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Electric Dreams Volume 14 Issue 04
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 #14 Issue #4
April 2007
ISSN# 1089 4284
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Electric Dreams: http://www.dreamgate.com/electric-dreams
Cover: Cover by Laura Atkinson
http://dreamgate.hypermart.net/ed-covers/ed14-4cov.jpg
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C O N T E N T S
++ Editor's Notes
Richard Wilkerson
++ Global Dreaming News
Harry Bosma
++ Cover: by Laura Atkinson
++ Column: An Excerpt from the Lucid Dream Exchange
Hallucinations Begone!
Lucy Gillis
++ Article: Rhine Conference: Consciousness Today
Harry Bosma
++ Column: The View World Dreams Peace Bridge
That's A Lot of Change.
Jean Campbell
++ Dream: "Buffy and the Spitting Alien"
Stan Kulikowski II
++ Column: Changing the Dream
DreamRePlay with David Jenkins, PhD
++ Article: Signs of Simulation, Symbols beyond Value:
Jean Baudrillard and Grassroots Dreamwork
in Cyberspace Richard Wilkerson
++ DREAM SECTION: From Kat Peters-Midland
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D E A D L I N E :
Send articles and news by April 28th for
the May issue
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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 April 2007 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 seem 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
In this issue:
Global Dreaming News editor Harry Bosma, brings you dream news and events from
around the world, online and offline. If you have dream news you want to get out, please
send those to Harry for next months publication at
ed-news@alquinte.com
Are all the dreams the same level of simulation and imagination? Lucy Gillis explores
this and other issues of unhallucinated reality in Hallucinations Begone!, this months
selection from the Lucid Dream Exchange.
Psi Dreamers heads up! Harry Bosma reports from the Rhine Conference in March
2007. The Consciousness Today theme brought together scientists and psychics to push
the edges of conscious thought, and ground psi in science. Read the review and see the
new directions developing for dreamers and dreamworkers.
The World Dreams Peace Bridge continues to dream up world wide events. Can we
envision the changes as productive? Jean Campbell gathers together meaningful events
from the global community and communication networks to forge night-dreams with
dream-visions to give us all another look at change, spare change, global change and
personal change. Be sure to read That's A Lot of Change.
Speaking of change, one of the goals of personal dreamwork can be to have more
pleasant and fewer stressful dreams. David Jenkins, PhD shows you how last nights
dream is a steppingstone to your next dream. You replay the dream on order to spell out
what you really want to happen. You can have allies, say what needed to be said; and
even end the dream in a different way. Read about this work in Changing the Dream.
Have your ever looked at your dream journal and felt you could probably write these
dreams up in a better way? Take a look at Stan Kulikowski IIs dream text to get an idea
of how this might happen. Read "Buffy and the Spitting Alien."
Farwell, Jean Baudrillard! The famous French postmodern philosopher died in March,
and leaves us with thoughts about his body of work that involve theories about drift of
signs over time from pointing to the real to becoming simulations of the real to becoming
pure simulations without anything but passing reference to reality, a reality Baudrillard
felt we have lost in the consumption of signs. Those of you who are Matrix movie fans
will recognize the name from the Neos hollowed out book, Simulation and Simulacra.
Whats this have to do with dreams? Well, both Jung and Baudrillard saw the problem of
signs, but they took different directions. Both felt that meaning and value lay in the
symbolic. Jung explored how symbols help us to find our own meaning and value, while
Baudrillard explored how signs undermine this same meaning and value. Both are
valuable, and in memorial, I am reprinting an article on dreamwork and Baudrillard,
Signs of Simulation: Symbols beyond Value Jean Baudrillard and Grassroots
Dreamwork in Cyberspace
Finding worms in hair, falling off a bridge, watching a plane crash
it could only be the
dream section of the Electric Dreams! From Kat Peters-Midland.
Get your own dream published on Electric Dreams by submitting at
http://dreamgate.com/forms/dream_flow.htm
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
Cover & dream by Laura Atkinson
http://dreamgate.hypermart.net/ed-covers/ed14-4cov.jpg
--------------------
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/
Electric Dreams in PDF:
Back online at a new archive
Archive Courtesy of
Nick Cumbo
and the Dream of Peace Network
http://www.dreamofpeace.net.au/electric-dreams/
--------------------
-Richard Wilkerson
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G L O B A L D R E A M I N G N E W S
April 2007
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Email all dream news to Harry Bosma at his special ed-news@alquinte.com address.
Online:
- Dream Video Picks of the Month
- Dream Journals on the Net
Physical world:
- IASD News: Annual Conference and Radio Show
- New Mexico: Victoria Rabinowe
Books, movies, research:
- Deadline August 2007 for Dream Research Funding
- Call for dreams: "Dancing the Labyrinth"
- Grant: Can Our Dreams Make Us Well?
Reminders:
- Various calenders
- Strephon Says: Podcasts and blog
- Ritual DaFuMu for Peace
* * * ONLINE * * *
---
- Dream Video Picks of the Month
---
Creating and sharing videos is now easier than ever before. What are dreamers putting
online? This month we have a theme of dream machines.
Death of a Dream Machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTqjPKmBrZ4
Dexter's Lab - Dream Machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr_f1D37edc
Kidd Video - The Dream Machine - 1 of 3 (Ep. 14)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v4_EazSgKE
Have you found other dream videos, or created your own, let us know.
Richard Wilkerson
---
- Dream Journals on the Net
---
After the rise of logging dream descriptions online, some dreamers recently started to
also put drawings and other pictures online. You may find these inspiring.
Late 2006 Robin Whitmore started his online dream diary. He makes his drawings on
paper with his eyes closed. After scanning the colors are inverted. The DreamDiary is
currently also on display as a year long installation at the Dock, Carrick on Shannon,
Ireland.
Check out: http://robinwhitmoredreamdiary.blogspot.com/
* * * PHYSICAL WORLD * * *
---
- IASD News: Annual Conference and Radio Show
---
The 24th Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams
will be held 29 June to 3 July 2007 at Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California
New this year are the pre-conference sessions : "If you would like intensive training in
skills or knowledge related to dreams, we are offering morning and afternoon pre-
conference workshops on Friday June 29, before the conference begins. If you have
already registered for the main conference you may return to the registration site to add
pre-conference sign-ups and fees."
www.asdreams.org/2007/
IASD's "Dream Time" an Internet radio program is broadcasting each Wednesday at 9am
Pacific (Noon Eastern), the show airs with a rebroadcast 12 hours later. Tune in to the
following shows in April.
April 4: Spiritual and Cosmic Dream Connections - Bob Van de Castle PhD & Rita
Dwyer
April 11: Extraordinary and Psychic Dreams - Stanley Krippner PhD
April 18: Dreams and Healing - Wendy Pannier & Rita Dwyer
April: 25 Working with Your Own Dreams your host Bob Hoss, MS
May 2: Working in Dream Groups - Jeremy Taylor, Bob Haden
www.health.voiceamerica.com
www.dreamscience.org
The IASD website: www.asdreams.org
---
- New Mexico: Victoria Rabinowe
---
* April 3, 2007: Trickster *
In honor of April Fools Day. Meddle with the notion of your dream. Allow your dream
images to shift their shape and to play their tricks
* April 10, 2007: Resurrection *
In Honor of Easter. A dream that left the world forever changed.
* April 17, 2007: The Rules of the Game *
Dreams, like the world of games,
navigate through the territory of dark and light
in a checkered journey
where conscious versus unconscious in fundamental archetypal conflicts.
