Are we dreaming?

[rsingh]

Various religions have described our life as a kind of dream. Our consciousness has four states in accordance with Hinduism. First state is our deep sleep state. Second state is dream state. Third state is our waking state. Fourth state is waking from our so called awake state. So in our awake state, we are not truly awake. We are living in dream of our mind. Mind is always looking forward to be better in someway in future based on it's values. So our future projections are based on impressions collected in our past through our sense perceptions. In reality there is no such thing as future. It is always now. Eckhart Tolle has explained it very well in his book - Power of Now. Future is an imagination of mind. So is it another kind of dream while we are awake? When we wake up from the dream which we call waking, only then we come to know that we had been dreaming. How can we wake up from this dream? Either our dream becomes a nightmare or some one comes in our dream to tell us that we are dreaming and shake us to wake us up. Once we are awake then we know who we are. We are consciousness dreaming the dream of form.

[Greenslade]

Or is dreaming and being awake simply altered consciousness?

[mattie]

That our consciousness has different states doesn’t mean these are false or unreal. These various states of awareness are very real when we’re in them. That we move through different levels of consciousness is the psyche’s equivalent of our physical body moving from childhood to a teen to an adult. Because the state no longer exists as we grow into occupying another one doesn’t mean it wasn’t real when we were in it.

Various religions & metaphysical writers have used different ways to describe dimensional consciousness.

Our mind isn’t separate from us. Many who say there is no future see the future & past as many NOWs. We don’t have to be awakened from the ‘dream,’ nor is it a nightmare. We don’t need anyone to tell us we are dreaming.

The word ‘dream’ or illusion is often used by various spiritual writers to describe metaphysical states (http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showthread.php?p=372585#post372585). While sometimes these simple summaries of other states are useful to find a representative single word for, this oversimplification of it often leads to misunderstanding. It really isn’t all that complicated. Multidimensions.com has extensive information about the different states of awareness or dimensional reality.

That our life here is a dream is often promoted by those who see our life here as something that it to be left ASAP. It is considered that the soul, HS+ is the real reality. This is fallacy as the soul voluntarily chose to have a portion of it (an aspect) come here to have experiences unique to this D. Often the dream is used to represent the unawakened.

[Emmalevine]

I've always thought that being here is a kind of dream, that is, a different state of consciousness. When I go to sleep I'm aware of different states of consciousness as well, sometimes I'm aware of dreams and can be proactive in them, sometimes I'm not. I think our waking life is the same. Quite an exciting realisation really because then we can start to detach from our surroundings in the sense we know life is a stage (as in the great words of Shakespeare).

[Humm]

In death this life will seem a very far-off dream indeed.

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

To me now, it's a continuum , not separate levels divided by barriers , though the apparent separations between unconscious,sleep/dream , waking, and 'superconscious' can seem quite real.

We can move and focus on different aspects of consciousness in waking, in sleep/dreaming , in meditating , but I see lots of overlap , flow of attention
through phases . Dreaming can open the door to superconscious , and shifts to awakening can happen while awake, but not meditating, so the phases
are not necessarily out of phase with each other. Continuum.

[Shabby]

I still find myself dreaming in waking state a lot. I too was thinking of the book "The power of now" being present in the moment. Nisargadatta Maharaj said that one could be aware in deep asleep by prolonging the time we are present when we are awake. I have to note that he refers to awareness as the absolute and consciousness as something we are beyond.

[Lisa]

rsingh- In reality there is no such thing as future. It is always now. Eckhart Tolle has explained it very well in his book - Power of Now. Future is an imagination of mind. So is it another kind of dream while we are awake? When we wake up from the dream which we call waking, only then we come to know that we had been dreaming. How can we wake up from this dream? Either our dream becomes a nightmare or some one comes in our dream to tell us that we are dreaming and shake us to wake us up. Once we are awake then we know who we are. We are consciousness dreaming the dream of form.


What can I say? Yes, yes, yes! :smile:

[3dnow]

What can I say? Yes, yes, yes! :smile:

No no and no! :tongue:

[Lisa]

No no and no! :tongue:

Hee Hee- Pick your own switch. :D

[Sundialed]

In death this life will seem a very far-off dream indeed.

lately i have been thinking the more our dreams are real to us the more the awake becomes like a dream

and the more the physical becomes like a dream the more dreams become real :)

[skygazer]

there was a time I preferred dream state to awake state, now I put in equal effort to both and both are equally valuable.

[lucidcreator]

We are consciousness. Our levels vary. When I become aware of the present moment here and now, detached from the clutter of the moment, a witness with no judgments, I know with certainty that I have just come out of a dream. When I fall back to sleep, identified with ego forms like my name, address, job, traffic, hot coffee on my pants, I don't even have a clue than I am just dreaming-- then I once again re-member who I Am.

[Sundialed]

there was a time I preferred dream state to awake state, now I put in equal effort to both and both are equally valuable.

wonderful intuitive process :)

[Sundialed]

We are consciousness. Our levels vary. When I become aware of the present moment here and now, detached from the clutter of the moment, a witness with no judgments, I know with certainty that I have just come out of a dream. When I fall back to sleep, identified with ego forms like my name, address, job, traffic, hot coffee on my pants, I don't even have a clue than I am just dreaming-- then I once again re-member who I Am.

