Japan: The Place of Dreams

O_O

See also: Japan Prediction: Nuclear Holocaust, Tokyo Evacuated

Prophecy of Japan Nuclear Holocaust

In 1990, one of Japan's greatest film producers Akira Kurosawa wrote the screenplay for his movie Dreams. This film consists of eight vignettes based on actual dreams that Kurosawa experienced. One of those is this prophetic and harrowing story entitled "Mount Fuji in Red":



See also: Japan Prediction: Nuclear Holocaust, Tokyo Evacuated

Help Japan

Sunday Sermon [Dreams]

¡Hola! Everybody…
Been spending some time for myself, lately… For those concerned about the continuing nuclear crisis in Japan, the online magazine, Subversify, has published an Op Ed I wrote about it (click here)

I once had a dream that changed me so profoundly I’m still coming to term with it.Speaking of which...

* * *

-=[ Dreams ]=-

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.
-- T.E. Lawrence (AKA Lawrence of Arabia)

Picture the following: You’re driving your car and someone cuts you off. Immediately, you become incensed! You curse the offending driver and at that point in time there is hate in your heart. You can try to intellectualize it, but if that individual were to appear to you, you would hurt that person. If you doubt me, then pay attention to reports of road rage in which seemingly normal people, people who have never had a history of violence, inflict great harm.

Later, as you’re venting to a friend you state, “He [the driver] made me so angry!”

Think about that: did the person driving the car make you angry? You had no choice? That person climbed inside your head and forced you to be angry, right?

So you see, there’s a practical application to all this dream shit. As in our dreams, we create our world. Of course, I'm not saying we create all of it, in some ways, we collaborate with others in creating the world.

In fact, your sleeping and waking dreams are different only in form. One of the first great miracles is to awaken to the fact that much of what we take for reality is but a construction of our minds. This is crucial in dealing with illusions (waking dreams). Think of your greatest fear: if you can correctly recognize it as an illusion, its grasp over you quickly loosens. No one is afraid of a mirage. We fear things because we don’t understand them. We don’t understand our fears as dreams. We “forget” that we created the fear in the first place. Is that not an illusion?

What happens is your dream of fear is changed into a dream of happiness. Forgiving dreams are kind to all who appear in the dream and so forgiveness brings full release from dreams of fear.

Forget that it is your mind that has power over all your fantasies and dreams, and you will live as a prisoner, at the whims of all the boogiemen your often capricious mind can create. I hear so many people hear talk about god, about how they want to know God, or how God talks to them, blah blah blah. However, I also see these very same people fall into the traps of fear, anger, and hate. What kind of shit is that?

If you want to know god, to have peace of mind, or to be in any way happy, you have to give up the mirage. For if you grasp onto the illusions of anger, fear, and hate then you’re not being spiritual at all. You’re buying into castles in the air, you’re lost in and if you think that’s God talking to you, it just might mean you’ve totally lost contact with reality.

My name is Eddie and I'm in recovery from civilization...

Dreams

¡Hola! Everybody...
This is one of my favorite times of the year. Coming from an extended family, I have some great, great memories of the holidays. Memories of family get-togethers, eccentrics and their outlandish behavior, scandals, and yes, lot’s of love. But this time of the year is special for me in a very personal way because I celebrate an anniversary of sorts. It was 20 years ago I first began the process of liberation... but I will recount that story over at Subversify this Friday.

* * *

-=[ Dreamtime ]=-

You see things as they are and ask, “Why.” I see things that never were and ask, “Why not.”

-- G.B. Shaw

People think I’m kidding around when I say I used to study in my sleep, but it’s true. I used to take heavy workloads in school. 20-24 credits per semester, plus being married and the primary caregiver to young child didn’t leave me much time, so even my sleep was put to use. According to a Nobel Prize-winning biologist, dreams are nothing more than hallucinations produced as the brain flushes out neuro-chemical waste. I couldn’t disagree more.

I’ve written before how one dream changed my life, and I’ll repost that some other time, but there many forceful arguments against the above assertion. Take the life of Harriet Tubman, for example. After escaping slavery in 1849, she went back (!!!) to organize the Underground Railroad and personally led 300 slaves to freedom. Talk about a power of example. Anyway, what few history books choose to document is the fact that Tubman often relied on her dreams to provide specific information about where to find safe houses, helpers, and passages through dangerous territory. Robert Moss tells the whole story in his book, dreaming True.