* April 24, 2007: The Wounded Healer *
"Maybe the purpose of the wound is to make us aware of the healing power within us" -
Adler
Visit the website: http://victoriadreams.com
Victoria Rabinowe
Dreaming Arts Studio
1432 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe
505 988-1086
victoria@victoriadreams.com
* * * BOOKS, MOVIES, RESEARCH * * *
---
- Deadline August 2007 for Dream Research Funding
---
2007 Call for Research Letters of Intent from DreamScience/IASD
The DreamScience Foundation in cooperation with IASD is again offering money for
qualified dream research.
Submission Areas: High quality research proposal Letters of Intent are invited in areas
related to dreams and dreaming, including but not limited to: the neuroscience of
dreaming, psychological studies of dreaming and quantitative dream research in such
fields as anthropology and cultural studies.
The submission deadline is 15 August 2007. See the IASD / DreamScience website for
more information and email submission forms:
www.dreamscience.org/iasd
---
- Grant: Can Our Dreams Make Us Well?
---
Dream Power: Can Our Dreams Make Us Well?
by Mary Jo Davis-Grant
She dreamed her way from sick to healthy
Did you ever have a dream that left you feeling healthy and refreshed in the morning?
Well, Mary Jo Davis-Grant did: 500 of them, in fact, over a seven-year illness. In this
uplifting true story, Mary Jo analyzes 41 of those dreams to answer the question: Can the
images of our dreams affect our health and even help cure illness? You'll be amazed at
the possibilities for safe, drug-free pain and stress relief described in this true story from a
daring educator and psychologist.
www.amazon.com/gp/product/1585010952/
---
- Call for dreams: "Dancing the Labyrinth"
---
I am weaving together a solo performance for the IASD conference in Sonoma titled
'Dancing the Labyrinth.' I am collecting dreams about 'dance' and 'labyrinths' to use as
inspiration in choreography and for poetic synthesis. If you have had dreams around this
theme-please send them over to lana.nasser@gmail.com
* * * REMINDERS * * *
---
- Various calenders
---
Nicole Gratton (Canada):
http://www.nicole-gratton.com/calendrier_01.htm
Robert Moss (USA):
http://mossdreams.com/xcalendar.htm
Jeremy Taylor (California):
www.jeremytaylor.com/pages/schedule.html
---
- Strephon Says: Podcasts and blog
---
Strephon Kaplan-Williams is an international expert on dreams and dreamwork. Now in
retirement age Strephon gives his podcasts.
http://strephonsays.com
---
- Ritual DaFuMu for Peace
---
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.
For more information go 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 .
END NEWS ================================================
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Cover : Laura Atkinson
http://dreamgate.hypermart.net/ed-covers/ed14-4cov.jpg
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April 1, 2007
(A very exciting dream)
I dream that I am flying through the sky
I fly through the thunderclouds and can
actually feel and touch the water elements in the clouds. I see how they change and
electrify before a lightning strike. I fly above the cloud into the blue sky above, and
watch the clouds from above as the lightning gathers. The clouds are a luminous grey
(hard to imagine I know) and little water crystals of yellow, pink, hot green morph in
spirals as the cloud begins to charge with electricity.
I dive back into the cloud and can feel the electricity start to raise the hairs on my body, it
tingles but does not harm me. EOD. Laura
http://dreamartist.wordpress.com/
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An Excerpt From The Lucid Dream Exchange
Hallucinations Begone!
(c) Lucy Gillis 2007
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"First you must realize that you are dreaming. . . This knowledge automatically changes
the dream state into another in which the critical faculties are aroused and operating. . .
You may "awaken" in your house for example. If so, check your rooms against their
normal arrangement. Anything that does not normally belong there may be an
hallucination, part of the usual dreaming process. If you will such images to disappear,
they will, leaving you with the basic unhallucinated environment."
1. Jane Roberts
It had been a while since I used the technique to "will away hallucinations" as suggested
by Seth, channeled by author Jane Roberts. I can still remember the first time, many years
ago, when I had come across the suggestion in Robert's book Seth, Dreams and
Projection of Consciousness. I was intrigued by the idea of the "unhallucinated
environment."
What was that exactly? If you are in a dream state, and not projecting out-of-body into a
physical location, then what are you left with if you will away hallucinations? Is it that
empty "grey space" that so many dreamers have experienced, or is it something more? Is
it populated with symbols and objects of other people's dreams? Or populated with other
"real" entities? Is that possible? According to Seth, it is:
"You may, then, encounter images that are subconsciously formed, quite valid images,
that belong in another dimension; or constructions created by others in other systems. For
any control at all, you must learn to distinguish one from the other. Again, . . . you must
first will it to disappear. If it is a subconscious construction of your own, it will vanish."2
"The basic unhallucinated environment" became one more tantalizing idea that made
lucid dreaming all that more appealing - what was "out there" ("in there"?) in the dream
state to be discovered?
Over the years I played with the technique, always thrilled to notice when objects or the
entire dream scene vanished, but for some odd reason, I didn't seem to remember to apply
the technique very often.
Recently, however, during an ordinary lucid dream, I suddenly remembered to will away
my hallucinations to see what would happen:
I am at the cottage in Alberta. It's dark; the place is dimly lit. It is very cluttered with
furniture and other objects, like boxes and packages. It is not messy though, everything is
tidy, but crowded. I get up from where I have been sitting and open a door to go into
another room, presumably the washroom. I look around and notice that this room too is
very cluttered. I then see a door that I had never noticed before. I wonder if it was meant
to be hidden, or if I had just never noticed it behind stacked boxes. As I am about to go
back out to the main living room area, I'm noticing more and more that the place just
doesn't look right. I must be dreaming!
I look for something to read, in order to reality-check, and I see a red LCD display, like
on a digital clock, on a shelf. I don't even have to look away and then re-look to see the
numbers change; they change quickly with every blink of my eyes, proof that I am
dreaming. I'm so happy to be lucid!
Then, reaching for the latch handle on the wooden door, I think that I should try to meet S
(as we had planned to do when we would each next get lucid) but instead (probably due
to all the clutter around me) I decide to try Seth's advice and "will all hallucinations
away". I want to see just how much of the clutter is my own hallucinated imagery and I'm
curious to see what will be left, if anything. I'm very pleased that I've remembered to do
this; I usually don't remember this technique when lucid, even though I think it is an
excellent one.
I open the door and step out into a room that is quite large, almost like a gymnasium in
size. There are a lot of people around, but none are paying me any attention. I speak
loudly, addressing the dream. "Dream, I command all hallucinations to disappear!" I say
this again, phrasing it in a different way, perhaps twice more, thinking that I should be
more clear, or more commanding. On the third "pronouncement" I think that it would
also be helpful if I spin, thinking that if I take my attention off the room and the
characters there, it will help me to get rid of my own subconscious dream constructions. I
spin counterclockwise, but it feels awkward. I am acutely aware of the feeling of my toe
pushing off the hardwood floor as I spin around.
I know that I am still too "attached" to the dream. I can still feel my consciousness tied
up, entangled, in this dream scene; it's hard to explain but it is a tangible feeling. I know
that my level of lucidity is not high or clear enough to produce instant good results, yet I
want to keep trying anyway. I stop spinning, and make my statement again, firmly, then I
spin in the other direction.
When I stop spinning, I am thrilled to see that the room has changed dramatically. It has
become smaller, all white, featureless, and nearly empty, save for a few boxes and some
living room furniture off to my right.
However, I am surprised to see three men, sitting casually on the living room furniture,
watching me. "You three again!" I spontaneously blurt out.
"You were left the last time too!"
My curiosity piqued, I approach the men and ask, "Who are you? Where do you come
from?"
