Dream Currents

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2010-04-06T11:07:00.005-08:00

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Body-Surfing

2009-03-21T09:02:00.014-08:00

This is the dream of a sixty-eight year old Harvard trained physician. He comments:

Two weeks after this dream I develop urethral colic and was diagnosed as having a kidney stone. For three weeks this painfully blocked my ureter and was spontaneously passed.

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The representation here of the bodily situation by the dream is straightforward, and needs no further comment. It is interesting that that beginning of the dream specifically points to "body-surfing" -- a good clue that what follows does, indeed, pertain to the body. --- sparker

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een the rocks and I actually

Swarms of insects

2009-03-20T11:42:00.014-08:00

For some time before the onset of [a serious skin rash], I had an experience of seeing these very strange creatures appearing in my dreams... They seemed like visitors from somewhere else... They weren't human looking, except that they did seem to have heads and bodies, but it's more that they had something rather grotesque and alien about them.

On the night before the rash appearing, I had a vivid dream of these creatures flying in a swarm -- a huge swarm -- out of the kitchen. They were all white, and similar to locusts. Over the next few months I kept seeing them in my dreams.

Remarkably, one night I had a dream that all these creatures were dead -- their bodies shrivelled and their wings all dried up. The one one just lay there completely dead. I woke up feeling quite relieved that these creatures wouldn't trouble me anymore.

Jane was right. This was the last she saw of her illness. The creatures who invaded her dreams evidently represent the fungal infection, with their numbers possibly paralleling the number of spores....

Naturally, Jane did not know when the rash was about to start, or when it would finally vanish, but the dreams anticipated both, tracking its onset and returning to lurk as a reminder until the infection's departure.

The Hidden Power of Dreams, Dr. Robin Royston, Page 96

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This is another dream continuing the anecdotal evidence that elements in dreams can represent diseases of the body. These images can be, in fact, the primary representation of the dream; i.e., futher symbolic interpretation is unnecessary and unwarranted. The coming and going of these dreams of alien insects parallels a fungal infection.

Interstingly, there is a also a well know parallel between feeling that the skin is crawling with insects and certain disease or drug withdrawal states:

Formication is the medical term for an abnormal sensation named after the feeling of insects crawling on or under the skin. It refers to a specific form of a set of sensations known as paresthesia, along with the more common sensation of "pins and needles" like prickling and tingling. The experience of formication may cause feelings of pain or trigger the scratch reflex. Those suffering from the sensation are at risk of causing skin damage through excessive scratching. Fixating on the sensation may lead to the development of delusional parasitosis in prone individuals, rendering them convinced that it is being caused by actual insects. In reality, formication is a well-documented symptom that has numerous potential causes.

Causes

Causes of formication include medical conditions such as diabetic neuropathy, skin cancer, syphillis, or herpes zoster as well as normal states such as menopause (i.e. hormone withdrawal). Formication can also sometimes be experienced during high fevers. Itching, tingling and formication ("the creeps") often occur when surfacing from a dive or during ascent to altitude (decompression sickness).

It can be a rare side effect of many prescription drugs such as Ritalin (methylphenidate), Adderall (dextro/levo-amphetamine) and Lunesta (eszopiclone).

In addition, formication can be caused by the withdrawal component of substance abuse. It is a common side-effect of the extensive use of cocaine or methamphetamine, or the abusive use of amphetamines. Extreme alcohol withdrawal may also cause symptoms of formication, along with delirium tremens, and can often be accompanied by visual hallucinations of insects.

History of the term

Formication is etymologically derived from the Latin word formica, meaning "ant", precisely because of this similarity in sensation to that of crawling insects. The term has been in use for several hundred years. In the 1797 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, a description of the condition raphania includes the symptom:

...a formication, or sensation as of ants or other small insects creeping on the parts.

Described again in an instructional text from 1890:

A variety of itching, often encountered in the eczema of elderly people, is formication; this is described as exactly like the crawling of myriads of animals over the skin. It is probably due to the successive irritation of nerve fibrils in the skin. At times patients who suffer from it will scarcely be persuaded that it is not due to insects. Yielding to the temptation to scratch invariably makes the disease worse.

Wikipedia: Formication

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Dream Interpretations from the web: "INSECTS":

To see ants in your dream, signify your general dissatisfaction in your daily life. You are feeling neglected and insignificant. Petty things will annoy you throughout the following day. You need to be more cooperative as this will be the only way to achieve your desires. The dream may also be a metaphor on feeling antsy or restless or it can be a pun on your "aunt".

Ants also symbolize hard work, diligence and industry. Increase business activities are expected. On a less positive note, ants symbolize social conformity and mass action. In this regard, you may feel that your life is too structured and orderly.

According to the biblical interpretations, ants symbolize diligence concerning the things of God. Despite its small size, the ant lays up substance during times of plenty. (Prov 30:25) TOP

www.dreammoods.com

Psychological Meaning: Insects symbolise the irritating minor nagging of the unconscious or daily life. You may have many irritating small problems that need to be dealt with. In Kafka’s book Metamorphosis (1912), the terrified sleeper wakes up to discover he has transformed into a bug. Kafka worked most of his life in office jobs that he hated. Symbolically this can represent how working life requires us to form a brittle shell which can eventually takes over the personality completely. Here are a few of the symbolic meanings of common insects: Ants: your life may be too orderly. Ants can represent social conformity. Bees: industry and work. Butterflies: the soul, spiritual transcendence. Flies: breakdown, putrefaction and perhaps guilt. Ladybugs: happiness at work. Locusts: lack of psychological nourishment, your creativity is being destroyed. Wasps: Angry thoughts and feelings.

Mystical Meaning: The ancient Egyptians worshiped the scarab beetle as a symbol of creation. In dreams, it can represent the soul. In some fairytales, insects are called in when things have become impossibly muddled. For example, they may be asked to separate grain mixed with sand or to remove gold dust from the grain. In dreams, they can represent precision and meticulous thinking

www.dreamsleep.net

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There's an insect in your ear, if you scratch it won't disappear. It's gonna itch and burn and sting, you wanna see what the scratching brings." ~ U2, "Staring at the Sun," Pop.

For creatures who are usually tiny, insects have gigantic effects on humans. Sometimes they affect our vision: "bugs" become "giant" to us when they exceed a length of more than an inch or two. Insects inspire both terror and devotion; for some they are sources of phobias, for others, a source of collection and study. For others, insects are a simply a source of irritation and annoyance. Below are some different ways in which insects may manifest in dreams and some links to more information on specific bugs that may have crawled, crept, or flown into your dream.

Insects in the Home

Rarely do we want insects in our homes as they are seen as disease-carrying invaders. Insects can be symbols of vulnerability not only due to their fragile nature, but also because of their ability to make us vulnerable via their bites, stings, and venom.

Houses in dreams are often symbolic of ourselves. Dream houses infested with dream bugs symbolize pretty much what they symbolize in waking life with the only different being that it is the self that is afflicted. They can be symbolic of an illness in the body or mind.

