Dreams

[snowstorm]

A bit of time travelling, kerome. Maybe a Celtic village if it had a Merlin figure

[Bodhitree]

Aug 1, 2017 10:15:05 GMT snowstorm said:

A bit of time travelling, kerome. Maybe a Celtic village if it had a Merlin figure

It could be... it was a little like that. In hindsight I find it interesting that in the dream I had the thought to teach them about blast furnaces, a material technology which leads to greater material possessions, rather than teaching them about buddhism.

In recent years I've come to the conclusion that there is nothing more important than knowing your own mind, and the best tools for this are introspection, mindfulness and meditation. These are the things that really change how you see things, then you can develop the other factors of the path. In effect if you were to treat this whole life with its complex society and market places as a dream, and do nothing but practice awareness, you would do rather well on the grander scale, as I understand things.

So having come to this realisation in my waking life - that all this material stuff is essentially non-sensical - I find it interesting that in a dream I still seem to think I'm an engineer who is going to teach people about blast furnaces, rather than teach the dharma.

[Bodhitree]

I had another dream. It was also long, with multiple sections. The first part that I remember was a kind of forest, a bit dark and dank and realistic, through which there was a route that I had walked before and was going to walk again. I came across some animals, and there were a number of special places, power places, that my route visited.

Then the second section of the dream took place in a giant hall, it was a bit like a train station and I was preparing for a swimming race which went through an underwater course beneath the building, all concrete tunnels filled with water. There were changing rooms where you could shower and leave behind your stuff in a locker. The race was mixed, men and women, and out of a set of five I came second.

They were odd dreams, a bit darker and less poetic than my dreams often are, these were a bit utilitarian.

[snowstorm]

At least you didn't end up last in the swimming race. The level of detail in the dreams sounds a bit exhausting without having to do sports as well

[Bodhitree]

Yes it's true, I have been having long and detailed dreams lately. I'm pleased that I'm able to remember as much of them as I can, I still have a variety of images of them in my mind's eye, including the atmosphere.

This latest dream I have been wondering what it means. Perhaps it has something to do with my meditations, I have recently been looking deeply at my fears and my goals, and have been finding that they are interlinked, and that they are all built up largely of shadows, things that in the ultimate analysis of a life bounded by death are hollow shells, not truly to be feared or desired. It's been a liberating series of introspections, I feel released.

But in the dream I am still following every day patterns - a walk through the woods as I have done before, the competition and zest of a swimming race. Perhaps it is a reflection that following an inner revolution in the real world not so much has changed...

[snowstorm]

There's a lot of action in the dreams, a complete contrast to meditation - they seem to take place mostly outside 'out and about' as well.

[Bodhitree]

I woke up in the middle of the night and there was a dream still dissipating in my brain. It was a chase, I'd been looking for this person who had taken ownership of all these houses in a close. The houses were all built next to eachother and adjoining, and they were all multiple levels, with roof terraces. But I couldn't find this guy because he was moving around, and outside were the people who had been evicted. Then in the end I was told, he's in this house, and I went inside and up to the roof, where I found this rather surly but small person standing there, and he didn't want to leave. There was someone else there too, and we had to give the surly guy this contract which said "Insurance" at the top in big letters... that was where the dream ended.

[snowstorm]

The lengths people go to to sell insurance these days...

[Bodhitree]

I had another dream last night... two nights in a row! I woke up a few times and still had these dreams in my head and so could make a bit of an effort to remember them.

Anyway this was a work dream, the environment was similar to at a job of mine a few years back. There were different teams working on different projects, and I was working on one slightly smaller project that was more long term. It was an office with computers and quite dark carpets and walls, lit by the light of computer monitors, and I was reading some memo's from a manager person. There was an update about how the other projects were doing. It was comforting and familiar, an environment in which I could express my skills.

[snowstorm]

Perhaps your dream is preparing you for a return to work as you mentioned in another thread...

[Bodhitree]

Could be... but I've been having these work dreams for a few years, every now and then. They are always set in and around offices, sometimes quite grand and rarely less than comfortable. I've wondered what kind of meaning they have, and whether they carry an energy load, I've noticed the next day after having one I'm usually charged up, energised to some extent. But they don't seem to correspond to the amount of influence work has in my life, they started after a semi-psychotic episode a few years ago.

I do seem to be dreaming a lot at the moment, six dreams in about two weeks for me is many. But I'm also taking more care to remember them, this is about the first time I've tried to keep a proper dream journal. Perhaps I just never realised that my dream life was so rich and varied.

[zozo]

My dreams have been very jumbled up and hard to separate and remember lately. But I remember some of last night.
I went into a classroom and took my seat, but I felt so sad and I was crying big fat tears and mumbling "I want to go home" and trying to hide my face. The teacher (I knew who he was when I woke up but forget now) opened up a computer to a video for me to watch instead of joining the class. So I sat with my head covered feeling very alone and sad watching a video that was something to do with liquids going down chutes. Maybe scientific, I think there was something to do with acids.

[snowstorm]

Yours was a very modern dream with computer, video and science, zozo. The teacher seemed to be listening to you a bit...

I've had education dreams, one was an entire college year as a student plus exams, all in one dream.

[Deleted]

I am always getting dreams where I am sitting exams. The one I keep having is my SYS English which I failed. I have to write an essay on a book I am supposed to have read over the summer, and it is due in the next day. I panic in the dream and before I wake up I realise I am not at school any more and I don't have to worry.

I have gone back to college to do a refresher course in Higher Chemistry to do a degree in dreams a few times, and Higher Biology, which I never turn up to in them. In my last year at school I was really ill and never did any school work so I think it is a memory about that time which I have never got past.

[snowstorm]

Dreams really are products of the times, before formal education they must have been quite different in subject matter, though chasing/falling dreams etc. were about I guess.