Unfortunately, I don't know what their response, if any, was. Next thing I knew, I was
awake.
My first thought upon waking was one of triumph. I had remembered to will away
hallucinations and it had been successful, despite it not occurring as soon as I had
commanded. Though it took me a few tries, I was happy that I had been aware of the
reason - that I had been too consciously attached to the dreaming process and I could
actually "feel" what that was like, while it was happening, even if I couldn't later describe
it in any adequate or even articulate way.
My next thought though, was one of disappointment. I didn't get answers to my
questions! Or if I had, I didn't consciously remember them.
As I scribbled down the dream in my journal, I was struck by how surprised I had been in
the dream to see those three men. I remembered how I immediately blurted out "You
three again!" In that moment I had recognized them, and I knew, or my dreaming self
knew, that the last time I had banished my hallucinations, those three individuals had
been left behind.
But that memory was one confined to the dream state. I had no waking memory of
previously willing away hallucinations in a dream and being left with these three people.
Or had I done it earlier in that dream, but did not recall it when awake? It made me
wonder how memory "worked" in the dream state and why waking memory and
dreaming memory were sometimes cut off from each other.
The feeling of recognizing the men was difficult to describe too. It wasn't a recognition
based on physical appearances; their faces were not familiar to me in any way at all. It
was a recognition based on a different sensation, a feeling that in some way had a
thickness or density to it, as though it was alive or in motion somehow. Very hard to
describe, and I could only borrow Seth's term "feeling-tone" to come close to labeling it.
But those three men. My waking memory did recall other dreams where three strangers
appeared together. Usually all male, but I knew that, on at least one occasion, one was
female. I didn't think that the female was a different...character...(if I can use the term),
but was a different guise used by one of the three individuals.
Curiosity getting the better of me, I dug out old dream journals, and in going through a
few of them, discovered that I had had many dreams of "three strangers" or "three men"
over the last couple of years. Some dreams were non-lucid, but mostly the triad showed
up when I was aware I was dreaming.
They rarely spoke, when I was lucid. Usually they just observed me, or listened to what I
had to say. Oddly, they were more animate when I was non-lucid, participating in my
dream scenarios like actors playing their roles. But when I became lucid, aware of my
dreaming condition, they became my silent audience, their attention then turned to me.
Now I had to wonder. Were these three recurring "characters" simply symbolic of
something? Aspects of my own dreaming psyche? Personified dream symbols?
Or were they something more? They did remain after I willed away my hallucinations -
were they somehow part of the "unhallucinated dream environment"? And if so, what did
that make them? Dream constructions belonging to someone else? "Real" individuals
able to travel through dream worlds? Denizens of the afterlife? (Some may argue that by
spinning I simply created another dream scene, conjuring up more dream hallucinations
or subconscious imagery, but as I spun, I maintained the intent that hallucinations vanish,
with no specific anticipated outcome.)
Because they had remained after I banished hallucinations, because they had a distinctive
and somehow familiar "feeling-tone", and because of their behaviour in previous dreams
I began to wonder if the three men really could be more than just inanimate dream
symbols.
I remembered what Jane Roberts had said about the dream state changing when one
became lucid. I remembered also that Seth had talked about the transitions from one state
of consciousness to another:
"There are indeed others who can help you in such experiences, and who often do while
you are in the dream state, whether or not you know it. They can be of great assistance as
guides."3
Could my three men be dream guides? Do they show up in my dreams to assist me with
my "inner education"? Or are they old pals from another lifetime, checking in on me to
see how I'm doing? Will I ever know?
How I love all the questions that lucid dreaming evokes! Each one like a stepping stone
leading me deeper, onwards and inwards, into the dreaming mind - my own dreaming
mind. It is as though each question is a challenge, or a reason, to get lucid again and
again, to experience inner senses that differ from waking perception, to meet and greet
dream "characters" (who- or what- ever they may be), to explore inner environments, -
whether hallucinated or not! And so very much more.
"Hallucinations begone!" Give it a try the next time you become lucid. You may be quite
surprised at what vanishes....and at what - or who - remains!
References
1., 2. Roberts, Jane, Seth, Dreams and Projection of Consciousness 3. Roberts, Jane, The
Early Sessions Book 6, Session 261
**************************************
The Lucid Dream Exchange is a quarterly newsletter featuring lucid dreams and lucid
dream related articles and interviews. To subscribe to The Lucid Dream Exchange send a
blank email to:
TheLucidDreamExchange-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
You can also check us out at www.dreaminglucid.com
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Rhine Conference: Consciousness Today
Harry Bosma
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Here's a selective report for psi dreamers. March 2007 the Rhine Research Center
organized a conference with the title Consciousness Today: Where Scientists and
Psychics Meet at Myrtle Beach. The meeting of scientists and psychics gave the
conference an exciting edge, forcing researchers to keep an open mind, and psychics to
keep their feet on the ground.
The conference opened with a keynote by star psychic Joe McMoneagle. He spoke about
his experiences as a remote viewer with the Stargate project. Joe shared a wide variety of
insights into the workings of psi, and funny anecdotes about working as a psychic in the
context of intelligence agencies. Joe once worked together with Stephan LaBerge to try
remote viewing from lucid dreams, but never really got to like remote viewing from
dreams.
Dale Graff presented the results of his personal dreaming project. Dale incubated
precognitive dreams for striking pictures on the front page of the newspaper. He showed
his sketches along with the found matching photos as published by newspapers. Dale also
speculated on how dream images work towards displaying a photo from the future.
Stefan Kasian presented nine examples of dreamers who bought new homes with the help
of dreams. Stefan also shared some preliminary results on how such dreamers score on
scales for absorption and creativity. Obviously, the purchase of real estate should make
for a fruitful area to research psi, as it involves so many very strong emotions. Stefan
looks forward to hearing more experiences from dreamers. For more information, see
Stefan's member page at the IASD website.
Other presentations among others told about the similarities between sensitivity for
subliminal messages and psi information (James Carpenter), and similarities between
flow experiences and psi abilities (Jean Hamilton). The conference concluded with a
keynote by Joseph Chilton Pearce about the connection between the heart and the mind.
One of the findings he mentioned was that the heart knows about events before the brain
or the mind does. The main theme of his talk could perhaps be summarized with saying
that we should change our society to live more from the heart.
Harry Bosma
hbosma@xs4all.nl
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THE VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE
April 2007
That's A Lot of Change
Jean Campbell
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A few days ago I had a dream. It was a fairly common dream, but with a little twist.
Here's the dream.
I am standing outdoors near a house. The house has concrete steps leading up to a wood
porch with a porch railing, all somewhat old and run down, but comfortable. It is nearly
dark, but there's enough light for me to see something shining on the porch step. I bend
to look and notice that it is a gold coin, one of the new gold dollars that have been minted
recently. Then I look and see a couple more of these coins lying on the porch near the
steps. I begin picking them up. I had six of them in my hand when I woke up, because I
remember saying to the man I was with, "I've got six of them," and thinking to myself, "I
used to pick up pennies. This must be inflation!"
When I woke up though, the first thing I thought of was the last of a long series of dreams
I had several years ago about picking up coins...which stopped when I realized I was
saying to myself, "That's a lot of change."
That was when I learned that dreams of picking up coins are fairly common. At the time
I was corresponding with Tam Mossman, probably best known as the editor of the Jane
Roberts/Seth books for Prentice Hall. He said he'd had a series of these dreams of
picking up coins just before he decided to leave Prentice Hall and begin publishing a
magazine about intuition. He said he had been collecting coin dreams from others as
well.
