Your most powerful dream, and what you learned/ what changed as a result...

Hi ATS,


I watched a documentary on lucid dreaming today, and it stimulated in me a desire to start really getting to grips with my dreams - to start finding out whether I can learn to control the process. The reason is twofold. Firstly, I dream every single night, vividly, repeatedly, and I remember much of what I dream. Unfortunately, the dreams are often extremely negative, ranging from complex, twisting narratives in dark labyrinthine worlds, to straight-up nightmares of the most vile & demonic sort. So the first aspect of intent is to take control over the dark side, and to prevent the repeated immersion in such horrendous negativity. (I consider it a form of spiritual attack - I believe there may be an active black magic campaign against me, perpetrated by some of my family, and groups connected to the family - but that's another story). The second aspect of intent in addressing the issue of dreams, is that I hope to begin using my vivid dream capability as a source of inspiration for ongoing spiritual growth. If I can get out of the sub-lunar nightmares, maybe I can nail down some first class guidance & personal development.

So that covers my own personal hopes as I begin to start 'dream working'. As I was considering this, I remembered a few of the very powerful dreams I've had in times past, and I began to wonder whether anyone here at ATS might like to share an example of their own most powerful/ important dream - what have you learned, what have you gained? Has your outlook on life changed significantly purely as the result of a particular dream? I'm sincerely interested to hear about it - just give one example of your most potent & symbolic night-time journeys...

As a personal example, one of the most powerful dreams I ever had came as I was aged 17, and was one in which I was literally killed while dreaming - shot three times with high calibre rounds from an Apache gunship, which had been hunting me in the ruins of a junior school here in the UK. I knew there was nothing I could do as it circled around to point at where I was standing, strafing constantly as it turned - I felt the bullets hit my torso - bang, bang, bang - a forceful sense of being thumped really hard each time, rather than pain - and then I fell back, fell into a soft blackness, reality faded into nothingness. I was floating down with a sense of peace, falling asleep, then being carried aloft by unseen hands. I seemed to fall asleep fully a moment later, and then gradually I reawakened, on the floor of a beautiful forest, in the soft twilight of evening. On the ground in front of me was a large golden signet ring, and two magpies were hopping around nearby. (I later interpreted the signet ring to be a symbol of the king's seal, and the magpies were interpreted according to the folk rhyme, in which two magpies stand for 'joy'..) Anyway, I stood up, and a moment later a bright angelic being approached through the trees. He said: "You will never be persecuted again..", before leaving as quickly as he came. I was left standing with a sense of tranquility, gratitude, and hope - I then slowly woke up, back in normal waking reality.

There are other examples, which involve apocalyptic, magical themes, but I won't include them here, as I intend for each poster to describe just one dream, to describe it well, and to express what was learned, or what in life changed, as a direct result of the dream.

For me, in response to that particular dream, I absolutely lost all fear of death. I grew in faith, new opportunities came my way in terms of spirituality, I made new friends, and established my young self quite well in the world. All as a direct result of that loss of fear, and the confidence which came to me regarding the existence of an afterlife. It's as though the very fact of knowing my soul was secure, made me better able to bond with & grow in the world we live in.


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Please do share your dream, and share your responses to it - I honestly believe that dreams might be one of the most potent vehicles for spiritual & personal development that exist for us a human beings.

Thanks,


FITO.

Ok, ill share a dream i had when i was 14. It was a realistic vivid dream that felt like real life and that i was awake.

Anyway in my dream i woke up and beleived i was awake getting ready for school. I was in my bedroom putting my uniform on when i heard my front door get kicked in and i heard a male shout where is he to my dad. He stormed into my bedroom and put a knife straight into my abdomen. Then he ran off. I lay their, blood poring out of me on the floor. I felt my breathing getting weaker and my life slipping away from my body.

After my body had died i was still conscious laying in my now dead body with the temperature rapidly getting colder in my body. The room started getting brighter then suddenly i woke up sweating, breathing heavily and the scariest part of the whole ordeal was when i looked down where i had been stabbed i had a bruising in the exact place the knife went in. To this day i dont know how the bruising got their but my life did change for the better.