Word Play

The Philip Haas film, "Angels and Insects," made use of word play, secretly revealing the nature of two of the film's characters. Dreams also enjoy employing puns and word play to get their messages across. Is there something "bugging you?" Does it feel like you are being "stung to death" by an emotional wound? Insects are often described as "pests" - is there a person or situation in your like who fits that description?

Anger and Insects

Oftentimes, an angered insect is a stinging insect. Insects in dreams may symbolize your own angry emotions, your desire to hurt someone who you feel is harming you. Insects can may also symbolize frustration, a desire to strike out at someone or something over which you feel you have no control.

Metamorphosis

While insects normally carry a negative connotation, there is an amazing quality to these creatures - their ability to radical transform. Insects such as the butterfly become completely different creatures going from a lowly worm into an awe-inspiring life form. Other insects undergo similar transformations, but theirs are usually not so pretty. For example, tiny wriggling larvae found in stagnant waters morph into bloodsucking mosquitoes.

While we normally consider transformation a good thing, carefully consider what you are transforming into and ask if that being is really what you want to become.

Interference

Flies buzzing, wasps stinging, ants crawling, and gnats in need of swatting can detract from the enjoyment of the outdoors. In dream life insects may be symbolic of minor interferences you are allowing to get in the way of enjoying your life.

http://www.bellaonline.com

The burned out chest of drawers

2009-03-19T08:09:00.013-08:00

About a day after this dream, it suddenly struck me that this was about my heart -- a chamber with four drawers, in the chest. I certainly felt burned and charred inside, and tests would show that my heart had been badly compromised and scarred. It was a depressing and discouraging dream. I can still vividly see that chest of drawers in my mind.

This was three years ago. Much to my surprise, and contrary to the image in the dream, I have made a strong recovery and am leading a normal life, in spite of an ejection fraction (the capacity of the heart to pump blood) reduced by 50%.

One of the people who heard this dream suggested that it could be about many different things; four, for instance, is a symbol associated with wholeness. Yes, but there is also a kind of an "aha" feeling when one hits the right meaning of the dream, a kind of emotional resonance that says, "Yes, that's it."

The dream is not prognostic however, nor is it the "truth". In this sense, while the dream may have represented the damage to the heart, it over-emphasized the darkness and damage; it was a dream also reflective of the anxiety. While it may have shown the subjective feeling about the heart attack, it did not necessarily indicate the objective reality.

Although the dream was not directly about "fire", this is the closest element that could be researched on the web. Here are some of the possibilities and associations to fire:

Fire and lightning mean intensity. If it were consciousness it would be light, but fire and lightning are chiefly energetic phenomena; that is, there is a great deal of libido in those figures, they are full of meaning, in other words.

Visions: notes of the seminar given in 1930 - 1934, C.G.Jung; p. 886

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Pent up emotions, such as anger or rage could be the reason for dreaming of fire. In the dream if fire is strong and high, it could mean that the emotions are strong. If the fire is weak and not roaring, it could mean there is pent up emotion, but no to an overwhelming state.

Not being able to let it go and letting it build within is usually the dream of fire. Holding a grudge against something or someone could be the result. It could also mean that there is pain or fear in one’s life. Either could stem from relationship issues. Dreaming of fire could also mean that there is a lot of passion in a person’s life: usually sexual passion, not a passion for something. If the fire is large and roaring in the dream it could mean that the passion is very high.

http://www.essortment.com/all/dreamsaboutfir_rutj.htm

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Burning is a tremendous fear many people from many different cultures hold in common. However, it is often simultaneously associated with purification. To pass through fire intact is to see oneself as becoming purified. However, being burned may indicate that one perceives life as extraordinarily threatening and painful. If a particular object is on fire (house, car, etc.), this may symbolise over-commitment to it or fear of a world without it.

Freud found fire to be a symbol of male power. In this case, fire may indicate control over a circumstance or a struggle to feel that way, depending on whether the fire is controlled or not.

Do you question your own morality at times? Are you seeking cleansing from a bad experience? Do you perceive your own life is about to go through a significant transition that requires spiritual preparation.

http://www.ivillage.co.uk/astrology/dreams/celestial/articles/0,,602743_603848,00.html

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Ancient mythology tells us that fire came to humanity not as a gift from the gods but as a spoil of an act of thievery. It was stolen from the god Zeus by the cunning Prometheus. Prometheus was rewarded for outsmarting Zeus by being chained to a rock and having his liver eaten daily by an eagle.

In mythology, fire was a complex symbol meaning far more than warmth and comfort. It was in fact, the very "means of life." Fire as a dream symbol is as complex as its mythology

Fire in dreams, especially fire that appears in the form of erupting volcanoes or irrepressible wildfires may symbolize emotions that are out of control. These symbols are especially representative of suppressed anger--anger that has reached its boiling point and can no longer be contained. Take care to examine your life and address these issues so as to prevent the damage that can occur to interpersonal relationships during and emotional meltdown.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art3068.asp

Boulders and Huge, Spider-like Crabs

2009-03-18T18:03:00.008-08:00

About three years ago I dreamt that I was wading through a subterranean waterway. The bed of the stream in this tunnel comprised pebbles and smooth boulders. Then -- suddenly and horrifically -- one of the boulders turned out to be the shell of a huge, spider-like crab... I used to kick my wife and lash out, trying to fight them off. It was as fierce and terrible as that.

The dream kept on for some time, on average about once a fortnight -- and his wife would regularly find herself on the floor.

After five months, it was discovered that Geoffrey had cancer of the colon. The interpretation seems very simple and clear. As in a virtual reality experience, Geoffrey was walking along his own colon and witnessed the events that had been occurring within him.

The large boulders seem to be an image of the lining cells of the large bowel and it is usually one of those cells that fight them off.... The seriousness of the illness is translated into the terror Geoffrey feels...

The Hidden Power of Dreams (page 72)
by Dr. Robin Roynston

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How is it that a dream can represent an internal process so vividly and strongly? One can argue that there are alternate meanings and interpretations; it seems to me that representation is so precise, and so emotionally and physiologically relevant, that it is hard to argue for other interpretations. The repetitiveness of the dream also speaks to the urgency the unconscious body/mind expresses about the situation.

From an evolutionary point of view, this kind of representation makes sense. In the same way we are evolved to deal with external, we also have evolved to deal with internal threats. It would make sense that within the system is a kind of hologram of the whole system, a way to represent which parts of the organism are under threat. Words are a fairly recent development; it is not as if the evolved system can say in words, "Hey, you have cancer of the bowels." However, that information can be expressed in pictures, metaphors, symbols.

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Dreams and Pregnancy

2009-03-17T10:40:00.006-08:00

(Sing along to Dream a Little Dream of Me)

Dreams during pregnancy provide a window on the dreaming process: they sometimes symboize the pregnancy, the anxieties, the relationship to the husband, the relationship to the new child...

These dreams provide a sense that the dreaming process represents both the physiological and psychological processes within the person...

Patricia Garfield provides an excellent review of the symbols and processes of pregnancy and childbirth:

http://www.patriciagarfield.com/publications/pregnancy-dreams.pdf

(from Women's Bodies, Women's Dreams).