But here's the twist. The marvel of being in an ongoing dream group, and one that spans
the world, is that as soon as I posted the above dream to The World Dreams Peace
Bridge, I began receiving information about the number six and its meaning as a symbol,
from other members of the Peace Bridge. This was information I never would have taken
the time to look up on my own, so (as with all dream groups) the input from others was
valuable and appreciated.
From Joy in California came this message, "Oh yes! Not only is 6 gold coins a lot of
change, it's BIG change, and GOOD change!"
The 6 of Pentacles or Disks in the tarot comes to mind, traditionally showing six coins
surrounding a prosperous person with a scale, giving alms: As one book says (The Sacred
Tarot Unveiled by Allyson
Walsh): "...recognizes that giving is as important as receiving - this is the practice of
prosperity consciousness, letting energy flow back and forth."
Alexandra Genetti in her very globally-oriented Wheel of Change Tarot shows six coins,
six cowrie shells and six paper bills, symolizing the symbolic nature of money and how it
can become distanced from our actual material needs. In the accompanying book she
points out how trade and specialization have brought wonderful diversity yet
disconnected us from the direct relationship to our sustenance we knew in ancient times:
"This is a very large change," she says.
She emphasizes being aware of the wide-reaching environmental and economic effects of
how we use our money; her Six of Disks "may herald a time of simple increase and good
material fortune. Along with this fortune comes the challenge to divide the needs from
the wants in your life.... The balance you achieve will help you bring a larger balance in
the totality of the world."
Knowing this IS your focus, Jean, I'd take your 6 gold coins as a very good sign!
From Kathy Turner in Australia came this message related to the wish for FU or good
fortune that Peace Bridge members have given to each other ever since it was introduced
by May Tung to the group many years ago:
Dear all - I wish you much much happiness and much FUUUUUUUUUUUUU (6 gold
coins of FUUUUUU) at this time.
A late happy wish for Mawlid al-Nabiy (March 31st);
A late happy wish for Saka New Year (April 2)
A partly late happy wish for Passover (April 3 - 10);
An ontime happy wish for Easter (April 8).
Kathy
And from Janet in the UK:
After reading Joy's tarot connection to Jean's dream I decided to head for my tarot book.
(The Way of the Tarot, by Karen Hamaker-Zondag - a Jungian approach using the Rider-
Waite deck.)
Here's some of what it says about the number six: "Six is the pivot of it's divisors (1 + 2 +
3 = 6 = 1 x 2 x 3), and also the pivot or center of the first five even numbers: 2, 4, 6, 8,
10. If we link this with the fact that we encounter three two times in six, and three is
connected with the ingress of psychic energy into the realm of time and space, then it
seems that six with its pivotal action has a cyclic function. Cycles bring us back to points
where we have been before, but where we can make a fresh start with new trends and
new cycles. In the meantime, something old, the previous round, is completed. Thus in
six something has been completed, but at the same time there is movement due to a
duality or stress-field (2 x 3). Here is a remarkable association of rest and tension, in
which the completion of a cycle preponderates, but
the impulse to enter a new stage is also present."
As Janet pointed out, what Hamaker-Zondag says about the number six seems to echo the
change that is going on in the lives of many people on the Bridge, "And," Janet adds," it
certainly resonates with my own life, where I am definitely feeling as if I have come to an
end of a cycle and need to enter a new stage - I'm just not sure what that stage is yet."
After writing this, Janet noted, "I haven't looked at the tarot for a long while, and only
dabbled with it
for a brief time, but decided this afternoon to pick just one card to see what turned up. So
I shuffled the pack thoroughly, cut it, and turned over . . . the six of cups!
From what I have heard, the energy of the six is running rampant this spring. There seem
to be major changes coming to a lot of people, not just the people of the Peace Bridge.
But there was another interesting result from the appearance of the six coins in my dream
and the discussion that followed. Several people, for whom the work with numbers in
dreams was a new idea, have now begun to look at their dream numbers. Two is a
favorite, but who knows what might develop?
Lots of change, indeed!
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Dream: Buffy and the Spitting Alien
Stan Kulikowski II
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DATE: 16 mar 2007 08:22
DREAM: buffy and the spitting alien
=( yesterday was a thursday. i took my mother to her eye doctor to check how her
glaucoma medicine is doing. he changed her prescription to a different pair of drops. in
the evening my friend ron from massachusetts called. we have not spoken in about six
months i suspect. lana married lex on _smallville_ even though she discovered clark's
secret. i got to bed around midnight, fell to sleep, but woke about 04:00 and could not
get back to sleep until around 07:00. lately my sleep has been better than this. )=
the high school is deserted now, the students have fled so the screaming and running part
is done. buffy the vampire slayer comes carefully into the large empty garage in back of
the building for maintenance of the school buses. she is careful now because she does
not know in what direction attack is likely to come.
on the back wall of the garage buffy sees a student partially encased in a dried mucous
that is charcoal gray. with some effort she manages to pull the girl off the wall. she
comes free with a noticeable pop, the mucous coming away like a coin around her. the
dried stuff is stiff but brittle, so buffy is able to break away the part covering the girl's
mouth and nose so she can breathe easier. slowly, carefully, buffy starts clearing away
the other chunks that are binding her. the girl is trembling but too out of breath to run
away until she catches up.
when buffy has the last dried chunks removed from her hair and has brushed away the
crumbly pieces from her blouse, they barely get a chance to turn around when the alien
comes in the door from the outside. it is the typical kind of creature from outer space
seen in comic books: green skin, bald head with pointy ears and large lidless eyes. it is
wearing a tight satin costume with ornamental ribbing marking its shoulders and elbows.
buffy and the student flee to the far door on the other side of the garage. just as they
scurry through the doorway, the alien makes a sound in its throat and hacks up a sizable
mass of phlegm which is spits across the garage at them. buffy pulls the student out of
the line of fire so the mucous splats against the door as she yanks it closed. when wet,
the mucous is blue green color that quickly turns the dark gray color as it hardens.
the next room has work benches and stools which the two dash around.
buffy lets the student run into the hallway but she stays back, picking up tall waste can to
use as a shield. she intends to slow the oncoming monster so the girl can make her get
away out of the school. the other door to the garage was somewhat sealed by the glob of
mucous the alien had spit, so it takes a little while for the creature to gain entrance in
here.
buffy manages to catch next two projectiles which the alien spits at her across the room
with the trash can, but has to throw it down when it becomes too thickly covered. she
does not want her hands to get trapped holding the object when it hardens. by this time
they have approached each other close enough that buffy can upturn one of the work
benches for cover as she ducks under the next salvo of adhesive.
she is finally close enough to swing her fist and only connects with the cheekbone of the
alien from a glancing angle, but never the less the bones of its face crack beneath the
skin. the creature is rather fragile, not meant for hand to hand combat in this earth
gravity. the alien quickly turns a dial on its wrist and dissolves in a ripple of colored
lights as it teleports away somewhere. the immediate threat seems over.
my father comes into the hotel room and asks "are you awake yet?" i open my eyes to
see that it is still dark outside and the clock on the bedside table says 04:30. "we only
have a half hour to drive to get home, so we should leave soon." he always likes to drive
very early in the morning so the rest of us in the family must get up before dawn even
though none of us are morning people like he is.
as he leaves the room, i sit up in the bed and think that i can write up this dream about
buffy the vampire slayer before we have to go. beside the bed i have an old underwood
typewriter. i could go out to the car to get my laptop computer, but it seems easier if i
just type up the
dream on paper. i can transfer it to computer files later. i would
probably lose too much of the dream if i go outside in the cold to get the laptop.
