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Electric Dreams Volume 13 Issue 02
E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c D.r.e.a.m.s
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E.l.e.c.t.r.i.c D.r.e.a.m.s
Volume #13 Issue #2
February 2006
ISSN# 1089 4284
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http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
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C O N T E N T S
++ Editor's Notes
Richard Wilkerson
++ Global Dreaming News
Harry Bosma
++ Cover "Dream Essence"
by Laura Atkinson
http://tinyurl.com/7ogg8
++ Column: An Excerpt from the Lucid Dream Exchange
Lucy Gillis - Editor
Dream Characters and Reality Checks Part Four:
Mutual Dreaming - Linda Lane Magallón
++ Dream: "Are You Lonely There Tonight, My Love?"
Stan Kulikowski II
++ Article: The Impossible Dream:
Part 1: Identities in Process and Impossible Objects
Richard Catlett Wilkerson
++ Dream: "Continuance, Make For The Vital Spots"
Stan Kulikowski II
++ DREAM SECTION: Special installment from Computer Dreams by Gem
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D E A D L I N E :
Feb 16th deadline for March 2006
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Post Dreams and Comments on Dreams to:
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple
Send news, events, workshops, conferences& reviews to
Harry Bosma <ed-news@alquinte.com>
Send Articles, news and other items to:
Richard Wilkerson: <rcwilk@dreamgate.com>
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Editor's Notes
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Welcome to the Feb 2006 issue of Electric Dreams, your portal to dreams and dreamwork online.
If you are new to dreams and dreamwork, there are a few e-lists where Electric Dreams people seems to congregate that might interest you. One is
dreamchatters@yahoogroups.com
Subscribe by going here and registering
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dreamchatters/
.. and another is the IASD bulletin board
Please, no dreams interpreted here, just discussion of dreaming and dreamwork topics.
http://www.asdreams.org/subidxdiscussionsbboard.htm
This month in Electric Dreams:
Thanks to Laura Atkinson for the cover art contribution
Lucy Gillis continues to explore the edges of dreaming and finds the most interesting topics for her Lucid Dream Exchange. Lucy talks about this months except
"Back in May of 2005, Linda Lane Magallón tackled the subject of dream characters in part one of her four part series. Are dream characters real people? Do they have a will, or a consciousness of their own? Are they all the same, or could some be lifeless projections? Join Linda as she takes us on a journey through her own thoughts and intriguing dreams. You may not look at your dream characters in quite the same way again!" Be sure to read "Dream Characters and Reality Checks Part Four: Mutual Dreaming."
Stan Kulikowski II has two selections this month, "Are You Lonely There Tonight, My Love?" and "Continuance, Make For The Vital Spots." If you have dreams you would like published, please enter them in the form at
http://dreamgate.com/forms/dream_flow.htm
I'm including an exploratory essay of my own, part of the Postmodern Dreaming series. This one is about using Jacque Lacan's theory of language and psychoanalysis to explore magnets in dream that pull the narrative from off-stage. What's pulling you along in your dreams? Read "The Impossible Dream Part 1: Identities in Process and Impossible Objects."
The Dream Editor is on vacation this month. In place of the Dreams Section, I'm including part 2 of a collection of computer dreams from "Gem". Gem's dreams start in about 2000 when she got a job involving computer work. What is interesting is that prior to this job, she knew little about them.
Janet Garrett archives past issues so you can search out specific articles and authors in an easy-to-access format. These articles contain a wide range of information for dreamers and dreamworkers. You can see her work progress and view hundreds of article on dreams at: http://www.improverse.com/ed-articles/index.htm
Harry Bosma searches around the world for news on dreams and dreaming, which you can read about in the Global Dreaming News. If you have any dream news, conferences, books, workshops, and especially any online meetings or events, be sure to send that information to Harry by the 15th of each month at ed-news@alquinte.com
A couple of items I didn't get into the news but are on the near dream horizon:
The will be a CNN special on Sleep and Dreams, due to air Sunday, March 12, 2006, which will feature Patricia Garfield, PhD. Also see her comments and others in the
Reader's Digest, February, 2006, "Making Peace with Grief"
and
Gayle Delaney, PhD will be doing two segments on Dreams on the
TODAY SHOW on March 1.
Be sure to read all of these dreams and more.
If you want to send in dreams, please enter them at http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/temple
or join the dream flow at dreamflow@yahoogroups.com
(dreamflow-subscribe@yahoogroups.com)
Cover by Laura Atkinson
http://tinyurl.com/7ogg8
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For those of you who are new to dreamwork,
be sure to stop by one of the many resources:
http://dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
http://dreamgate.com/dream/library
http://dreamunit.net/news-en/
http://www.dreamtree.com
Electric Dreams in PDF: (thanks to Nick Cumbo)
http://electric.dreamofpeace.net/
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From the Dream Dimension,
-Richard Wilkerson
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G L O B A L D R E A M I N G N E W S
February 2006
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Got news? Email Harry Bosma at his special ed-news@alquinte.com address.
Online:
- Adventures in Consciousness
- The Dream Catcher
- Famous dream discoveries
- Beta testing the Dream Registry
- Gayle Delaney Free Dream Courses
Physical world:
- Hawaii: Stephen LaBerge and Alan Wallace
- Berkeley: the Dream Institute
- Copenhagen: Nordic Dream Conference
- Dreaming in Bridgewater / Art prizes
Books, movies, research:
- Robert Gongloff: Dream Exploration - A New Approach
- Bitsy Broughton: Dream survey
Recurring events:
- San Francisco: The Practice of Active Dreaming
- Ritual DaFuMu for Peace
* * * ONLINE * * *
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- Adventures in Consciousness
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The Adventures in Consciousness forum is a new NewWorldView forum moderated by Sean Foreman:
http://tinyurl.com/dg5be
Sean is a long time Seth reader who is working his way through the Seth material book by book with an emphasis on the material on dreams, lucid dreaming, and projections of consciousness. He began with Book 1 of The Early Sessions and is creating a self-guided course of study that anyone can follow.
How far you go is entirely up to you, but Sean will be sharing various tools, practices, and tips to assist in your own exploration of what Seth calls the "unknown" reality.
Read Sean's Welcome & Overview:
http://tinyurl.com/8f6vv
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- The Dream Catcher
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The Dream Catcher is a forum to discuss and interpret dreams. It will also be a place for advice, discussing lucid dreams and other psychic or spiritual phenomena.
This group is intended for two types of people. Those who are talented at interpreting dreams and those who are looking for answers to their dreams.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The_Dream_Catcher
Thanks very much!
Sarita
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- Famous dream discoveries
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Brilliant Dreams highlights twelve famous discoveries and creativity attributed to dreams. From Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" to Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", dreams have played a major role in human creativity, discovery and invention.
www.brilliantdreams.com/product/famous-dreams.htm
Brilliant Dreams produces and markets dream enhancement and sleep beneficial products.
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- Beta testing the Dream Registry
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Dear dreamers!
You're invited to test the Dream Registry:
http://dreamunit.net/registry/
All comments on any aspect of the website will be seriously considered.
I think that the Dream Registry will eventually accept all kinds of dreams, but I have to start somewhere, so psi dreams and especially precognitive dreams is what I'd like to focus on first.
Early March I want to invite dreamers to join a few adventures in precognitive dreaming.
Best wishes,
Harry
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- Gayle Delaney Free Dream Courses- Gayle Delaney Free Dream Courses
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Title: All About Your Dreams
Course Type: Online Instructor-led Course Estimated Completion Time: 24 hour(s) Session Length: 4 week(s)
Take this course for FREE
Upcoming Sessions
February 6, 2006 - OPEN
The site is barnesandnobleuniversity.com and one then goes to Life Improvement Courses.
Click on course title: All About Your Dreams The course is free and gives people a chance to meet other students of the dream in a lively atmosphere.
Prerequisites
A wild curiosity about dreams
A sense of humor about the difficulties of being human The desire to tap the Sherlock Holmes within
Description
Every night you have several dreams; unlocking their secrets can help you to better understand your motivations, your potential, and the obstacles you place in your own way. Understanding your dreams can also help you make better decisions, form better relationships, and deal with childhood, sexual, career, and self-esteem issues.
All About Your Dreams will help you learn to be a Dream Interviewer--someone who knows how to ask the right questions rather than relying on the standard "one-size-fits-all" dream dictionary. You will liberate yourself from psychological dogmas, and learn to look before you leap to an interpretation. When you know how to look and listen carefully, your dreams will become clear statements of your deepest insights. You will see how Dream Incubation can help you target and solve particular problems in your life. By using the steps and questions provided in the textbook and the course exercises, you will learn to take advantage of the highly personal meanings of common dream images as well as those of recurring dreams and nightmares. You can practice Dream Interviewing and Dream Incubation by yourself or you can form "dream partnerships" with other classmates. What a great opportunity to meet others who are just as fascinated by dreaming as you are!
This course is taught by Gayle Delaney, Ph.D., a pioneer in the field of modern dream interpretation and author of seven books on the subject.
Audience: This course is for anyone who is curious about dreams. The lessons and exercises are appropriate for both novice dream interpreters and those with more experience.
This course is great for artists, writers, lawyers, and scientists who would like to tap into their dream-generated inspiration to problem solve more efficiently. Therapists and dream group leaders and members who want to hone their interpretive skills are also welcome.
Objectives
Use dreams to make more informed decisions that affect your daily life Recall your dreams more vividly and more often Recall a dream that deals with an issue of concern to you Interview yourself about your dream Interview other dreamers and help them to understand their dreams Understand at least some of your recurring dreams Celebrate your liberation from hopelessly general dream interpretations Find the specific meanings of a good number of your dream images
Course Materials
All About Dreams
In Your Dreams
Course Creator(s)
Dr. Gayle Delaney
Gayle Delaney, Ph.D., is a pioneer in modern dream work. She is the best-known author in the field of dream interpretation and incubation.
Co-Founding president of the Association for the Study of Dreams, and co-director (with Loma K. Flowers, M.D.) of the Delaney & Flowers Dream Center in San Francisco, she is the author of many books and is a popular guest on such shows as Oprah, NBC Nightly News, Today Show, and Good Morning America. Visit Gayle's web site at http://www.gdelaney.com.
