The hardest thing to accept.

[melanie]

Is that the you that you thought was you, the you that you have been conditioned to believe in since the birth of you that you never witnessed or remembered has never actually existed at all.

It's one of the hardest realizations you'll ever have to wrap your mind around.

Your existence is about as real as a character in one of your nightly dreams is real.

Do you believe this?

Oh yes, the dream is there,here, but it is a phantom.

[Graybeard]

A man disembarks from his canoe and drags himself to a circular enclosure. This place is an ancient ruin of a Fire God’s temple. The man was injured, but something supernatural about this place heals him. He immediately wills himself to sleep, not because he is tired, but because he intends to create another human being in his dreams.

This is his only goal.

He is glad that the native peasants attend to his basic needs so that he can concentrate on sleeping and dreaming. In the beginning, he has trouble focusing in his dreams. With more experience, he dreamed of teaching an amphitheatre full of students, whose faces he could see clearly. In the crowd, he was looking for a student he thought would be worthy to be brought into the world of reality. He did not accept those who simply accepted his teachings, but was more interested in those who could put up an argument. Eventually, the man only kept one student, whose features were like his teacher’s. The student progressed rapidly, but it was too good to be true.

This student was lost when the dreamer was struck with insomnia. The man decided to take a new approach to create his son. Rather than picking a pre-made “phantom” out of a crowd, he began by visualizing the beating heart. For fourteen nights, the man perfected the heart, and then began seeing other organs. When the boy was fully created, but not yet alive and awake, the dreamer prayed to the god of the circular temple.

The god revealed that he was Fire, and that he would give the sleeping son life in such a way that only Fire and the dreamer would know that he was not born of flesh and blood. The condition the dreamer agreed to meet was to instruct his son to go downstream to other temples and teach the people there to give glory to the god.

When the child awakens, the dreamer teaches him and gradually prepares him to enter reality. Just before sending him off to the next temple, the father erases all the boy’s memories so that he will not discover that he is just the product of a dream.

After sending the child away, the dreamer feels that his life’s purpose is complete, and he is happy.

Then, one night he is awakened by two boatmen who tell him of a “magic man in a temple of the North who could walk upon fire and not be burned.” Upon hearing this, the man is fearful that his son would figure out that he is not a man, but just a phantom dreamed up by another. He feared that the child would be humiliated and confused. In the end, a fire is overtaking the man’s temple. He figured that Death had finally come for him. He willing walks into the flame, only to discover that he is immune to the heat. At that moment, he realized that he too, was a “mere appearance, dreamt by another.”


This story illustrates how we are caught up in the circle of life. Each generation is another repetition of the cycle and goes through the same basic experiences that every generation before them has.

In the story, we see the creation of the newest generation. The dreamer carefully molds this youth into existence through a process of trial and error. For the youth to awaken, the father must agree to send him away. The Fire god has commanded this so that the cycle will begin again. When the dreamer discovers that he is immune to fire, and thus must also be a “mere image” “dreamt by another”, he is humiliated.

There is no doubt that the dreamer’s son will also go through these same experiences, as well as all the generations after him.

Jorge Luis Borges ... The Circular Ruins.


We are all dreamers, caught within a dream ... sweet dreams Mel ..... greggy

[austintorn@aol.com]

By some great coincidence, I just read that one of Borges last week. Found a PDF of all his stuff on The Pirate Bay.

[austintorn@aol.com]

(Me trying lucid dreaming omitted, Maybe I'll put it later))

…

She awoke that morning from a dream,
Fresh with that free and wondrous feeling
That lies at the heart of life’s exhilaration and glory;
But, soon the returning waves of stifling reality
Swept over her, like a sickness,
Smothering her in the dread
Of another hopeless day amidst
The ruins of anxiety and depression.

She dragged herself out of bed.
She was like a doomed ship,
Drifting in the storm’s aftermath,
Under a moon pale and wan,
Her sails tattered and torn
Before the relentless wind of existence.

The dream had seemed so real,
But it, too, had wilted in the heat,
Like a flower that had lost its
Precious gleam of morning dew.
But the hull must drive on, mustn’t it,
She thought, though the mast be broken…
No! No more! I will end it all.
Tonight I will end my life!

She spent the whole day planning it.
Yes, she would scuttle her ship—her car—
And sink within it to the bottom of the sea,
A river, really, and drown,
With a sigh and a groan,
Devoured by forces too large to fight against.

So, she drove her car
Towards the cliff near the bridge.
She drove faster and faster.
The waters called to her—
Their cool and refreshing depths invited her in.

“Come to me,”
Some deathly voice whispered in her ear,
“Come to me and find everlasting peace.
Come and sleep with me in the endless night.
Let me cover you with my ebon wings,
In darkness, for it is eternal and complete.”