there are several folders of loose paper beside the bed. i have a little trouble getting
heavy old typewriter balanced on my lap as i sit up. i put the first page of empty white
paper in the roller and balance the edges before i clamp it down. i try to type the title
'buffy and the spitting alien' but only random mixed characters come out on the paper.
moving my fingers in the pronounced up and down movements needed to push the levers
onto the paper seems really awkward and difficult after years of the smaller motions of
computer keyboards. more unreadable characters come out in more attempts to write the
title line. oh yes, this is a vintage qwerty keyboard and i have long ago taught myself
dvorak touch typing as the only sensible interface. i need to switch back to my old hunt
and peck skills with antique technology like this.
i pull out the illegible page i have made and seek another new page to type upon, but
every paper i pull out of the folders has stuff printed on it already. apparently i have
ruined the last blank sheet. i start looking for pages that have larger open areas so i can
fit my dream story into whatever space is available. i find a page that has a color image
of a vegas stripper down one side. that one would probably do as stationary in a pinch,
but i keep thumbing through the other sheets looking for a wider area. i doubt much of
the dream would fit into the column of white beside her.
the door to the hotel room opens again. this time a young woman with very black hair
comes in and sits on the bed behind me. "can't get your dreams down?" she asks me. i
am clearly having trouble fumbling with all the many papers in the folders. she leans her
chin upon my shoulder. "perhaps you are not meant for that dream."
i know that she has a boyfriend but they are having difficulties. i doubt that they are well
matched, but i do not want to cause any further problems between them. i stop fiddling
with the papers and she leans further around me so her face comes around just in front of
me. she is clearly pressing her breasts into my arm and she smiles at me with obvious
invitation. "there might be more to life than just dreaming."
she murmurs in my ear stretching up so her cheek brushes lightly against mine. in spite
of myself, i feel an erection creep up under the sheets across my lap. she notices this too
and chuckles a little deep in her throat as she kisses me squarely on the lips with just the
tip of her tongue teasing me to enter her. i guess it is time for her boyfriend to be
forgotten. the heavy underwood typewriter falls off the bed with a heavy clunk as i give
in to her charms, letting myself dissolve away in the heady rush of pleasure.
we do not get any further before a local politician comes in the door.
"i got the grant." he exclaims with heartfelt relief. outside the door i can see a stretch
limousine in the parking lot. "it helps if you have your family to think about during the
negotiations."
i am pleased that he has scored this lucrative contract for his career, but i can not help but
wish his timing were about an hour or two later.
the young woman with the dark hair and deep inviting eyes laughs a little and looks
demurely away as we separate.
=( awake at 08:05. buffy in this dream was sarah michelle gellar just like the television
series. the spitting alien was rather like mister mystxplck without the leprechaun hat
from the superman comics of the 1950s. i did learn to type on an ancient underwood
typewriter when i was in high school before i got an olympia portable for college. i have
taught myself dvorak typing about a dozen years ago but usually have no trouble when i
must use qwerty keyboards. my father died more than a decade ago. he did always get
us up hours before the break of dawn when we traveled by car anywhere because he was
best in the morning. i have no associations with the delightful dark haired girl nor the
annoying politician at the end of this, other than i find beautiful women delightful and
have little patience with politicians of any stripe.
this seems like a dream without much depth, starting with a television adventure, then
morphing to unreliable technology with a memory from teenage years, then into a
flirtation with sexual energy foiled by commonplace politics. the timeline is contorted
with buffy being the most recent feature followed by the antique typewriter from distant
adolescence before the sexual drive expresses itself. my current typing skills did
interface unsuccessfully with the older device, just as buffy struggled with the alien, and
the politician interrupted the pleasures of the dark haired girl. seems conflict everywhere
and i suppose that writing about dreaming about writing about dreaming has some
twisted second order logic to it also. )=
--
stankuli@etherways.com
. i swear it happened just like this:
=== a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss,
| | and the gates of love they budged an inch
--- but nothing much has happened since.
-- l cohen (1992) _closing time_
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Changing the Dream
DreamRePlay
(Copyright 2007) David Jenkins, PhD
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One of the goals of my work is to help you have more pleasant and fewer stressful
dreams. Although last nights dream cannot be changed, it is a steppingstone to your next
dream. You can imagine variations on the current dream and this re-working influences
future dreams. You replay the dream on order to spell out what you really want to
happen. You can have allies, say what needed to be said; and even end the dream in a
different way.
Action changes the dream
The key to DreamReplay is action. Action is very different from understanding. For
instance, saying The horse is a symbol of your instinctual energy, may help you
understand the dream but it doesn't alter its outcome
Instead, I would rather ask "Where do you want to go, what do you want to do, now that
you are riding the horse?
Actionan action of the imagination changes the dream. And influences the next dream.
If you cannot or do not imagine something different, you and your dreams are guaranteed
to stay the same.
Most often, you take the action that continues the dream in the direction you wish to go:
Now that you have said goodbye to your mother, what do you want to do next? Often
the dream leaves you stuck with unwanted feelings and then the action required is to
express yourself. For example, someone might embarrass you in a dream and make you
feel bad. You would work out what you really want to say to that person. Speaking this to
the imaginary person is taking action.
Dream action is governed by the dream situation
You are not completely free to imagine any action to resolve the problem in the dream.
You are governed, even controlled, by the particular dream situation.
Think of the dream as a rowboat in a strongly flowing river. You have some choices
about what to do, but you have to flowt downstreamthere is no way of changing that.
You could ignore what is happening to the boat and drift wherever the river takes you. Or
you could use the oars or learn about the currents and the winds in order to steer the boat
as best you can. In the same way, you have some choices within the general direction that
your dream is taking you, but you must work within the reality of the dream.
It can be tempting to take an easy action when you are in a difficult situation. For
example, suppose you dreamed you were walking through the park and saw your
boyfriend necking with your best friend. If asked what youd like to have happen next,
you might want Superman to come out of the sky, beat them up, and swoop you away.
That might be very satisfying but it wouldnt really affect the dream since youve
basically abandoned the world of your dream to people who are "doing you wrong." It
would be better to articulate clearly to your dream-girlfriend and your dream-boyfriend
what you are feeling. (Afterwards, Superman can whisk you away). Even in a difficult
situation, it is important for you to take charge rather than exit the situation. After all, it's
your dream.
Forget your best behavior
Dream life is, in many ways, much more rough-and-tumble than waking life. The people
who visit us in our dreams are often neither subtle nor polite and the problems faced are
most often not intellectual problems. You have to work at the level of the dream
characters. If someone is about to kill you with an axe, you could imagine talking to him
nicely. If that works, congratulations. But you will usually find that your action must
equal the energy of the dream. In this example, talking is not the same as getting help,
hiding, or protecting yourself. If your dream-husband is insisting that you have to visit his
relatives and you are sure you do not want to, the key question is: What kind of No will
this dream-husband understand? You may have to express yourself far more strongly than
your waking-life husband would require.
Conclusion
You don't change a dream just by talking about it. You have to ask yourself what would
make a significant change to the dream.
In next week's column, we'll discuss how to talk to dream characters they are easier
than waking life characters in that you will always know what is true and more
demanding of your skills since they are harder to train.
DIAL-IN DREAM GROUPS
Whether you live far away or close by, a phone group allows you to get
a sense of dream work in a very convenient way. With this new work, I
hope to communicate the pleasure and the excitement of dream work to many people.
email david at davidj@dreamreplay.com for information.
DREAM GROUPS
The Saturday drop-in group ($20) is from 10 am to noon at 2315 Prince
Street in Berkeley. The nearest major cross street is Ashby and
Telegraph. Please let me know if you are coming.
web: http://dreamoftheweek.com
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Signs of Simulation, Symbols beyond Value Jean Baudrillard and Grassroots Dreamwork
in Cyberspace.
