A Dream, or a Memory?

[greenbug]

Well I hate to think what Austin would say about my dream or memory but I remember it so clearly as if it happened yester day..

I awoke to find my self in the midst of a black void. Strangely I could see all around me at the same time, as I had no body and was completely transparent. I was thinking how strange this was and realized just at that moment that ‘I was’. The thought that ‘I am’ seemed to last a long time to this human life what would be an equivalent of stretching out a thought for 2 billion years. Nearing the end of the two billion years I remember trying to reach out at the void to touch it. I had a strange feeling it wasn’t exactly empty, that it was filled with all that is. Just as I reached and touched the depths of darkness a blur of time passed. Too much information to quickly for me to remember now. Yet just remembering that long period of time so alone and with such little thought scares me. I never want to go back to the void and those who don’t appreciate life I wish they had this memory instead.

I remembered this dream when I was about 6 and told my dad. He was a bit drunk at the time and told me when we die we go back to that black void its just something we have to accept. I’ve tried not to think about the void and live only this life.

[austintorn@aol.com]

I always avoid the void, too, greenbug, that unperceptive kind of boring immortality of a floating soul. Here and now is the ultimate place to be, since there is something to perceive


In lucid dreams, we can pretty much do as we wish. I was viewing the sparkling river from a third floor rickety porch, it then becoming unstable and somewhat tottering and crumbling, as often happens. I enjoy jumping from part to part. If I was going to fall, then I could always float—it never fails, as gravity is weak in dreams.

Back in the house, I entered more and more rooms further back which always led to the Galleria Mall, even though it was really miles away. I obtained some more items for my dream world furnishings.

Later, I was on a bus, a lovely girl running beside it for a long time, for she had missed it. I told the bus driver, a lady, and she came over to my seat, the bus still somehow running by itself. In my dreams, I just smile at these obvious dream flaws and don’t worry too much about them. I finally talked the driver into stopping the bus so the girl could get on, and then went over and whispered the story into her ear, ending with “I love you” and kissing her ear. It seemed as if I knew her before. She wasn’t even tired or sweaty from running so far, another dream flaw. She tried to whisper back, but it came out much louder, saying “I love you, too!”.

I don’t know if I can claim myself as the author of this and other dream stories, so, I'll just say that it was scripted by the universe.

[Tarina]

Well I hate to think what Austin would say about my dream or memory but I remember it so clearly as if it happened yester day..

I awoke to find my self in the midst of a black void. Strangely I could see all around me at the same time, as I had no body and was completely transparent. I was thinking how strange this was and realized just at that moment that ‘I was’. The thought that ‘I am’ seemed to last a long time to this human life what would be an equivalent of stretching out a thought for 2 billion years. Nearing the end of the two billion years I remember trying to reach out at the void to touch it. I had a strange feeling it wasn’t exactly empty, that it was filled with all that is. Just as I reached and touched the depths of darkness a blur of time passed. Too much information to quickly for me to remember now. Yet just remembering that long period of time so alone and with such little thought scares me. I never want to go back to the void and those who don’t appreciate life I wish they had this memory instead.

I remembered this dream when I was about 6 and told my dad. He was a bit drunk at the time and told me when we die we go back to that black void its just something we have to accept. I’ve tried not to think about the void and live only this life.

Hello to you first of all, and thanxs for sharing. I found it hard to let everyone know what I had dreamed about/or remembered from long ago. I wonder if this was hard for you?
Back to the topic, I have to admit to you what I thought immediately upon reading your post.
It sounds to me like being a baby inside of your mother's womb. The view from your womb was space. Maybe anyways. It does seem to fit. Imagine being a fetus. Okay now as the days go by, I would surmise that a day even to a fetus would seem like forever. As the fetus grows and becomes more in tune to its surroundings, the way it sees everything changes. It becomes an intelligent human being. And as such has the basics of physics. To a tiny human, as it grows to near delivery time, it's space becomes more and more confined. That could be the end of the universe you sensed. And that you were scared, well a newborn sensing the outside world would be a trifle scared I would think.
Just my thoughts, I hope it helps! Sincerely, Tarina

[greenbug]

Well not so hard for me because I’m an open book. I’ve had such radical ideas my whole life I don’t worry what any one thinks about what I think or have thought. I have had more practice then you might realize as I have an extreme personality.

You shouldn’t worry so much if some one tries calling you out or tries to make fun of you. Its something that you have experienced not them they don’t have to worry about the feelings it gives you. Always communicate other wise you never know.

Yes I have thought that it might have been a memory from when I was an infant. Even a conscious dream where my body was still sleeping but my mind was awake. The way I look at it, either way it has given me a perspective my whole life that no one else has. For that I feel pleased to have it as a memory whether it was an imagination, dream or real.

I’m glad you shared yours it was interesting to read as well as Austin’s response to it. I just felt I’d make you feel better by sharing mine . After reading yours it reminded me of my own dream because it felt like life before life, yours game me a similar feeling.

[austintorn@aol.com]

I had a dream that I woke up. What a downer, for then I had to act all normal-like.

Then someone reminded me 'To thine own self be true, so then it was OK to be crazy again.

[austintorn@aol.com]

I fished in the dreaming stream…
and I caught…



myself.