* * * PHYSICAL WORLD * * *
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- Hawaii: Stephen LaBerge and Alan Wallace
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DREAMING and AWAKENING
with STEPHEN LaBERGE and Alan Wallace
Wednesday May 10 - Friday, May 19, 2006
Kalani Oceanside Retreat, Hawaii
Using the most effective techniques and technology, derived from Western science and Tibetan Dream Yoga, Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D. and Alan Wallace, Ph.D. will co-present instructions on methods of developing the mental skills that foster lucidity and on directing consciousness within both dreaming and waking states towards fulfillment of personal goals.
Participants in our past retreats have had great success with achieving lucidity, with most having had one or more lucid dreams during the program.
Details and online registration are available at:
http://lucidity.com/hawaii
If you have any questions about this program, please don't hesitate to contact keelin@lucidity.com
Sweet tropical dreams to all!
Stephen, Alan, Dominick, & Keelin
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- Berkeley: the Dream Institute
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The Dream Institute of Northern California
1672 University Ave
Berkeley, CA 94703
1-510-845-1767
The Dream Institute offers the following during February 2006.
- From the Dream Outward
Saturday, February 11, 2006, 2-4 PM
$30 & $20 Students
Vijali Hamilton, MA combines education, art and ritual to focus attention on resolving social and environmental problems and to activate our awareness of the interconnectedness of all life.
- Indigenous Dreaming
Friday, February 24, 2006, 1-6PM
Barbara & Dennis Tedlock, PhDs, talk about their lifetime of dreams and anthropology
$100 & $50 Students
- Art: From the Inside Out
Sunday, February 12, 2006, 1-4 PM
Vijali Hamilton, MA will lead a journey that addresses one's deepest inquires through the process of art-making.
$34 & $25 Students
- Culture Dreaming - Window to the World
First Saturdays
Feb 4, Mar 4,
3-5 PM Social Hour Follows
$20 & $15 Students
With Richard Russo, MA and Meredith Sabini, PhD.
Culture Dreaming is an experimental ritual that gives a living sense of interconnection. First, dreams are told in Quaker fashion, with no comment. Then we explore together the composite dream just co-created. Dreams become a camera obscura or hologram showing surprising relevance to both individual and larger social concerns. Observers welcome. Come once, occasionally, or regularly.
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- Copenhagen: Nordic Dream Conference
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Dreams and creativity
24-26 March, 2006
A spectacular program with among other Pia Skogeman, jungian analyst and writer (Denmark); Montague Ullman, MD and world reknown dream researcher (USA, via web-transmission); BrittMari Felke, teacher (Sweden); Eero-Tapio Vuori, artist, theatre director (Finland); Antti Revonsuo ph.d./Katja Valli (Finland); Michael Schredl, Ph.d. dream researcher (Germany) and many more. The program includes panels, workshops, presentations, performance and networking.
The conference is organised as a regional conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams (IASD) by the Danish Association for the Study of Dreams (FFSD) in cooperation with the Swedish and Finnish Dream Forum. The conference will mainly take place in English language.
The fee of the conference is extra-ordinary low, so we hope this will make it possible for more people to attend. The fee is 750 Danish Kroner (approximately 100 EURO). Members of IASD receives a special discounted fee at 500 Danish Kroner (approximately 70 EURO).
For more information, please see:
www.ffsd.dk/ndk_2006.php
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- Dreaming in Bridgewater / Art prizes
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23rd Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams
June 20 - 24th, 2006
Bridgewater State College,
Bridgewater Massachusetts
Join dreamers, clinicians, researchers, educators and artists from all over the world for four days of workshops, lectures, exhibits, and events examining dreaming and dreamwork as presented through traditional and innovative theories and therapies, personal study, scientific research, cultural tradition and the arts. Over 100 workshops and events on all aspects of dreaming are planned, with topics and events of interest to the general public as well as professionals. Special events include an Opening Reception, a Dream Arts Exhibition and reception, a solstice visit to a Native American archaeoastronomical site, a Dream Telepathy Contest, various other social events and the ever popular closing costume "Dream Ball".
Special note for artists: TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS in prizes will be awarded by an anonymous donor for the best Dream Art in June, '06. 1st prize: $l000, two 2nd prizes of $500 each. Any medium is acceptable including photography, videos or DVDs, computer art, book art, installation or any combination of the above. The dream or the significant part of the dream must be included. The criteria for selection will be originality, integrity, universality, and relevance to building bridges. The awards will be presented during the Art Reception in June, '06.
More information at the website of the IASD:
http://asdreams.org
* * * BOOKS, MOVIES, RESEARCH * * *
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- Robert Gongloff: Dream Exploration - A New Approach
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Dreams speak to us in a symbolic language. From night to night, those symbols and images can appear wildly different. But in truth, they are likely replaying an important theme in your life, a vital message from your dream world to your conscious mind.
While most dream books focus on symbolism, Dream Exploration helps readers go deeper by exploring the themes presented in dream life and their relationship to waking life. Written as a how-to guide, this first-of-its-kind book includes a twelve-step process that helps you identify core themes in your life and how best to grow with them. Also included is a theme matrix that offers practical actions readers can take to move beyond their dreams.
More information: www.heartofthedream.com
For press kit or to arrange an interview, please contact Brian Farrey at Llewellyn Publicity, email: brianf@llewellyn.com
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- Bitsy Broughton: Dream survey
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Bitsy Broughton invites you to fill out the dream survey on her website.
"The answers you provide will broaden our understanding of the dialogue between dreamer and dream, and how that information may reflect or influence our walking lives. I would be happy to email you a summary of my current research using this questionnaire, and if you like I can offer comments on the dreams you describe below."
www.graygoosedreams.com/survey.htm
* * * RECURRING EVENTS * * *
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- San Francisco: The Practice of Active Dreaming
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Based on Robert Moss' pioneer synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism.
Elizabeth Lombardo
email: elizabeth_lombardo@yahoo.com
phone: 415-447-8552
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- Ritual DaFuMu for Peace
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The World Dreams Peace Bridge, on the 15th of each month, is holding a monthly DaFuMu - a collective dream of good fortune - to support peace.
In joining a DaFuMu each month we will be seeking the mandala of peace within the universal mind: learning what it is to be peaceful at a personal level, how to act in a peaceful manner within the world, and accessing and supporting the general mandala of peace available to all people. So, please join in on the 15th of each month. Before sleeping set your intention to dream towards the mandala of peace.
If you feel that your dream has touched upon a symbol that can be used within the mandala of peace we are creating, or on a particular relation of peace, please let us know. Just send your comment, picture or dream to:
http://www.worlddreamspeacebridge.org/dafumumonthly.htm
To join the World Dreams Peace Bridge discussion group, just send an e-mail to worlddreams-subscribe@yahoogroups.com .
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end news
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Cover Artist, Laura Atkinson
"The Dream Essence"
http://tinyurl.com/7ogg8
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About the image "The Dream Essence"
In the dream, I recall holding my breath and looking under the surface of a water source. Beneath, I see large bubbles containing flora. These bubbles felt like gelatin, and the flora that is growing inside are meant to be used as nutritional supplements for people.
Artist Statement / Bio:
As a former photojournalist, Laura Atkinson has explored the links between art, visual therapy, and the realities of the dream state for many years. Her work, while being a deeply personal exploration of her own dreams, jars the viewer with its beauty of light interplay, form, and design. Her work has a tactile beauty that brings viewers into her private world while simultaneously giving one the permission to touch, feel, and experience each piece, while making it part of his/her own world, language, and life. She has been also been studying and photographing energy fields using a Kirlian technique, discovering the wonders of digital photomontage, as well as working on a large, handpainted silk project involving 30 dreams that were submitted by various IASD members and friends.
Website: http://www.arthatglows.com Email: ArtThatGlows@cox.net
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An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange
By Lucy Gillis
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Back in May of 2005, Linda Lane Magallón tackled the subject of dream characters in part one of her four part series. Are dream characters real people? Do they have a will, or a consciousness of their own? Are they all the same, or could some be lifeless projections? Join Linda as she takes us on a journey through her own thoughts and intriguing dreams. You may not look at your dream characters in quite the same way again!
Dream Characters and Reality Checks Part Four:
Mutual Dreaming
(c) 2005 Linda Lane Magallón
"What you see is what you get!" said Geraldine Jones. On most every episode of The Flip Wilson Show, she would strut around and show herself off. "What I see is what I get!" think lucid dreamers when they spy a dream character.
Literal identification is a hard habit to break.
The audience of The Flip Wilson Show television program had an edge over dreamers. They'd spent plenty of time looking at TV, comparing it with physical life. Over time, through conscious observation, they'd been able to teach themselves the subtle differences between a fictional drama, a fanciful commercial and a factual documentary - between what is "real" and "unreal." When Geraldine made her proclamation, it was time for a chuckle.
For "Geraldine" was actually comedian Flip Wilson in drag. His falsetto voice and women's clothes didn't fool the audience one bit. They could readily see past his disguise.
The same can't be said for dreamers. We haven't spent an equal amount of time noticing and interacting with dream characters in a conscious manner.
The dream screen isn't nearly so handy as the TV screen; there's always a time lag before we can contrast the visuals of the dream with the sights of waking life. I was just as prone to the Flip Wilson Syndrome as everyone
else: accepting dream characters as they appear without questioning my assumptions. I didn't realize that the dream is a jokester. It can clothe itself in all sorts of special effects, and I'm not just talking about the scenery.
Spirit guides, deceased relatives, probable selves, gods, fairies and
beasts: these are just a few of the identities attributed to dream characters. Which of them, among the often bewildering variety, actually fits the dream you had last night? In order to comprehend dream characters in general, I suggest we start with live human beings. Maybe we can learn to see through the Geraldine-façade to the actual person underneath.
Why Pay Attention to Human Beings?
1. Agreement About Reality
Most humans act as if the material world is real. They also think they're real and are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. So the first reason for using live humans is a practical one: mutual agreement that real beings coexist in a shared physical universe. Since the vote of the majority isn't always correct, consensus is no proof. But this common ground is a good place to start our discussion, whether we end here or not.
2. Relative Stability of the Physical Counterpart The physical world is more fixed than the worlds of dream, altered states and psi. It doesn't morph as much as they do, nor slip and slide in time.
This consistency makes the more stable waking versions of its inhabitants a useful standard for comparison, when contrasted with their dreaming counterparts.
3. Shared Perceptual Apparatus
No matter who or what a dream character actually is, we still have to use human perceptual apparatus to perceive it. Our inner vision is dependent on our outer vision (people blind from birth don't have visual dreams). Our outer vision perceives the physical world only partially (not like a microscope, telescope or x-ray machine). Whatever we do "see" must have something that our human hardware can latch onto or we will remain oblivious to it. In addition, our human software, such as intuition, reason, judgment, culture, language and reporting skills, combine to produce the final perceptual product. Seen together, we can realize group disadvantages (we don't have ultraviolet, magnetic or heat vision like some animals do). We can discover species-wide quirks (we have anthropomorphic tendencies: we are apt to assign human characteristics to animals, aliens and angels). What's actually in front of us may be quite different from what we think we see.