There are countless examples of dreams working to change our waking reality in deeply transformative ways. The chemist Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz solved his scientific mystery with the help of a dream. In 1865, after numerous unsuccessful attempts to find the precise structure of the benzene ring, he had a dream of a snake biting its own tail. With this vivid image in his when he awoke he finally guessed the solution that had eluded him. What if the six carbon atoms of benzene formed a closed ring – the shape formed by the snake – and not a mere chain, as he previously believed? The resulting research that came after this “Aha!” moment revolutionized organic chemistry.

The Russian chemist Dmitiri Mendelyev worked for years to discover a matrix for classifying the elements, but the turning point in his search came in a dream. It revealed to him the system which is now called the Periodic Table of Elements.

In the mid 1800s, Elias Howe dreamt of being chased by cannibals holding spears with holes in the top. This inspired him to design a sewing needle with the eye in its tip, which in turn led him to invent the sewing machine.

Otto Loewi struggled for 17 long years to prove his hunch that the transmission of nerve impulses traveled chemically and not electrically as was the prevailing theory of the time. In 1920 he had a dream that revealed how to design an experiment to determine whether his hypothesis was correct. The experiment succeeded resulting in his winning the Nobel Prize.

Dante Aligheri finished his masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, before he died in 1321. But when his sons tried to assemble the manuscript for publication, they realized parts of it were missing. After many days of searching they had given up hope. Then the spirit of Dante appeared in one his son’s dream and showed him a hiding place in his old bedroom wall. Upon awakening, the son went to the place indicated in the dream and found the lost papers.

The great golfer, Jack Nicklaus, had more major tournament wins than any golfer in history. Of course, skill and practice were the keys to his success, but once he tapped into a different source. In 1973, he was mired in one of the worst slumps of his career. He was at a loss for an answer. Then one night he had a dream in which he experimented with a new grip. When he went to the golf course that morning, he tried the dream’s idea. It worked and his slump soon ended.

I once rocked myself to sleep in the throes of a deep and powerful heartbreak. Actually, I had spent a whole weekend so devastated that I could barely climb out of bed. All I wanted to do was 1) call my beloved, which I knew would be a huge mistake, and, 2) sleep.

Then one night during that weekend, I had a dream that would change my life completely. But that story is for another day.

Love,

Eddie

Dream Woman

¡Hola! Everybody...
With the coming of the Christmas comes the now annual whine from the anuses claiming that there’s a plot to do away with Christmas. Please don’t make me embarrass you in this forum -- first bullshite “libruhls and femi-nazis are killing Christmas” post I see I’m going for the jugular. Shoot, I think I’ll do it anyway...

I will be gone all day at a senior staff retreat working on a five-year, organizational-wide strategic plan. It’s not going to be a pretty sight since I intend to rock the boat, think audaciously, and question everything! LOL

I’m only half kidding... ::grin::

I wrote the following a couple of years ago...

* * *

-=[ Goddess ]=-

She emerges from the trees,
the earth,
the rocks beneath my feet.
She is the air I breathe.
The unborn breathe of life.

Why is it I never saw her before?
Was I... so blind?

I am aroused yet humbled
I am satiated yet hungry,
desiring more and
more
and more...

At every turn I am met
with her brilliance.
As of the Earth,
the Clay,
the Rivers and Streams.

Before this journey
I was no one special.
And after,
once more,
I am no one special.

And this, I know, is grace.

* * *

I was saved by a dream.

Literally.

Not a figure of speech. I rarely ever remember my dreams and maybe this is a good thing, considering what the fuck kinda shit dwells in my subconscious. However, there was one unforgotten dream about seven years ago that had a tremendous impact on my life. In fact, after that dream I was never the same person – changed me completely. And, get this, I don’t even remember its details!

Nonsense, you say? Read on…

Several years ago, my life was imploding. Everything that I had worked towards, or valued, seemed to be unraveling before my eyes. My marriage of about seven years was on the rocks. Actually, it was barely breathing, it was waiting for someone to mercifully shoot it. I was in my senior year of my undergraduate studies and I was so burnt out that I couldn’t retain any more information. A straight A student, my grades were plummeting and I was having a hard time finding meaning in it all. To complicate matters, I couldn’t get a job to save my life.