“No, no, not thee!” she cried aloud.
“I cannot go with thee, not with evil!”

She drove her car to the edge of the cliff,
Having stopped just short.

Her mind was now drinking in
And savoring the blue and green world
That was reflected in the river.

This sort of sparkling day was not
The kind of day on which she could end it all.
As she looked deeper and deeper
Into the water,
She began to drift into a dream-world
Of her own making—a fantasy fairy-world
In which her ideals could live on,
Untainted by the reality
Of the mediocre world.

A voice called to her.
Visions of Camelot danced in her head.
Mythical fantasy-worlds
And legends beckoned to her,
Seemingly from all directions.
An inner voice called to her,
The sweet voice of someone
Who she could love.

She had often retreated to this storybook world,
But now she would take it a bit further:
She would plunge into it, live within its splendor,
And reside mostly therein—before all else.

Yes, this dreamland would be her final refuge.
The fairyland called to her daily;
It would be the realization of all
Of the imagined perfections
That she had always brought to mind
When the real world had so often
Failed to meet her expectations.

She freed her mind from many of its real life shackles
And began to dream more freely, though still awake.

“I’ll breath life into you, my little voice,”
She said to herself,
As the noise of her consciousness
Slowly faded away.

Her imaginary world came into focus.
She could now paint it with the colors of her dreams,
Creating a life closer to the heart’s desire.

She felt like a Goddess,
Being able to create life at will in her dreams.
This is when she created him.
This is when she brought him to life
By giving him her own essence.

However, his existence was his own to have,
And so he knew nothing of her as his creator,
But only that he was alive in a beautiful and perfect world.

She had built him in her soul’s own image;
She had molded him from her heart’s wishes.
She fell in love with him, of course,
For she could do no other.

“Come into my dreams,”
She would say to conjure him up,
“Come into my dreams,
And then by day I shall be well again,”
For she was using lines from
The romantic poets she had read.

He was a good and decent human being,
For how could he be otherwise,
With her ideals brought to life in him.

He gave fully of himself in life and love,
Always placing his partner’s happiness
And fulfillment above his own.

Their relationship was driven by love alone,
And they celebrated it often in her dreams.
Yes, she had, at last,
Found the love that the real world
Had so often denied her,
For she had created a new and better reality.

Yes, he did feel sadness at times, too,
For she could not totally submerge
That part of herself, but it was subdued in him
And so the sadness was only used
As necessary to enhance the beauty of their love,
Via its sheer contrast and brightness.
She, too, gave all that she had to him,
Watching over him and loving him deeply,
Utterly, and completely.

Nothing could hurt him in this special world.
He was impervious to pain, cold, fire, and sickness.
Once he was fatally shot in a war,
But he didn’t die,
Because it was from her spirit
That he drew his life principle,
And of course she had willed him to live on.

Another time, he was hit by lightening,
But as we have seen, a dream can never die,
And so it was that he arose alive
And well from the smoldering embers.

He seldom got sick and never had a headache.

“Everyone should have the best in life,”
She said to herself,
“And in my world there can be no suffering.”

Each night he would come, saying,
“I arise from dreams of thee.”

“Kiss me, my dearest phantasm,”
She whispered,
“And hold me ever dear;
Shelter me from the evils
And the melancholy of the torturous world;
Show me the true meaning of love
That the real world has forgotten!
Come into my dreams,
And then by day I shall be well again.”

Knowing not that he was her dream image,
He never doubted his own existence and happiness;
However, when she didn’t think of him or when she slept,
He disappeared temporarily, until she awoke
Or thought of him again.

So, when she slept or daydreamed, he existed,
And when she was awake and not daydreaming,
Then he slipped into that oblivion
Which he knew only as
Sleep and quiet slumber,
Death’s kinder brother.

He was the day to her night.
He arose from her dreams of him—
Much like the mountain rises
From the depths of the valley.
Without her, he could not be;
Without him, she could not be.
The circle was now complete,
The link was closed—
They had become two locked boxes,
Each of which contained the other’s key.

The fact that he only existed only as a dream in her mind
Took nothing away from their relationship,
For their love was true and the feelings were felt as deeply
As they would normally have been felt in the real world—
As anyone who has dreamt can readily attest to,
For, ultimately, it is what we feel that matters,
Not the source that causes the feeling—
For all feeling comes from within.

He did wonder, sometimes, though,
About just how good and lucky his life was,
About his having almost super powers at times,
But, he concluded only that he led a charmed life
Which stemmed from an inner happiness
That constantly poured forth visions
In positive creative images that bred good fortunes.