Other sources of information about pregnancy and dreaming include:

http://www.babycenter.com/0_deciphering-your-pregnancy-dreams_7569.bc

http://pregnancy.about.com/cs/symptoms/a/pregdreams.htm

http://www.essortment.com/all/pregnancydreams_rbft.htm

The Mother-to-Be's Dream Book, Raina M. Paris

Dream Wisdom, Alan Siegel, Ph.D.

2008-12-26T13:31:00.002-09:00

The dreams were almost always the same: My teeth were loose or falling out, or I had a huge wad of chewing gum in my mouth that I was unable to remove. The gum dreams were more stressful: I would be in a gum-inappropriate environment and the endless struggle to remove it was fruitless and embarrassing. Loose-tooth dreams just mean you are getting old. Everyone knows that. But I had always had these dreams, and the ones about the impossible-to-remove, taffylike gum debacle occurred more and more frequently.

Eventually, my teeth actually become loose, and I began trying to figure out why. I went to see my dentist, who advised me to see a gum doctor. This seemed almost funny, in light of the dream imagery I struggled with for so many years. Nothing seemed to be amiss, and I was advised to "watch it" and see if anything changed. The teeth stayed loose, nothing changed, the dreams continued. My back molars no longer met the way they should and there was noticeable shifting and wiggling.

Finally, I went to see another dentist who wiggled my teeth, then stepped back and cupped his chin with his hand. "Hmm," he said. "I have been wiggling teeth for many, many years and I have never seen this before. I wiggle one, and they both move. Something is going on here, and I think I know what."

He was right -- something was going on and had been for most of my life. An aggressive cyst was growing inside one of my maxillary cavities -- it was a benign sort of thing in that it wasn't malignant, but it was by no means harmless. It had slowly been gnawing away at the roots of two molars, growing undetected for all of my life. It was called an ameloblastoma and would have to come out before it did more damage.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/13/CMGM9DDOM51.DTL

Burned by a Curling Iron

2008-12-14T19:36:00.008-09:00

I was coming to the rescue of some kids who were being burned by a curling iron.....I rushed over and grabbed the curling iron by the hot rod and it burned into the skin of my hand, sticking sickeningly to the skin of the hand.

I awoke with a tingling sensation in the ring and pinky fingers of one of my hands. The numbness and tingling stayed in the hand even after waking for the day. It then began to spread and eventually across my torso and into the other hand and then down into my hips. At the hospital I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.

Dream of a 32 year old woman

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If anyone has had similar dreams, or dreams that preceded illness (or healing) , please let me know:

Dr. Steve Parker

dreamcurrents(at)gmail.com

(substituting "@" for "at".)

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

2008-11-23T00:23:00.009-09:00

In his essay "A Chapter on Dreams," Robert Louis Stevenson revealed that certain of the scenes of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) and plot elements of much of his other fiction came to him in dreams. He amusingly referred to his "Brownies," the "little people" in his unconscious who had engaged in businesslike literary collaboration with him and were welcome successors to the "night-hag" who sent him frightening dreams when he was a child. Stevenson dreamed of Jekyll and Hyde in Bournemouth, England, while his body was racked with a fever following a lung hemorrhage and the delirium of his sleep's visions was possibly heightened by the drugs that his doctor had prescribed. Stevenson appears to have dreamed the idea of Jekyll and Hyde in great detail and clarity, and even attributed to his Brownies the invention of the powders that induced Dr. Jekyll's personality changes. He cried out in horror during his sleep, causing his wife, Fanny, to rouse him, "much to his indignation." He told her that he "was dreaming a fine bogey tale" and gave her a rapid sketch of Jekyll and Hyde up to the point when she had awakened him. At daybreak he passionately set to work on the story. He closeted himself in his sickroom for three days and then emerged with a completed thirty-thousand-word manuscript, which he read aloud to his wife and his stepson, Lloyd Osbourne.

http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/lsf/29-2/dr.jekyll.html

Dreamtime Radio

2008-11-20T21:02:00.003-09:00

One of the better resources for understanding dreams, Dreamtime has fourteen interviews with prominent dream researchers and clinicians.

The sound quality is not always great because they are mostly telephone interviews, but listening to the shows is an easy way to learn what is in the current field of dream research and understanding.

http://dreamscience.org/dreamtimeradio2/index.htm

Beauty in Sleeping: From Dream to Millionaire

2008-11-18T10:33:00.004-09:00

(There are numerous cases of the remedy for healing shown in a dream. This is one of them -- sparker)
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Madame C.J. Walker (1867-1919) is cited by the Guinness Book of Records as the first female American self-made millionaire. She was also the first member of her family born free.
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Madame Walker founded and built a highly successful African-American cosmetic company that made her a millionaire many times over. Walker was suffering from a scalp infection that caused her to loose most of her hair in the 1890’s. She began experimenting with patented medicines and hair-care products. Then, she had a dream that solved her problems:
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He answered my prayer, for one night I had a dream, and in that dream a big, black man appeared to me and told me what to mix up in my hair. Some of the remedy was grown in Africa, but I sent for it, mixed it, put it on my scalp, and in a few weeks my hair was coming in faster than it had ever fallen out. I tried it on my friends; it helped them. I made up my mind to begin to sell it.”
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Walker was an entrepreneur, philanthropist and social activist. She best sums up her rise from a childhood in the poor south to being the head of an international, multi-million dollar corporation in the following quote:
"I am a woman who came from the cotton fields of the South. From there I was promoted to the washtub. From there I was promoted to the cook kitchen. And from there I promoted myself into the business of manufacturing hair goods and preparations....I have built my own factory on my own ground."

http://www.brilliantdreams.com/product/famous-dreams.htm#paul_mccartney_dream

Scrambled eggs, You've got lovely legs

2008-11-17T12:28:00.005-09:00

The Beatles were in London in 1965 filming Help! and McCartney was staying in a small attic room of his family's house on Wimpole Street. One morning, in a dream he heard a classical string ensemble playing, and, as McCartney tells it:

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" I woke up with a lovely tune in my head. I thought, 'That's great, I wonder what that is?' There was an upright piano next to me, to the right of the bed by the window. I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F sharp minor 7th -- and that leads you through then to B to E minor, and finally back to E. It all leads forward logically. I liked the melody a lot, but because I'd dreamed it, I couldn't believe I'd written it. I thought, 'No, I've never written anything like this before.' But I had the tune, which was the most magic thing!"

http://www.brilliantdreams.com/product/famous-dreams.htm#paul_mccartney_dream

Paul McCartney woke up with the tune for Yesterday in his head, along with some strange lyrics. For a long time, he was sure he must have heard it elsewhere, he dream was so clear.The lyrics he had with the simple tune were -

Scrambled Eggs

Oh my darling you've got lovely legs

McCartney mulled over the tune for a while, convinced he must have heard it on the radio or elsewhere. But finally he played it for his fellow Beatles, and none of them remembered the tune from anywhere else. They put it together with some more romantic lyrics -

Yesterday

All my troubles seemed so far away,

Now it seems that they are here to stay,

Oh I believe in Yesterday.

http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art19125.asp

The Wolf man

2008-11-16T09:02:00.004-09:00

I dreamt that it was night and that I was lying in bed. (My bed stood with its foot towards the window; in front of the window there was a row of old walnut trees. I know it was winter when I had the dream, and night-time.) Suddenly the window opened of its own accord, and I was terrified to see that some white wolves were sitting on the big walnut tree in front of the window. There were six or seven of them. The wolves were quite white, and looked more like foxes or sheep-dogs, for they had big tails like foxes and they had their ears pricked like dogs when they pay attention to something. In great terror, evidently of being eaten up by the wolves, I screamed and woke up. My nurse hurried to my bed, to see what had happened to me. It took quite a long while before I was convinced that it had only been a dream; I had had such a clear and life-like picture of the window opening and the wolves sitting on the tree. At last I grew quieter, felt as though I had escaped from some danger, and went to sleep again." (Freud 1918)

This was the dream of the famous "Wolf Man," Sergie Pankejeff.