4. Assessment of Hardware and Software
We are less likely to ignore or gloss over our specific talents...and handicaps...if they are seen against a backdrop of multiple events. We are less likely to consider our dream vision to be perfect and our capacity to identify dream characters to be unflawed when we compare perceptual skills with fellow humans.
5. Feedback
A live human being is the only entity in this shared universe who can give us feedback about private presumptions. Whereas we can observe from afar the obvious surface appearance and behavior of any visual element, only a verbal human can tell us about what is hidden from sight, such as thoughts, feelings, emotions and subtle senses. These are the very components likely to participate in and influence the construction of our dreams.
Reality Checks Linking Humans and Dream Characters
On an informal basis, we can look and listen to one another, sharing notes about what we see whether awake or asleep. But if we're serious about doing reality checks on human dream characters, the two main avenues of study involve a comparison of our dreams with another person's waking life and a comparison of our dreams with another person's dreams.
1. Lab Experimentation
The most stringent reality check involving dreams or psi is experimentation in a laboratory using the scientific method. There have been lab experiments in dream telepathy and waking psi, as well as nonpsi phenomena like subliminal perception. Valuable information comes from lab reports, scientific journal articles, lectures and books written by the scientists.
Perhaps the most revealing option is to communicate directly with lab subjects and scientists to discover what wasn't in the published reports.
For example, there have been no official lab projects involving two or more people dreaming together, although I have heard the results of unofficial studies.
2. Field Research
Field research in dream telepathy, precognition and clairvoyance can provide basic information on psi. However, the most applicable research involving dream characters is shared dreaming: deliberate dreaming with other people with the intent to connect in the dreamstate. My initial research in this area was with people who had never met in waking life, so a baseline of psi versus nonpsi results could be established. In the major projects, there was a facilitator or group to provide checks and balances and assure that everybody was being honest. Specifically, the Mutual Lucid Dreaming Protocol requires a "fair witness" to oversee communication between dreamers. Ed Kellogg, Robert Waggoner and I co-created it.
Three Aspects of Dream Characters
As a result of my research, I became aware that we needed to re-think the elements involved in dream identification, since they weren't quite the same as waking life. I decided to focus on three aspects. First, let's consider the case when all 3 aspects refer back to you, when the dream is totally "your stuff."
1. The Source of the Image-As-Perceived (the Picture) Your own personal hardware and software produces the imagery in your mind, whether you are awake or asleep, whether your eyes are open or closed. Thus, an inner picture you'd identify as Aunt Annie would be your snapshot, your painting. As if your mind were a camera, you project an image of Aunt Annie built from whatever visual memory data has been collected and stored. Your dreams need not be an exact copy of waking life; your creative mind is quite capable of mixing, matching and expanding upon whatever is seen with physical eyes. You have whole Aunt Annie memories, but you also have common memories of component parts like movement, speech, color and form that will help animate the Aunt Annie dream.
2. The Source of the Information That Produces the Image In the waking state and lucid dreams, you might deliberately think of your aunt and have a picture spring up in response. But usually the process is unintentional and the image arises spontaneously from whatever bodily sensations, anticipations and emotions, feelings and subtle senses you associate with Aunt Annie. Although memory of a real person is triggered, the Annie character can star in a dream story that is totally fanciful. Your own information is ladled onto her image and used for your own purposes. In such a case, the only thing taken from Aunt Annie would be a visual snapshot of her façade, her picture, her mask.
3. The Presence or Absence of That Energy Source in the Dream When the dream acts like a reflecting glass, it bounces back what physical mirrors do not. Thoughts, feelings, sensations and emotions can resound from your inner echo chamber. In this case, if Aunt Annie feels real, it's because you are real. You would be sensing your own "realness" returning to you, while concurrently seeing an Aunt Annie façade.
Whether awake or asleep, your vision is only as good as your picture; your picture is only as good as your vision. Because you are always using your personal hardware and software, you are consistently the one who creates your own surface picture of reality.
But the information and energy behind the picture? That can vary.
You could be dreaming about Aunt Annie; having an in-dream reverie about the real person. When information is co-opted from waking life, Aunt Annie can seem quite realistic. The information that forms the dream story could be known consciously, but it's often not. While awake, you may have picked up Aunt Annie information subconsciously, subliminally or at the periphery of your vision. Perhaps it's a certain attitude, skin tone or gesture that alerts you to the fact that Annie is pregnant. This you don't consciously know while awake, but your subconscious mind reads the signs correctly and plays back that information in a dream.
Therefore, just because you dream about Aunt Annie doesn't necessarily mean you are in connection with her as you sleep. Nor does it prove that she is present in the dream. It doesn't guarantee that you obtain dream information directly from Aunt Annie or that you dream with Aunt Annie. You may be relying totally on information obtained while awake or fantasized as you slumber. Or a little of both. Because these options are highly probable, be prepared to take full responsibility for your dreams. And full credit for you extrasensitive sensory perception. Only sometimes may you be dealing with influence beyond it.
If Aunt Annie is not standing at the end of the bed tickling your toes or her voice isn't whispering suggestions into your ears as her audio tape plays at your bedside; if the information could not have reached you via normative sensory means, then it's possible you are experiencing dreampsi.
Precognition, clairvoyance, telepathy or empathy could be contributing factors. Shared dreaming would extend psi beyond information retrieval and involve energy transfer, especially the energy of presence. It's only when these 2 aspects occur together - her information and her energy - that you would truly be dreaming "with" Aunt Annie, meeting her in dreamspace. You may notice that, in defining a dream meeting, I've said nothing of how the picture of Aunt Annie looks.
The Mask Atop A Live Human Being
Now, let's turn the tables. Suppose that you're actually dreaming about or from or with Aunt Annie, but the dream picture doesn't match her waking appearance. Could the dream version of Annie take on an alternate appearance, like an celebrity, spook or past life self? Could Annie, in some sense, actually be there but not look like you'd expect her to look?
I had created my recurring dream character, Willette Nicholson, in imagination before she suddenly showed up in the dream state. So, I already knew that I had provided the picture. My breakthrough dream, although a seemingly spontaneous event, was actually predated by an intense period of incubation. Later, I found I could deliberately induce Willie dreams if I held onto that intent prior to sleep. Within lucid dreams, I could conjure up her image by willpower alone. "Will-it," I had called her in that first lucid dream, not Willette. To have her appear the way she did, I just had to "will it." But who was the actor underneath the surface appearance? Was she only a reflection of me? Sometimes it seemed so, but not always.
Gradually, I came to recognize parallels with physical existence. For instance, the day after I met a female psychic at a New Age bookstore, I dreamt of Willie as a psychic. In waking life I introduced a working colleague named Leona to another woman; during the night I dreamt that I introduced Leona to Willie. After I'd traveled to Jill Gregory's Dream Library and Archive to help her organize the books and shelves, I dreamt Willie and I were heroically lifting a library floor.
Once, I dreamt that Willie was being introduced in public, along with Superman. Incongruously, Superman was wearing a flat top hat. At the time, Kent Smith, Ilona Marshall and I were co-creating the Dream Definition Dialogue interpretation technique to present in public. Kent often wore a flat top hat. If Superman was my version of Kent, then Willie would be...Ilona. Although the waking versions of such events involved several women, the dream versions contained only one costume.
Another time, I visited a dream group and talked animatedly about lucid dreaming with a fellow dreamer named Brad. Whereas I supported Brad's enthusiasm about lucid dreams, the leader of the group castigated us by inferring that, since Brad enjoyed manipulating the scenery so much, passive non-lucid dreams (and the people who dreamt them) were more spiritual than lucid ones. I talked with Brad afterwards, reaffirming his active behavior.
That night I dreamt I was flying with Willie when she was struck by lightning and fell out of the sky. I had to dive down and rescue her before she hit the ground. For a long time, I didn't see the connection between being shut down in the dream group and being shocked out of the sky. That's because I was expecting Willie's waking counterpart to be a woman, not a man. Evidently, I could plaster Willie's image atop anyone, no matter what the gender.
Instances like these gave me the sense that I was leading parallel lives: a mundane variety in waking life and a magical version in the dream state. In waking life, I was Linda interacting with friends and colleagues; in dreaming life I was Casey the flyer who could levitate objects, teleport through walls and rescue people by flying away with them. Quite frankly, I preferred the dreaming version! However, in each of these cases, I felt that I was dreaming about Ilona, Brad and the rest. There was no reason to suspect influence other than day residue and no way to check in the dreamstate, since these were all non-lucid dreams.
Mutual Willie
After I began co-dreaming with dreaming partners, I discovered that Willie could be a flag for mutual dreams. If she appeared in either of our dreams, it was highly probable that they would contain psi correspondences. These correlations could be similar symbols (a deep hole in the floor), similar scenery (a resort hotel) or similar events (a bus trip in San Francisco).
One of the most vivid examples of dream/waking connection was a precognitive-telepathic dream. Several months before mutual dream researcher Jean Campbell took a trip to Europe, I dreamt of meeting Willie there. The correspondences between Jean's upcoming trip and my long, lucid dream were very striking. This dream occurred before Jean and I had ever met in the physical, although we had been penpals for a short time.
The most consistent recipient of the Willie costume was my husband, Manny.
I'd dreamt Willie gave me a gold chain after Manny gave me a gold necklace for my birthday. Definitely day residue. I already knew that Manny had a harem fantasy when I had a harem dream with Willie; however, that same night he had a lucid dream in which he tried to "will" a woman to do his bidding.
Synchronicity. I dreamt Willie picking up pieces of a DOS computer (unusual for me, since I own a Mac). After I woke, Manny told me an incident from the previous day: he was trying to fix a DOS computer at work when he dropped some of the pieces on the ground. Quite likely a case of psi.
The dream world had provided me with multiple examples of Willie's picture atop another human, but I was so caught up in the need for Willie to be a real, independent being that I ignored the clues. The dream had to become more specific. I dreamt of meeting Willie. Immediately afterwards, the dream repeated itself, and I dreamt of meeting Jean Campbell. The dream was trying its best to tell me something, but I wasn't listening. When that didn't get my attention, it became even more literal. I dreamt of making love to Willie, who morphed into Manny. Several times I closely observed this morphing process as it occurred in lucid dreams. In each case, the Willie picture melted into Manny's image, not the other way around.