It was a strange time, looking back, because though I realized things were coming to a head on many fronts, it seemed as if I were just floating around there for a bit. As if it were all happening, and I was there witnessing all of this, but unable to do anything about it.

I divorced, barely escaped my senior year, and had to leave graduate school for a job and that’s where it all started. I was working for an East Harlem non-profit as a life skills trainer where I met this young lady. A co-worker, she was half my age, and I really didn’t think she was interested, but eventually she let her feelings known. Actually, what she said was, “Don’t you ever get it?” during dinner once. Yes, I’m dense and sometimes I don’t “get it.” LOL!

Anyway, I’m dating this really young lady and at first, my attraction to her was minimal. I mean, she was pretty, intelligent, and we shared common interests. We spent a lot of time going to museums, discussing poetry, reading books together, taking walks, etc. Still, I never felt any overwhelming feelings of love.

But I digress, I need to make my point!

Well, one thing led to another and she let on that her feelings for me were more than casual. I think the “L” word was mentioned somewhere in there, and though there were red flags and alarms screaming all over the place (too complicated to discuss here), I allowed myself to entertain the possibility that the feelings were mutual. This woman was 25 years old to my 43. And while, yes, age is only a number, the fact was that my priorities and frames of reference were much different from hers. As a result, eventually she “fell out” of love and I was stuck. I had talked myself into love! We split and I was taking it pretty bad. Looking back, I realize now that what I had was an obsession, not love. I mean, I didn’t do anything overly stupid like stalk her, or act out on my compulsions, but I was definitely in a lot of pain.

So, there I was, a cold, rainy Friday night and I go home, just wanting to lay down and pull the covers over my head and sleep forever. And that’s when The Dream happens…

I’m in deep pain and I go to sleep. Maybe it wasn’t just this girl, but the accumulation of everything that had happened over the previous year: divorce, education, not being there with my son everyday – I felt like I was in a boxing match and losing big time. I went to sleep shrouded in a deep, intense sorrow.

I dream. I don’t remember the specifics of the dream, the content, but the feelings – Oh my God! – the feeling of the dream is what I remember. In the dream, there is a woman in my life, I don’t know or remember exactly what she looks like. I remember her eyes and her smile. But that isn’t important. What’s important is that in this dream this woman loved me in a way I have never experienced in my life. The love is so palpable that it infuses me with joy, washing away my sorrow as if it were mere dirt.

I get this very real feeling of being loved so completely, so totally that it seems as if my very being is transformed on a cellular level. In the dream, this woman knows everything about me: from my most insightful thoughts to the most pornographic. She knows it all, the good and the bad, everything, and yet she still loves me completely, without condition. In the dream, I remember hearing her voice because all I remember is that she was walking laughing with some of my friends -- she was walking to meet with me. But I get the real sense that she loves me and I am filled with a total, pure, unconditional love in this dream and I’m ecstatic!

Then I wake up…

But this is the kicker: the feeling in the dream? It’s still there! I’m filled with this incredible sense of being loved that seems to come from the very core of my being. It’s not an over-the-top “gee-I’m-so-happy” type feeling, but rather a calm presence at my center, washing away my fears and doubts. It’s as if the woman in my dream connected me to the very essence of love itself.

I never tried to analyze this dream, but without thinking about it in words, a part of me sensed that that woman in my dream wasn’t someone else, but an aspect of myself.

Really.

I didn’t get this by thinking about it; I sensed it in my body.

At least that’s how I remember experiencing it.

Since that day, yes, I have experienced sadness, anger, disappointment – the full catastrophe of life – but nothing, not even death and loss, has ever taken away this joy at the core of my being. It is truly invincible.

Now I have discovered that I was mistaken about the nature of this dream. It wasn’t an “aspect of myself” that loved me in this powerful way. Not really. The dream was pointing me to a road I needed to travel. It was pointing me to the opening of my heart because the more I open, the stronger this presence is in my life. When I close, I lose contact; when I open, the contact becomes stronger. It’s not about “me.” It’s about the dissolving of the fake wall that separates “me” from you.

Perhaps, in a way, it was about the Woman of my Dreams…

Love,

Eddie

Morir Soñando (To Die Dreaming)

¡Hola! Everybody...
I’ve had to do a lot of writing related to my work, cutting short my creative writing time. I’m looking forward to some time off during the holidays... anyone wanna help me stoke my fireplace? LOL

I wrote the following a while back. I have a “funny” relationship to my dreams (none of which I ever remember!) and I can say I write while dreaming...