Parkejeff was an aristocrat from Russia: his problems in included his inability to have bowel movements and a severe depression.

Freud's interpretation was that he had witnessed his parents having sex a tergo. The dream played a major role in Freud's tehreoy of psychosexual development.

Several years after he finished seeing Freud, he had psychotic delusions that a doctor had filled a hole near his nose and would walk down the street staring at his reflection in a mirror.

He was in and out of Freudian analysis his whole life; he told a journalist at the end of his life, "the whole thing looks like a catastrophe. I am in the same state as when I came to Freud." He saw Freud's interpretation of his dream as "far-fetched."

Interestingly, this information about the failure of Freudian psychoanalysis in one of its cornerstone cases is not well publicized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Pankejeff

The Dream of Mary Shelley

2008-11-14T00:06:00.004-09:00

Boris Karloff as the monster in Frankenstein
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I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous Creator of the world. [Mary Shelley]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notable_dreams_throughout_history

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During the wet summer of 1816 in the Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva, Switzerland, a group of five friends began reading ghost tales from a book to amuse themselves through the drear, ungenial days that met them with incessant rain. It sounds rather unimpressive, but when those friends are actually some of the greatest literary minds in the history of English literature, something is certain to start brewing.

The exiled Lord Byron, creator of such mind-blowing works as Childe Harold, and his doctor, John Polidori, had been visited by budding poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (author of Queen Mab) and his wife, Mary, who was accompanied by her stepsister, Jane 'Claire' Claremont. When Byron suggested that they each write a ghost story to rival that of the book of ghost tales, little did the friends know that only two would complete their stories. The most unlikely of them all would produce a work that would echo in eternity for its chilling Gothic nature and black satire upon human creativity...

That night [Mary Shelley] dreamt of a hideous body created from various body parts that slowly came into life as a powerful engine began to animate the being. She saw the creator of this grotesque incarnation, sleeping in his bed, and waking up as a terrifying creature opens the curtains around him, staring over him with yellow watery eyes. Awaking with a jolt, it had come to her. The next day, she announced to the others that she had thought of a story. [There is much more to read here -- sparker]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/a2082854

Suspense Above the Pool: the night vision of Carl Linehart

2008-11-12T23:01:00.004-09:00

This is one of the best collections of the painting of dreams on the Web(and a very artistically designed website). Well worth viewing.

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About Carl Linkhart

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Carl Linkhart was born in Sapula, Oklahoma in 1950,and lived in Tuscon Arizona from 1957 to 1969.He has been a Bay Area resident since 1973.He studied art at Yuba City College in 1971and at Fort Mason in San Francisco during the Eighties but is largely self taught. Influenced by his travels in Thailand, India, Nepal, Burma, and Mexico, as well as by memories of Arizona. Writing, film, music and theatre have been his other pursuits.

His film Weekend Zombie Nurses was shown at the S.F. Gay Lesbian Film Festival in 1985, He also performed in shows with the Angels of Light, The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and other groups. However because of the "Other worlds" it can create, his main love is painting.

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Since his dreams have always been vivid, colorful, and thought provoking, he took to exploring them on canvas with acrylic in 1970. After developing his style for nearly thirty years, his friends, Burl Willes and Cass Brayton and others helped Carl produce his book, Suspense Above the Pool in 1998, an intriguing journey through his personal, yet universal dream world.

http://home.earthlink.net/~carllinkhart/index.html

$139 Million Dollar Dream, except for the elbow

2008-11-11T22:34:00.004-09:00

La Reve
Picasso
1932
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The $40-Million Elbow

by Nick Paumgarten

October 23, 2006

You might have seen “Le Rêve,” Picasso’s 1932 portrait of his mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, in your college art-history textbook. The painting is owned by Steve Wynn, the casino magnate and collector of masterpieces. He acquired it in a private sale in 2001 from an anonymous collector, who had bought it at auction in 1997 for $48.4 million. Recently, Wynn decided that he’d like to sell it, along with several other museum-quality paintings that he owns. A friend of his, the hedge-fund mogul and avid collector Steven Cohen, had coveted “Le Rêve” for years, so he and Wynn and their intermediaries worked out a deal. Cohen agreed to pay a hundred and thirty-nine million dollars for it, the highest known price ever paid for a work of art.

A few weeks ago, on a Thursday, a representative of Cohen’s came from California to inspect the painting. She removed it from the wall, took it out of its frame, and confirmed that it was in excellent shape. On Friday, she wrote her condition report, and so, according to their contract, the deal was done. All that was left was the actual exchange of money and art..That weekend, Wynn had some friends visiting from New York—David and Mary Boies, Nora Ephron and Nick Pileggi, Louise Grunwald, and Barbara Walters. They were staying, as they often do, at his hotel and casino, the Wynn Las Vegas. As they had dinner together on Friday night, Wynn told them about the sale. “The girls said, ‘We’ve got to see it tomorrow,’ ” Wynn recalled last week. “So I said, ‘I’ll be working tomorrow. Just come on up to the office.’ ” (He had recently moved “Le Rêve” there from the hotel lobby.)The guests came at five-thirty, and Wynn ushered them in. On the wall to his left and right were several paintings, including a Matisse, a Renoir, and “Le Rêve.” The other three walls were glass, looking out onto an enclosed garden. He began to tell the story of the Picasso’s provenance. As he talked, he had his back to the picture. He was wearing jeans and a golf shirt. Wynn suffers from an eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa, which affects his peripheral vision and therefore, occasionally, his interaction with proximate objects, and, without realizing it, he backed up a step or two as he talked. “So then I made a gesture with my right hand,” Wynn said, “and my right elbow hit the picture. It punctured the picture.” There was a distinct ripping sound. Wynn turned around and saw, on Marie-Thérèse Walter’s left forearm, in the lower-right quadrant of the painting, “a slight puncture, a two-inch tear. We all just stopped. I said, ‘I can’t believe I just did that. Oh, shit. Oh, man.’”

Wynn turned around again. He put his pinkie in the hole and observed that a flap of canvas had been pushed back. He told his guests, “Well, I’m glad I did it and not you.” He said that he’d have to call Cohen and William Acquavella, his dealer in New York, to tell them that the deal was off. Then he resumed talking about his paintings, almost, but not quite, as though he hadn’t just delivered what one of the guests would later call, in an impromptu stab at actuarial math, a “forty-million-dollar elbow.”