In Lak'ech mi amigo ;)

[johnnyg]

The only thing we can truly say we directly experience is consciousness, so who's to say otherwise that the reality we experience through it is anything more than a dream? I think everyone has experienced on some level how our thoughts affect the dream. Fun synchronicities such as a friend whistling a song and then hearing it again later on the radio. "Consensus reality" seems to be a bit more stable than our sleeping dreams, but then again maybe that just a belief? ;)

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

The only thing we can truly say we directly experience is consciousness, so who's to say otherwise that the reality we experience through it is anything more than a dream? I think everyone has experienced on some level how our thoughts affect the dream. Fun synchronicities such as a friend whistling a song and then hearing it again later on the radio. "Consensus reality" seems to be a bit more stable than our sleeping dreams, but then again maybe that just a belief? ;)

I've had plenty of 'lucid' dreams where the perception is deeper than ....
normal dreaming , and the sense is that what I'm experiencing is more 'real' than the real world.

So, if I'm dreaming and I know I'm dreaming , that transcends dreaming , the way we normally think of it . 'Daydreaming' is similar, so is a kind of change of waking perception I just call dimensional shifting , where the universe opens up wide and lets me in for a few seconds or whatever .


Which all circles around your assessment that the thing we can truly say we experience is consciousness/awareness (which shifts phases and moves around between .... (it doesn't always seem accurate to say 'levels') ...
areas .

:cool:

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

lately i have been thinking the more our dreams are real to us the more the awake becomes like a dream

and the more the physical becomes like a dream the more dreams become real :)

continuum :D

[Swami Chihuahuananda]

I still find myself dreaming in waking state a lot. I too was thinking of the book "The power of now" being present in the moment. Nisargadatta Maharaj said that one could be aware in deep asleep by prolonging the time we are present when we are awake. I have to note that he refers to awareness as the absolute and consciousness as something we are beyond.
I'm not sure I understand that last bit. A subtle (or not) distinction between consciousness and awareness?. Pure, primal, awareness as an attributeless
state before the chicken or the egg, and consciousness as a stage once removed, where there might be something to be conscious of , like... consciousness ? :wink: ?. That we , as also pure awareness, are ultimately the absolute , beyond the once-removed consciousness?> That makes sense, and sounds like what I've read (long ago) in Eastern material .

D

[Bluegreen]

I think the word 'dream' is used to indicate that everything in the cosmos changes and that the cosmos itself will cease to exist (only to reappear more evolved).

That which is changeless and absolute has been described as pure awareness, as be-ness. It does not experience. From this Absolute emanates the cosmos, God manifested.

People who encountered It refer to It as the Void.

I had a sense it was pure AWARENESS devoid of EXPERIENCE and as such, just IS. http://www.esolibris.com/articles/reality/void.php

... I discovered that creation is about absolute pure consciousness, or God, coming into the experience of life as we know it. The void itself is devoid of experience.http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation04.html

[Greenslade]

Various religions have described our life as a kind of dream.

I love it when these things happen. I started off looking for the God Gene and ended up with Monty Python. The sketch was about a rambler that was being kept in a Russian cell for execution. His mother woke him up to give him a drink.
"Thank God, it's all been a dream," said the rambler.
"Oh no, dear," said his mother, "this is the dream."
He woke up and he was back in his cell.

[Mountain-Goat]

We are living in dream of our mind.
Mind is always looking forward to be better in someway in future based on it's values.
So our future projections are based on impressions collected in our past through our sense perceptions.
So is it another kind of dream while we are awake?
When we wake up from the dream which we call waking, only then we come to know that we had been dreaming.
How can we wake up from this dream?
Once we are awake then we know who we are.
We are consciousness dreaming the dream of form.
Are you?
Or is this still the mind looking forward to something better, based on current values of self accumilated from past experiences.
Or is this just another dream while you are awake, or as it's commonly referred to, self delusion.

A person knows the difference between physical asleep and awake states.
And the person does not view either of them as illusions.
They are both real states.
They are the yin and yang of existance.

Why people believe part of their existance is illusory is still a mystery to me.

[Mountain-Goat]

In death this life will seem a very far-off dream indeed.
I have not died to be able verify your theory.

[Humm]

I have not died to be able verify your theory.

There are other ways.

[Humm]

Why people believe part of their existance is illusory is still a mystery to me.

Are you perceptions Actuality?

[Mountain-Goat]

There are other ways.
Please share the other ways to die other than dying.


Why people believe part of their existance is illusory is still a mystery to me.

Are you perceptions Actuality?
I have and continue to maintain that my perception of reality may not be what reality actually is.
Stating I still do not comprehend how a person can view parts of reality as illusion does not mean I am claiming their pereception is wrong,
just in case you were thinking along these lines.

[Greenslade]

Are you perceptions Actuality?

Is there such a thing?

Do we know which is awake and which is asleep, how do we define it and how do we measure it?

Who is dreaming the dream we are in?

Are we taking what started out as a philosophical exercise too far?

[Mountain-Goat]

Each person chooses how far they want to go.

[Greenslade]

Each person chooses how far they want to go.

The Universe is a torus and we always find we come back on ourselves.

[Mountain-Goat]

I have no idea what another will find.
I only know what I experience.