Personally i beleive the dream was a representation of me putting to death negative aspects of my personality because i became more humble and empathetic towards others where as before i only gave a # about myself.

So thats my interpretation of the dream anyway. Ive had quite a few lifelike vivid dreams in my life but none that affected me as profoundly as that one.

Hope you enjoyed reading about it, ive only shared this experience with a handful of people so thanks for giving me the opportunity to share it

My best dreams is the ones where i can fly, or it's more like weight less jumping, they occur again and again and are really pleasant.

I don't put much into my dreams, as i have experienced them to be from what i do and see in the real world, like you watch a movie or play a game and then your dreams reflect that.

I love all my dreams though, incl. nightmares, it's so interesting to be able to dream and live out some crazy fantasies, only to wake up and remember it, and the disappointment when you realize it was just a dream.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

I once dreamed about an entire life - I remember growing old, holding my wife's wrinkled hand, feeling nothing but regrets and nostalgia, realising that I had just ran out of time. Then in my dream I died.

When I woke up I felt as if I had just been given a second chance. I vowed to make my life matter, to make my mark on this world. Now I am the man whose soul have seen entire lifetimes, and I am doing everything I can to change the face of the Earth - and those achievements in my signature are just me warming up.

Thanks for asking!

I had a very strange dream the other night actually.

I was talking to an entity (spiritual I think) and it started to ask me what I thought of my future wife. Before I could answer it looked at me funny and for some reason I just said to it:
"It's okay you can scream now"
The second I said that my future wife screamed at the TOP of her lungs out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, waking us both up bolt upright. She has never done this before, ever, not in 6 years.

That gave me a little chill, especially seeing as it was me who said it, not the entity. I also said it BEFORE she screamed. Like split seconds before.

What's even weirder is that she told me that something grabbed her ankle in her dream and that's why she screamed..... Was it the same thing I was talking to, was it distracting me so it could feed of her energy? Did I unconsciously realize this and wake her through some sort of shared conscious experience? I just don't know.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Try to close your eyes and imagine where you are has be laced with a gold light.
Now imagine your heart beats a golden light.

You will see everything around you changes a bit.

As a small child (maybe 5-6) I used to have a VERY VIVID reoccurring dream that my mother was laying on the couch very nonchalant with both her legs chopped off. It was VERY graphic and I had it often. Over time it became rather lucid.

After having it off and on for the better part of 30 years and now being an adult, I have come to realize that my father really oppressed my mother by not letting her have any friends, hold a job, or have a relationship with her family; and this was pre-internet but she was also not allowed to use the phone if he was not there to listen.

In his defense, during that time we were under constant threat from several drug cartels that forced us to move out of state twice. My dad was a VERY successful DEA agent, and he uh.... ruffled a lot of feathers. His paranoia was justified, but it still warped their marriage just the same. They divorced but kept a close, albeit abusive, relationship; close enough to effectively screw me up good.

What did I learn? That I'm a clever and intuitive person if I pay attention to my subconscious. OH! and, now that I have figured it out, it hasn't come back!

Jax

The coolest dream I ever had was of dying.

I died and suddenly I was underwater??? It was all blurry and I felt submerged? I began sling-shotting back and forth from my body towards outer space, and each time I would go farther and farther until I realized that outer space was NOT outer space but inner space, and the stars were no longer stars (I was PAST the stars) but molecules. After the longest "sling" away from my body, through the atmosphere, past outer space, and into inner space, my tether? "snapped" and I was born.

I feel like I may have left my body, expanded outward from my body in ALL directions (like a big bubble) in pulsating waves, bigger and bigger and thinner, through the universe, past the edge of space, into and through the molecules, and "popped" becoming a new person.

Weird.

Jax

P.S. If anyone knows of any religions that correlate to a "rebirth" experience like this, please let me know. I'd like to know I'm not bonkers.

I totally agree with what you said about dreams being used for spiritual growth. I've been a lucid dreamer for years and I'm still working on that part. While I've had many very impactful dreams, I can't remember one at the moment that had a specific effect like that.