-=[ To Die Dreaming ]=-

“Dreaming men are haunted men.”
-- Stephen Vincent Benet

… The thought of her beauty awakens me sometimes, from the middle of dreams I can’t remember. It’s not the image of her face, the softness of her skin, but just the sudden awareness of her total beauty – that first strike before any of the details become clear -- that jolts me awake and leaves me longing on the broken shoals of my bed.

For a brief moment, I’m upset she’s not here with me, but the anger gradually subsides into longing, and I stand and pace, haunting the darkness of my room, thinking of possibilities. Gradually, I come to the awareness that there’s no reason for anger, only choices. I ponder all this for what seems like hours and it’s the thought of her beauty that makes me lie back on my bed, weighing me down so that I plummet through the thin fabric of wake and sleep and drown in the middle of dreams I don’t remember…

* * *

Love,

Eddie

Sunday Sermon [Dreams & Illusions]

¡Hola! Everybody…
What a beautiful day! But aren’t they all? It’s not a matter of “positive thinking.” The phrase “positive thinking” bothers me because it implies we must be “positive” in order to be happy. From that perspective, being positive means getting rid of the negative – all the people and situations we feel aren’t aligned with our “positive” (better?) natures. That’s called repression. No, the relevant issue is not positive thinking (or any type of thinking for that matter! LOL), but being able to stay here, right now, in this very moment, this very life and feel/ experience this very moment in all it’s glory -- whether it's perceived as negative or otherwise. Ultimately, this is all you have…

* * *

-=[ Dreams and Illusions ]=-

“Your sleeping and your waking dreams
have different forms, and that is all.”
-- A Course in Miracles

For many years I was plagued by a recurrent dream. I would call it a nightmare, actually. However, it wasn’t the kind of spine-tingling nightmare that wakes one up in a cold sweat. It was worse than that. The dream always seemed so real, that it would take quite a while after awakening to realize it was a dream. The premise of the dream is simple: I have been living a lie. In this dream, the life I was living was the complete opposite of everything I have worked for.

It’s difficult to describe the horror of waking up to that “fact” – that my life has been a lie. And the thing is that it’s so real. One woman I know used to tell me that it was the “Devil” trying to get at me. LOL! I truly abhor such thinking.

It’s been years since I’ve had this dream, but it had a devastating potential. What I learned from my sleeping dreams is that our minds have the ability to create worlds that, while we remain asleep, seem completely real ands appear to be outside of us. Yet, as in my recurrent nightmare, all the people and things in these dreams are in actuality creations of our own minds that we mistake for reality. It is only when we awaken that we come to the realization that none of the events that seemed to happen in the dream ever occurred.

The core teachings of all the great spiritual traditions emphasize that what we call “reality” is also a dream – a dream from which we have not yet awakened and therefore do not recognize. Modern science is proving these ancient traditions true. Cutting edge research in perception, knowledge acquisition, and “gathering data” show that, rather than perceiving in the pure sense, we actually create our world. We have to -- otherwise we wouldn’t have survived as a species. We create “schemas” (maps) so that we don’t continually have to process data. This is a good thing; it ensures that we can act swiftly to dangers and situations needing immediate action. It also has its downside in that it creates filters that serve as obstacles to perception.

I feel the aim of life is to awaken from both our sleeping and waking dreams. The aim of any effective guidance, spiritual or otherwise, is to help us recognize our dreams and illusions and to awaken from them. Dreams show us that we have the power to create the world – as you would perceive it. And because you want to see it a certain way, it becomes that. Because you perceive things in a certain way, you have no doubt that it is real. Yet, here you are in a dream within a dream, mistaking cause for effect.

If you want freedom, then the end of dreaming is the end of fear. Awaken to the reality of the here and now and you will awaken to a different universe. Ultimately, all you have is this eternal moment. You can’t even love without this moment: love in the past is but a memory and love in the future is but a mere fantasy.

Wake up…

Love,

Eddie

Monday Madness (Interpreting Dreams)

Hola Everybody,

Listen up: If someone is coming to your page and using my name as a way to gain entry to your blog world, please ignore them and let me know who’s doing it. I’ve had only one friend mention this to me, so I don’t think it’s happening on any kind of scale, but just in case, please know I don’t do referrals.