Despite having to use the clothing I provided, a Willie dream could reveal information about other people. Beyond sensory stimuli, there was extrasensory perception in operation. But were any of the people behind the mask coming to visit?
Dream Presence
Waking psi experiments, like remote viewing, reveal that it's possible to perceive at a distance, yet remain seated in the here and now. So the perception of accurate dreampsi information about Aunt Annie doesn't necessarily mean that she is present in your dream. She could be the broadcasting source of information that your sleeping mind recognizes as having Aunt Annie qualities, and in response, attaches an Aunt Annie image to it.
On the other hand, full-blown presence presumes that your consciousness travels to another dreamer or that he comes to you. Sometimes this happens in physical terms. Once, before completely returning to the waking state, I had the sense of Willie hovering over me, smiling, although there wasn't much of a picture to accompany this feeling. Soon thereafter, my daughter Teresa actually came into my bedroom and hovered over me. When I opened my eyes, she said, "Look at my face." "You're a clown," I responded. As part of a costume for Halloween, Teresa had "smiling" makeup painted on her face.
Talk about a living mask!
My definition of "presence" has little to do with whether my partner's astral body appears in my dream. To me, presence involves the emergence of energy as contrasted with information. The full equation for psi is extrasensory perception plus psychokinesis. In dreaming terms, this means that the tactile senses come into play: gesture, motion, speed, rhythm being among them. It means, for instance, that if you touch your partner in your dream, she dreams of being touched. Is this somatic experience simply a case of information received, then converted by the dreamer's mind into sensation? Or is it direct tactile influence? This is one of those areas that still requires a lot of reality checks, but my preliminary investigation leads me to conclude that another person's energy can be present in a dream. When this happens, the dream character feels real because it is real. You are sensing the real energy of another human being behind the mask. The mask need not look like that particular human being, though.
The other person doesn't have to be conscious of sending information or energy your way for the transfer to occur. This makes it difficult to discover correlations with dreamers who aren't very self-aware. Just because you're lucid in a dream doesn't mean the other person is. A successfully shared lucid dream would require information plus energy plus conscious awareness. Ironically, it does not have to require the same picture! There doesn't even need to be a picture for psi connection to occur. It could be an audio or tactile experience, instead.
Summary
This adventure with Willie was far more complex than I've had the time to tell. It was also a journey into altered states other than the dream. It was an eye-opener about how much we project rather than perceive, and how much Western culture encourages projection, while concurrently rejecting even the possibility of extrasensory perception.
To summarize, these are the most important things I learned from doing reality checks with human beings.
Picture, presence and parallel information are three different aspects of dream characters, each to be considered separately when trying to make an identification. Just because Annie appears in your dream doesn't mean it really is Annie. Just because an angel appears in your dream doesn't mean it really is an angel. Or an alien. Or an animated cartoon. The picture might be a mask for your own information and energy. It could be a costume for another human being. Or there can be any combination or permutation of these aspects.
Can our dream pictures be costumes for real entities other than humans? To my own satisfaction, I've concluded that animals needn't look like they do in waking life. A family pet with four legs can appear without them, as an eel, worm or a puff of fur (I suspect this is picture shorthand for its bubble-shaped aura).
In this immensely large universe, I would never suppose that humans are the only sentient inhabitants. However, I think an alien or alternate essence would have a real problem trying to communicate with humanity. Humans are so prone to plastering their presumptions that the presentment of such "significant others" would likely be warped beyond recognition. Personally, I think humans have a lot of homework ahead of them before they'll be invited to join any planetary or astral alliance.
But these last remarks are opinions. They've not been reality checked.
Determining the difference between another's presence and our own reflections is not any easy task, but by using humans as our standard, I believe we can develop the identification process into an art and science:
an art of subtle sensing backed by a science of verification. If we don't know the difference, we'll never understand or even realize the existence of the greater mysteries of the universe. And, for sure, we'll never get the cosmic joke.
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Dream: Are You Lonely There Tonight, My Love?
Stan Kulikowski II
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DATE : 18 jan 2006 07:56
DREAM : are you lonely there tonight, my love?
=( yesterday was monday. it rained most of the day and grew cold in the evening. i spent the afternoon working in my garage with the paneling i am putting up in my bathroom. that task is almost done so i can start to rebuild the garage door which was damaged during one of the hurricanes last summer. at the end of the evening i was happy to start into season three of _smallville_ on the video player, my mother's annual two months of _upstairs downstairs_ finally finished the night before. i got to bed just after midnight. )=
the biology research lab is rather crowded with cages and various animals squeaking and moving around in that fidgety meaningless kind of motion that caged creatures do. it looks more like those tragic pet stores in that respect than a serious research facility.
through the cacophony chirps and coughs, i hear a beautiful bird call that repeats a couple times. i look over the rows of cages at the many feathered birds and try to pick out which one is repeating that simple song, but i can not. it is too rarely made and there are just too many birds.
she is worried. in a tank in the middle of the room there is a small tiger, not full grown, its head just above the level of the liquid.
the head research scientist comes in with a medical doctor.
"so, the tumor on its liver is not any smaller?" the scientist asks the other.
"i am afraid not." the doctor replies. "it has been a long time and still we can not remove or lessen the lesion. we should euthanize the animal and move on."
the scientist reaches down to pull the tiger's ears more fully open and looks sadly at it. the tank is filled with a thick, clear viscous glycerin that is keeping it alive. there is only a small portion of its orange and black skin still clinging to its back and shoulders. the skin around its belly is gone so its guts and viscera are being supported directly only by the glycerin. on its right side, the dark liver is swollen and distended within the liquid. the tiger can only live within the confines of this tank.
"before we kill this creature," she says to the scientist "you must allow me some time to prepare it for its death." it seems somewhat paradoxical that laboratories which study life must administer so much death. it seems that the final experience tells us the most about the living. she pets the tiger's head. she no longer cares if the glycerin bath gets the sleeves of her white lab coat wet.
the scientist looks a little uncomfortable. "what you do is make the creature happy for a short time and give it hope where there is none.
it is going to die soon and there is nothing we can do about it."
"i can give it some contentment even for that little time." she says, standing her ground. "without the feeling of that someone cares for you, life has little meaning on its own and that is what makes death so frightening. no one can die well who has not been loved."
the scientist shakes his head a little but can not deny her. she is qualified enough to have started her own laboratory and competed for his grants, but she chose to work here with him. she felt her ministry to the dying was more important than a long career in the politics of grant writing broken by brief attempts of scientific insight. discovery is important, but it comes so erratically at such a cost to our humanity. the pathetic tiger raises its head above the glycerin to look at her.
i am walking outside the university building now. i am dressed in matching set of pants and a vest, feeling somewhat fit and trim. i am in a victorian labyrinth sculpted from tall continuous channels of shrubbery. i hope that she will find me out here. i have been waiting for so long now, but must be patient. as i round an outer corner of the maze two pretty college girls pass me without noticing.
i think about my early studies of biology and how that profession took me no where. i have kept my interests in plants and animals, more the latter, but it is computers that have become the focus of my life. it seems now somewhat odd that machines took over my life but there is a cleanness about technology. it does not have mess and gore and grit, no sadness about turning a circuit off for the last time. even the dust that collects between wires and diodes comes from skin shed by the operators.
now i am in the supermarket with the singing group. an area has been cleared in the produce section with several metal folding chairs.
four other young men are sitting with me while our leader stands in front facing us ready to start the next song. we are all dressed in blue jeans with a green and white checkered cowboy shirts and white scarves tied around the neck.
across the aisles of groceries another group is singing and when they stop it is our turn. i here her voice sing out the final note, faint but clear.
"why? why did it have to be this way?"
the leader starts our song now. the effect for someone shopping in the store is to hear our song as an answer to the lyrics of the other tune.
"are you lonely there tonight, my love?
are you lonely there tonight?"
the other men are singing their parts in harmony, but i realize that i have not opened my mouth. i will probably be kicked out of the band, but i know that i could never sing worth the listening.
=( awake at 07:50. the 'she' throughout the three scenes in this dream is not someone i know or could recognize. although i could see her in the first part in the biology lab, it was like i could not look at her directly and so can not describe her now. it seems like i was perhaps too shy to be so direct, or that i was not really there in the lab like i was in the labyrinth and grocery store. i have the strange feeling that she is someone expected in my future, not from my past. there is a constant theme of living things that have been captured and contained by human activities-- the cages in the lab, the shrubs severely cut into a maze of topiary and finally the vegetables in the produce section of the store. nothing is in its natural free state. and my ability to accurately record this dream has failed somewhat. both the bird call at the start and the song lyrics at the end had melodies associated with them which i could still remember when i awoke but i do not have the skill with musical notation to write them, so they are now lost as my weak dream memory fades. )=
--
. stankuli@etherways.com
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The Impossible Dream
Part 1: Identities in Process and Impossible Objects
The Postmodern Dreaming series on Transgressive Dreamwork
http://dreamgate.com/pomo/
Richard Catlett Wilkerson
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Electric Dreams Forward: Most of the readers of Electric Dreams are familiar with Jung's tremendous influence on dreamwork, and how these influences have been developed and have influenced the contemporary dreamwork and dreamworkers. But what about the development of dreamwork from the more followers of Freud? Many feel that psychoanalytic developments in dreamwork ended with Freud, and with some legitimacy in the claim. Freud himself complained at the end of his life that his followers had not done enough to develop his dream theories further. I pretty much agree with this assessment, but feel that some of the more radical schools of psychotherapy that didn't really develop techniques in dreamwork, could have, and their theories can still provide source material for modern day dreamworkers to develop approaches to dreamwork in areas not typically explored by Jungian based dreamwork and the dreamwork trends spawned by post-Jungians. Over the past decade, the Postmodern Dreaming Series has suggested several alternative routes of dreamwork development using the theories developed by Jean Baudrillard, Felix Guattari, Gilles Deleuze and others. Most of these theories rely heavily the work of French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan. Not only has Lacan brought into the theoretic realm the importance of language and representational systems, but he has also offered some interesting portals through which the subjective dreamer can see his/her dreams from a political viewpoint, and the "secret" attempts of the self to find itself in these political ideologies. I would call this dreamwork "transgressive" to the degree that it is iconoclastic and reveals dreams as the playful fool who says the emperor is wearing no clothes. Besides being a jumping-off point for most all poststructural theory, Lacan also develops a position that is situated between essentialism and relativistic constructionism; that is, between the notion that only one interpretation of a dream is correct, and the notion that any interpretation of a dream is a legitimate as any other. The Emperor's lack of clothes creates a location where we can at least talk about clothing, and make judgments about what clothes may or may not fit. No imagined outfit (ideology) is going to fully robe the emperor (reality). But this doesn't mean that reality or ideology don't exist, just that their incompatibility generates a creative movement.