You're getting into it for the best possible reason so I wish you the best of luck! The best advice I can give you:

> Do reality checks as often as you can during the day (and whenever something out of the ordinary happens), as I've found this is the best method to make sure you have lucid dreams

> As soon as you become lucid, stop and ground yourself! Sit down, breath, and examine your surroundings with all your senses. This is very important for preventing yourself from loosing lucidity. Then remember what your specific goals are.

You should also read "Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self" by Robert Wagonner if you haven't already.

originally posted by: Joneselius
I had a very strange dream the other night actually.

THAT IS EXTREMELY CREEPY. And I have had a lot of extremely creepy dreams...

The sheer number of "death" dreams that people have, often vivid, violent and blood soaked is kind of startling. It could all be subconscious shenanigans but I remain at least slightly open to the notion of reincarnation.

I myself have dreamed that I was stabbed in the neck on a sidewalk outside a bar. My death was very traumatic, the unfairness of the situation and my anger at the attacker was very raw. Waking up was like heaven.

I went through a period, in the nineties, in which I was doing a lot of "big dreams" - very meaningful ones, and lucid dreams.
It was a period where I was cut off from others, very isolated, and I think that just ended up causing me to turn attention within. I had several dreams were I died (and in some, experienced floating over my own funeral and watching it happen).


The big dreams are too long to describe here, and wouldn't mean much to anyone else. But there was one that had a big effect upon me, and that I still find myself referencing at times today.

In this dream, my lucid dreaming had come to a point I was controlling everything. I was at my home, with people close to me (family and friends). It was a most mundane sort of situation, typical sorts of interactions, nothing special,

except that I was controlling it all. I would determine what they would say, how they would react to things, to me....

At some point that got very boring! I realized that it was boring and lonely to have that power. The people didn't seem "real" without their own will and a part of their being that was hidden from me.

I ended up deciding I did not want this much power. I wanted others to surprise me- I want unexpected events to happen, I wanted a portion of this reality to be hidden from me.
I was lucid enough that I knew I was dreaming, so understood that all these characters and events were simply a part of my own mind, and that this decision meant hiding a part of myself from myself.
I understood that this meant I was choosing to have a sub or unconscious... so that I can experience discovery and growth.


My dreams from that point on, even when they get lucid, they always retain a point of "unexpected", and I feel like I am being careful to respect that. I do not know how exactly I am doing so, it just feels like when you choose not to look at the solutions to a Sudoku that are right underneath the game your playing? Just a choice, not to know.


I remember that dream whenever I start to feel a desire to control things, others, or events, that don't seem to be going as I'd like. Remembering the boredom and loneliness of being all powerful suddenly makes me happy that I am not, in this experience!

okay, this is a great thread and i also would like to contribute. this might be a little long though.

first off, i would like to mention that all lucid dreams i had have happenned during daytime naps, and none during nighttime sleep. i have had many episodes of sleep paralysis during my lifetime, i don't remember their number. there were positive ones (albeit, minority), and terrifying ones; visual ones where my eyes were open and i saw entities; tactile ones (i could feel a heavy weight on top of me); and audible ones (laughter, hissing, wheezing sounds) etc.

i started having lucids a few years back, and mind you, very successful lucids, though they were unintentional. i mean i have spent no particular effort and also had no intention for any experience, thus, they occurred spontaneously at best.

the first one i had in 2012, which was a hard year and i was into meditating quite often. it was summer and i was on my yearly leave, and i fell asleep on the couch while reading. it must have been the hypnagogic stage where i began to see vivid images, colorful they were, while my eyes were closed. i must've drifted into sleep a while after and found myself in a dreamstate where i was swimming in a pool of a nice condo complex. it was not modern architecture though, the place was surrounded with trees, the sky was overcast, and i could see the main street the complex was built at about 30 meter distance. that makes the pool quite a large one. i then realized i was dreaming and thought "wow that's a nice pool, yes? but it is too big, needs a bridge across so let's build a decorative archway" and the bridge was there in no time. then i suddenly found myself atop a high cliff while staring at the ocean and decided to jump down while thinking "but i must make sure i hit the rocks really hard before i hit the bottom" (i told it was a hard year, didn't i). then i woke up and i was truly amazed.

i had been into painting and designing, photobashing, gfx, mixed media work, etc. since a was little. this experience sparked some ideas and i somewhat reflected them on my paintings, you might also call this inspiration or something subconscious was at play.