[WW7]

A dream or a memory?
I have been blessed with some real amazing dreams that has left me with a memory because the dreams are so real.
Nothing can exist without it's perfecct opposite, and with this I know if I dream or experience with a blessing then a curse is sure to be near. My dreams of terrorism and natural catastrophies I now accept as part of my sleep pattern, and I just thank the above when can see something beautiful when I sleep.
I once dreamed of being born from Earth, and I felt the growth of my spiritual being as I ascended the skies until I was born from the atmospheres, a pop felt as I left the earth's atmosphere. I grew until I could fit the earth into my arms, and I hugged her as if hugging my mother. Behind me was a male figure. I couldn't look over my shoulder to see this father figure (felt as if the birth was watched by my father). I knew if I turned round I would see, but I couldn't,instead there was an exchange with our eyes and what he saw I felt, me watching myself hug the earth as if stepped into this male figures feet. I felt an immense sadness beyond description.


I've also dreamed of being on the ground praying. My hands on the ground and I was praying before the feet of this man who was ascended a few feet into the air, as if he was floating. Animmense amount of light or sunshine behind him.
I have never learned the meaning to this one of many where I am in the presence of this figure I am praying to.

I have a lot of faith and an open mind and believe I am blessed to acknowledge my guides

God Bless and lots of love sent xx

[Rebky]

I had a dream, it was 23 years ago and it burns in me still, even though I remembered only an inkling of it upon waking. I just read what you posted to this girl and in curiosity I wonder where you will go with mine.

I was asleep and my room lit up with the brightest light! I could hear a soft purring noise and then I realized My mother, who had recently passed away from Breast Cancer sitting next to my bed between me and my sleeping baby. She was speaking to me, all I remember her saying... and all I remembered upon waking was "You have no idea how much time you have left" I imagined she meant, that this earth life was so short... now she sees it from another perspective, it was so short. I spoke to her like she was my girlfriend telling me about an experience SHE had but She corrected me several times I was just not understanding, repeating over and over I had no idea how much time I had left. The dream ended and I was covered in sweat. I believed I had a heavenly visitation so I woke my husband to know if he had felt, heard or seen anything. Of course he did not. I slept very little that night, obsessed about it for a while but eventually decided I would collect what she had told me at a time in my life when I truly needed it. Twenty Three years later... it still eats at me to know. Ideas?

[austintorn@aol.com]

Your mother's passing was on your mind
And your dream imagination summoned her forth
From 'Heaven' which has bright lights
As you reflected on the brevity of life through her.


— Abloom —

At first, you sleep in our dear mother’s womb;
At last, you sleep in the cold silent tomb.
In between, Life whispers a dream that says
“Wake, live, for the rose withers all too soon!”


What Really Happens After We Die?

We die ‘little deaths’ all the time.
Our atoms change, some of our memories go away
And some new ones reappear,
Although I realize that it is the core of memories
That defines us as us.

It’s just that we are hardly the same person now
As when we were much younger.
We had ‘death’ before birth, too,
And now there is life after birth.

Is there life only during life?

If one had amnesia and began learning the world anew,
Then one might say that one as the previous person
Was ‘dead’ and that it is our new life that counts,
One not even missing the old one.

And, while the ‘big death’ is much more
Than any of these ‘little deaths’,
It is that our atoms go on
To reside in a new person eventually.

It’s not like there is any continuity of memory,
But more like that any narrative will do.

As for really knowing all, that is, the TOE,
Meaning that we know that we can’t know it all.
This is a relief and so then we can go about our life
With the ultimate freedom to be.


Now and Zen

Everything that is part of us—
Our cells, tissues, organs and organ systems—
Has come about over billions of years
Because it proved successful in the great survival stakes
During our perilous evolutionary descent with modification.

The brain, being no exception, evolved, in part,
To allow a creature to learn from what happens in its life,
To retain key elements that could influence future actions.

We are geared for self-preservation.
We will do anything to avoid facing the possibility
That who we are now cannot continue.

We ourselves are mainly the cause that we are interested in.
The self is preoccupied with staying alive,
Which is why our species is still around today.

It is a prime biological function to be afraid of death,
And so the self, as thus contrived,
Is able to fully play its crucial survival role.

We want to equip our brain with a soul
That offers us an escape when the brain dies
Since the self cannot come to terms with its own extinction.

From a subjective standpoint, we are all born equal
And undifferentiated (before that, ‘we’ were dead),
But as mature selves we make a distinction
Between the individual and the surroundings.

Still, the brain keeps changing throughout life,
In a pattern of the shifting flux of its neurons.
We gain and lose memories and feelings,
Essentially creating a new person over and over again.

The self is thus not so rock solid as it seems.
These moment-to-moment changes differ from death
Only in degree. In essence, they are identical,
Although at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

So, we are not static things.
Other neural networks will come to be in other,
Future people, albeit with an “amnesia”
Of what went on before in the brains of the previous others.

Why should we be happy about this?
We never can be, because the ‘I’ cannot operate
Outside of its own boundaries.
The only viable alternative is to think of a way
In which it is possible to ever continue on.

What will it be like to be a part of someone else after we die,
With our own particular narrative of life cast aside?
This is the ‘zen’ of now and then and when.

[Rebky]

What then of her repeatedly correcting me... when I said exactly as you suggested... contemplating the brevity of life. That was exactly 'not' the message and exactly why it has stuck with me.

I understand the dream wish to summon my mothers presence. I understand the condensation of dream thoughts relating to that, I know my unconscious associated with something in my preconscious and the censorship was caught unaware and it remained in my conscious awakened self... all of that. The fact remains that to this very day I wish to summon from my unconscious the conversation that was had, or not had in that dream or visitation whichever it was.