How Lacan might be appropriated for dreamwork
[As mentioned above] The field of dreamwork is usually left to clinicians following Jungian models and grassroots dreamworkers who use variations of analogy and generalization to interpret dreams. Lacan's psychoanalytic theory offers an alternative view to interpretation by association that may allow access to more radically disparate areas of psyche that are not accessible though associate and analogic techniques.
In Lacan's theory, each element needs to be interpreted from three different angles at the same time, the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real. These terms (Registers) will be explored more fully in later essays. For now, the Imaginary can be seen as the pre-linguistic world of child and mother where gaps in wholeness are covered in fantasy. The Symbolic is not like Jung's symbolic, but used to mean the world of representational symbolism, mainly language. The Real is what eludes us, what intrudes into our fantasies of wholeness, breaks through our sense that the Symbolic has completely described reality.
A reassessment of identity is also provided by Lacan. When the waking or dreaming subject attempts and fails to identify him/herself in static images or in representations and symptoms, then frustration, disappointment and alienation dominate. (I wanted to be the "wife" but the role is not something I can fully identify with. I wanted to be "Roy Rogers" but something continues to intrude in on this fantasy.) When a process of identification emerges which allows the subject to situate him/her/itself in a larger variety of roles without the demand for these identifications to be whole and total, there is more enjoyment and satisfaction.
Dreamwork can then function to facilitate deconstruction and reconstruction in two ways. As an interpretation of totalizing identifications and their alternatives, dreamwork offers post-dream examinations of stagnant identities and creative alternatives. For lucid dreamers, the new freedoms (of identity) offer the dreamer a chance to directly and consciously explore alternative identities during the dreamtime.
Just as with Kant's third critique (of Beauty) and his reconciliation of the two main truths of art (its all subjective/ones own opinion vs. everyone ought to recognize this piece as beautiful), Lacan offers dreamworkers a reconciliation between the extreme views that the dream means anything we want it to vs. the dream has a meaning everyone ought to recognize. For Kant, the resolution had to do with how the genius spontaneity of nature provides our understanding, through some objects, with a feeling of purposiveness that everyone has, but is experienced (and hence interpreted), individually. In Lacan's theory, as I hope to show, we go through a similar process of development where we are found to have abandoned our original selves to acquire an identity through the use of a representational system, a system that will never fully actualize this identity, as all identities [developed via representation] fall short of who we fully are, just as all words fall short of what they describe or signify. Just as Kant's individuals must fill in the lack of meaning in the face of beauty's purposive purposelessness, Lacan's individuals must fill in the lack of identity left in the process of representation. It is not a work that is done one time and left as complete, but a condition of life, a process that is never ending. This is how great works of art continue to inspire us, how nature continues to infuse us, and how life continues to draw us into forever re-making our selves.
The incomplete identity of self.
Let's create a little story. Before we learn language, there is sense of self that is diffuse and we can take pleasure in the simplest of things, the touch of a cloth on the face, the drowsy moments before sleep, the amazing array of colors and shapes around us. Its all pretty blissful, except when it isn't. We get hungry, cold and hot, and can't do much about it. We pee all over ourselves and can't even hold a glass of milk without spilling it. Then something magical happens. We say something and mom appears, nearly every time we do it. We say something else and milk or toys appear. We become so enraptured by this process of language acquisition that don't realize we are losing touch with who we were before. And the hope that these words would fill in the gaps that would make us complete is soon dashed as well. "I'm Roy Rogers," the little boy proclaims, and for a moment, its almost true. I'm Mr Smith's daughter, she says. But something intrudes to remind us we are more than this, more than can ever be told in words. This lack is now found in two directions. There is the lost childhood and pre-linguistic bliss we can't recover. And there is the incompleteness of the words and representations we fill in with temporary fantasies. That is, when I look at that object and say "desk" I know that word can only capture a tiny piece of the object, even though I think of the desk as a complete object. There is always more that escapes the words we give to it, and even escapes the conscious sensing of the object. The Real is covered up with an imaginary wholeness, but it breaks through. How can we tolerate this inaccessibility and loss of direct connection with ourselves and the world? Prohibition. If I make something prohibited (no, you can't have your mother) then all of a sudden the diffuse disconnection becomes possible again. The possibility of having it is the other side of something being prohibited. It escapes our attention that we didn't even know what we wanted until it was prohibited. This gets the flow of desire going again. End little story.
Psycho-erotically,(in terms of desire) there are elements of our psyche which are incomplete, which we continually have to deal with. Typically we try to cover them over with personae, masking their incompleteness with a sense of wholeness. But symptoms break through. To the degree we can engage with these symptoms, is the degree that these cut-off aspects of psyche can emerge, not a full finished objects, but as works in progress, that can produce connections to the world in ways beyond our imagination.
This is true in social identification as well. Identification politics is revealed as the politics of impossibility. (I'm a Republican, I'm a Democrat, I'm a Green, I'm apolitical
) That is, we also cover up our lack with ideologies and other socially available constructions. As Lacanian interpeter, Stavrakakis (36) points out, its not what we are, but what we are lacking that is in Lacan's viewfinder. That is, socio-pollitical objects of identification used to fill the lack.
This lack and what fills it, is our concern.
"Anyone who has ever tried to recount a dream to someone else is in a position to measure the immense gap, the qualitative incommensurability, between the vivid memory of the dream and the dull impoverished words that we can find to convey it. Yet this incommensurability, between the particular and the universal, between the vécu and the language itself, is one of language itself, is one in which we dwell all our lives, and it is from it that all works of literature and culture arise. " Lacan
Problematics of Structure in Lacan
I wake up and write down this dream: I'm in a building with some people when my friend asks me a question. This distracts me from my attention to the project I was involved with and I get angry with them. A large animal barges into the building and I wake up.
Ok, so I've written my dream down and I'm pretty pleased with myself for recalling and recording this dream. Then I think about the details of a dream. What kind of building was it and where in the building was I? Who were the people I was with and what did they look like? And so on. That is, the description I initially thought represented the dream so well was actually quite an inadequate description, if we talk about 'fullness' of description in any sense of the word.
Generally I could just write this off as the problem of language, that its only a way to speak about reality, but isn't reality itself. I always feel a remainder between my description and my memory of the dream. But wait, without the words I use to tell myself to remember the dream, it is typically forgotten, evaporated before breakfast. And without the words I use to describe the dream in more detail, those details would be lost. Now I'm in a situation. The words I use poorly represent the experience, but without them I wouldn't have an experience to complain about.
This is the situation that describes for Lacan our position in life in general. We sense there is much more than words, but have only words to experience and express it. (or some kind of representational system of art, music, movement
).
But wait, it gets worse. Not only are objects in my world dependent on a language that inadequately represents them, but my identity suffers from a similar problem. As mentioned the "Little Story," as children we play-identify with the whole person, "I'm Roy Rogers, I'm a fireman" and yet we can't fully achieve this. A son may want to identify with his father, and finds in later life that he can never get his father's approval. The attempts to fully identify fail us, and in doing so, we have instead a situation or process
of continual identifications, and unending stream of self discovery. (Its no wonder the Self-discovery industry continues to grow). This puts us in a odd situation, where the *place* of reality and the *place* of the self are important, but these things as things-in-themselves elude us. Looking at the locus of identification and the locus of where the real is produced, is another way of saying we are looking at the process of what is happening, the shifting structure. This is what Lacan's theory addresses so well, this shifting structure and place were identity and the real are produced.
Why Lacan when he doesn't really do dreamwork?
Most dreamworkers in the States have come to know a wide variety of imported and homegrown psychologies; Freud's interpretation of dreams, Jung's rich dreamwork, Perl's group gestalt work, and the influence of many other schools. But dreamwork from Lacan's version of psychoanalysis is rarely discussed or written about. Perhaps because there is so little of it. A Lacanian once make a joke about interpretive dreamwork at a conference by drawing a bunch of arrows circling around one another in a tangled knot. This, he said, was a dream. Then he added even more of a jumble around the mess and say, this was a dream interpreted.
While those dreamworkers familiar with Lacan may appreciate the implied joke regarding the impossible situation in which signification has landed us, and how no addition of word will cure this issue, those same dreamworkers may lament the lack of awareness in the Lacanian community about the power of dreamwork. True, we all know the superficial level of dreamwork where a dream mixed with confusing twists and turns is given an interpretation that only adds to the confusion or clarifies in a way that ruins the mystery of the dream. But this is not dreamwork at its finest moment. And so to toss all dreamwork out because some of it compounds the problem, seems unfair.
On the other hand, for dreamworkers to turn away from Lacan and his rich culture of ideas is, I feel, a great mistake, and will result in a loss of important ideas and practices, leading to an impoverished field of dreamwork. More specifically, I feel that dreamwork has tended to develop in a particularly subjective direction away from the social and political, and closely adheres to the subjective interpretive approach, ie, all parts of the dream are me. There is the dream daddy me, there is the dream tree me, and so on. True, this is part of an important and useful approach that suggests we get our own house in order before telling other people in the neighborhood that their houses need to be in order as well. There is in this technique, of owning all parts of the dream as oneself, the taking up of the events in dream-life as one's responsibility. This leads to working on one's own projection/boards before complaining about the speck in someone else's eye.
While this is always good advice at one level, and doing one's own psychological work always seems to make for better relations all around, it ignores that we are already always thrown into social relations and have responsibilities to other that are not simply dealt with inter-subjectively by the ego. Seeing poverty in the world as symbolic of our own inner poverty can lead to a better relation with the inner soul, but only helps the overall issue in a very round-about way. (That is, the person seeing their own impoverished soul may become a better person and improve the world in some way, but this doesn't necessarily put food on the table of a child in Nigeria.)
But I don't feel the solution is to abandon the intersubjective dreamwork method for literalism. That is, a dream of poverty stricken child is not automatically interpreted as the call to find a poverty stricken child in the waking world (though that may be a profound response). Dreaming of wolves knocking down one's door and waking up only to reinforce one's doors around the house is, I feel, completely missing the point. At least, its missing Lacan's point that subjectivity is socio-political and undermines the old notions of separation of individual and social.