A few hours later, they all met for dinner, and Wynn was in a cheerful mood. “My feeling was, It’s a picture, it’s my picture, we’ll fix it. Nobody got sick or died. It’s a picture. It took Picasso five hours to paint it.” Mary Boies ordered a six-litre bottle of Bordeaux, and when it was empty she had everyone sign the label, to commemorate the calamitous afternoon. Wynn signed it “Mary, it’s all about scale—Steve.” Everyone had agreed to take what one participant called a “vow of silence.” (The vow lasted a week, until someone leaked the rudiments of the story to the Post.)

The next day, Wynn finally reached his dealer, and told him, “Bill, I think I’m going to ruin your day.” The first word out of Acquavella’s mouth was “Nooo!” Later that week, Wynn’s wife, Elaine, took the painting to New York in Wynn’s jet, where she and “Le Rêve” were met by an armored truck. Cohen met them at Acquavella’s gallery, on East Seventy-ninth Street, and he agreed that the deal was off until the full extent of the damage could be ascertained. The contract, at any rate, was void.

The painting wound up in the hands of an art restorer, who has told Wynn that when he’s done with it, in six or eight weeks, you won’t be able to tell that Wynn’s elbow passed through Marie-Thérèse Walter’s left forearm.

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Last Friday, when Wynn’s alarm went off, at 7 A.M., his wife turned to him in bed and said, “I consider this whole thing to be a sign of fate. Please don’t sell the picture.” Later that morning, Wynn called Cohen and told him that he wanted to keep the painting, after all.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/10/23/061023ta_talk_paumgarten

Jacob's Ladder

2008-11-10T22:30:00.003-09:00

Jacob's Dream
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William Blake

29 cm x 37 cm
1800

The C.G. Jung Society of the North is currently showing The Way of the Dream on Friday nights. This is an extraordinary series of twenty films that are interviews with Jungian analyst Marie Louise Von Franz. The films have been unavailable for a decade because of a lawsuit; they were just released in DVD format. (However, it is limited edition to benefit the Marion Woodman Foundation.)

Last evening Von Franz was talking about the dream of Jacob:

From the Book of Genesis (28:11-19).

Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Haran. He came to the place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families of the earth bless themselves. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you." Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place; and I did not know it." And he was afraid, and said, "This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."
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Commentary by Marie Louise Von Franz

Later in the Renaissance in the seventeenth century, Jacob's Ladder was interpreted symbolically as being the sounds and vowels of human speech, or the different qualities of the world, or the different numbers of the world. The basic idea of different systems of thought was projected onto the ladder. But in all casesthe ladder symbolized a continuous, constant connection with the divine powers of the unconscious. We could say the dream itself was such a ladder. It connects us with the unknown depth of our psyche. Every dream is a rung on a ladder, so to speak.

The Way of the Dream
Marie Louse Von Franz
pages 88-89

I Dream of Barack Obama

2008-11-05T08:09:00.007-09:00

Poster of Barack Obama, 2000 campaign

During the 2008 presidential campaign, a blog developed called "I Dream of Barack Obama. People were asked to send in their drams of Obama (and of Clinton and McCain). This is one of those dreams:

116. 23-Year-Old Portland Woman:

I was at a Barack rally and since I arrived early, I was sitting on the stage talking to Barack. He was trying to convince me, in a subtle and kind way, that I should vote -- not just for him, but in general. People began to fill the room, and I sat on a chair toward the back of the stage. I found his speech compelling and invigorating. I knew that he was the president we needed. He was full of compassion and insight. When he finished, most people began filing out, but some milled around like teenagers at a concert, waiting, hoping for a moment with their favorite musician. Barack stepped off the stage and greeted them, spending a few moments with each. Then he returned to me and we picked up our conversation from where we had left off -- discussing Will Truman from the TV show Will & Grace.I woke feeling like I should vote for Barack Obama, or at least think about registering.

__________________________

I would note that Obama seems to have both Will and Grace.

The 333 dreams sent in were coded and analyzed using Robert Van de Castle's content analysis method. There were several of the comments of professional dreamers who reviewed the dreams:

On a symbolic level, the image of a black man as President carries not only a sense of reflecting possible healing taking place on this historical cultural level, but in a more personal way it represents an image of the way in which the side of oneself that has been put down, blocked and excluded from equal participation in one’s life is finally redeemed, brought back into consciousness and placed in a position of leadership.

Raymond Hillis, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of counseling at California State University at Los Angeles.

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Aggressive interactions, both physical and verbal, appear in 53 of the Hillary dreams and 39 of the Barack dreams. Sixteen of the Hillary dreams and nine of the Barack dreams include some kind of physical aggression; Barack is the mostly the victim of physical aggression, while Hillary is equally its victim and instigator. These frequencies suggest the perception of vulnerability and/or lack of aggressiveness in Barack and a confirmation of Hillary’s campaign claims to be a fighter, though not always in ways the dreamer appreciates.

Kelley Bulkeley, Ph.D. author, most recently of American Dreamers

.http://idreamofanalysis.blogspot.com/

I Dream of Barack

http://idreamofbarack.blogspot.com/

Source of Image

http://flickr.com/photos/djryski/2509310202/
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More Power Lines in Flying Dreams

2008-11-01T12:52:00.005-08:00

anonymous image on the Web

These are comments and power line dreams collected by Linda Lane Magallón; her website about flying dreams is currently under construction. You can reach her through the International Association for the Study of Dreams:

(http://dreamtalk.hypermart.net/member/files/linda_magallon.html)

It's as if we all produce different computer programs on the Star Trek Enterprise holodeck, but the gridwork underneath is similar for all of us. Our gridwork is the physical body and brain as well as the bodies of the non-physical level.

I created this theory as a result of viewing my own dreams and hundreds of dreams dreamt in groups. I think few folks actually perceive the grid system as is; most are entranced by the holodeck program which overlays the grid like the white paint on Tom Sawyer's fence. But sometimes the fence peeks through. One of those instances, is, I believe, the case of the wires that have been found in so many flying dreams. They might be seen singly, in multiples or as part of a mesh.

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The typical dream goes like this: I am flying; I encounter wires; I try to fly underneath them. Sometimes the dreamer gets caught in the wires; sometimes the wires form an insurmountable barrier. Some dreamers climb the wires; others walk the wires like a tightrope.
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Another variation is wider than the wires. It's the window or mirror. Trying to go through glass, dreamers can get stuck, half in-half out or wrapped up in the material. I'm not the first to hypothesize that this sort of experience is the dream equivalent of astral separation.
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Besides similar form, the common bond seems to be kinesthetic. We may not all see the same details, but the visual outline plus tactile sensations can alert us to the fact that, underneath the covers, we are having the same sort of dreaming experience.
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You might keep this theory in mind as you read the dreams and comments of the Flying Wires Mystery Project.

Flying Wires Dreams and Comments

Daniel

1) I am flying. It is rudimentary flying. I must pump my legs, as if riding an invisible recumbent bicycle, to keep my altitude. I am flying low, down the middle of a street. Nobody in the street looks up or notices me. I am invisible to them. Above me are telephone and electrical wires. I am careful to stay below them.