On another, lighter note, two of my friends posted “Skank Chronicles”: stories of wanton lust – sinful stories of gratifications, meaningless, if delightful, episodes of selfish pleasuring. I will post one or two Friday… LOL!

* * *

-=[ Remembering and Interpreting Dreams ]=-

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.”
-- Vincent van Gogh

Okay, so picture the following. It’s a late weekend night and I’m giving my then wife a synopsis for a book I have in mind. The idea, the characters, everything, is totally blowing her away. I go to sleep and the next day, the ole wifey asks me when I’m going to write that book I was talking about the night before. I don’t remember a thing. All I remember are pieces of a dream about an idea for a book (it was a suspense novel with a clever hook) but I don’t remember talking about it to my wife or any other details about the book. She says it’s impossible. I was lucid and spoke to her for about an hour in a clear manner about all aspects of the book.

I as her if she took notes… LOL

Needless to say, that book is lost somewhere deep in the demented psyche of yours truly.

At the time, I was still in my undergrad studies (applied psych) at NYU, looking to attend Columbia for grad studies the following semester. All during my university days, I experimented with my dreams. In fact, I used to study in my dreams. Some of you may laugh but this is true, I’m not kidding. I was so immersed in my area of study, that the subject inhabited my dreams.

I hardly ever remember my dreams, but I’ve had life-changing dreams. I wrote about one such dream (click here). For me, dreaming is a direct line to where the impossible happens and nothing is without meaning. It’s a clear state of awareness (or can be). It’s been my experience that one can find direct guidance for healing in our dreams, the natural habitat of our intuition. Here time and space as we conceptualize ceases to exist and anything is possible. Our dream world is the canvass upon which our intuition can freely express itself. The only requirement is that we listen.

You are a partner to your dreams. Try to begin an ongoing conversation with them. Look at it as you would consulting a wise doctor or friend who knows you like no one else. You can ask your dreams anything. No question is too trivial if it holds meaning for you. Also, expect answers. Some will be direct, others will require interpretation.

Your dreams can reveal many truths about your life as well as provide extraordinary insights, and give you information that will help your health, love life, and career. You’d be surprised either at the straightforward advice your dreams will yield, spontaneously, or upon request.

Dreams provide answers, but first you must be able to accept them. People always ask me to interpret dreams for them because that’s what many people think of when they of psychology. I don’t do dreams. Dreams are too personal, too full of private and idiosyncratic symbolism for someone to interpret them for you. Besides, one’s theoretical orientation will decide what’s noticed and what’s ignored. A Freudian will see phallic symbols and a Jungian will see archetypes. I’m not discounting psychological theory, merely stating the obvious that no one can interpret your dreams for you, only you can.

I ran into the following suggestions the other day while reading a journal article. I think it has some good suggestions:

· Keep a journal and pen near your bed.

· Write a question on a piece of paper before you go to sleep. Make your request (if you have one) formal. Place it on a bedside table or under your pillow.

· In the morning try not to wake up too fast. Stay under the covers for a few minutes, at least, remembering your dream. Try to get comfortable in that peaceful feeling between sleep and waking, what scientists call the hypnagogic state. Those initial moments act as a gate.

· Upon opening your eyes, write down your dreams immediately. Other wise it will evaporate, believe me. ::grin:: Try to recall a face, an object, color, or scene, feel an emotion. It doesn’t matter if it makes perfect sense. Try to record everything you remember. Try to refocus on the question you asked the previous night when you’re finished

In addition to remembering your dreams, there’s a level of understanding dreams. Intuitive but reliable information stands out in very specific ways. Watch for the following clues:

· Statements that simply convey information

· Neutral parts of your dreams that evoke no emotion

· A detached feeling, as if you were a witness watching a scene

· A voice or person counseling you, as if you’re taking dictation from an outside source

· Conversations from people you’ve never met before

The most valuable intuitions appear as compassionate or have no emotion at all. Try to develop an ability to separate the content of your dreams from your reactions to it. This will help you separate the chafe from the wheat. Finally, be mindful that your dreams go by different rules than your waking life. Prepare yourself for a mindshift. Not even physical laws apply. Shoot, in your dreams you can even fly!

Love,

Eddie