Richard Catlett Wilkerson
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This article was originally published as
Wilkerson, Richard Catlett (1998 June). Signs of Simulation, Symbols beyond Value
Jean Baudrillard and Grassroots Dreamwork in Cyberspace. Electric Dreams 5(6).
http://www.dreamgate.com/dream/articles_rcw/baudrillard-dream.htm
" We used to live in the imaginary world of the mirror, of the divided self and of the
stage, of otherness and alienation. Today we live in the imaginary world of the screen, of
the interface and the reduplication of contiguity and networks. All our machines are
screens. We too have become screens, and the interactivity of men has become the
interactivity of screens." Jean Baudrillard, Xerox & Infinity.
Jean Baudrillard is a cultural theorist who, like Carl Jung, became concerned about
Western Culture's abandonment of the symbolic and over- involvement with the sign.
Unlike Jung who responded by developing an individual psychology for exploration of
the *symbolic* in the personal realm, Baudrillard took on a McLuhanian like media
probe and analysis of the *sign* in contemporary culture. His startling results take us into
a hyperreal world where models of reality dominate and reality itself has given way to
simulations of the real, and eventually to simulations of simulations that have no anchor,
nor interest, in the real whatsoever.
o Can Cultural Analysis be Applied to Dreamwork?
The extension of humanity into computer mediated communications, as well as the
general rise of technology & media has brought out the ever increasing importance of the
technological interface and extension of our species. Not only will we extend the
practices of dreamwork into new area, but we will continue to observe the effects and
transformations in dream imagery that these organic-digital combinations produce.
Although the dream resists direct commodification & digitalization, (just try to sell a
dream, or even get someone to listen to your dream with interest), the transition from
symbol to sign is an essential turning point according to Baudrillard in our culture
becoming sign dependent. There is some marketing around dreams and dreamwork, but it
is a very insignificant part of the economy of the sign, money or politics. Even Freud
remarked with sadness late in this life that psychoanalysis had abandoned dreams and had
added nothing to his original theory in over 40 years, an this was for the sake of the
capital that could be made from developing long term transferencial therapies (I included
the capital reasoning here). James Hillman might have developed a way to see
commodification in dreamwork. He has warned against turning dreams into objects for
use in the dayworld, but this would be a very metaphorical use of commodification.
Generally speaking, dreams resist being quantified, and in doing so may offer us an
alternative to being swept up in the endless march of mass media, consumer
advertisements and what Marx called primitive accumulation that dominates capitalist
societies that focus on the exchange and use value of objects rather than their deeper
meanings.
Perhaps more interestingly we might look at our dreams for clues to our own cycles of
consumption. A kind of Marxian Dreamwork that exposes the places in our life we have
turned into objects and been turned into objects, were we are the repressed workers and
where we repress the worker. For Baudrillard, himself once a Marxist theorist, the world
has moved past both Capitalism and Marxism into a Fractal economy where all meanings
and options have fully extended & played themselves out and now just circulate the
pieces around by means of a code that no one controls. The use we make of the dream
relates to capitalism as much as the exchange value might. In this sense, the symbolic
goes beyond the uses we can make of the dream, and any dreamwork that favors the
dream over the function we make of it needs to gather this sense to continue. Still, we
need to begin somewhere.
o How Far Have You Personally Moved into the Hyperreal?
Baudrillard offers us an image of the 4 revolutions that he sees having occurred in the
shift from real to hyperreal. These 4 Orders can be applied to the dream world as well as
waking cultural horizons. By reading our dreams for the dominate order, we may be led
to insights about our relationship with the signs and symbols that make up our world and
inner world. When are we more like a feudal caste society were any variance in the
interpretation of an event is considered a transgression? When are we so involved in the
simulatory experience of the dream that its relationship to the rest of the world is no
longer important? When is our desire shifted and manipulated by the objects in our
environment and where do we rebel and consider creative, subversive alternatives?
o Sign Revolutions: A Sound Byte
The fixed and referential symbols of the Feudal/caste societies were shaken by the
Renaissance theatrics which put their meaning(s) into question. Just what signs were
suppose to refer to anymore was up to debate. The industrial revolution made possible the
serial replication of these signs, exterminating any reference, producing an explosion of
referents.. In the post-industrial era, metaphysical models of the code create a world of
simulation without any reference to the real, an order of simulation that has no interest in
the real whatsoever. Finally, in the fractal order, the simulations implode into a viral
proliferation infinity extended and exhausted in all directions. All distinctions and
differences are interwoven, cross-bred and played out to an extreme.
o Levels of Image
Level 0. Aboriginal symbolic exchange cultures. The image is a reflection of basic
reality. Note dream imagery in aboriginal cultures where the image is like almost a
sacrament. Even in our de-sacralized society, dreams are often vaguely see as reflecting
reality. Jung was interested in returning the dream image to this level, though he often
wanted to bring it up into the dayworld for our personal use. In aboriginal culture, the
dream can completely undermine the exchange value system, shifting the flow of gifts
and counter-gifts, marriages, taboos and status.
Level 1. The image masks and perverts reality. Here is more a level of Freudian
dreamwork level, with the dream functioning to both express the basic reality of desires
in a disguised form just enough to let off steam, but not enough to wake the dreamer.
Level 2. The image masks the absence of a basic reality. The dream masks the fact that it
is a dream and that there are things we don't want to dream about. "...Power is no longer
present except to conceal that there is none." (181 S&S). In dreamwork, we teach people
who are haunted by specters of power - shadows, bears, wolves, muggers, monsters - that
these figures are involved in scenarios of empty power and can be confronted.
Level 3. The image bears no relation to any reality whatsoever, it is its own simulacrum.
Here we have moved into lucid and proactive dreaming where the dreamer doesn't care
that there is any connection with reality, the event itself has become the reality of
concern.
o Portrait of a Dreamworker:
When she was young, her dream interpretations carefully reflected the life and reality of
the dreamer, almost like she was a landscape artist. Later, her own versions of reality
began to appear in her interpretations. Some saw this as her distortion of reality phase,
others as drawing the world through her own reality. The interpretations often seemed to
mask and pervert the reality of the dreamer. Then a desperation began to emerge, and her
interpretations masked the absence of reality, as if to protect herself and others from a
flaw at the center of the universe. Finally, her interpretations bore no relation to any
reality whatever and reproductions of images that had no original began to proliferate.
o Dreamwork and Levels of the Sign
A way we might use these ideas in dreamwork is in recognizing the different levels of
power scenarios that play themselves out in dreaming. Baudrillard speaks about the
orders of appearance of simulation: pre-simulation feudal/caste societies, counterfeit pre-
production societies, production societies and re-productive simulation society.
ORDER: FORM - LAW - SEMIOTICS - PROCESS
0 Feudal/caste societies - signs and their meanings are pre-determined
1 Natural - Counterfeit - Arbitrariness - Corrupt Symbol
2 Market Production Seriality -Icon
3 Structural - Simulation Codification - Linguistic Sign
4 Fractal Proliferation - Viral metonymy - Index
o The Feudal/Caste Society
Ever have a dream that felt like you were at the Round Table? Or how about another type
of cast of class society where everyone's roles were set and fixed? Typically we like to
romanticize the symbolism of such a dream. Perhaps we might see our dream knight as
an indication of our relationship to the Higher Self, pre-figured as the king or head lf the
society. Our knight and his or her behavior becomes a symbolic singular indication of our
ego's relationship to wholeness. Baudrillard's work may offer an alternative view.