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the other instances of lucid dreaming occurred in 2014, both when i was napping on the couch during daytime. both too were unintended but extremely fun. they both kicked in with visuals with my eyes closed, apart from the one was accompanied by hypnagogic auditary hallucinations. and i found myself in the middle of the dreamstate (just like cobb said to ariadne in inception) and realized i was dreaming while i was running away from something in a futuristic city like the one in sci-fi movies. i became exhausted and the moment i realized it, i decided "heck, i can do whatever i want, i'm dreaming after all, right? let's fly" and i grew a pair of wings and started to fly. the city underneath became darker and darker as i flew by and eventually, ended up being a computer motherboard like thing anyway. then the motherboard disappeared and became a jungle.

i decided to go down and look around. there were lightpoles and strange flowers. the place was lit strangely with different colors. this too inspired me later on.



anyway, back to the dream. i then remember arriving at a shore and finding a lone boat. i remember cruising across a couple of places which seemed otherworldy. the last place i arrived reminded me of tanis from the movie pandorum. the boat part must've taken 20 minutes give or take in dreamtime. then i woke up.



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i had no other lucid experience ever since, i didn't attempt at one either, since i thought the first two were out of the blue and pushing it further might not work.

High lucidity is a great thing it is very pleasant to be able to control yourself while you are dreaming. It is even better as your abilities progress and you can manipulate your environment at will.Then once you can introduce or remove individuals from this realm you are truly onto something.

Such ability will help you once you experience what is known as sleep paralysis. When you can overcome this hurdle without the fear and panic it presents by having to wake up and have no need to seek help. You will open a new door and can find yourself outside of your physical self fully aware of everything around you in the reality of this dimension yet still in a dreamlike state.

This brings me to the first time I knew there was something incredibly powerful about this and that it is a real experience not only for me but those whom I interact with as well.

I had seperated again like many times before taking note of my surroundings especially my clock then looked at myself sleeping and decided I would try and stay away to be in control for longer this time. I decided to try and ride my bike. I knew I could float or fly but wanted to try and do things normally. I was very pleased to find out I could.

I found myself on a road close to a friends house and decided I would try to pay him a visit. So I did I let myself in passing right through the door. Doing this I started to feel very negative and considered leaving as if I was breaking the law or guilty of sin. But stood at the top of the landing looking down the stairs to my friends room.

The negativity was coming from there it was pure dread and fear was trying to overcome me. I pushed on to confront it. This decision destroyed the barrier that was attempting to block my way and the sensation faded the closer I got to my friends room.

I entered and saw my friend sleeping. I called out his name and repeated this several times. I was quite horrified when he sat up.
He asked me how I got in and what I was doing there. Anyway we talked for awhile and he opened up to me I knew he was having problems with his girlfriend. And although we were just kids it was tormenting him so much he was thinking about killing himself and had even begun to make plans to do so.

He told me he was going to give me some of his things. I told him what I thought about suicide and that his things meant nothing to me. After he thanked me for talking to him and that he felt better about things I decided to leave.

The next morning when I got off the bus my friend was there waiting for me. He asked me how I got in his room. I'm sure I looked rather stunned by the way I was feeling but also by the way he was studying my reaction. Before I could answer him he laughed and said what a strange dream he had that I had talked with him and how it was so real to him.

