From: Harvey Newstrom (mail@HarveyNewstrom.com)
Date: Sat Mar 08 2003 - 08:49:01 MST
nanowave wrote,
> Harvey, thanks for your lengthy and encouraging reply. I had hoped for
> something along those lines, but wasn't necessarily expecting it.
>
> Wow! So you've had (more or less) controlled access to this "alternate
> reality" since you were four years old huh? What is the
> frequency of your lucid dreams now then?
I rarely remember dreaming unless I choose to. About half the time I wake
up knowing that I have dreamed, but I don't bother trying to
memorize/remember them so they fade and I can't remember them later. I have
a lucid dream about once a week when I'm not trying, and almost always have
one per night when I am trying. Now that I think about it, I don't recall
ever having more than one lucid dream per night. I am not sure if this is
some sort of limitation or if I don't try again after the first one.
I used to be more into new age spirituality and would use lucid dreaming to
conjure up guides to answer questions for me. Even when I decided that
these were just my subconscious mind, it was interesting to query dream
characters for answers, knowing that the answers came from my mind
somewhere, even if I wasn't conscious of it. When I used to do this, I
would often have a specific reason to have a lucid dream and control the
conversation in the dream. Under these circumstances, I almost always had a
lucid dream the first thing.
> I've had maybe four or five in my entire life in which, for
> whatever reason,
> I realized that I was dreaming and so I could proceed to
> explore or assert
> my wishes with abandon. It has been many years since the last
> time, but I
> still recall that it was a highly empowering, emotionally satisfying
> experience.
It is an amazing sense of control and power. In the dream, the entire
universe seems real. But when you can control the entire universe, it is
amazing. It is exactly like being in a Star Trek holodeck where you can
make anything you want. Except that it does take will power and mind
concentration. A lot of times it is difficult to make things fly around or
appear and disappear. I think the subconscious dream mechanisms try to
suppress non-sequitur or unrealistic dream occurrences and try to make a
continuous logic flow out of the dream.
> I remember reading somewhere that Osama Bin Laden and his
> cronies placed an
> unusually high value on the interpretation of dreams and I
> think at the time
> I said something to myself along the lines of: Wow, how
> incredibly stupid.
Actually, this is quite common in any religion where the deity is not
directly visible and only communicates internally to those who pray,
meditate, and interpret hidden signs not perceived by others. Christianity
places as much emphasis in dreams as Islam and many other religions.
> For example, say if in a series of lucid dreams - and this
> gets back to what
> you said about doing useful work while dreaming - one were to
> repeatedly
> practice, in the absence of usual crippling fear, smashing a
> fuel laden
> airliner into a building. And every time, just as the
> fireball slaps you in
> the face, you wake up safe and sound in your own bed. I'd
> guess that after a
> few practice runs of this nature, you'd become fairly
> confident you had "the
> right stuff" to get the job done in the real world.
> Essentially, you'd know
> from past experience that you wouldn't be one to veer off at the last
> possible moment and make a bee-line for tea and scrumpets
> with Saddam or
> Moammar Quadaffi.
Practice is the key to any training, whether it is military, sports, dance,
art, logic, or anything else. Going through the steps over and over makes
one better. It has even been shown that sports players who visualize their
moves over and over improve more than those who don't practice or visualize.
Even though they aren't gaining the physical muscular feedback of the moves,
they are practicing the steps, sequences and strategy over and over in their
mind. Your point about avoiding fear is especially true. Going through
something in simulation, dreams, or just on paper will make it easier than
facing it the first time unprepared. After enough practice, even the most
horrific acts can become mundane routine and common place.
-- Harvey Newstrom, CISSP, IAM, GSEC <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>
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