In these caste/feudal societies the representational systems; the codes, the symbols, the
signs carry clearly marked, commonly held and limited numbers of meanings. One knows
immediately another's caste or rank by the garments one wares. The status is clearly
indicated and there is little hope of changing one's class. Anyone who tries to change the
meaning of a sign is risking punishment for the transgression. Signified and signifier are
fixed. Transgressors of this reality, dragons, heretics and infidels, must be hunted down
and slain. All unstable reference must be punished and free interpretation is prohibited. In
our dreamland we may find concerns about taboos and transgressions. Concerns about
one reality dominate. Dreams in this style may indicate a part of personality that runs a
very rigid yet meaningful game.
o The Counterfeit Renaissance
There is a period of time before production society sets in and after the feudal/caste
society which we often refer to in the West as the Renaissance. Now the signs begin to
loosen and what they signify are more arbitrary. Does the bible mean this, or that?
Protestant movements demand that each man must make his own interpretation of the
bible. But why stop there? Everyone begins to have his or her own interpretation of
everything. The particular meaning of a sign is freed, and an abstract code analogous to
money is born. Theater is born and there is destruction between a thing and what it
represents. Psychology can begin as we can now question who we really are. Nature
becomes important because it is lost. In the Renaissance we find stucco floral outpourings
everywhere, in fountains, in buildings in paintings, in clothes, in books and on weapons.
Stucco was the first plastic. The sign is stripped of its original meaning, but still refers
dimly to a time when it did mean something. Too late. The natural world unfolds in every
form, but it is all on stage. It is the theater of appearance and disappearance and changing
forms. I am reminded of the movie "Interview with a Vampire" where the vampire's stage
a show, a parody of their life which unfolds endless "real" scenarios against the
background of vampirism, but unable to refer to anything outside of the play itself. Their
reference to the real world was cut by their condition. So too this early production society
feeds on the real but is really cut off from it.
In dreams, we often encounter these worlds as well. Sometimes they are joyously filled
with creative and theatrical energy, oddly meaningful and yet free from meaning. Strange
forms evolve, masks and mistakes in identity trick us and make us laugh. Reversals and
getting back to where we once were becomes more difficult. We find ourselves marrying
people we don't know, making alliances with strangers and creating art forms we never
imagined. On the darker side, this world can be uncomfortably unstable. Pets turn into
insects, chairs are haunted with ghosts, hospitals become prisons. Mom just ain't what she
used to be. Reality refuses to stabilize. This is the first order of simulation, the corrupt
symbol that no longer refers to what it used to refer to. At one level this validates the
living symbol that evolves and wants to grow out of its old form. But what Baudrillard is
suggesting is that these images that have outgrown their original reference will never be
able to find a happy home to live. Desire has become grandiose and swirls upward in
Baroque productions of a Heaven in process, cupids arrow spiraling ever upward and
outward.
o Modern Production Society
Here the sign produces neutral values can be exchanged in an objective world. Just like
the free worker who is now free to make what he or she wants, but there is little meaning
in the work. There is a nostalgia for ancient meaning, but it is all appearance. The
Marlboro Cowboy is a billboard commodity used to sell cigarettes. The real meaning of
the sign easily exchanged.
There is an expansion here of the production of goods, science and technology. There is
an explosion of transportation, products to buy, and services as commodities. There is an
explosion of science and technology, of national boundaries, of different social spheres,
topics to discuss, money and value. In the Modern society there is a constant proliferation
of commodities.
In dreams we find modern images in the factory, the conveyor belt, the assembly line.
But this is also the world of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Duplication proliferates. Dreams
of serial duplication, hordes of animals without a queen or leader, clones and eternal
returns may appear. The simulation begun in the previous stage now accelerates and a
great deal of energy is put into covering up the loss of reality. I recall a Gaham Wilson
cartoon where a group of scientists were in discussion in a large astrolab, above
unnoticed, a piece of space had torn and several angels were trying to quickly pull it back
together. Dreams where maps and territory are confused speak to this level. Baudrillard
sites
Borges' story where the makers of a map had it laid out so perfectly that it covered
the real territory, except in places where there were tattered corners. The busy activity of
hiding the fact that reality has disappeared may take simple and less harmless forms like
going to Disneyland, or stronger forms like Auschwitz where death is produced and
reproduced.
Since the surface of things is now suspect and devoid of meaning, one Barbie doll as
meaningful as another, the Modern turn was to Depth. If the Real can no longer be found
on the surface, then in it must be found beneath the surface. Once the unconscious is
revealed, then what you really feel, what you really meant, is re-discovered. Look for
dreams where you feel that what is "really" going on, where is it "really" happening is
somewhere else. We can say that psychoanalytically the self is in projection in this Order.
It is in the group that won't let your in, in the party that is just over when you arrive, in
the gift and prize given to someone else. Just not quite "here". Detective dreams, an
inability to find your way home, all lost and found dreams are of this order. As are all
equivalences, such as dreams of balance, or weighing and measuring. What is it worth? If
there is even a hope of answering this questions, we are still in the Modern Order of
Signs.
o Post-Modern Hyperrality
"The real is produced from miniaturized cells, matrices, and memory banks, models of
control-- and it can be reproduced an indefinite number of times from these. It no longer
needs to be rational, because it no longer measures itself against an ideal." from
Simulacra and Simulation
Had the truth been that we remained in a production reality, Marxism may have
continued to be a viable theory in the world. But Baudrillard sees that what Marx called
the "nonessential" sectors of capital to be what the global process of capital is founded
upon. Fashion, media, publicity, information & communication networks, cybernetic
control systems, computerization, cyberspatiality, digitalization and genetic code
proliferation. The organizing principle is no longer production but re-production. In this
society of simulations where it is more interesting to be involved with a simulation of
reality than reality itself, a new social order establishes itself. With the collapse or
implosion between image/simulation and reality, the ground for the real disappears.
People write in to Robert Young, an actor who played Dr. Welby, for medical advice and
Raymond Burr who played the lawyer Perry Mason& Ironside for legal advice. Now
doctors and lawyers are expected to act like Dr. Welby and Perry Mason. The models are
the pivot point of reference rather that reality itself. Simulations now determine reality.
The continual solicitations to buy, to consume, to work, vote, give opinions, and
participate in social life consume meaning and value as distinctions become meaningless.
Simulations have devoured reality, and models have taken over. The production of reality
in the Modern phase resulted in saturation and explosion. Now we have implosion.
Reality and meaning melt into a nebulous mass of self-reproducing simulation.
Simulations have taken over for reality, and now generate nothing but more simulations.
The boundaries between entertainment and news collapse. The news becomes spectacle,
entertainment. Politics and entertainment implode. Polls turn the elections into image
contexts, a war of signs.
We still consume, even more feverishly. But now we buy status and presence instead of
objects. Here in San Francisco, my neighborhood has filled with four-wheel drive
wagons. We used to call them jeeps. I doubt most of these all-terrain vehicles have even
been anywhere off the road beside perhaps a sidewalk. There are hills here, but never any
snow nor weather that would warrant a 4-wheel drive. It is very cool to be part of this
urban safari. In hyperreality what is produced and consumed are signs. The pressure on
the individual is to be socialized. Production is irrelevant and secondary.
In a surreal mode, we find pleasure in finding the unnatural in the natural. Eruptions of
moments of surreality break into the course of everyday life.
In the hyperral, the real and imaginary collapse together everywhere. Any moment might
be a media event and we have a kind of sixth sense for this. We scan for fakery, montage
and overlay. Absolut Vodka ala the latest artist, Absolut Mc Glynn, Absolut Philip,
Absolut Goodman....