2) I am flying, pumping my legs to keep my altitude. I don't yet realize that pumping my legs has little to do with flying. I don't know how to turn very well. I approach an intersection and as I try to turn, I go off course, and can't control my altitude. Suddenly I am caught up in the telephone and electrical wires. This is not painful, however, and I end up freeing myself.
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3) I am flying down a street. After my run-in with the wires, I have more confidence about dealing with them. For the first time, I fly through and above the wires. It is not simple, and I notice that I come very close to them as I do this. I notice now that it is the flexing of different parts of my body, not the leg-pumping, that controls my altitude and direction.
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4) I grow more confident about gaining altitude. Not only do I fly though the wires, but I fly as high as an airplane. A slight fear always takes hold above a certain altitude however, and I descend slightly. I am still invisible to the rest of the world.
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5) I am walking down the street. Without anybody's noticing, I flex my body and fly to the next block and land. I do this repeatedly, delighted with the growing control of my body and my flight.
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6) I am walking down the street with friends. We are talking. "Watch this," I say, and flex my body ten feet into the air. My friends are amazed. "How can I learn to fly?" asks one of them. "Practice in your dreams," I reply.
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7) I feel that I am becoming a master flyer. I fly above the wires and higher than I've ever flown before. I feel no fear as I rise into the sky. But soon I reach a new obstacle. This obstacle has never been visible to me until now. It is a faint but regular grid of light across the sky. It looms above me, not menacing, just there. The light grid frightens and fascinates me at the same time. It is very shocking. I descend.
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Note: About those power lines-when I told my father about those dreams

he told me that he has also had flying dreams in which power lines got in the way! Like father like son!

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Keelin
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1) Willfully pushing the doors open wide, I soar out into the deep, dark evening sky. Rich calls out a greeting from indoors and I invite him to join me, but he declines. I tell him there are other dreamers out here exploring as well. They are the misty, cirrus cloud-like shapes drifting in the quiet moonlight. There are a great many of them. Rising higher, I encounter a mesh of powerlines and hesitate for an instant until clearly recalling that I moved through similar ones (in a previous lucid dream) without consequence.
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This time, however, I feel a low electrical charge in the tip of one of my little fingers as I begin to pass through. I find this odd and slightly uncomfortable and want to hurry quickly beyond them. As soon as this thought occurs, I am floating far beyond them, frolicking with great joy in the vast, starlit darkness. A banner of neon-bluegreen lines reading 'ULHC' waves by and I assume it stands for University of Lucidity and Higher Consciousness. Shortly thereafter, I begin to awaken and briefly consider spinning, but decide to return and record the experience.

2) I am standing quietly alone in a room when I become aware that I am dreaming...I recall my intention of seeking the meaning of life and decide to pursue this task...Outside, the evening is clear and quiet with stars shining brightly. I float comfortably on my back, gazing up at the heavens. I notice the moon is not visible and assume it has already gone down. I'd like to see it, though, and figure that if I rise high enough I should be able to. Immediately I begin to ascend, still in the same position.

When I come to some power lines I hesitate and wonder how my body will react if I try to float through them. This concerns me only briefly as I say almost aloud, "Wait a minute, whose dream is this, anyway? This is no obstacle!" Having expressing this, I find I am now either beyond them or they have disappeared and I am beginning to rise a bit faster...(I) ask, "May I know the meaning of the Universe?"

The answer comes in a wholly unexpected form. something is emerging from the darkness. It looks like some kind of living molecular model or mathematical equation-an extremely complex, three-dimensional network of fine lines glowing like neon lights. It's unfolding itself, multiplying, constantly changing, filling up the Universe with increasingly complex structures and interrelationships.

This growing movement is not erratic but consistent and purposeful, rapid but at the same time unhurried, determined. When it has expanded beyond me, continuing to multiply, I think of returning to the ordinary world...

It's as if I was seeing the invisible relationships connecting all things-the intimate molecular level superimposed over the vast and limitless Universe...It also led me to believe that in some way I, too, am a unique and essential part of whatever is going on here-the Divine is within as well as without.

Elizabeth

Two other women and I are in a small town trying to solve some kind of mystery. Scully from the X-files is also here investigating the mystery, but she is with the FBI and our group is more of an independent team so we don't work with her. We go into a movie theatre and we are exploring "the supernatural". One of the women with me looks like Linda Lane Magallón or like Julie Kravitz. She has a flashlight and she shines it on these hairlike fibers that are all across the movie theater--it is like they are fibers strung about the universe.

Note: My association with these hairlike fibers (which remind me of the wires as described in the experiment) is the description of philotic fibers in Orson Scott Card's books Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead. In both of these books, alien races communicate with humans telepathically, and the entire universe is connected by these philotic threads that allow instantaneous communication. It is actually a nicely handled metaphor by Card. Although I was not lucid in this dream, I did achieve some lucidity later in the night when I was swimming and decided to breathe underwater because it I knew it was a dream.

Shirley

Note: I noticed a sync in my story (contributed to the "Black Sheep" newsletter) of the "telephone lines" symbolizing different strands of consciousness. Maybe that's what they symbolize in people's dreams?

Moe

I'm at a Calistoga (California spa) type setting with K. and others. She takes off like a plane hanging on to a blow-up (blimp-like) toy that is very large, larger than her.

I see lots of power lines in her path and I get scared that she will hit them (deadly). She skims over one and topples a bit but keeps ascending. She soars out of sight.

I look around the mountain to try to catch sight of her again, but I can't find her. I'm really worried (that) she has fallen. The sky gets cloudy and stormy. Someone (a girl?) tells me about a crash with 3 people (I'm sure it must include her). I'm very distraught. I try to picture her face, just to be able to see again. I want to see her beautiful face again.

Note: At the time of the dream, K. was anorexic, bulimic and on various drugs: alcohol, speed, etc. Her family-mom and grandparents-have always tried to power trip and control her. They are and always have been involved in beauty pageant and dance competition. They own a dance school and want her teaching, competing and involved. She has never been interested in beauty pageants, but she has two sisters who were into it (they are all in their 20's now). The parents' house is filled with their photos and trophies of the girls. K. has a very dark side and tries to cope by getting high. One of her drugs was an inhalant, nitric oxide. I fear this drug use could kill her. I sat with her while she crashed and later, last year, again. She is much better but still bulimic and affected by her overpowering mom.

Eve

Note: The telephone and electric wires in flying dreams-I wish I had a clue to what they mean. Somehow they make more sense than an out-of-body dream I had in which a clothesline, yeah, the old-fashioned kind you dry clothes on, was featured.

Hanging on the line was a pair of new burgundy pajamas I was going to give to a dying old man for his birthday who lived in a paint-peeling ramshackle house up the hill behind my "lean-to." He was a "Lord of the Realm"- and although I knew exactly what his house looked like inside, "I could "see" in my mind his bedroom, where he lay sick-I had never been inside it in my life??? But - the pajamas matched the burgundy-themed bedroom, which pleased me. Duh. Maybe I'll figure it out some day.

Jill

I am flying near my parent's home in Michigan when I realize that I am dreaming. I decide to try the new method of flying that K. uses in his dreams. He imagines and wills himself flying. I do the same and find that it works wonderfully!

