Random Musings...

[eyeoneblack]

I have some reservations posting this. Like I say at the bottom: Sometimes I just like to think and write and while away the morning.

There is certainly a difference between a common dream and an LD&etc. For years I have made the distinction along psychological lines. I am learning now it's not that simple. We know our common dreams are driven by the subconscious which is why they can be so bizarre and recall is more difficult. They are largely symbolic and good fodder for interpretation (but, let me add here that I really don't think another person or book can say much of any use about the dream to the dreamer - stay away from dream interp books.) The LD&etc. has a much different aspect and more akin to reasonable and rational experience and recall can be nigh complete.

What I just said is widely debatable and when talking with others I avoid making any distinction - using the generic 'dream' for any account of a dreamer's experience, so as to leave that 'can of worms' unopened. It is best to let the story reveal itself.

On another group a member posted what I took for a dream. I read his account and pondered on it for a few days while other members responded to it. Finally, I posted that I had never in all these years read a dream like that and asked the 'dreamer' if it was really a dream (I suspected some psychoactive drug was involved) and he replied that it wasn't really a dream at all, denied there was any drug involved and that it was a waking and recurring experience. I suppose it was some sort of hallucination and deeply psychological. I'm just thinking here of an example of how tricky that 'can of worms' can be.

As for my own experience I'm pretty tidy about classifying my dream experiences, but if in my journal I report I had an AP or an OBE I can pretty sure somebody else will cast doubt upon it. So, leave it be.

I said at the beginning that I am re-evaluating the dream experience to include a psychological facet regardless of whether we're talking dream, LD, AP or OBE. We can't deny that we are not influenced by the literature we read, and I believe it is rather remarkable how the various authors of this genre are in fairly good agreement about the dimensional qualities of their experiences - there is a consensus, broadly speaking, between their experiences in story and landscape.

My critical mind says there is something suspect here and I'll point my finger at an underlying psychology, or better, collective unconscious. Take, for example, the reports of UFO sightings. From the first (1940s, maybe early 50s) UFOs were saucer shaped. However now, as technology advanced, so have the UFOs. I doubt seriously that alien ships have progressed in such a way. More than likely, technology has influenced the collective unconscious to incorporate a new imagination.

The same must be true of our explorations of the OtherWhere. Fortunately we have even a longer history to examine. What did ancient Eastern Mystics discover in their explorations? How do we compare, say, the Bhagavad-Gita to the Bardos of Tibetan mysticism to Theosophists such as Annie Bessant to, say, Robert Monroe? Are they talking about the same thing? Can we agree, at least, that these revelations speak to Otherwhere of sorts? Yes, we can because the dimensions haven't morphed over time (an assumption) but the stories have changed a great deal just as society has changed over the centuries.

To a great extent we have lost the mystical/spiritual component in favor of a descriptive, dare I say empirical, report of Otherwhere. (I love that word - it's Leland's isn't it?) So when I say we need to bring back the psychological component I mean to re-integrate the whole of our self ( a subjective observer) to better understand our individual experiences.

This meditation began with the self revelation of an old dream which long ago I couched as a strange AP without thinking of its possible significance in my emotional life. Whether or not we would call it a mind-split or bilocation is far from the point. What am I to think of Sinera's simultaneous awareness of being both in bed and in the dreamscape? Does it really matter? It's been a hot topic for years and has become integrated into the collective unconscious and so that is the appearance, in these times, of the experience.

This being a work in progress it can only represent another step along the way for me. Besides, sometimes I just like to think and write and while away the morning.

Your thoughts are most welcome.

[Sinera]

My critical mind says there is something suspect here and I'll point my finger at an underlying psychology, or better, collective unconscious. Take, for example, the reports of UFO sightings. From the first (1940s, maybe early 50s) UFOs were saucer shaped. However now, as technology advanced, so have the UFOs. I doubt seriously that alien ships have progressed in such a way. More than likely, technology has influenced the collective unconscious to incorporate a new imagination.

I don't think this is accurate. Today we also still have lots of saucer types and early sightings also have other forms (cigar shaped etc.). The saucer-disk-type just became somewhat the archetype, overall symbol or cultural "meme" for the extraterrestial UFO in general.

But I agree that the observers/experiencers psychology might indeed play a role. It might also be used by the ETs regarding memory encryption, esp. with abduction where a mind control aspect is sometimes very evident.

However, we must then take into account also the fact that entire groups witnessed UFOs too. And this even includes abductions where a e.g. family members could confirm to each other (or the researcher) the same events and details. And this also under regressive hypnosis!

UFOs have been around since time immemorial. They were just described according to the belief systems of the times and the people who saw them. It's the historic and cultural framework that must be taken into account. E.g. many bible accounts of lights and angels could have been ETs (not saying they were). Same applies to direct "alien beings" sightings.

Hence it could well be that our folklore 'little people', goblins, dwarfs, demons, fairies etc. were actually 'greys' or similar - or the other way round.

I've met greys myself in the astral and I do not believe that I just re-produced a meme but that they have a reality of their own to them. It's just my belief and I cannot prove it, but so have many others.

E.g. look here at these pre-historic cave painings:



Also the crafts were probably present, e.g. during the middle ages:

"Battle of Nuremberg":

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case486.htm

Other saucers in medieval paintings (although heavily disputed by apologists) you can see here:

http://www.thinkaboutitdocs.com/6-1300-1499-sightings/









"What"ever they are and represent, it looks as if they've been around quite a long while here. Longer than we homo sapiens maybe?

I've read a good book where the author, the late J. Fiebag, describes the different appearances these beings or crafts can maybe take on and how they were described differently in the course of history. Maybe (he thinks) they adopted their appearance sometimes to 'fit in' some preconceptions of the people of the time. His theory is indeed interesting. Unfortunately the book is not available in English somewhere, here's a short summary about "The Others":

http://www.ufopsi.com/component/cont...nz?directory=1

Here is another very interesting collection I stumbled across via a google search on historic UFO sightings, similar to the one above:

http://hayaryakanch.files.wordpress....fo-reports.pdf

This all also shows that UFOs, aliens and even 'abductions' have been around forever. They are NOT a new invention, they are just re-framed and re-casted due to the cultural and historic background, it seems.