Indeed he did, for she had given him that power—
A power that had come from somewhere within her.
He was her twin, yet also her opposite,
For somehow she had given him
An enthusiasm for life
Which she didn’t seem to have herself.

He was a reflection of her image in which
His outward vision mirrored her inward hope.

Consequently, he blossomed with creativity
In art, music, and writing,
As she continued to maintain him
As both his protector and his inspiration,
Although, as we have seen,
He certainly did have free will,
For he knew not the source of his creation
Nor of the tendencies placed into him.

They lived and loved together,
Allied and alloyed in a soft metallic night,
Blending into the golden oneness
That love had always promised
But had never before delivered.

He was born with the inclination of goodness—
So she never had to possess him
Or demand from him.

Life blossomed now,
And some of this exuberance
Did indeed surface and show itself
Back in the real world,
But in the end she still found her real life
To be the cold harsh reality that it had always been.

So, she called him back to her dreams,
Again and again.
Here they were free to love and live fully,
Their chemistry sending out invitations of love
Which were soft, sweet, and smiling on the rising air,
A spray of liquid love, mystified,
Filling the scene with a vaporous perfume
Of well-being everywhere:
They were up, warm, and floating
On the clouds of dreams.

Their passions smoldered like incense,
And burned like the candle’s flame;
They consumed each other often,
Yet continued to have endless love to give,
Their passions always seeming to reach new levels,
Then expanding even more, building, ever building.

(to be con't)

[austintorn@aol.com]

Now and then, of course,
She had to attend to events back in the real world,
But it really wasn’t so bad there anymore,
Because she knew that she had something
Good to look forward to in her dreams.
So, she went happily through
The motions in the real world,
Feeling better and better as the days went by,
But still always looking forward
To the chance to dream him up again,
When she would say softly to herself:

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, ‘My love! Why sufferest thou?’

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
(—Matthew Arnold)

She again faded off into dreamland…
And there he was.
Just the sight of him would bring the world to a stop,
For she could only concentrate on him.
When she looked at him,
The birds’ song fainted on the moving air,
The night breezes stopped their motion,
And the moon’s radiance shone no more—
For her heart had welled up within
And had merged with his own.

She felt herself being drawn
Into the dream of love
In which there was only one
Overwhelming and all consuming feeling
Of glory and peace and unity.
…

But then,
During one rainy night back in her real world,
When she was driving in a storm,
Along the cliff road around a curve,
Where she had once contemplated suicide,
Her car skidded and flew off
The side of the water slicked road,
Falling three thousand feet,
And crashed hard and straight
Into the rocks below
And exploded in a fiery wreck.

The flames licked at her for hours,
But she felt no heat.
All her bones should have
Been crushed in the fall,
But they weren’t.
She did not even bleed.
There was no pain.

She arose from the car’s wreck,
Unharmed, and walked away.
It was then that she realized that she, too,
Was a character in someone’s dream …

(There's more. May put another time)

[mkirkpatrick]

Is that the you that you thought was you, the you that you have been conditioned to believe in since the birth of you that you never witnessed or remembered has never actually existed at all.

It's one of the hardest realizations you'll ever have to wrap your mind around.

Your existence is about as real as a character in one of your nightly dreams is real.

Do you believe this?

Oh yes, the dream is there,here, but it is a phantom.

Great thread starter Melanie,we are as real as we think we are,no more than that.

regards michael.

[melanie]

Great thread starter Melanie,we are as real as we think we are,no more than that.

regards michael.

Yes, we are a thought, that's all we are, conceptually created from nothing.
And just as we do not die when we go to sleep at night - we do not die of old age. Because there is no 'we' or 'me' that apparently goes to sleep or dies because 'we' and 'me' do not exist. All that exists is this immediate wide-awake awareness for no one.

[mkirkpatrick]

Yes, we are a thought, that's all we are, conceptually created from nothing.
And just as we do not die when we go to sleep at night - we do not die of old age. Because there is no 'we' or 'me' that apparently goes to sleep or dies because 'we' and 'me' do not exist. All that exists is this immediate wide-awake awareness for no one.

Thank you so much Melanie,yes you have it there in a nutshell,we are however a very persistent thought thing!

regards michael.

[melanie]

“The enlightened have awakened from the dream and no longer mistake it for reality. Naturally, they are no longer able to attach importance to anything. To the awakened mind the end of the world is no more or less momentous than the snapping of a twig.”
- Jed McKenna

[mkirkpatrick]

“The enlightened have awakened from the dream and no longer mistake it for reality. Naturally, they are no longer able to attach importance to anything. To the awakened mind the end of the world is no more or less momentous than the snapping of a twig.”
- Jed McKenna

That is so very true,and humbling to recognise.

regards michael.