacularly wrong.

This thread was inspired by (or perhaps ripped-off of, if you prefer) the Fever Dreams thread, and I was originally going to post it there, but realized that the scope of this topic probably warranted a fresh thread, since most of the dreams I speak of have nothing to do with fevers, and the �fevers� thread seems more focused on dream content than mechanics.

So there�s my brief thesis: That dreams may have origins outside a person�s mind and correspond to telepathic communications of some sort or another, or they may be replays of memories -- from this life or others -- or combinations of both. In each case, the nature of the dream tends to be affected by the interpretations of the dreamer, with symbols and other factors subject to change depending on their meaning for the dreamer.

What do you think?


[edit on 11/2/2004 by Majic]

All three, plus other elements.

When we sleep, the conscious slips control of the sub- and unconscious self, and thus any information received and transmitted by the subconscious doesn't get much associative overlay. I've gotten very clear scenarios in dreams that, years later, happened exactly as I dreampt them, and have dreamed of places and people that I later found out to be quite precise. But when attempting remote viewing, scrying, etc., the conscious mind keeps trying to fill in the blanks with its own guesses, thereby occluding the flow and causing breaks between perception and reality.

Since the subconscious thinks in symbols, oftentimes real-life problems are encountered as symbolic quests, animals, scenarios, etc. in the dream state. The further one gets from conscious control of a vision or dream, the more mythic & archetypical the themes seem to become. A study of comparative mythology and the psychology of archetypes may be useful to you, as you will see that certain forms, symbols and themes are universal to the human experience.

I recommend the works of Joseph Campbell, for starters.

In each case, the nature of the dream tends to be affected by the interpretations of the dreamer, with symbols and other factors subject to change depending on their meaning for the dreamer.
Quote:Majic

I have noticed that symbols play a huge part in the language of the astral in dreams and in otherways as well. but trying to understand this language is the hard part there seems to be specific symbols that do not change and are the same for most recipients.For example i was given a target to remote view by a fellow ATS member on a project we were concerned about, after three sessions i had very similar symbols that kept re-ocurring.The one main symbol was an inverted V shape. I looked this up in one of my books and it turns out this is the symbol for a Church and is drawn this way by almost every viewer.(i had very old church written in my notes) Water has its own symbol scetched the same way by all as well.

I guess what i am asking is, are there symbols in dreams and in the astral that we can understand that would be universal for all. Or do you think this is a way for our minds to interput each symbol as it pertains to our own situation.or are we being fed these images by someone or something telepathicaly who is trying to help or get a certain message across.

Parker

It's ridiculous to bump this old thread up, but I had a dream telepathic experience today:

So I was in bed sleeping in the morning. At this time the roommate went to the shop buying bread. I didn't know that because I was asleep. However I dreamed up that I was in the kitchen and opened the bread box, and there were 2 types of bread in it I haven't eaten for a long time. I looked at them and thought "well, nice", but put them back in the box (meaning: I thought it was nice, but the buying these 2 kinds of bread would not have been necessary). This was a very brief dream scene, then the dreamscape changed to somewhere else.

When I got up from sleep, my roommate was already at home. I didn't know that she was out shopping, until she told me. Now the telepathic thing: she said, she was at the bakery and saw these breads - specifically the 2 kinds of breads in my dream (!) - and thought about me, if she should buy them for me or not. Eventually hesitated and did not buy these breads (that because I cannot eat every type of bread).

That's the story. Isn't that amazing? This more than random chance. It means that we sometimes integrate actual, real thoughts from other people in our dreams. Even if they are kilometers away. It means that people who think about you, can slip into your dreams. We just fail to recognize which are the telepathic ones, because of all the other random stuff about.

Wow! That is an old bump! But the OP is actually pretty spot on.

anotherdaytoday, imagine how that must effect the dreams of celebrities.