Life as a Dream

[SmallVoice]

I have a memory from when I was around 3 years old. In the memory, everything looks hazy and surreal and I am viewing myself from the outside. It's my first day of pre-school and the teacher is teaching me how to write my name. As I'm writing it, she says something along the lines of "That's you. That's your name," and in that exact moment, I get the uncanny feeling that it isn't really my name and I'm only dreaming about being a little girl with this name. Then I think to myself, "Well, just go with it. You'll wake up soon."

As I got older, everything started to look and feel more real, but I would still look back on this memory from time to time and experience an immense feeling of sadness over the fact that I haven't woken up yet. Lately, I've been hearing a lot of people compare life in this world to being stuck in a dream, and it always reminds me of this memory. I wonder if anyone has experienced something similar.

[lostsoul13]

Yes we probably are dreaming the matrix goes quite far down the rabbit hole. But albeit it’s still a really fabrication… as real as the dream as real as the life - which is which?? They both right. Just our aim is to be in the real life- because we don’t wanna get caught up- you could probably live quite comfortably in a dream and not know any difference…

But deep down you would have a feeling, if it’s there it’s probably because you ain’t present completely with your body- in this life..

If you felt it’s not real you ain’t gonna try to fly but you know what to look out for especially the real life.

We all feel sad about not waking up but it’s a lesson we have to learn?? I guess??

I wish we were powerful but we feeble compared maybe in the future???

[TattieHowker]

Originally Posted by SmallVoice

I get the uncanny feeling that it isn't really my name and I'm only dreaming about being a little girl with this name.

What you were having there, seems like, it what's known as an out-of-body experience. It's kinda like a mild form of astral travel, where the astral body slips out of the physical body and goes wandering. It can also feel like the 'external' body is your Soul or 'the real you'. In the memory and prior to your being at the school, how did you feel? What can happen in situations we can't deal with - and for a three-year-old a first day at pre-school can be a mind-blower - is that the mind can 'detach' from the experience. It's a safety mechanism that can happen in overwhelming circumstances.

When people think that they are stuck in this dream-like world, the word 'stuck' says it all. The dreamer is the dream, they are one and the same.

[SmallVoice]

Originally Posted by TattieHowker

In the memory and prior to your being at the school, how did you feel? What can happen in situations we can't deal with - and for a three-year-old a first day at pre-school can be a mind-blower - is that the mind can 'detach' from the experience.

I know it wasn't the first time I was left alone somewhere. I also have prior memories of living in Japan, being left at home with Sumiko, the housekeeper, who I really liked. I remember being left at daycare for the first time and having a total meltdown. In this pre-school experience, I don't remember feeling any sort of way, just kind of disassociated from my name and who I was.

[TattieHowker]

Originally Posted by SmallVoice

In this pre-school experience, I don't remember feeling any sort of way, just kind of disassociated from my name and who I was.

Which is a typical trauma response. In an experience like that the brain tries to make sense of all the input it's receiving from the senses, and because it has no prior experience of having been at school it's all new information. Kinda, to keep it simple. The brain can become overwhelmed and simply 'shuts down' or dissociates from its surroundings. Too much new data for it to process. The point there is to stop you from feeling anything. It's also likely that you would have felt loneliness and/or insecurity, at least on an unconscious level.

Being in familiar surroundings with people you like means you don't have all that new data to process and there would likely be feelings of safety and security. Your unconscious mind would have associated security and safety with your housekeeper, not creating trauma in the first place.

[SmallVoice]

Originally Posted by TattieHowker

Which is a typical trauma response.

It could be. I was diagnosed with C-PTSD a couple years ago, but I figured it was a bogus diagnosis because I don't even fit the criteria for regular PTSD. I just know that I've never had another experience like that since then. I do experience a lot of my dreams from a 3rd person perspective, though.

[hazada guess]

Most people experience their Dreams from a third person perspective SmallVoice.

[Redchic12]

Yep I believe this world is a dream as well.

[SmallVoice]

Originally Posted by hazada guess

Most people experience their Dreams from a third person perspective SmallVoice.

I didn't know that. I just thought I was a weirdo who watched myself in my dreams.

[Starman]

Have you ever had a dream where you realized that you were dreaming? In such an experience you can make that dream be anything that you want it to be. It is similar in human life, when we truly awaken in this dream, we can better manipulate physical life.

“Row, row, row, your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.”

This children’s nursery rhyme was written in 1853