The notion of taking on a theoretical orientation that challenges and undermines theoretical orientations may provide dreamwork with a theory that can hold its own unconscious.
In Part I of this essay I'm going to select the notion of the ultimately impossible and how, because it is impossible, it can drive a dream narrative.
Let's look at a few examples from two Lacanians, Jean-Claude Milner and Slavoj Zizek, and compare these examples to common dream imagery. They reveal the fantasy aspect of desire through the paradoxes given by the ancient Greek philosopher, Zeno, and Eleatic school student of Parmenides. The school maintained that reality was one, unchanging and motionless, apprehended properly by the mind rather than the senses. Milner used Zeno's paradoxes *not* as statements of philosophical or empirical truth but as literary devices exemplifying the staging of desire in/as fantasy. In other words, we can look at them as paradigmatic ways in which desire drives the dream, but remains hidden and off-stage.
In the first scene, the Paradox of Continuous Approach, the object can never be obtained but always seems to be getting closer. Through clever philosophical argument, Zeno shows that Achilles can never catch Hector, but neither can Hector escape Achilles. (see Collinson, 1987 in bibliography for example) This is often experienced in dreams, either not ever being able to clearly catch someone or something, and not being able to clearly get away from some pursuer. Lacan points out that the issue here is the circulation, and that no matter what we do to obtain the object-cause, it always eludes us. And the opposite is true as well, no matter what we do to elude the pursuer, we cannot get away. Typically this is explained as being the result of the intrapsychic nature of a dream. Since all parts of the dream are really parts of us, goes the argument, then of course we can never get away from them. This argument is less satisfying when its the opposite, that we can never reach the goal, or that the dream ends once the goal is reached. Note all the dreams of being lost, trying to find one's way back, trying to find the way home. The maze dreams of not being able to find one's way out can be seen in this paradigm, as well as the next Paradox of Cheated Movement.
In the Paradox of Cheated Movement, Zeno tries to show that no matter how much we act to change, we are always in the same place. Hercules fires arrow after arrow but Zeno proves that its impossible and they go nowhere. For an arrow to reach its target, it must go half way to the target. But then it must also go half way to the half way point. This division of distance the arrow must travel can be infinitely divided, keeping the arrow from ever moving.
Note the stories of Tantalus in Hades and the curse of Midas. Tantalus, after trying to steal the food of the gods (which might be seen as the object which would eternally feed us, with life as well as other hungers) is condemned to eternal need in Hades. "There he stood up to his chin in water, but whenever he bent to slake his burning thirst, the pool dried up. Boughs of fruit hung over his head, but when he raised his arms to pluck them, the wind blew them out of his reach. A stone, moreover, was suspended over him and threatened at any moment to fall and crush him" (Tripp, 1970, pg. 543).
For the famous Midas, everything he desired and touched turned to gold and became useless to him. Zizek points out that when we demand an object, that the object goes through a magical transubstantiation. The object takes on fantasy and produces desire. Mother's milk becomes a token of her love and produces excess fantasy rather than just satisfying hunger.
We can begin to explore this switch of use-value to exchange value in our dreams that have similar predicaments and then use the unobtainable object as an index of our intersubjective relations. For example, that others comply or don't comply with our demands shows how they confirm various attitudes towards us. And again, all this requires that we let go (at least momentarily) of the idea that the dream is *revealing* or *repressing* our secret obtainable object. Rather, the creation comes from a different quarter, the withheld object is *creating* or revealing our style of desire. [Some people run to find their lost home, some drive, some ask others, each of these reveals our relationship with the impossible object] The point in reference to dreamwork might then be a shift from finding ways to get the hidden object, to ways of helping it display and play itself out. For example, making a shift from being desperate about finding one's way home, to ways of enjoying the search, or even intentionally becoming more lost. Just exactly how one interprets a dream that is past or lives through a dream present or prepares for an upcoming dream is left up to the individual. Desperately seeking home is not less legitimate than choosing to stay lost. The point here is that one can shift one's relationship with the object-cause of desire. Instead of compulsively being driven, one can creatively be inspired.
Carl Jung went to a lot of time and trouble to shift people's attitude about dreams being revealing rather than disguising. And I don't want to lose that gain. But note that even Jung saw the psychic reality that the symbol was trying to reveal as primarily unconscious. That is, the dream symbol holds in consciousness a reconciling image, whose parts could not be conscious. The reconciliation was of two or more realities that could not co-exist together in the dreamer's rational mind at the same time. For Jung, development or individuation could not proceed until the individual could find ways to tolerate these opposites.
In the Paradox of Increasing Diminishment we can never get where we want to go because of an infinite amount of half distances we would have to cross to get there. Here the drive is again reveling in its circulation, in the path itself, in play. Lacan says in Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, "When you entrust someone with a mission, the *aim* is not what he brings back, but the itinerary he must take, The *aim* is the way taken... If the drive may be satisfied without attaining what, from the point-of-view of a biological totalization of function, would be the satisfaction of its end of reproduction, it is because it is a partial drive, and its aim is simply this return into circuit." (p. 179). The real purpose of a drive is simply to reproduce itself. Half is double. And thus our horror when we diet and try to diminish our desire simply to find it has increased. Again, note the common dream theme of the desire to get somewhere and always having a million diversions, sub-plots, mazes and distractions along the way. In dreams, we often take the long road home, and things that we flee find us, things try to rid ourselves of return in double force.
These literary paradoxes give us a way to approach the dream imagery which allows for a new relationship with and to desire. Regardless of the technique or style we use to approach dream imagery, there emerges now an option to note the element which, from the viewpoint of desire, is producing the image from off-stage. And an opportunity to come into a relationship with dream imagery in a way that speaks to the circulation, or with the desire.
Since the Lacanians deal with structure more than content and see the object of desire as only visible indirectly (like the clue qua missing-clue found by a detective at the scene of a crime: "Did you here those dogs Watson." "I hear no dogs Holmes." "Exactly!") I'm going to shift for a moment back into a Jungian paradigm to build a quick model that can be used with manifest dream content.
Jung spoke of how important it is to hold the irreconcilable opposites of the psyche in consciousness. If held long enough, a reconciling symbol will emerge. The opposites spoken of here are incompatibles in one's life - like desires and needs for mutually exclusive things. Jung felt it was always a disaster to try and force these things together (identification with the Self) or allow oneself to be tossed back and forth between them. Rather he suggested that we differentiate them as far as humanly possible, that we hold the tension between them until a symbol or image is produced that can carry both the conscious and unconscious elements and allow us to reconcile the incompatibles.
The question is always what kind of containers do we have to hold and examine these incompatibles. I want to live forever with I'm going to die. I want to be monogamous with I want to mate with everyone in sight. I want to be thin, after I finish this bag of potato chips. One approach is to see the dream itself as the container or holder of that which cannot yet be expressed in consciousness any other way. To see our dreams as an already mapped out playing and continuing of our unreconcilable desire means that every dream is already a furthering of desire's project and is its own reconciling symbol. The degree to which we want to come into relationship with this process as co-creators will have more to do with our ability to stay in the play of desire rather than our ability to "get" the objects we seem to want in our dreams. This shifts the dream from just being a working out of frustrations to an imaginary theater that uses frustration to produce works of art and pleasure.
Models for dreamwork then shift to models of dreamplay. The skills needed shift from abstracting and pulling back to embodying and drawing in. Examination fantasies gives way to images of exploration and experimentation. The tensions, rather than being worked out, are sought after like the tensions of a stringed instrument. Structure shifts from predetermined rules to trust and support found in the interplay. The older structures, views and rules are not thrown away, but become revisioned as imaginary platforms, each with their own desires and styles of presentation. In this way we not only get to see the desire of which the fantasy is a play, but also begin to participate and find enjoyment.
And so these dream paradoxes, the home we never get to, the lover who eludes us, the crime for which we are eternally punished, the monsters we can never escape, become imaginary, improvisational platforms, theaters of our desire. And it is in this sense that they are gifts that allow us to remain in that place where possibility and desire blow kisses to each other across the gap that holds them together.
Bibliography and notes:
Collinson, Diane (1987). _Fifty Major Philosophers_. New York: Croom Helm.
(Achilles and the tortoise: "Suppose a race run over 100 meters in which the tortoise is given a 50-metre start on Achilles, It is impossible for Achilles to overtake the tortoise; for by the time Achilles reaches the tortoise's starting point, S, the tortoise has moved on to S1, and by the time Achilles arrives at S1, the tortoise has advanced to S2, and so on. thus Achilles never catches up with the Tortoise. The distance between them will diminish _ad infinitum_ as they move from point to point but it will never disappear." Collinson, pg. 14).
Freud, Sigmund (1924-50). _Collected Papers_. London: Hogarth Press.
Jung, C. G. (1953). _Collected Works_ . (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lacan, Jacques (1977). _The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis_. London: Hogarth Press.
Wilkerson, Richard C. (1995). Playing with Fire, The Object-Cause of Desire at the Heart of the Dream. Electric Dreams 2(4).
Stavrakakis, Yannis (1999) Lacan and the Political. NY: Routledge.
Tripp, Edward (1970). _The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology_ New York, NY: New American Library.
Zizek, Slavoj (1993). _Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture_. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
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Dream : Continuance, Make For The Vital Spots
Stan Kulikowski II
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DATE : 23 dec 2005 06:47
DREAM : continuance, make for the vital spots
=( yesterday was thursday. i went for a checkup with my doctor, and she seemed to think i was doing very well. during the day i continued to burn DVD data disks for the multimedia course. i need 30 of them and each takes about 40 minutes to burn at double speed.
my titanium powerbook may be slow but at least it is reliable in getting the job done which the crappy XP pro machine is not, wasting as many disks as it creates. during the evening i wrote the report for my web design class which finishes that course. mother watched three episodes of _upstairs downstairs_ before going to bed around 01:00. i got to sleep with little difficulty. )=
my wife, susan, and our daughter are coming up the grassy hill somewhat behind me. she is somewhat shorter than me with curly blonde hair. our daughter is even a smaller version of her. i think that we must hurry a little more or we will never get to our destination before dark, but i try to keep myself patient. there is no reason why we can not be a little late but usually i like to be on time if i can.
soon i find a man standing at the top of one of the grassy hills we have been climbing it seems like all afternoon. he is lighting the fuse of a rocket which points up into the sky like a finger. this rocket is a little taller than the man. i turn around to discover that my wife and daughter are gone. i am concerned about they got lost from me, but the stranger says to me "do not worry, they have gone on ahead. they will meet you in bendix, missouri."
i nod my head, accepting what he has just told me. bendix is a long way from here. the rocket takes off with a whoosh but it does not go very far up into the sky. about thirty meters off the ground it separates into a second and third stage which fall back to earth.
out of the small nose cone i see two plastic tubes come out and fall back to the ground just a few meters from us. the rest of the rocket come down well away in the space between the next hill.
the man walks over to retrieve the two tubes, the longer one is about half a meter in length, colored red and is flexible and slightly curved like a section of plastic tubing that has been taken off a roll. the other tube is similar but clear and a smaller diameter which could fit inside the first. he hands me the larger on to hold.