I practice a long time flying along at my usual altitude just above the tree tops. Avoiding telephone wires, I fly through tree branches and practice carrying packages in both arms while flying. Landing in a tree, I imagine and will myself into being supported by thin, thin branches with round, slippery surfaces.

Sue

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Last night I dreamed of these lines but before I saw them this occurred: I was in an apartment building and we were all witches. While moving from one room thou the hall to another we all became aware that our powers were gone and looked outside. The mayor and some police had a big truck with antennas and satellite dishes parked in front and the dishes were pointed at the house. We knew that this was preventing us from using our powers and some of us snuck outside to sabotage the truck so the rest could escape. We disconnected the power wires on the truck and our powers came back and we all flew away. Later, in a safe house, I went outside to fly and could only go about 6 feet up and then had to pull myself up the trees to get any higher. I looked up and there were power lines overhead.
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Note: There was more to the dream but my thought is this...could the power lines be some outside source...a higher power of some sort...trying to prevent us from using our inherent powers. I also am trying to figure out the power lines. Why would so many people have these things in their dreams. They're not a part of our everyday stuff, unless you're a lineman I guess.

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I am continuing in my exploration of this phenomena but was wondering what you had found out. Has anyone followed them or tried to merge with them? Or, tried to cut them or disconnect them in some way?
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Susan

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May 4th) Men in aerial wire work. I watched them practice for their art with equipment. They were also connected with wires."
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Sept. 6th) Electrical outlets. I had cut the older black cords (many) and left a simple white one-a white box and a white cord."
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Note: I am a shaman in Alaska. I journeyed to non-ordinary reality to meet my teachers and asked them for the dreams' meanings. This is what I learned: The wires mean psychic energy-almost like the energy lines in China-the dragonlines that were in old Taoist teachings. In May I had just returned from a 2 week (Shamanic) intensive and this September I was preparing to start the 3 year training. I am "simplifying" going to non-ordinary reality and somehow it is transforming black to white energy (going from the unconscious to the conscious level).
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Pablo
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Note: I realized that I had never dreamt of wires...I attempted to incubate a dream with (them) as a subject. But instead, I got one in which I was driving a car. And this does relate to the issue, since neither I had so far dreamed of driving a car.
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Well, I engaged myself in a little of self-hypnosis to ask my subconscious one question or two about myself, as well as to try to induce a wire-related daydream. My subconscious, sure enough, let me see how, at a deep level, I perceive both, wires and cars, as instances of an amusingly alien culture. Then I did feel how wires, on account of their electrical nature, may get entangled with one's dream body, which is of a similar stuff. Most folks who are after OOBEs or who dream, want to use that gift for visiting other people and spots whose basis is on physical earth. But surely those who rather travel in their mindform to more alien, or abstract, or thus-called symbolic areas of All That Is, probably won't face the wires situation.

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Now, of course, there exists an alternative explanation for wires in a dream. And it is a symbolic one on which myths and shamanic experience can shed light.

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In Hawaiian shamanism, the body of the subconscious is termed "aka," a word meaning "shadow." But also "cobweb." It would work much in the way also described by Castenada of Don Juan fame, i.e., like wires linking one's aura with every other event, actual or probable, in the universe. This concept was worked out in a rather more limiting way by Anne Rice in her vampire series, where all those monsters proved to be so connected with the original one. She perhaps, in turn, drew the idea from the ancient occultist view of an original oversoul come from outer space. Also called the banyan tree, for in the case of the afore mentioned parent, the offspring are forever connected to the original parent via roots.

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And then there is the infamous spider woman of the native American legends, created to be useful, but becoming tricksome along the way. I bet that she stands for "mind." This is probably the same as the Ariadne that provides the necessary thread to the minosaur (buffalo? North American litho-descriptions of a labyrinth are the same as those found in Minoan art.) (She knits) counterfeit representations of the divine gods or original powers.

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Therefore, if Jane Roberts, Jung and Plato are right and archetypes exist, then at least some of those who dream of wires might indeed be seeing, through the interpretation of their subconscious,...a dance of wavicles as the objects of perception constituting their surroundings. Those who dream of wires...might be actually seeing a modernized version of the silver cords. The psychic internet (would put) them in touch with any destination, kind of like a sci fi that I read once in which the insect-like inhabitants of Venus used air-bands as their transportation system.
I believe dreams must be lived rather than interpreted. However, I also take thoughts to be things (and physical things, thoughts). So, when I see anything, e.g. wires, even in the waking world, I do not take them, ever, at face value.

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Charles

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Note: I don't know what the wires may represent in my dreams other than to give a reference as to where the ground is and which way is up when I am flying in the dream. When I come across them in what I would believe to be an out of body experience, astral projection, I have wondered if the pull is the same as an electromagnetic attraction. This reassures me that we are multi-dimensional beings, the body being only one dimension and the "soul" or "spirit" being another. Some people can only experience the physical because they have suppressed the spiritual. I can only believe that the feeling of being drawn to power lines and having to pull away gives me more assurance that the spirit has substance, even though it is not able to be seen or felt by others. I have never been afraid of the power lines because I have always known that I was not in a physical body, but I have never wanted to get too close, I guess (because of) the knowledge that if I touched them in a physical state, it would not be too wise.

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Lucy

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January 18th) ...I get on Dad's roof and look back. "J" is slowly coming along. There are wires near the house that he is afraid to touch. He jumps over them onto the roof. I remind him that it's a dream and he can go through these things and not be hurt. I fly away again in big circles. Then I let my body fall to show myself as much as "J" that I won't be hurt. I feel a slight sensation as my back touches the ground. I see the house and the night sky before me. I remember someone saying [I had read somewhere] that they fell and kept on going through the earth. I try it for a bit and do feel myself going down into the ground. I don't go far though. I see that I am in a depression of about a half of a metre. I then want to get the sensation of moving up and out into the night sky. I marvel that the shifting perspective of the house is exactly what it should be as I rise from the earth. I know that I couldn't do this physically and I marvel that my mind is able to create all this so vividly and expertly.

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March13th) ...I am angry (from a previous dream scene). I seem to be at the foot of Dad's driveway at night. I look up into the sky and see two moons, then three, then four, then more. I then know I am dreaming; the moons remind me of another lucid (dream) I have had recently in which there were multiple moons in the sky. I rise into the air, still angry. I let the anger carry me. I want revenge (on a character from the previous scene). I say in a sing-song voice "Lucid, I am lucid." But soon the angry feeling goes and I am singing some sounds as I continue to rise into the night sky.

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I seem to be a little out of control when it comes to flying. I pass diagonally upward through a number of power lines that are parallel to my Grandmother's driveway (next to my father's place). What an interesting sensation as I feel my body passing through each line (many more lines than in reality). I seem to be moving up backwards and would rather see where I am going. With that thought I am then turned around and seem to have more control. I look back up into the sky, there are no moons now, just thick grey clouds. I decide to fly through them, to go into outer space. I rise up into the clouds. They feel thicker than the air, and seem never ending. I then see two moons close together through the clouds. The moons are very brilliant and there is what looks like a dark satin or silk ribbon of colour flickering over them. Soon the experience seems more like "thinking" than doing and I "wake"...