A kind of non-deliberate parody clings to everything. No one believes it is real, nor cares.
Do you have political concerns about the integrety of the politicians? Get with it, its cool
that Newt brings his laptop to congress!
In dreamwork, we cover the full spectrum. Some people use dreamwork to patch up the
holes in their reality - or gaps in their illusion of reality - places where meaning and value
have dropped out of their lives. Much of therapy is about patching up holes in the ego.
Deeper work is statistically rare. Dreamwork can go the other extreme as well and be a
vehicle for promoting a particular singular reality. Here, the interpretations will always be
the same, and the interpretive process determines reality. Just as vexing can be the dream
as god approach, where the dream reality is determining all the reality and dreamwork
becomes a kind of religion, the dream an object of worship.
o An Alternative to Signs - The Improverse
While Baudrillard exposes very well the simulated reality we are moving so rapidly into,
his alternatives are somewhat lacking and under theorized. The gist is to enact scenes that
return us to the symbolic and burn the sign. But his suggestion of becoming more real
than real, more the worker than the worker, more the consumer than the consumer, seem
to have little or no effect on culture and quickly play out to exhaustion in avante-gaude
art scenes. Big History may truly have ended and in our postmodern world all we can do
is play with the pieces. While this may cause sadness for dictators, nationalists, classicists
and others desiring massive changes, for most of us exploring dreamwork in cyberspace
it offers the opportunity for play and experimentation.
A personal alternative is the Improverse, the intrusion of a symbolic exchange into sign
value and exchange. In the improverse, reality is created out of the interaction of two or
more singularites (dream, person, mood, sound in the distance..) intruding into the
exchange value and signs. One might say that reality is co-determined by the participants
on a local level. Avens once said about the dream, we give it meaning, then it reveals to
us its significance. If we can hear it. Listening is as important as signing in this universe.
Having an ear for the other and being able to play off of the song that comes from neither
but from the relationship is much like the old technique of impovisational music. In blues
and folk rock jams, the musician is called upon to listen while playing. Improvisations
lead to a temporary reality or song/jam world that includes all that are listening,
musicians and non-musicians alike. Thus the subjective-objective world is crossed. On a
Social-Political level, subversive activities often erupt in the same manner. On a larger
scale we can see the effects in such events as the tearing down of the Berlin Wall coming
directly from grassroots cultural exchange programs. On a more local level, Bikers, sick
of Auto dominated streets began erupting into spontaneous Critical Mass bike-a-thons in
the Bay Area in the late 1990's during rush hour traffic. In dreamwork we approach the
dream without a sense of knowing, but of interest - we try a note. This boy in my dream
is my own undeveloped boy. We listen and maybe we hear yes, maybe we hear no - but
usually a whole intuition appears that leads us on. The improverse comes into being.
References and More on Jean Baudrillard: www.dreamgate.com/pomo/
-----------------------------------------------------------
TERMS:
Hyperreal: A phenomenon where one can no longer tell the difference between real and
reproductions of the real. Reproductions even become more real than real and
experiences of hyperreal more satisfying than experiences of the real.
Image: Sometimes a visual presentation, but not always. In a larger way, more as an
understanding, as in "Let me give you an image of what happened the other day."
Sign: Something that usually points to something else. It can be a part of language or an
event as well as a traffic sign or dream image. The sign has parts, the signifier - like the
word "couch", the signified or concept it is referring to like the idea of couch and the
referent, a concrete object like my couch in my living room. In Postmodern theory, there
is more and more emphasis on the material signifier and less on the concept to which it
refers. The actual object in the real world, the referent, often seems to disappear
altogether.
Simulacra: In Plato a false copy. But in modern thought were the distinction between
appearance and reality are challenged the simulacrum has more value as a critical idea
and becomes a copy without an original. The idea here being reproduction without
interest in first causes or reference.
Simulation: The process by which something real replaces the thing being represented.
Language does this in being able to transform something specific and concrete into
something abstract and universal. This brings up notions of map and territory. For
Baudrillard, the transformed "map" may be more real than the original territory. I might
enjoy a film on sky-diving more than actually doing it. Baudrillard sees history as sliding
from attention to the land to the map leading to the disappearance of meaning.
"simulation is . . . the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a
hyperreal" (Baudrillard, 1983: 2).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS ** DREAMS
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Finding worms in hair, falling off a bridge, watching a plane crash
it could only be the
dream section of the Electric Dreams!
Dream title: Baby
Dream date: march 21, 2007
Dreamer name: anonymous
Dream text: I had a new born child and I was holding it; I was so happy. One day I let an
old friend baby sit for me and she stole the baby from me. I never saw my baby again
and I just kept crying and crying and crying. I called the police and told them what
happened and then I woke up.
Dream comments: I might be pregnant but from my boyfriend
Dream title: Dying
Dream date: none given
Dreamer name: anonymous
Dream text: Im in a car accident and fall off a bridge. Im falling and I see my self
crying and falling and dying. When I hit the bottom of the bridge, I see a coffin, but I
dont see myself. I don't know who it is in the coffin. I just see myself just crying.
Dream comments: Ive been having this dream dying for about 7 years; I think its me in
the coffin.
Dream title: Weird
Dream date: march 20, 2007
Dreamer name: anonymous
Dream text: I was in a huge castle-like home. I had twice the number of brothers and
sisters that I have in waking life. This home that we moved in seemed so weird. There
were so many people in the house running around because my parents had something
going on, like a meeting with their company. One of my sisters and I were fighting about
which room we would choose to live in because each room was better than the other.
Somehow my sister got the better room (like she always gets the better life then I do)
with manipulation. I got the smallest room. My parents were still working with everyone
downstairs in some big meeting. Another sister and I went exploring the home. One place
seemed like we shouldnt be near it. Then my cell phone rang I put it on speaker phone so
my sister could hear it silence...deep breathing on the other line.
Dream comments: weird dream!
Dream title: Airplane crash
Dream date: 3/19/07
Dreamer name: yaakbaby
Dream text: I was standing in my office with some co-workers and all of a sudden a huge
jetliner crashed nose first right outside the window. It didn't even break our windows.
We watched people gathering up parts. Suddenly I said "Look at the basket of heads!
Theyre all smiling".
Dream comments: I dream about airplane crashes a lot and I am not afraid of flying at all.
Dream title: Worms in hair
Dream date: 3/23/07
Dreamer name: mirasaza
Dream text: I was in the bathroom; it was dirty and I needed to clean it because guests
were coming over. I picked up a black vent brush, like the one I use everyday, and
brushed it through my hair a few times. I noticed some difficulty, like my hair didn't feel
right or look right when I brushed it. I looked at the brush and there were big long worms
in it. I freaked out, and ran my fingers through my hair, and started pulling out worms,
lots of worms. My hair was dry to start, but by the end of my dream I was bent over a tub
with sopping wet hair pulling out long worms and clumps of tiny worms too.
Dream comments: I've never had this dream before.
Dream title: OMG! Doggie Conundrums!
Dream date: 28/09/2006
Dreamer name: PJ
Dream text: I dreamt that we had bought ourselves a pet dog, a Labrador-Border Collie
mix. After getting home, it decided it was feeling horny and tried to "Make Whoopee"
with my youngest child, and then after pulling the dog from him, it tried to do the same
with my youngest daughter. My partner pulled the dog off my daughter and began to
masturbate, which sprayed all over the lounge walls and the kids. It smelled so bad it,
that I ran outside and I became violently sick.
Dream comments: This is one of the rudest and strangest dreams I have ever had.
------------------ END DREAM SECTION ------------------
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