"please come and save us." the tube says to me with the voice of my wife. somehow the slight wind blowing over the end of the tube has resonated to make this sound. i realize that i am holding my wife who has been changed into this tube somehow. the smaller one is our daughter. i must go to bendix missouri to transform them back into their natural bodies. i take the other smaller tube from the stranger and start off on my journey. bendix is a long way from here.
soon i come to a school for retarded children where i used to work.
going in the back door i see the room where i taught but much of the area has changed. the class rooms are all empty and the smaller glass chamber where i had my preparation room has tape over the windows and doors as if prepared for hurricane winds.
my friend, bruce whitmarsh, comes up to greet me. "a lot has changed around here since you were here last." he tells me unnecessarily. i can see that the place has been abandoned. "come with me, i want to show you something."
i follow bruce down the hall. across the building is the gymnasium which we cross into the workshops where the disabled people once made whatever commercial products they could. all is empty and quiet here now.
bruce opens a glass case on one of the walls and takes out a VHS video cassette. the dark plastic is somewhat worn and the paper label on its side has the single word 'continuance' which can still be read. ah, this is the video movie that we once made together. i am glad to see that a copy of it still exists.
bruce goes over to a television nearby and plugs in the video tape.
the video starts to play, but as i watch i lose my perspective of watching, having memories of when we filmed the scenes so it soon seems that i am back in the action rather than watching it.
the opening scene is an establishing shot just outside this school building, but now there are a few people gathered in the grassy playing fields. they seem to be waiting for something with an attitude of expectation. the camera moves between them, probably a steadicam shot remarkable for its even flow over uneven ground.
bruce stays behind, watching the television while i move into the scene with the action.
i meet the master, evil villain from doctor who. it is roger delago, the first actor to play the master. he greets me with his calculated voice and looks at me with a secret knowledge of what is to come.
"you know to keep to the vital areas." i agree even though i am not
so certain what this actually means for us.
we start to walk over the fields. there is a young woman holding a plump baby. i say nothing to her as we pass. soon we encounter a short young man with gray streaks in his hair. he comes over to me and stands too close for my comfort. he is insistent about something.
"i have been trained in the black arts." he tells me. "see? i can make do with whatever comes my way but always, always i achieve whatever is unexpected. nalla leyden makshu berrupt not te dingo."
these last words were high barbaric which i could almost understand, but it has been a while since i had any reason to speak such. it certainly testifies to his level of training to be so fluent in this jargon.
we are near the edge of the fields where the thin forest begins. in a clearing just past the first trees there is a metal platform where the master and i climb up and stand in the center. this is the portal which will take us somewhere.
slowly there is a roaring from deeper in the woods. it is a mechanical sound like a jet engine and soon a large military rocket comes streaking directly overhead, flying low over the tree tops along a nearly horizontal trajectory. it has a stout thick body with stubby wings that i can just see as it flashes away overhead. i remember when we filmed this shot that there was a rocket launch scheduled at the nearby air base and we took advantage of it to get the next special effect.
smoke begins to roll out of the forest from where that rocket came.
just a little at first, but more and more bellows between the trees.
soon the metal platform and ourselves can no longer been seen by the camera. once hidden in the rocket exhaust, we climb down from the platform and move off camera, so when the smoke clears it seems like we have vanished. that is how the portal is to be seen working.
after the smoke has cleared, there are many people, mostly technicians from the air base who launched that rocket. they come out from the trees and stand around congratulating each other for a job well done.
the young man with the gray streaks in his hair comes up to me and we start to walk.
"you know to keep to the vital spots?" he asks me. i nod. this time i understand that as a general principle we are to go toward whatever place is most alive. in this case, in one direction the grass is greener and lush while on either side it thins out to bare earth. keep to the vital region and we will eventually get to where we are supposed to go. not as efficient as the portal which would have taken us there instantly, but since we could not get that effect to work, the barbaric young man and i will just have to walk it, keeping to the vital.
=( i awake at 06:40. the wife, susan, in this dream is someone unknown to me, not the speech therapist i knew at the school for retarded children where i once worked. the school in this dream is also just suggestive of the actual place. i have no knowledge of a place named bendix missouri. bruce whitmarsh was a friend of mine from here in pensacola. he died of cancer about six or seven years ago. the barbaric words mean nothing to me but i think i have their sounds transcribed fairly close to what the young man said. some of the syllables may be wrong, but the number of words he said was about that length. keeping to the vital seems to be a general axiom that sounds better than its utility would actually be. whether it ever gets me to bendix so i can recover the mutated wife and daughter would have been good to know. )=
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** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS
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The Dream Section Editor is on vacation this month. In place of the Dreams Section, I'm including part 3 of a collection of computer dreams from "Gem".
09/07/2003)
I was making changes to a website. I kept submitting letters and something else to get quotes on how much the changes were cost. I kept making changes and sending it back for more quotes. (35 words)
09/08/2003)
This was a very restless dream. I was doing computer work and doing so unsuccessfully and getting very frustrated. (19 words)
09/22/2003)
I was working at the computer making a form using Excel. It had something to do with Lorna's community. (19 words)
10/06/2003)
I was doing some kind of editing online. (8 words)
10/24/2003)
I was at a hotel with Bill C. We were giving a presentation. When he first started the program there were only three or four people there. We had the tables set up in the U shape that we typically do. I was sitting at one of the tables. There was a gentleman sitting next to me. He reminds me of the guy who usually sat behind me at photography class. About one half hour into the program I noticed some people standing outside the door so I went out and told them to go on in and have a seat. Tons of people started coming. I started asking them if they had trouble finding us or if they misunderstood what time the program started. I'm pointing out empty seats to people. I filled all the seats and there were still more people. Some were just going in and getting some chairs from a different place in the room. It was a very large meeting room and we were just at one end where we had set up our tables. The rest of the room was set up as those there had been a meal served before our program and they hadn't cleaned it up yet. Some people were just grabbing chairs from there and dragging them over to where we were and just sitting outside of the U, not at the tables. I went over and started clearing off one of the table, putting the stuff onto another table. Someone of them were six foot tables and some were very small square tables with a single leg in the middle. I started to sit something on one of the small square tables but decided it might get out of balance and this stuff fall off. Some of the things were bowls about the size of punch bowls and they had ice water in them all the way to the edge. I tried to sit two of those on one of the small square tables, at opposing corners to balance them but I was still afraid they would spill so I moved them to another table. Then on this same table someone had left part of a sandwich from a fast food place. I was trying to clean it up without actually touching the food. I finally cleaned off one of these tables and turned it so it was parallel to one of ours and put a couple of chairs there for more people. At one point I went into another room that had computers in it. I was going to try to quickly type up a form with three columns of blank lines. At the top of one I was going to put Name. At the top of the next I was going to put Email. At the top of the other I was going to put Fax. I knew Bill would want that, to have people write down their information before they left. I was going to make this form and then stand outside the door with this form on a clipboard so people could sign it as they left. When I went into this other room with the computers, someone had been messing with my computer. I couldn't figure out how to reset to the way I had it set up so I could find my word documents. There was a woman in that room working at a computer. Her computer was fine so she was going to do it for me. But as she started our program ended and even though I told her there was no need to do it now she kept working on it. I think she might have actually been filling in these people's names and emails and fax numbers but I don't know how she would know this information.. Later I went to find Bill and I saw him sitting in the back of this empty room in an upholstered armchair. He was looking very ashen - not physically well. I expressed my concern. He said something about not being able to discuss personal things with me - at my lead. There was also something about small, black discs that looked like tiny LP's. And there was something about kisses. [I ran out of tape and by the time I got ready to record the rest of the dream I couldn't remember it.] (709 words)
11/10/2003)
Something to do with computer work and pulling up a lot of files that had some kind of supporting data for the name file. That's the best way that I can describe it. There were a lot of them. I don't know if it was me doing the work or someone else. Going through them one at a time. At the end it seemed to be meaningless. This was sketchy and hard to explain. (74 words)
12/05/2003)
[Refer to my personal journal on this one. I didn't recall any dreams tonight, however before I went to sleep last night I journalled about something I would like to receive insights about in my dreams. When I woke up this morning I went straight to the computer and was there for three hours writing about that very thing - all these insights just seemed to be flowing from nowhere. Nowhere is likely dreams that I don't recall or perhaps just my brain working it out while I slept. ] (0 words)
12/09/2003)
I was working with two people to create some kind of an Excel document in the computer. I think it had three worksheets. All the data we were putting in belonged to one person. The other person was giving us the guidelines - what needed to be in, what categories, the maximum number of entries, etc. I was trying to figure out how to take the data out of other documents and get it into Excel, through importing, cut and paste or some other. There was some confusion about what we were putting in it. There was confusion about how many entries on one. One was a list of names and addresses. The first time we did it, it didn't go in right - like in the correct column. The next time it was either the wrong list or the wrong information. We got all that figured out but saw there were too many entries and needed to cut it back. I think we were going to do a mailing. The person who owned the data was fretting because he didn't think we could cut it back as much as the other person was saying that we needed to. We were going to. We went through and starting deleting entries. (210 words)
12/15/2003)
I was trying to figure out how to create a pdf document using my Broderbund software. (16 words)
12/17/2003)
I was working for a company other than CT. I was working at the computer, using Publisher, creating some kind of booklet. There was a lot of discussion about the overall look and was it the same general look as the other company materials or should it have it's own look or just have some tie in to the company such as the company logo. Someone had also created a graphic. It wasn't created by a professional. We all really liked it and were very impressed about how good it looked for not being done by a professional. (98 words)
12/22/2003)
