Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.
Posted on 01/09/2011 6:55:06 AM PST by St_Thomas_Aquinas
Booklist review of "Conscious Dreaming: A Spiritual Path for Everyday Life," by Robert Moss, on Amazon.com:
This is more and better than just a book about how to remember and understand dreams, although it is that kind of book and as good as any such recently published. Moss covers all the expected terrain, from how to train the mind to recall its nightly narratives, through how to unravel meaning from them, to how to start and sustain a dream group. But his book excels because he extends its purview to include shamanic dreaming, dreams of dead loved ones, healing dreams, angels, and spirit guides. Moss explores these more esoteric matters with great skill. Taking his cue from ancient and tribal traditions that see in dreams more than a set of symbols connected to individual psychology, Moss offers evidence that in dreams we connect with the transpersonal. Thus, an angel in a dream could be the dreamer's better self--or a real angel, come to help the dreamer through life's challenges. Moss' unusual approach to a perpetually intriguing subject is likely to appeal to a wide spectrum of readers. --Patricia Monaghan
I have some past experience with lucid dreaming. It’s not all fun and games. For me it was not a positive experience, it was very disturbing.Thank you! That's exactly what I'm talking about.Look into Carlos Castaneda, in particular his personal life and that of his close associates, to see what can happen.
It’s opening a door that should remain closed, imho. I can see how it would send an already disturbed individual over the edge. The bounds of waking and sleeping, fantasy and reality can and do get obscured.
Read Loughner’s rambling screeds again knowing this, and the one thing that shines through is that he thinks he’s as able to manipulate and control waking reality as he is in the fleeting unreality of his dreams.
Some dream beings persist, though. You’re not in control of them. This is a time honored and known experience of practically all who attempt to practice lucid or conscious dreaming, to the point of being regarded as “spirit guides.”
Castaneda advised embracing them. Very bad idea, imho. Particularly if you’re Christian. I am, now.
I'm particularly interested in what you said here:
Read Loughner’s rambling screeds again knowing this, and the one thing that shines through is that he thinks he’s as able to manipulate and control waking reality as he is in the fleeting unreality of his dreamsI didn't discern that. What's stands out to you? Is it the wierd repetition?
Losing control of one's subconscious can eventually infect the conscious mind. The problem is that we sometimes cannot distinguish those thoughts that result from observations of reality and reason from those thoughts that bubble up from the subconscious. This is more likely as the mind gets more screwed up in general. Like I said in my previous post, it's simple in the long run, live a conscious and virtuous life. But that won't work in the short run, in the worst cases the demons from the subconscious are overwhelming.
Not uncommon those with mental instability are drawn to these practices though...and for that it increases the chances for Psycotic breaks.
Those who are intelligent often times loose that edge the deeper into this practice they go. Though they themselves aren't aware it's a slow downward slope...or that they appear less intelligent to those who know them well. They "believe" they are still in control....but obvious to others they've lost their edge of "intelligence".
I think that’s an accurate assessment.
“Conscious Dreaming” is an open invitation for demonic influence.
I guess my perspective on it is that I don’t regret doing it, I learned a great deal. For all my past dabbling into things that could have led further down a road that neither I nor anyone else should travel, I didn’t. An increasing number of people lack that inner compass anymore, though. I often wonder if this isn’t the beginnings of the lawless generation.
I still have my spacey moments at times, they do linger on, which can actually be beneficial in my career. I’m in a design-related field and have been my entire adult life. Maybe Paul appeals to me so strongly for this reason, he can give flight to some pretty cosmic, metaphysical stuff at times himself, such as I Corinthians 15. Love it, it’s so beautiful and so powerful. Seeds.
I still don’t buy it. By all accounts, this guy has been broken for some time. Again, you’re trying to find a “boogy man” to blame this on, when the guy was just clearly sick.
I can’t even see a normal person going this nutz with drug use. I do know that many psychotics turn to drugs in an attempt to self-medicate.
Dreams may have been the only place that anything made sense in his world.
I’m sorry STA, but we’re only dealing with the rantings of a mad-man. We can blame it on the fact that he read “The Communist Manifesto” or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”. He obviously felt pretty passionate about the gold standard being left behind.
Oh, I know! He’s a radical member of the “Grammar Police” who was driven mad by my terrible punctuation and spelling! ;-) (I know my husband is.)
I think that we’ll find out that he was insane long before he started college.
The *only* thing that I might see as a cause would be SSRI’s. But even then, we’re talking “chicken and the egg”. Which came first?
Many of mine are.
I think it may be a case of how logical your thought processes are. If I find myself having trouble running because I am naked and up to my knees in syrup, I think, "Whoa....that's crazy and unbelievable. I'm dreaming".
I agree. Which is it? Sarah Palin or Lucid Dreaming? or is he mentally ill? I vote for mentally ill. It really is that simple. His mom must feel terrible that she didn’t help him. Does he have a father? maybe it’s fatherless child syndrome. (We could play this game all day. However, the media will continue to blame Sarah, Glenn, Rush, Tea Party, Republicans, and let’s not forget BUSH.)
it seems like both he and OZERO have “DREAMS”...hmmmmmmm
I agree.
Because the practice breaks down the boundaries between imagination and reality, it can also bring about psychosis.
It's an extremely dangerous combination.
That's fine. I don't claim to have the answer. But I think it's a line of investigation that's worth pursuing for two reasons. First, it can help to explain his behavior and perhaps help to prevent cases like this in the future. And secondly, it can help to expose the dangers of New Age "conscious dreaming," as demonstrated in posts #13 & #14.
Just read his Wikipedia entry. Uh... Wooooow.
In his book The Art of Dreaming, Castaneda describes an encounter during a lucid dreaming session with a supposed conscious entity that was trapped by other inorganic beings. The trapped entity was named the Blue Scout because its "energy" appeared blueish and it was an energetic scout (meaning it was outside of its original realm). The Blue Scout was apparently bait used by the inorganic beings to trap Castaneda as well. But instead they (Castaneda and the Blue Scout) escaped by supposedly merging their energies.The alleged result of merging their energies was that the Blue Scout followed Castaneda to our world. Furthermore, Castaneda claimed that he gave the Blue Scout a human physical body by helping Carol Tiggs give normal birth to her.
A real girl was brought forward at various public sessions held by Castaneda and Tiggs and was introduced as the Blue Scout, and Tiggs was referenced as her mother. This is strange because that girl was someone named Patricia Partin who had real, known biological parents other than Castaneda and Tiggs.
The remains of Partin, sometimes referred to by Castaneda as Blue Scout, Nury Alexander and/or Claude, were found in 2003 near where her abandoned car had been discovered a few weeks after Castaneda's death in 1998, on the edge of Death Valley. Her remains were in a condition requiring DNA identification, which was made in 2006.[2]
The two women were part of Castaneda's inner circle, which he referred to as "The Brujas", and both assumed different names as part of their dedication to their new beliefs. They were originally both graduate students in anthropology at UCLAGood old college.
He put it into words, or didn’t. Therefore to him it is, or isn’t.
Didn’t Carlos Castaneda admit he told an entertaining story not based on any real life experience?
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