Years later he talked to me about this again and told me it stopped him from wanting to kill himself.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

I had a dream in my childhood that was somewhat amazing, but i only had it twice in childhood and never again, not yet anyway!


the dream:

I am sitting in a chair. A very comfortable and strange chair that seems to be more of a 'command control' than a simple 'chair'. This chair is floating in space. I can see every star, system or galaxy at will.... the chair seems to warp to anywhere i wanna be, and in the dream i 'understood' the different stars and systems in relation to what and where they were in the cosmos. It was like knowing every neighbourhood in your city (same feeling of knowing and familiarity).
in the dream, I have total control and willpower over where i wanna be in this cosmos. The feeling of intense power and control was unparalleled in any other dream i ever had! It was like i was in control of everything and at peace at the same time!
its hard to describe the ending...
the dream ends when this feeling of power and momentum suddenly starts to fade away and self doubt and fear starts creeping in, i find myself in a chair all alone, floating in a big and dark and unfamiliar universe, which starts collapsing into nothing... and i realize im sitting in a chair (doesnt seem so comfortable anymore) in a normal room, i am told to abort, but i wanna go back into it... and i realize that it was probably a simulation... which is about the time i woke up!

I remember this dream very clearly! There is so much more to it but this is the less detailed version!

Weird!

a reply to: ParanoidCovKid

That's a great example, with a clear & obvious effect upon your life afterwards. To have an epiphany at the age of 14 is a blessing indeed - knowing that there is more to life than caring solely about oneself, is an insight which can bear fruit throughout the remainder of your time here on Earth. Good stuff.. Also, I hope my sons are equally inspired as they grow older (one is 11, the other 7) - they're doing well so far, very caring & actively thoughtful lads.

a reply to: swanne

Fantastic example. I think that's possibly the most exquisitely meaningful dream that I ever heard of. Really glad it set you up in such a positive mindset, so that you face the world with vigour, confidence & courage, determined to make a difference. I share a similar passion to have a meaningful impact on the world - I'm disabled by a neurological condition, so it's a bit tricky, I can't be as active as one would normally expect or hope to be. Still, I haven't heard of any other experience quite like your dream there, with regards to the extent of the 'dreamtime' which led to a whole lifetime of experience in a single night.. If I could experience something like that, I would be over the Moon - I think I'll set it as an 'intention', when it comes to planning out lucid dream experiences, in meditation & whatnot - I believe you can initiate almost any experience in a truly lucid dream experience, so your example will be up there in my top five aims..! Fascinating, and inspired.

a reply to: Djenesis

Thanks for the tips & the heads-up regarding the book. I will have a search on Scribd & see if it comes up (I have a subscription - grudgingly, seeing as they just imposed a monthly limit of only three books... Grr...)

Practice makes perfect, and I've already started doing my reality checks. I wish you all the best with your continued growth - if we walk in justice, mercy & humility, all will be revealed..

a reply to: Unresponsible

I myself have dreamed that I was stabbed in the neck on a sidewalk outside a bar. My death was very traumatic, the unfairness of the situation and my anger at the attacker was very raw. Waking up was like heaven.

Thanks for sharing your experience.. To me, this sounds like a case which could indeed be an example of a reincarnation memory. I have an open mind about such things, and in fact I'm fairly convinced I've been here (and elsewhere..) before. Unfortunately I can't really share my thoughts on the subject with those closest to me, as I'm Christian & as such, most of my contemporaries don't believe in the reincarnation gig. Which is strange, because John the Baptist was said to have been the reincarnation of the prophet Elijah.

The whole idea of feeling the unfairness, the injustice - that strikes me as what made this a real memory for you, rather than simply a bad dream. If it were a bad dream, I believe your thoughts would be dissociated & terrified, but not so specific as to warrant the thought that it was unjust, the fact that you had been killed in such a traumatic way, Very interesting case. I would highly recommend attempts at lucid dreaming, if you research how to go about it. Perhaps you will uncover further memories, or answers to the deeper questions.

a reply to: Bluesma

Very interesting thoughts & descriptions, thank you. You have a certain humility about you, the fact that you would rather not explain the big dreams which meant so much to you - I would have given you the time to read about them, but it's entirely up to you, and I totally respect your choice to maintain confidence.

I love the way you describe keeping the whole issue of uncertainty as a factor in your experience. I think that's quite possibly one of the biggest life lessons we can learn, spiritually, as we progress along our paths. The fact that this is a shared life, a shared journey - and that others can and will surprise us, and indeed that's a good thing. Great lesson to be had in that.