I met my future husband last night. His name is Sal. I had my laptop sitting on my bedside table and it was connected to the internet. I started chatting with him online, though I don't know who contacted who or how we found each other. Online he called himself Sal CEO. Our first interactions were fun and playful. Within a few hours he had arrived at my house to meet me. He is fairly tall, has reddish brown short hair, wears glasses and medium build. He is a very nice guy, and fun to be with. I was sharing a home with Dan and Maureen from the sleep center. They were married and lived primarily on the first floor of this home. Sal and I wanted some time alone to get to know each other but he was very nice about the fact that Dan and Maureen were there. They were each dealing with some kind of problem in their life, each separately, and he was being very kind in allowing me to do what I needed to do for them. We were both engaging in conversation with each of them about whatever it was they were each dealing with. He noticed a bumper pool table across the room and suggested we play. I told him I didn't know how and he would have to teach me. I went over to the table and realized that there was a piece missing or something and told him we couldn't play because of this. He suggested another game that the four of us could play. We were preparing to do that. I noticed how dirty the tile floor was. It was covered in black footprints. I said something to Dan and Maureen about it, almost scoldingly telling them that they could be a bit more conscientious about taking care of my home since I had agreed to let them stay there temporarily. I lived primarily upstairs while they were staying here, but shared some rooms of this floor. That's why Sal and I were down there instead of going upstairs. While we were getting ready to play this game Sal and I found ourselves alone in a room for a few seconds and he gave me a quick kiss on the lips. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he was going to do that before he did. It was nice. It was especially nice because it affirmed to me that he was enjoying being with me. (419 words)
12/23/2003)
I was trying to figure out some kind of computer problem at work. I was going back and forth with someone about how to fix it or different possible solutions. I don't know if we ended up getting it fixed or not. (42 words)
01/14/2004)
Matt and I were driving back to Phoenix from St. Joe. As we neared I-465, nearer to the city, you could see the skyline. In the skyline there were two very distinct buildings. One was directly in front of us. The other was off a little bit to the left. They both had very large words on top of the buildings. I could read them from there. We were talking about the buildings, what they were, which one was tallest building in the city. I decided that the one to the left was in my way, was blocking my vision while driving so I reached up and bent it over, almost a U shape, to the ground. That didn't break anything. Now Matt is a very young child and it's the fourth of July. We're on our way to see the fireworks. My intention was to find someplace close to home, on the way home, to just stop and watch the fireworks and then go the rest of the way home. Matt was pouting because he wanted to go over to the west side of town, to some place where I knew it would be packed with people to watch fireworks. I had to call Dan for some reason. I was trying to be very nice. I wasn't sure how he was going to be with me on the phone after my latest emails when he got kind of miffed at me. I was still being very nice. He asked me how I was and I said fine. I told him Matt was pouting. Dan said something. I guess I didn't realize that he wanted to talk to Matt. Then he said, "No. I'm not kidding. Put him on the phone." I gave Matt the phone. Apparently Dan said something to him about pouting. At this point we were laughing. We weren't in the car anymore and there were a lot of people around. I was trying to explain to Matt that it was going to be so crowded and uncomfortable and it would take us so long to get out of there after the fireworks. I let Matt talk to Dan. Dan seemed to make it a little better but not much. (373 words)
01/16/2004)
We were remodeling and/or redecorating living spaces for a number of different people. I say we but I don't know who the people were that were working with me on this. The living spaces we were working on must have been fairly unusual. I don't remember what the houses looked like only the spaces we were working with. We had designed cubes that were completely open on one side. They were just slightly smaller than the size of the "room" we were working on. These cubes could be lifted with a fork-lift and slid into the "room." Rather than accessing through a door the owner would access through the open wall of this cube. It appears that there is no other part of the structure/home around the frame that we slide the cube into. All of the cubes we were doing seemed to be home office spaces. We had designed them all at one time. We designed several different looks based on certain needs. Then we identified which look was best for each person. At one point in the dream the content of the cubes was more like text on a page rather than a room layout. We decided that one person would need several cubes because it was simply way too much text for one page and that multiple cubes was not a good option - maybe not an option at all. I came up with the idea of putting the text onto computer files so the person would have easy access. I said this would actually work much better for them than simply laying it out in the cube anyway. This then freed up the cube for one of the room designs we had done and were using for the other people. (294 words)
01/28/2004)
I was working for a company that was involved in some kind of public event. After the event was over we were tearing down and cleaning up. I was paying attention to how someone had run the electrical wiring, or maybe it was related to telephones or computers. I was telling someone that I really liked the way they had set that up - that it worked really well, it was inconspicous, it was out of the way. As we were cleaning up somebody was selling some things. I paid more than $1,000 for this telephone because I knew that someone had just won more than 20 million dollars in the lottery but they needed this telephone to be able to claim their winnings. I thought that since their prize was more than 20 million dollars they would be willing to pay a lot to get this phone that they need to claim the money. After I bought it I knew I would be hearing from them soon about buying phone. I was having trouble trying to decide what a fair price would be. It certainly wasn't my intention to take advantage of them, knowing that they had to have this phone to collect their prize. My intention was simply to make a good investment and get a good return on my investment. I thought it was fair for me to charge them more than $1,000 for the phone. (239 words)
02/03/2004)
I was working at the CT office. I had just come in for the day. I is typical for me in waking life I asked Bill what his schedule was for the day and let him know that I thought we needed some work time and some to talk to him about somethings about me and CT. As the day progressed he seemed to be very busy. Like going from one place to the next - went on an appointment, came back, left for another appointment, etc. I had gone in Bill Cro's office a couple of times and there was stuff everywhere, all over the table, underneath the table. The rest of the time...taking things in there. Setting them in there. I can't remember what some of them were. I went out. When I came back I saw the office door, there was something like mosquito netting hanging off the door. I went over and looked in and Bill was in there meeting with the other two guys and hadn't waited for me. I was so upset. I walked over and saw that Blair had ............as well. Then I really become even more upset. Bill Cro and Blair got up and walked out. Evidently Bill was not including them so they felt it was wasting their time. Bill C looked up and realized what he was doing. He got up and came out of the office. Bill Cro and Blair had issues about me not being there. I was now sitting at the front desk and Bill C was talking to three people standing there. They wanted to schedule their next meeting and Bill C said I could take care of that. I was thinking that here he was treating me like a secretary again. I went back into my office and was trying to clean some things up, return some calls, etc. I wondered how Bill C could not recognize how well I'm doing and see how easy it is to.... There was something all over the floor that I was trying to clean up. I don't know what it was. There was a woman there and it was her last day at work so there was a party or something. I was trying to get something into her office and out of the way. It seems that there was an open window between her office and the rest of the office. Her and I had a very brief discussion. She asked me if I could find a file that I had asked her to try to find earlier. I ran into a compute problem, something with the printer. I was trying to cancel printing but it wouldn't stop. I was holding it in the air. Dottie E came in and got the regular printer to stop but the thing in my hand was still going. I asked her about getting it to stop and she just walked out without answering me. I went back out into the office. Bill C was there again and getting ready to leave. I said something to him about meeting with him. He said, "Well, we have about 45 minutes before I have to leave." I asked him if he was coming back and he said he hoped not but he probably would. He didn't say anything but I could tell by the look on his face that he realized I still wanted to talk to him. I think he was trying to avoid it. I think I finally said something and he said we could do something right now and that he thought we could get done. I was thinking that we didn't have that much time, he's in a rush, he doesn't want to have the conversation, do I really want to have it now in these circumstances or do I want to let it go again and let it keep eating at me? (654 words)
02/29/2004)
The dream was about programming my car and maybe other cars to help us get where we want to go the best or most effective way. The images of the dream though were those of creating a document in MS Publisher where you can flow text from one page to the next within text boxes. When I programmed the car it affected how something flowed from page to page. There was a sense of having the dream again when I went back to sleep because I wasn't successful the first time. I was trying again to successfully program my car so then we could use that as a guide to help other people program their cars successfully. (117 words)
03/01/2004)
I seem to be at PLU though it doesn't look like PLU does in waking life. I am with Matt and Chris H. There is a row of swings. We are all talking and swinging. I am playing around and I find that as I swing I am able to make the whole frame of the swing jump forward or backward. I can make it jump forward a couple of steps. The swings are very close to where the football team is practicing. I don't know if I am still on the swing or...something related to the football team...teasing or something. One time when I do it I realize that I've maybe gone to far or gotten too close or something. I turn around and start to run away. They decide to run after me and tackle me. A bunch of them do and they land on top of me. There is something about being in one of the buildings and something flying around in the building. A bug or a bird maybe...but it's too big to be a bug and I'm pretty sure that it's not a bird. There's also something about me working on a computer document. There is a whole list of categories or maybe a list of titles or groups of words. I'm going in and looking at changing groups of words and I'm going in and changing the description of that title or group of words. (241 words)
03/02/2004)
In this dream I was trying to get some documents to print properly. I spent more than an hour trying to figure that out. I woke up from the dream at 4am and then went back to sleep, the dream continued. I woke up from the dream again at 5am and still had not been successful getting the documents to print. There aren't a lot of images and so not much to record. No characters. Don't really see a setting. I see the settings on the printer and I see the copies coming out wrong. (95 words)
03/04/2004)
There was a sense that I was...the imagery that I remember is that I was at a computer working on an Excel sheet. There was a list of things that at one point I realized that there were one or two things that I needed to always have at the beginning of the list because they somehow impacted the outcome of.... I think maybe it was a task list. I needed to have these one or two things always at the top of the list in order to get the other things done. These one or two things were, one or the other of them were always on the list. This list was only for one person and yet there is a sense that is was for me and not for me. (132 words)
03/06/2004)
I had another dream that was about a TV show. The imagery was all about a computer software program. (19 words)
03/08/2004)
I had a computer document that Bev and Barb both wanted a copy of. When I told them it was created in Publisher Bev said that she no longer had Publisher software on her computer and she made some kind of comment about what a pain that is and that it had something to do with hospital budget I think. Barb said she had Publisher. I asked her what version it was and it was a very old version like 1990. I don't even think there was a 1990 version of Publisher, or even of Windows. But that's what she said. I said, "Oh. Well then you won't be able to open it because an old version of Publisher can't open a document that was created in a newer version unless both versions are 2002 or newer. Then John was going to do some work on my computer. I had a new hard drive to install and something else but I don't what it was. It was something that I have never installed before. So he was working on my computer and he was working on some other stuff too. He got ready to quit and he hadn't installed this one thing that was most important yet. He said something about not getting it done so I started asking him if it was something I could install myself or asking him how to install it myself. Then I think Bev said something to him so he decided to go ahead and take the time to install it himself. I felt kind of bad about it but it turned out that it only took a few minutes to do. (278 words)
03/13/2004)
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