Flying Dreams and Power Lines

2008-10-30T18:41:00.005-08:00

an image and dream on the internet

I have “dreams”, maybe nightmares about flying over traumatic events in these nightmares I am not in control of my abilities to fly and I am forced to witness these traumatic events. This reoccurring dream has been happening since I was about six years old. I have developed the super ability however, to tell myself during these nightmares that it is a dream and am able to wake myself up from them. Often going back to sleep means going back to my nightmare meaning I will have night where the nightmare is repeated over and over as I keep waking myself up over and over. I hope writing this will be the real life equivalent of waking myself up from a “dream” maybe depression.

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I think this dream speaks for itself; this is another in what will become a series of blogs about flying dreams and power lines.

"Dream of Flying": Drawing your dreams

2008-10-29T16:56:00.011-08:00

(Dream art on the internet, anonymous)

I dreamt that I was going to a dance. I am in a town shopping, looking for something to wear. I’ve been in this town in previous dreams, along the main street; it reminds me of Lighthouse Avenue in Monterey. It is dusk and I am with my sister. We are going from shop to shop looking for dresses. I am in a dress shop, looking at skirts, there are other women in the shop as well looking for dance clothes. I can’t find anything that looks right. I am with a group of people in a large ballroom with a high ceiling. A man who looks like Johnny Depp is teaching us to fly. It feels great, so free and easy. I look at the wings and they are snowy white, just like a bird’s wing. We are back in town, time is running out and I feel under pressure to find an outfit to wear. I am looking through racks and racks of clothes. Finally I select a black skirt but I am not happy with it. The man comes into the shop and says that we must have a mask sewn to our face. Two girls begin to sew a clear plastic mask to my face. They make a face and they are apologetic. I tell them it is worth the pain to be able to fly.I am out on the street with the man and other people who are going to the dance. We are ready to fly to the ballroom for the dance. I look in the distance and I can see the ballroom. It is along the coast and it looks like the ballroom at the boardwalk. I feel something on my face and discover that I am bleeding from the sewn on mask. The man tells us it is time to go and I take off right away as I am anxious to fly. I rise quickly and lose sight of everyone. There are power lines to clear and I fly higher to try to avoid them. The higher I fly the more lines appear and it becomes dark and foggy. I fly higher and higher.

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The image certainly adds to the story, which is powerful in its own right. Dreams are often not pretty, or even easy to listen to, yet the expression of them is very important to the psyche and the paths on which it is moving.

Not everyone is this talented as this artist, yet at whatever level of art, drawing a dream is an important way to honor the importance of the dreaming process, and a path to healing.

Why do narcoleptics fly?

2008-10-28T22:33:00.007-08:00

Clear-cut cataplexy coexisting with excessive daytime sleepiness points directly to the diagnosis of narcolepsy. The other 2 classic symptoms found in narcolepsy are sleep paralysis and hypnagogic hallucinations. In sleep paralysis, a patient becomes transiently unable to move before sleep onset or just after awakening. Hypnagogic and hypnopompic hallucinations are vivid, frightening dreams, often with a sensation of flying, that similarly occur at the time of transition from sleep into wakefulness or the reverse. (Mayo Clinic)

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In sleep paralysis... most sleep-related hallucinations are visual and incorporate elements of the actual environment. For instance, individuals may describe objects appearing through cracks in the wall or describe objects moving in a picture on the wall. The hallucinations may also be auditory (e.g., hearing intruders in the home) or kinetic (e.g., sensation of flying). ( American Psychiatric Association)

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So what is the explanation for why people with narcolepsy often experience sensations of flying, particularly at the beginning or end of the episode?

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Links

Narcolepsy: New Understanding of Irresistible Sleep

http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/inside.asp?AID=1144&UID=

Diagnostic Criteria for Narcolepsy

http://www.mindsite.com/dsm_iv/narcolepsy

Source of Image

http://www.macalester.edu/psychology/whathap/UBNRP/narcolepsy04/index.html

Swimming in the Sky

2008-10-27T22:31:00.007-08:00

Posted on the internet by klynslis

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According to my sample of flying dreams collected from interviews and by reviewing cases in the scientific and popular literature on dreams, it is not uncommon to experience one’s self airborne in a dream while moving the body in a swimming motion…
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The German astronaut Ulrich Walter (1007) noted that the waking reality of weightlessness matched exactly the flying dreams of his adolescence. He asks how the body is able to imagine something it never experienced….
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The sleeping body seems to provide the feeling of weightlessness which the dreaming mind illustrates in different ways.
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in
FLYING (HUMAN) BODIES IN THE FINE ARTS - DREAMS AND DAYDREAMS
OF FLYING
Rainer Schönhammer
School of Art and Design, Halle/Saale, Germany
Paper presented at the 16th Congress of the international Association of Empirical Aesthetics, August 9-12, 2000, New York

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Schonhamner article

http://psydok.sulb.uni-saarland.de/volltexte/2005/550/pdf/Schoenhammer_FlyingBodies_NewYorkPaper_2000.pdf

From Daedalus to Daedalian

2008-10-26T22:18:00.003-08:00

Emanuel Swedenborg;......... .. Emanual Swendenborg, age 75

The Daedalian, A Machine for Flying; 1714

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Swedenborg was a scientist, philospher, theologian and mystic. This flying machine, about 32 feet wide by 24 feet high, had a basket for the operator at the center, used beating blades for propulsion and had landing gears. It was, essentially, the first flying saucer.

Twenty years after designing this machine, he became increasingly interested in spiritual matters and became determined to find a theory which would explain how matter related to spirit, how the soul was connected to the body.

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In 1744, he began having strange dreams and visions. He kept a journal of 286 of these dreams, one of the first dream journals.

Flying in dreams, like the angels, has a spiritual dimension.

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Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emanuel_Swedenborg

Emanuel Swedenborg's Journal of Dreams

http://www.ralphmag.org/AG/swedenborg.html

Angel flying too close to the ground, Willie Nelson
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3DxVVfTifg

Angel from Montgomery, Bonnie Raitt and John Prine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St9RvdtvLeE
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Description and details of the Daedalian

http://greyfalcon.us/restored/Swedenborg.htm

Flying in Dreams and the Myth of Icarus

2008-10-25T19:07:00.002-08:00

Jacob Peter Gowy; The Fall of Icarus; 1650

One of Jung's approaches to dreams was to amplify them through association with mythology. An association to flying in dreams is the myth of Icarus:

Icarus' father, Daedelus, a talented craftsman, attempted to escape from his exile in Crete, where he and his son were imprisoned at the hands of King Minos , the king for whom he had built the labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur. Daedalus, the master craftsman, was exiled because he gave Minos' Daughter, Ariadne, a clew of string in order to help Theseus survive the Labyrinth. Daedalus fashioned a pair of wings of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Before they took off from the island, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the lake. Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared through the sky curiously, but in the process he came too close to the sun which burned his wings. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only flapping his bare arms. And so, Icarus fell into the sea in the area which bears his name, the Icarian Sea near Icaria, an island southwest of Samos.

(From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus)